CHAPTER 1 ILIDAS | ELEN

His fingers was bleeding, he felt faint and he could barely breathe but the urge to run, to flee and take refuge was so strong that he could not think of anything else, the terror was persistent and for the fiftieh time he considered leaving Khal's dying body. He even knew for sure if he was still alive at that point, he looked back to inspect the body, his right foot was bent at an impossible angle, his clothes covered in blood had two long cuts, the boy had just sputtered a few things all the way there and had not come out of unconsciousness.

However, the idea of condemnig his freind to certain death disgusted him more than die because of him, so again, he forced himself to put that thought out of his head, taking those moments of uncertainty as a rest, without letting go of the makeshift stretcher that he had built up.

His body was burning and he felt a little persistent dizziness.

In the distance he heard a pitiful howl followed by a powerful roar that brought him out of his brief appeasement, moaning in pain, he clenched his teeth and resumed walking in the direction he had been following for hours, as the high treetops slowly deprived him of sunlight.

The world was reduced to two things, darkness, step forward, darkness, step forward.He could hardly feel his body and his eyelids were too heavy to hold them wide open, he knew without a doubt that if he stumbled again it would be the end of his endless journey, the idea had gone from being frightening to being pleasant, to his surprise the dryness of his throat, the hunger of his stomach and even the hell of his feet and hands had disappeared to give way to a tiredness like he had never felt before, although all those thoughts were just a distraction from his purpose in the world, to take a step forward.

***

Elen sniffed the air in search of an explanation for her nervousness, the calm of the forest was not unusual, but some monster used to come to inspect and mark territory. He was afraid and didn't mind admitting it, there were hundreds of reasons to have it patrolling near the forest and thousands to have it in there.

Carrying a sapphire that would illuminate his position like a giant firefly did not help him calm down, but just as the beasts marked their territory they had to do it their way, his companion of today was one of the reasons for his current state, her name was Lisa, beautiful, young and quiet, everything would be perfect if it weren't for her inexperience, she had barely reached the silver rank a few weeks ago and did not seem very skilled with that short spear of hers. Even though Elen was a golden rank he knew that a miracle would have to happen for both of them to come out alive if the direwolf that had attacked a few days before decided to show up again, he still had to show himself safe or he would get the young woman to pee on himself.

-Let's keep going until we can see the canyon, then we'll retrace our steps to the elevator.

The young woman responded with a hasty nod and both followed in silence, listening to the rustling of the leaves and glancing out of the corner of their eye at the edge of the forest.That monotony lasted for a long time when, halfway up the elevator, He heard a cracking sound coming from the the forest, he pointed out his ear to her companion who understood that she should amplify it with ki. Both remained motionless, Elen held her spear tightly, scrutinizing with her eyes the part from which the sound had come, out of the corner of her eye he saw how Lisa passed her anxious gaze from the forest to him and vice versa, surely waiting for orders.

-You have to be quiet and take out your weapon, put your sapphire to the minimum but let it illuminate what you step on at your feet.

He absorbed half of the ki that he had deposited in his sapphire , leaving the illuminated area about six meters in front of him and he placed it on his belt, next to him he heard Lisa swallow her saliva and take out her verutum, a spear of little more than one meter, he did not have a good opinion of the weapon but it was certain that one did not have to be very skillful to use it correctly. After a few seconds they heard the rustling of some dry leaves, then a twig snapping, although the sounds did not have a pattern if they seemed to have a certain cadence, illuminating the ten meters with nothing but rock and shaved grass in some parts until the edge of the forest began to walk slowly towards the trees, after a few meters where the noise followed its lethargic sound he signaled his partner to follow him and both went into the forest.

He advanced to the origin of the sound and when he was close enough he poured all the ki that he dared to illuminate thirty meters, noticing how the crystal vibrated as if it was going to explode, what he saw could not be further from his expectations.

