After training for more two hours until 11 PM, the boys went to sleep while Samuel went down stairs and began to watch the perimeter.

Watching the stars, Samuel was thinking ‘why this have to happen now? A large scale world transformation… and the other mages described the mana monsters quite differently from what they seem now... maybe the energy that changed us is not even mana.’

This situation was extremely confusing in Samuel mind, but he had the determination to protect his nephew…

Waking up while being shaken by his master apparently, Erdan got up from the bed and saw the packings already arranged in three little backpacks.

It was 4 am and even the sun was not up yet, but he knew they had to begin their journey.

“Wash your face and your teeth if you want Erdan, Jinn is already washing his.” Said Samuel to him.

Getting in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and washing his face, Erdan got ready to begin the journey.

The three of them reunited in the training field and got ready to go.

“Remember the rules, don’t get away from me, follow my instructions to the letter. Now, let’s go!” Samuel said trying to get the group morale up.

“’YEAH!” responded both boys in unison.

After leaving the dojo ground’s, they began to acting more seriously, at this point, the sun was rising in the horizon.

Erdan’s body was stiff in fear and anxiety, he hoped they could find his aunt in the hospital, and that she would be fine. He clenched right his hand around his sickle and began to breathe slowly trying to calm down. He knew that today’s trip would be hard. However, with his master beside them, they were safe. From all the people he knew, Samuel was the most powerful, he could exert a strength that was almost inhuman before the rupture, and now, with his regeneration ability, he presumed that Samuel could fight nonstop almost infinitely, or so he hoped.

Walking through the streets, they progressed quickly. At some point, monsters begin to become more and more common, but Samuel dispatched them quickly and precisely, they almost seemed like chickens in front of him. At some point, Samuel asked that Erdan and Jinn take care of the monsters. Jinn quickly eliminated them with his broadsword techniques, and new powers.

He fought fiercely while branding the broad sword like it was made of air. While they were training last night, Samuel gave Jinn the idea of not carrying only his broadsword, but some other blades in his body as well. Now he was carrying, two knives in his boots, two short swords in his hips and the broad sword in his back. He looked a little bit strange in Erdan eyes, but it was somewhat cool as well.

While training, they discovered that for now, Jinn could only control one short sword while branding his broad sword, but he still could use the other weapons for surprise attacks launching them like rockets.

Erdan was truly flabbergasted with the efficiency and power that his friend could use now. Jinn was like a Demon fighting, he was quick on his feet, used the broad sword for defense and offense. One short sword rotated around himself attacking and distracting the enemy while the broad sword came to claim their lives. After a few fights, Jinn fighting style was almost perfect, and it was truly powerful.

And it finally came Erdan time to fight.

In front of him was a monster much like the bear man that he fought yesterday, but bigger and in his eyes, stronger.

Erdan breathed slowly and prepared for the fight, and advanced upon the enemy.

The first thing he did was getting on his stance with the blade of the sickle facing upwards, and grabbed some seeds on his pockets and trowed them in his enemy.

The bear man advanced on him and ignored the seeds, and that was his worst mistake. Upon touching the monsters body, the seeds began to sprout and grew some vine like weeds, and they latched on him slowing him down and trying to stop him from moving.

While the strengthened weeds were powerful, they were not enough to stop the bear man, he was too strong, but Erdan still had his sickle in his hands, and taking advantage of the constricted monster, he attacked him precisely in the neck, quickly ending him.

By the ending of the fight, Erdan wholly body was drenched in sweat. The fight didn’t exhaust him physically, but the mental pressure did.

Erdan extended his left hand and retracted the weeds, making them taking the seed form again. While he couldn’t do this with already grown plants, if he got them in seed form, and energized them with his power, he could control them easily.

After a few more fights, Erdan got used to his fighting style. While dividing his attention to control the weeds and his own body and weapon, with each fight he got more used to it and his fighting style flowed more naturally.

After progressing all the day, they left the suburbs completely and even arrived halfway to the hospital.

In the beginning they expected to arrive today to rescue their parents, after all, each day alone they could die. However, there were more monsters on the way them they expected and because of it, they were delayed. The situation downtown was completely different from the suburbs, it was full of turned humans. While they were not afraid of the monsters, they still advanced cautiously, after all, they were not invincible.

After stopping on an abandoned house to sleep and rest. They began to eat the rations that they prepared early that day.

