All Heart

Yuvon was making his way down the dirt path that would eventually turn into a stone road, as his destination was the dueling capital of Agrithea. He was a strange sight for some onlookers, who appeared to either be very concerned or slightly scared, as Yuvon was walking down the path he also had his two large bastard swords placed in each hand and had them extended completely level with his shoulder height, just walking while holding them in front of himself. He had been walking like this since after he took his rest before noon. Breathing steadily and focusing on the energy in his chest, he was starting to struggle to maintain the calmness of his mind. He was tiring out and it was affecting his ability to keep his thoughts in check, resulting in him creating faults in his energy training. As his energy swirled out of control and he lost focus, he started to struggle to keep the large bastard swords up. Standing at about 6'6, Yuvon was not a small kid. He was well built and by looking alone you could tell he had lived a hard life to structure his body so. The swords are very large for bastard swords, designed in such a way that most adults larger than himself, would be using these as two-handed weapons, just most, however.

He never faulted his breathing technique even while failing his other training practices. As the energy in his chest swirled farther and farther out of his control, his thoughts returned to presence of reality instead presence of the moment. Dropping the swords to the ground as he had reached his limit, he looked up to the sun briefly. "4 hours....still only 4!" Yuvon grumbled to himself. He took his time strapping one sword to his back while the other he cradled as he walked, one hand on the hilt and the flat part of blade resting on his other forearm. " I've been doing this for 6 months now and for over half of it, I have not been able to break past maintaining control longer than 4 hours. I don't know what else to do. I'm breaking barriers in all my combat training, breathing training, and even academics. But I can't seem to break this plateau in my energy training."

Dusk was still a few hours away and he needed to find a decent spot to camp out if he couldn't make it to the next town. "Hey, how far to the next village?" he called out to a passerby going opposite of him. The stranger looks up slowly and solemnly replies, "2 miles." then puts his head back down without missing a step. In his excitement to have a hot meal, he takes off sprinting conforming into a loping run, taking large but steady strides, he arrived at the town in just under 7 minutes. As he arrived at the gate, he noted to himself that he was still getting faster and faster. Dusk was finally starting to arrive as purple and orange hues started dancing among the tops the tree lines to his east. There were no guards stationed at the gate, nor would there be any with as small as the town was, seems to be a pitstop town thriving merely as that. He trotted through the gates and slid to a halt. As soon as he crossed the gate line he felt a change in the atmosphere. He couldn't place it, but the air just didn't breathe right to him.

Yuvon easily spotted the Inn, Wanderers Respite. "Aply named in the middle of nowhere." Yuvon chuckled to himself. Walking towards the Inn he passed what looked like an Altar House, a place of designated praying to the god or goddess they worshipped. As he stared at the Altar House he felt a wave of nausea hitting him all of the sudden. Shaking the weird thoughts from his head he hurried towards the Inn, focusing on the idea of food fixing his uneasy feeling about this place. Gripping his sword tighter in his right hand, he was already preparing a strike. As he got closer to the Inn, he noticed a crystal like structure sticking out of the ground and pulsating a dark purple with a heavy blood red outline along the flame-like aura it gave off. He felt a heavy pull towards it, but he pushed on. "Is that....cinnamon rolls?" he puzzled as he smelled the air, now being about 20 feet away. The smell started to settle him, and he slowly let his guard down as he got closer to the door. Lowering the sword and putting his right foot on the first step, he took the next three steps in one on step and walked up to the door, extending his left arm to open the door. It happened as soon as he touched the door, as his hand descended on the door handle he was blasted backwards a good 10 feet or so. Wearing only a combination of light and leather armor with some steel plates in slots here and there, he didn't hit the ground very hard and was able to roll. But the blast had stunned him, and he couldn't see, dust was everywhere, and he was dazed. Gripping the sword in two hands, he called out to his mind and centered it, feeling his presence centered and becoming highly aware of the moment, he rocked on his toes trying to stretch out his equilibrium from the blast. Being centered in the moment he could feel the crystal pulling to him much stronger than before.

