Hey guys, First I would like to apologize for taking such a long time off without prior notice. As they say, Shit happens and I had a large amount of shit to deal with. Some family issues + school issues + personal issues = a huge ass leave for me. Anyway, here is a chapter as and apology and i will start regular releases on Thursday. There may be another apology chapter on Tuesday. Anyway I went back and edited plus added some new info into the earlier chapters. So re-read and you might find out some new details. Anyway enough of me, here you go.

YAAAAWN!!!!

Ryu woke up and slowly walked over to bucket in the corner of the room. Leaning over, he splashed some water on his face to wake himself up. He then began to prepare breakfast for himself and Spark. He pulled out some of the boar meat and began to fry it in thin slices. As he was frying the meat, Spark woke up from the delicious smell. He slowly made his way over to Ryu and yawned. He looked at the sizzling meat and his drowsiness disappeared instantly. He hopped onto Ryu’s shoulder and stared at the meat, his drool hanging from his beak. Seeing this, Ryu laughed, “Hold on Spark. It will be done very soon.”

Spark just chirped impatiently

Ryu smiled at this and said, “I know you are hungry but hold on. It’s almost done.”

Saying this, Ryu flipped the meat and fried the other side. In about a minute, the meat was done and Ryu put the meat on a large leaf and placed it on the ground. Spark hurriedly ran at the meat and started scarfing it down. Ryu blew out the fire under the pan and put it away. Then he sat down and began eating as well.

After Ryu and Spark finished eating their breakfast, they stood up and headed for the exit, with Spark standing on Ryu’s shoulder. They walked out of the hollow and once again barricaded the doorway. Ryu then gathered some leaves and scattered them about the entrance to mask his scent.

After doing this, he climbed a nearby tree and started running. This might not be the fastest mode of travel, but it was the safest one so far. These past 6 months, Ryu had been exploring the forest. So far he had explored much of the south and south-east regions. He had just begun to explore the north and east regions. He had made his base in the north-east region because it was less dangerous than the other regions he had explored. The entire western region was extremely dangerous. Ryu estimated that he was only about halfway through the forest and there was still a large distance to cover before he came out of the forest.

Today, Ryu was heading towards the estimated central region which was north-west of his base. Running on the branches, Ryu arrived at a clearing in which there was several flowers and herbs. Ryu did not recognise any of them and he paused just to admire the beauty of them. He decided to see if he could learn what they were and he pulled out his book on flora. He flipped through the book and still could not learn any clues as to what they were. As he was about to leave, a small blue bird came and landed on one of the flowers and began to drink the nectar from the flowers.

CRAASSSHHHHH!!!! SNAAAAPPPP!!!!

All of a sudden, a pair of jaws came out and snapped the bird up. After a couple seconds, the jaws retracted back into the ground and everything went back to normal. Ryu stared in shock. A clump of seemingly normal flowers and herbs held huge amounts of danger. Ryu decided that in the future he would take caution when encountering anything that appeared harmless. He silently committed this to his mind and moved on.

A few minutes later, as he was running he heard the sounds of battle. Intrigued by these sounds, Ryu ran towards them. As he heard the sounds getting louder, he slowed down and moved forwards slowly and stealthily. As he was moving forward he saw on the ground, a pack of Rabid Dogs attacking a couple of the Flaming Boars. Although the Flaming Boars were stronger, they were getting pushed back due to the sheer numbers of the Rabid Dog pack. This Rabid Dog pack had nearly 3 times the amount of Rabid Dogs than the one Ryu had exterminated. In the past, the one he had destroyed had only about 50 Rabid Dogs. However this one had nearly 160 Rabid Dogs. The Flaming Boars only numbered 20. Each Boar was being pressured by almost 8 Rabid Dogs.

Also in this pack there were 10 Rabid Dogs that looked different than the others. 9 of these had darker coloured fur than the others. They were also bigger than the others. They also were much stronger than the others. Whereas normal Rabid dogs are only at the 1-5th tier of the Initiate Rank, these were somewhere near the 8-10th tier of the Initiate Rank. The last Rabid Dog was almost a completely dark grey color and was even bigger than the elite Rabid Dogs. This was a Rabid Dog leader and was at near the 5-6th tier of the Novice Rank. This Rabid Dog leader was alone able to take on a Flaming Boar.

Although the Flaming Boars were able to hold on by virtue of their fire element, they were running out of mana and would soon lose. Ryu did not interfere and watched this battle. As time went on the Flaming Boars began lose. Finally only 1 Flaming Boar was left. The Rabid Dogs had lost only 10 or so of their members. As the rest of the Rabid Dogs began to attack, the last Flaming Boar also fell, but not before it had taken down 3 Rabid Dogs with it. Having seen the battle, Ryu moved on. He slowly made his way through the forest as he recalled the battle that he had just seen.

In its last moments, the Flaming Boar had exploded with energy and moved almost instantly forward, crushing 3 Rabid Dogs with it. It’s insane charge had only been stopped when the Rabid Dog leader and the elite Rabid Dogs attacked it head on and sent it flying. Remembering that attack, Ryu was puzzled. How did the Flaming Boar manage to bring up all that energy? wasn’t it heavily injured? But the more he thought, the more confused he got. Finally he just forgot about it and he continued on deeper into the central region.

As he went deeper into the central region, Ryu saw a thin trail of smoke. His curiosity aroused, Ryu ran towards the source of the smoke and as he got closer he slowed down because of the possibility of danger. Spark narrowed his eyes and shut his mouth due to the irritation received from the smoke. Once Ryu arrived at the scene he noticed a couple things.

There was a small village like establishment present. He had chanced upon these before but they were always empty. However this village was not empty. However the occupants were not what Ryu expected. The occupants of this tiny village were goblins. There were about 35 goblins and there was a fire engulfing some of the houses. There were only about 10 houses and half of them were on fire. The goblins were escaping to the north east. There were magical beasts attacking the goblins and destroying the village. However what made Ryu astonished was that these goblins were highly trained and stronger than those he faced in the tunnel.

A goblin soldier shouted to his comrades, “Alright, soldiers protect the villagers, rest of you with me!”

Ryu’s eyes opened wide. These goblins could SPEAK!!!!