In front of him was a young man who was no more than thirteen years old, he had his torso bare and was missing part of his trousers, he had blood on the sides of his head and gave no sign of having noticed them, his hands in raw flesh and covered with splinters held what seemed to be the worst stretcher he had ever seen,

When he approached his face was darkened when he saw the poor boy who was being transported tied with frayed clothes to both sticks, with a broken foot, two ugly cuts on his side and a skin of a deadly white seemed more dead than alive, he did not stop to check if he was breathing, he only passed a shoulder to the young man that seemed to be alive and he pointed with one hand to the other to be carried by Lisa, the boy fell unconscious just two seconds later.

Not far from the edge of the forest Elen heard a scream that froze his blood, in turn the wind blew in a way that brought her the smell of putrefaction.-Lisa takes both of them and runs out of here, when you leave the forest take out your sapphire and turn it off and on intermittently four times, then run to the elevator and don't stop for anything.

Without giving him time to respond, he let go of the boy and infused the sapphire with all the ki he could, faced the sound and held his spear tightly until his knuckles turned white.

He bent his knees and waited for the threat to enter his field of vision, from behind he heard Lisa dragging the bodies and very slowly he followed her taking steps backwards.Near the edge of the forest two beasts entered her range of vision, one stayed out of the light where she could only see its silhouette while the other entered on all fours.

What he saw next to the tremendous smell of filth and putrefaction left no room for doubt, in front of him he had a necrophagus, although it did not seem to be completely formed, he still had his hair and his eyes were no more than two balls of blood, the skin covered him like a burlap sack, torn in a thousand places it revealed muscles and bones, the spine protruded in the form of spines forward in a dozen places and the hands ended in three-centimeter claws, the lower jaw was divided into two parts to give rise to a tongue that seemed to be the size of his arm and the teeth had grown to the point that the fangs were like his ring finger.However, his greatest concern was the silhouette hidden in the shadows that showed a certain degree of intelligence while retaining the element of surprise. The necrophagus barely paid attention to him before running away in the direction of Lisa, Elen took the spear with both hands as if she was going to fish in a lake while she poured ki into her eyes, arms and to a lesser extent into her legs to keep her balance, when the beast was almost parallel to him she attacked, pulling out his jaw and leaving him moving his tongue like crazy while he was shouting a drowned out cry, he backed up slightly before crouching down while looking at him with those eyes without pupils.

Elen moaned inside as she stared at the beast, he had missed the chance to bring him down and now he would have to fight in a two-on-one situation.

"Where is the other one?" he panicked for a moment when he couldn't find him where he was a few seconds before when he noticed a devilishly fast figure that was going after the boys,

"No no no! " without any better idea, he accumulated ki in his eyes, his right arm and part of the trunk and legs and threw his spear as he had learned years before, the beast stumbled and gave a scream. With no time to gloat he pulled his short sword out of his belt and backed up against a tree where he prepared to catch his breath.

Out of the shadows came a figure that moved abnormally, when it gave light to Elen her soul fell to the ground, it was a ghoul, a real ghoul.

His whole body was covered by an ashen, filthy and leathery skin that covered his eye sockets, his face had a jaw open up to his ears that looked like a macabre smile covered by rows of sharp teeth like knives, from his palate came out a kind of tweezers that resembled the fangs of a spider and that would soon paralyze him if he reached it, His figure was skeletal but not to be fooled, those bugs had a monstrous strength and he knew it well, where his spear had impacted there was only a stump with a knee which was partly a relief since it would not allow him to jump or run to him easily.

Elen breathed deeply while she observed her environment and analyzed the situation; that part of the forest was hardly dense and the separation between trees was up to six meters, behind her there would be the limit of a short distance run, which would not be useful with the attention of those two placed on him, The ghouls were mostly guided by the smell although he was not sure that this applied to the one that still had eyes, they were scavengers but they did not care about fighting to eat < and even less about those beasts without eyes <, he assumed that both were waiting for the boy to faint so that they could pounce and eat both bodies without resistance, now that he had left them without prey and being alone, they would go after him without thinking twice.The necrophagus hissed and they both started to move, the one with the thorns positioned himself in front of him while the other disappeared through a blind spot on his left, he removed the ki from his eyes and placed it in his ears and nose being careful not to go too far, he decided to make time until help arrived choosing to make the ki flow from his core to his legs and waited for the attack