Defying fate

While Aren was watching the Ogres die one by one under the downpour of fire that rained down from above, some hidden and powerful existences living in this world were bewildered.

The ever always silent river of destiny had turned turbulent!

Although the change of fate only happened in a small area of the river, only including rank 5 beings at most, this had never happened in the history of Alvia!

The arrangement of fate were always absolute. There had been no one who could defy the arrangement of fate. Even Gods couldn't.

With the river in a state of disorder for sometime, the node in which the first time something fated didn't happen couldn't be found. After one arrangement didn't go as arranged, all other arrangements related to it were also cancelled. It was like a domino effect had happened.

This was the result of someone defying fate.

When the river calmed down, a series of new fates had formed. Those who were fated to die might live, those whose luck was about to turn good would now again suffer bad luck and many more things had changed now.

But no one, not even the arcane Prophetess noticed that other than changes in fate, a small distributary had itself broken from the main stream and was headed in an unknown course, bringing the fate of some certain individuals.

...

The onslaught of fire rain lasted for nearly four minutes!

It had to be taken note that even the spell casted by Fernando had stopped just as it had reached 3 minutes, without going even one second past the spell duration time. This was enough to affirm the difference and disparity between Aren's and Fernando's spiritual powers in terms of quality and quantity.

Honestly, if Aren even had one good offensive spell with him, then the battle with Fernando wouldn't have been that difficult.

After the fire died down, Aren saw that of the group of ogres, only the rank 1 ogre's body was in a somewhat better condition compared to others who had nearly become ashes.

In this terrifying fire which had reached the power of rank one spell for a moment, even the ogre captain with his sturdy physique and thick hide couldn't survive.

Sinking slowly on the ground of magma, his body had now many irregular holes in it, with his fatty skin and flesh roasted to becoming charred black. Lying on the still hot magma ground, he appeared as if he had been burned on the pits of hell.

As for the other ogres which had charged behind, their bodies... no, only torn limbs and bones bones remained of them. The flesh, organs and even their eye balls were either burned away or sank into the vicious lava.

"Let's go away from here, this place smells bad." Katty said, pinching her nose with her thumb and index finger of her one hand, while giving a slight tug on his robes with another one.

'Is it me or did her sense of smell increase?' Aren confusedly looked at the girl beside him whose face was all red due to not breathing in any air for sometime. Finding not any answer that he didn't hope to get anyway, Aren held Katty's hand which was pulling his robe, and started going in the direction of river.

As it was almost night time now, they had to find a resting place soon. If they wandered in this forest at night there was a certain chance of them having a ''pleasant meeting'' with a pack of moon wolves.

Moon wolves were a rare species among wolves who could only give birth to their species on a moonlight night. They were also the guardians and keepers of moonlight forest at night. It was said that these wolves were blessed by the Moon Goddess during her stay in moonlight forest.

There was a myth about Moon Goddess always wanting a moonlight night to be peaceful and serene. So to maintain her will, the moon wolves patrolled the forest at night to prohibit any outsider that made movement and fight at night.

As he thought about the things that he had learned from Lucian, Aren decided not to walk at night in this forest. However, This information was not told to the students.

This was also a form of test. How much do you rely on the academy? Do you gather information from outside world to aid yourself? If you do, then write the methods on how.

These questions were already asked in the examinations for second semester but due to negligence or due to forgetting, the students don't apply the answers they had written at that time into practice.

Now if they didn't know about the fact about Moon wolves, many students still trying to find moonsprings at night would surely have bad ending.

As they kept going, Katty, in a tired voice while also ''catching a breath due to running'', called out to Aren whose thinking had wandered off somewhere else.

"Wai... hah... huff Wait I said. There is a small cave there." She said pointing just ahead diagonally.

Aren followed her small finger and saw that there really was a cave there.

"Great! Sometimes you really are usef- ahem, you're always useful than me." He corrected himself while avoiding the piercing stare he got from her which turned to a smug look a while later.

...

The next day, when the sun was already up and shining.

Aren woke up from his sleep inside the dark cave. After having his spiritual power drained two times yesterday- first due to spinning of rune and the second due to using 7 scrolls in a row, Aren didn't use another potion but let it recover naturally instead. Excessive use of potions would make a mage's spiritual power impure.

Putting on his hood, he tried to stand up. He was still wearing his robes and everything even in sleep. In this forest, no place was safe. So he had to be ready whenever and wherever he was.

The thin grey blanket which he had brought was ''snatched away'' last night, while showing a pitiful look on her face by the small girl sleeping a distan-... Eh, when did she come beside him?

As he saw Katty, still soundly sleeping beside him while trying to snuggle close to him, he again had this thought in his mind. If... if only he was 29 years old like in earth, he would surely want to ...adopt this girl as his daughter.

However, that thought was ruined the next moment by the saliva slowly flowing out of her mouth, due to which he abruptly placed her head to the other side, to not let that spit land on his clothes.

Standing up, he tried to take the blanket from Katty's hand which she had rolled into a ball. As he got near her, he suddenly heard her mumbling to herself while in sleep.

'What is she saying?' he perched his ears and tried to listen to her mutter.

"Poor smelly... smelly guy. You should've run away... Why didn't you come... with m... snore~ snore~"

'Huh, did she meet someone before?' Aren thought as he pulled the blanket from her hands and started to arrange it.