Hopes' Beat

The flash of purple could be seen for miles away. However there was only one soul nearby. Our young warrior, so caught up in his training and not having honed his sense of the moment properly yet, was unaware that every passerby he walked past on his way to the Wanderers Respite Inn, was the same person, over and over again. This was not the soul that saw the light, as this was a projection of the human that the creature was before he turned. His projection to draw and lure travelers to a rest stop, just so he could devour them and their energy to get stronger. Not that it was of any consequence as our creature perished in the blast.

About 6 hours had passed since the explosion and the night was setting in and getting into the full swing of darkness. Part of the forest around the town was reduced to scorch and ash. Just on the other side of the tree-line a large four legged creatures' shadow was lurking around, sniffing and listening. A wolf, much bigger than that of the Norse Realms dire wolves, could be seen to those that tried hard enough. Brilliant silver coat of fur covered this wolf and bright golden eyes could be seen reflecting any light they took in.

Slowly pacing it's way down the tree-line, it perked its' ears, listening intently, almost as if it was searching for a specific sound, it cocked its' head slightly, listening harder.

*Thump*

It was slow and extremely far apart, but the wolf immediately knew what it was.

*Thump*.......*thump,thump*

A heartbeat. Pictures of thoughts instead of words, filled the wolves mind. A flower rising through a crack in the concrete against the wind and weather. Surviving against the odds at war with it. The flower grew into a beautiful moon-shade violet rose.

With these flashes it became apparent that thing the wolf was searching for was our young warrior. He was still alive, barely, but he was alive and hope could live again. If someone was to be watching the wolf, they would have swore they saw it smile.

The silver wolf raised its' head to the moon and gave out a shrilling, mournful, yet happy howl. Long and sung out until the last note dropped, it finished its' cry and disappeared into thin air. As the last note hung on the air and started to dissipate, Yuvons' eyes opened slowly.

As he stared at the night sky, he laid there, no thoughts, no dreams, no hopes, no nothing was running through his mind. He stared blankly for awhile before finally having a thought. "Am I still alive?" the thought crossed his mind briefly. He raised his hand and simply pinched his belly, wincing slightly at the pain. "I'm alive...but how did I....how did I survive?" Sitting up and looking around, he also noticed the entire town was destroyed, absolutely no sign of buildings or life.

"Even the creature died? But how am I.....it was so much stronger than I am." As he was looking around, he noticed something just outside his normal vision, but everywhere he looked, it was always in the same spot. Looking ahead, to the upper most right of his vision, three dots in line, one above the other. He started shaking his head, knocked it with his hand a few times, but to no avail. Nothing he did would get rid of the three dots. Yuvon shrugged his shoulders, not really questioning anything to hard at the moment, just relishing in still being alive.

He would still be able to get to the tournament, he was alive, he could go to the dueling tournament and still win and get properly Knighted. Knights got to have their own estates, the more renowned the Knight the more rewards were gifted to them. Squires, servants, the best steeds, access to Agritheas' Royal Library. However, Knights weren't always decent and valiant. The strongest knight in these lands was known for being mean and cruel. A talent at creating, raging, and finishing wars. He was a titan in the world of fighters. But his reputation for being cruel far outweighed his reputation as the strongest.

Yuvon finally started to stand, luckily the blast didn't seem to shred to much of his clothes. He looked at his broken sword with sadness, but it had been shattered in such a way that there was still a partial blade with a slanted edge up at the top. "Huh, the thing created a dagger for me...guess I'm going to have to practice with this now and figure out how to use it to my advantage. Strapping his still fully functional sword to his back, he opted to carry Bastard Dagger in his hand.

"And all I wanted was one fucking hot meal before the trek to the next farthest town. Why does shit like this always happen to me at the most inopportune times. My clothes are fine, but not my armor. Everything on my chest was destroyed by that monster..

Hmmm...FUCK....even my backpack was destroyed....you mean I'm to leave this place with my pants, one good sword, and one unnaturally made dagger....and that's fucking it??"

He could hear his master telling him that cursing was for lazy people not willing to push the bounds of their brain. One of the hardest things he had to do under his master, was watching his mouth. Apparently, it could have been considered rude. He never understood this thought process, because most of the people he met that swore the way he did were the most honest he'd ever met. Shaking the latent memories of his master he pondered what he would do now. He was never very good at setting traps for food and didn't really know plants very well either, settling on just rest, he opted to go hungry for now.

Fatigue was starting to set in really hard after surviving the blast and the fight together. Taking his unbroken sword and placing it into the ground, he slid down the flat side of the blade until his butt was on the ground and laid his head back and closed his eyes. "Man, I am exhausted...I have to make it to Agrithea. I have to. I know he wouldn't approve. But he deserves to be known...." Reminiscence thoughts like these and thoughts of responsibility kept drifting through his before finally drifting off completely. Yuvon never once noticed, that the shredded muscles all over his upper body had been completely healed and the swirling mass of energy inside of him was now pulsing and slowly growing. At the same time, something else was also happening inside of him.

The three dots in the top right corner went from being tight grouped and vertical to horizontal and one on the upper right of his vision, middle, and upper left, of where his vision would be if he were awake. The dot on the right side ended up dropping down a menu of sorts.

[?????]

[?????]

[?????]

This went on for quite a few options, but almost every thing was blurred out like this. One of these bars became highlighted in green and the green started slowly sliding down the list, until it finally reached one that said,

[Host Compatibility]

The bar flashed blue for a second then numbers populated on the right side.

[Host Compatibility] 100% Perfect Match Do you want to merge with host? (Yes) (No) You have selected (Yes), is this correct?

System merging with host. Final Updates will be finished upon hosts awakened state and is evaluated.

With this, the messages stopped and flashed blue again. Then it all seemingly slid up into the three dots, then the three dots slid back over to the right corner and resumed their original position, this time with a number and percent symbol to the left of it flashing. Currently, the number said 2% and was still slowly rising.