4 Months

Raya walked onwards into the forest while Ireya calmed herself down and slowly followed in behind her.

"How did it feel?", Raya asked without looking back.

"Disgusting, the squelch when my sword pierced into its neck...", Ireya bent over and almost wretched as she said this.

"You've already killed during the Battle of Coming, so how is this any different Ireya?"

"This is real though..."

"So was the Battle of Coming, the sensation was the same."

Ireya couldn't deny those words, during that battle she hadn't felt anything but now that she had killed something all of her previously numb sensations disappeared in less than a heartbeat.

"Come on Ireya, we have another few years in this wilderness together. You better get used to it."

"Easier said than done..."

Their figures disappeared into the distance.

After they were gone a low crying noise echoed from under the dead beast.

"Raaaar....", a quiet groan could be heard within the dead remains.

Squelch.

A ripping sound of flesh appeared from the side of the beast, a small beast as small as a fist appeared from within. This beast had purple fur and small and cute blue eyes, it lightly scratched at the dead beast as tears flooded down its eyes, but no matter how much it nudged the dead beast it wouldn't react.

In no time at all the beast seemed to start crying, its eyes dripped in tears as it fell to the side of the dead beast. Its eyes looked at the forest as it memorized the voice and names of the two.

---

Splat!

A head rolled off and dropped onto the dirt, the smell of fresh grass and trees was tainted by blood.

Ireya stood on the opposite side of a beast with 2 long arms and claws with her arm slightly cut and bleeding, her ears twitched as she heard shuffling appear from her left.

A claw sprang out of the bushes and swung towards her chest, stepping back Ireya barely avoided the attack, "First Move: One Sword!"

This time her sword turned into 15 swords, an improvement from the original 10. The 15 sword shadows clashed with the claw, with a loud bang the claw split open into many small bone fragments, some pierced the beast that lay behind it and some pierced towards Ireya.

"Hah!", she swung her sword deflecting most of the fragments but some pierced into her flesh causing her to flinch in pain.

The beast, on the other hand, ran off in the distance and escaped after it realized that it was much weaker.

Claps rang out from the top of one of the trees, "You've gotten better after these short 4 months."

Ireya pouted at her, "And you haven't helped me a single time."

"Haha! Why should I help you if you can handle all of them?"

Ireya stared at her speechless, she then sat down on the ground and pulled out a First-Grade Energy Pill from her spatial ring. These pills helped you recover your Energy for someone in the Ablution Realm and also heal up, for Ireya these were more than enough. They were graded from First to Fifth Grade, each one representing different levels of potency.

She then healed up and recovered all of the Energy Granules that grew dull after she used up their energy. Before she reached the Ablution Realm she could use her Energy Granules to use sword techniques but after using up the Energy within them they would grow dull and would require the use of Energy Pill's to reawaken.

She was now ready for another fight.

"These Berated Claws are quite powerful, you should be more careful from now on."

Raya then hovered her hand over the dead beast and a spatial wave rippled and absorbed the beast, she stored it within her spatial ring.

Ireya agreed with her. If she hadn't deflected most of the fragments she could have turned into a porcupine, "How close are we to leaving this forest?"

After absorbing the beast Raya replied, "Hmm, probably around a tenth of the way there, maybe even less. The plan is to have you reach the Ablution Realm before we reach any areas with humans."

Ireya sighed, the items that her mother had packed for her were nowhere near enough to last her the rest of the way. From now on she had to scavenge for food and find ways to restore Energy.

"Awooooooooo!!!!!!"

A piercing noise nearly burst her eardrums, she stood up in a hurry preparing herself for a fight. But even after a minute, nothing had appeared. Raya stood up next to her just as nervous, Raya may be strong but there were plenty of beasts in this forest more powerful than them.

"It's the same noise as the one we heard 4 months ago, it came from a distant mountain at the time but it seems like we may have unknowingly traveled along the path towards the same mountain."

Hearing her Ireya shifted her eyes toward the mountain closest to them, her eyes squinted as she saw a violent fire burst through the trees turning many trees into ash.

As she watched the fire burn an idea came into her mind, "Raya are you thinking the same thing as me?"

Raya smiled as she heard this, "Probably."

---

30 minutes later the two arrived before the burnt trees, they silently approached the center of the fire and kept their presence to a minimum.

'Just as I thought!', Ireya saw a giant 10-meter long wolf with burning red fur lying down in the middle of the burnt field.

It was sat beneath one tall tree, surprisingly this tree was completely fine. At the top of the tree lay a variety of fruits, peaches, apples, and even bananas, surrounding all of these fruits a spiritual mist danced around. Sometimes this mist left a hint of its energy within one of the fruits and sometimes it even created rain within the surroundings of the tree.

Both Raya and Ireya lit up at the sight of the tree, 'Spiritual Millenia Tree!'

This tree was quite common, but to them, this was a gift. Energy Pills had to be made of something, and these fruits were the materials used, they may not be able to refine pills but they could still eat these fruits directly to restore their energy.

"The beast is powerful, I can barely fight it.", Raya commented.

"That's good enough, as long as you can distract it I can collect all of the fruits and come and aid you in the fight. We may not be able to kill it but it will still run away if its life is threatened.", Ireya and Raya then quickly came up with a plan. They had no time to waste as they didn't know when this beast would awaken.

Once they were ready Raya took out her black sword and prepared herself, she had to lure away this beast from the tree while Ireya hid on the other side.

Ireya then moved to the other side and showed the signal to Raya that she was ready and hid away from sight.

Raya stepped into the beast's field of view.

Bam!

The moment the beast opened up its eyes a dangerous fire snapped out, it's head turned to face Raya, "Trying to steal from me human!", a powerful voice came from it.

It darted at Raya who stood in the distance, its paws spewed out mighty flames. Metallic sounds sprung out between the two as they exchanged blows, Ireya who stood on the other side stared at the fight occurring between them. This was the first time she had seen Raya's strength.

She threw away these distracting thoughts and pulled out her sword, she hadn't reached the Ablution Realm so her own body was too slow but if she used her sword skills then she could go much faster.

"Third Move: Piercer"

Her figure dashed through the burnt fields, flinging away all of the dead branches and ashes.

Just as she reached the halfway point the beast turned its head and saw her, "Another one!", it tried springing back but was disrupted by Raya, "Move human!"

"No you don't!"

She threw out all of her most powerful moves to stop it from moving any further, darkness overwhelmed the beast but its flames aided it in counteracting the darkness. The field of darkness slowly spread outwards.

"I don't have long!"

Ireya finally reached the tree as the fighting grew fiercer, she jumped upwards and plucked away all of the fruits and stored them in her spatial ring.

As she landed she drew her sword once again and performed the most powerful move she could,

"Fourth Move: A Lonely Sight!"

Pink light radiated out of her sword bursting through the darkness and the flames combined, her sword flew directly towards the beast's abdomen, only the sword and the beast remained in Ireya's sight.

At this moment all that mattered was her sword.

Screech!

Sparks flew out and with violent splatter, the beast's abdomen split open flooding the ground with its blood. With a final roar, it turned around and left a few looming words, "I shall be back humans!"

Raya sat her buttocks down onto the ground, and with a long sigh, she gave Ireya a weird look.

"I thought you only mastered up to the second move, how did you use the fourth?"

"Hehehe...", Ireya slyly looked to the side.

Raya dashed towards Ireya and picked her up by the ear, "Ignoring me now!"

"Ouch, ouch! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

If one looked at them from a distance it would look just like a mother spanking her evil daughter.

"Whatcha just say!"

"I'm sorry!!!!!!!!"