The sun was already setting and Erdan looked at his wristwatch, and it was already 6 PM;

After settling and eat, Erdan began to ponder about the fights that occurred during the day.

He was getting more and more used to controlling his energy infused seeds. They were an excellent help during the fight, but mostly, they didn’t pose a fatal treat to the enemies. Differently from the flying sword that Jinn controlled, his weeds could entangle and restrict the monsters movements, but couldn’t kill.

In Erdan eyes, this weakness must be surpassed.

After powdering, he decided to try a new strategy in the next day.

Erdan and Jinn slept like rocks while Samuel was watching duty, it was already 1 AM by now. Samuel realized that after he gained his new powers, the necessity to sleep seemed to vanish, together with his powerful regeneration, he felt almost invincible. However, he knew that in this world there was some people which power he couldn’t even imagine.

After some time, Samuel began to hear some strange noises. He thought it was strange and quickly woke up the boys.

“Hey boys, wake up” Samuel said murmuring.

Hearing his master call, Erdan and Jinn quickly got on their feet and readied their weapons.

“What’s up master?” Erdan asked.

“I heard some noises coming from outside, it seens we are surrounded… what I feared has come true, they are grouping together.” Samuel said with a hint of fear in his voice.

Erdan quickly spread a few seeds on the entrances of the house and made the weeds grow to get ready for the fight.

“They are approaching more, get ready to fight!” Samuel said preparing.

“CRAAASH”

Sudenly, the windows and doors were smashed, and various beast man’s came in.There were wolf, tiger, lizard, bear, and even a bird man. And behind them, there was a man, 1.8 meters tall, that looked like he was wearing a white bone armor that was covering his whole body, there was some spikes sprouting from the armor and in the head, it looked like there was a demon horn that were red in the tip.

Quickly taking action, Erdan made his weeds entangle the monsters as best as they could while taking his sickle and attacking the tiger man that was in front of him.

Making a frontal slash, Erdan almost hit the tiger, but it was too quick and flexible, it evaded the weeds that were trying to entangle it and pounced at Erdan.

When the tiger was upon him, a cold smirk appeared in Erdan mouth.

Sprouting from the sickle, some weeds quickly restricted the tiger while Erdan rolled sideway to evade the attack. Earlier, Erdan thought of putting some seeds in the sickle handle. It truly worked in getting the enemy unprepared.

While the tiger was struggling Erdan quickly rushed forward to kill it. The sickle was slashing downward in the tiger man head, like a grim reaper harvesting a life.

But, just when the blade would kill the monster, a wolf man came and pouncing on him throwing Erdan on the wall.

“BANG”

Erdan felt his back bones cracking and felt a searing pain from his chest, and looking at it, he saw a huge gash that were made by the wolf claws. Originally, a wound like that was enough to claim his life, but his energy was surrounding the gash and stopping the blood from flowing out, giving him some hope.

Quickly focusing his mind and activating the blazing heart technique, Erdan got serious, and realized the danger of this apocalypse, until now, he had it easy. He just confronted one enemy at a time, and almost always utilized the environment in his favor. Nevertheless, his overconfidence almost got him killed this time.

Activating the Blazing heart technique, the adrenaline rush made Erdan ignore the pain in his body, and he quickly got on his feet to confront the monsters.

He quickly rushed into the beasts direction, the wolf man was looking in his way and got ready to pounce on him. Realizing this, Erdan quickly got ready and stepet side ways to avoid the wolf, and making a circular slash, he attacked the tiger man that was still struggling with the weeds, decapitating it, and slashing at the wolf man back.

His plan succeeded, the plan was a success and the scythe spiked on the tiger man back, going out through his chest.

After dispatching the monsters, Erdan turned to look around. He saw the bear man on the groung beside Jinn, and he finishing the lizard.

On his master side he saw the bird man with a hole on it’s neck, and a strange looking man with bone armor fighting against him. The man was struggling against Samuel and was bleeding from some joints.

Realizing that he couldn’t win, the monster quickly retreated and escaped through the door.

Seeing this, Erdan began to run into the monster direction to kill it.

“Don’t Erdan.” Samuel appeared in front of him stopping him from advancing. “it’s still night, and we don’t know what awaits us out there, we should stay here and rest.”

Pouncing his feet Erdan conceded and said “Fine”.

With the fight over, the adrenaline rush stopped, and Erdan began to feel the throbbing pain coming from his chest again…