He could also sense a crushing aura of malice and it was coming for him. Thoughts cleared, gravity centered, presence of moment acquired, equilibrium stabilized, with these in action he opened his eyes and searched for the source of the malice, but among the settling dust and debris, there was nothing to be seen. Out of the darkness however a slender-yet muscular build of a towering creature he had never seen before. It stood a good half a Yuvon taller than Yuvon. A kind of triangle elongated head with cat like ears, slouching slightly its' long arms went all the way to the ground, claws scraping against the dirt as it walked. Light patches of hair among the whole body of the creature to complement its' dark grey leathery skin. Legs like that of a human, they were where most of its height came from as the creature's torso was only about 3 feet in length total.

The creature looked directly at Yuvon and screamed, causing him to cradle his head in his hands briefly and for a moment he thought heard someone call out to him. As he looked up, the creature was gone nowhere to be seen. He looked left, right, then immediately raised his sword and arm and braced for the hit as he looked up and saw the creature flying right toward him from a great height, its long arms coming down like a double hammer. His legs buckled under the blow from the beast but he managed to stay standing. Not before being literally sunken into the ground he was hit so hard. "Not good, not good, I cant get my feet out." the thought fluttered and he let it go. Staying in the present. The beast started swinging its arms attacking chaotically and as Yuvon focused on the moment he was able to dodge almost everything with the slightest movement as he tried to pull his feet free. Until the creature landed a blow right to his ribs on his left side, lifting him up out of the hole and sending him flying across the horizon landing with a solid thud.

Coughing up some blood, and wiping his mouth, "I know that broke a couple of ribs, this isn't good. This thing is stronger than me. By far." Using his sword push himself back up, he readied himself for the creature again. This time the creature ran right at him and he was ready, when the beast attacked he pivoted quickly and with all his strength he managed to lop off the attacking arm. Jumping back, he was still wary of the beast, especially now that it was injured severely. Almost instantly the arm grew back and the beasts' skin turned a darker grey and its scream this time was even more painful for Yuvon. The beast appeared in front of him and slashed his chest, Yuvon managed to block the next attack, lifting his left leg he avoided a grab, spinning on that foot following the momentum, he slashed the sword into the beasts' side and jumped back again. In the middle of his jump, the beast swung his arm so quickly that Yuvon was knocked even farther back as well as having his chest sliced open. He looked down seeing a giant gash in his chest and his armor destroyed. Shaking it off and trying to stand up, he focused the energy in his chest. "This is always risky after training like I have and not resting...but what's riskier than dying if I do nothing, right?" he thought to himself trying to keep himself light. He pulled the strap on his back and his other sword sank into the dirt. Grabbing it in his left hand and centering the energy, he readied himself again for more onslaught.

An onslaught it was, the beast leaped to him and as fast it moved Yuvon was almost keeping up, in a blurry of swings he was scoring hits, but nothing that would slay the beast. He was hurting, badly. But he refused to lose his ground. His mind was centered and he could feel the energy in his chest getting larger. "Was this what I needed? Battle experience to break the plateau? Sorry, master, looks like the genius wasn't so good after all." He was losing a lot of blood and at this point was barely hanging on, still refusing to give in. He started swinging his swords faster, two creatures of size duking it out in a pure battle. But there was always a clear winner, straight from the beginning. His muscles were being shredded by the creature and the only thing keeping him up was the energy and his will. He took a hit in the same broken ribs from earlier that sent him excruciatingly tumbling across the ground. Yuvon landed with the swords in the ground and his hands on the hilts refusing to let go, but unable to stand. The beast lumbered over to him, not understanding its' enemies will to not submit, it was only enraged by this act of defiance when it was clearly stronger. It raised its right arm and swung with as much force as it could mustered and shattered one of the swords, but Yuvon still never let go. Flying through air for what seemed like forever, Yuvon could see his master smiling at him. He fought, to the very end, no matter how strong the opponent was, he fought.

Yuvon collided with the crystal and stuck to it. Not impaled, just stuck. If Yuvon wasn't dying, he would have heard the sound static like energy combusting all around him and building up. The creature was leaping through the air as he did in the very first move he made, falling from a great height and planning on finishing his adversary off for good. Through the image of his master he saw the beast falling toward him in a familiar fashion and with the last of his strength he raised his one good blade and pointed it up at the falling beast. "At least it would live in pain for quite some time before figuring out how to remove my blade." Yuvon thought peacefully. The monster was about to land his blow when a crushing boom was emitted and a blinding purple light flattened the area, leaving nothing but a giant scorched crater, where there was a town.