Chapter 7: An angel

[5 years later]

After a few years, Langris was now 14 years old. He had learned alot about zeal during that time.

He had understood that to practice it, a lot of patience, and training were required. This is why, even after 5 years, he still hadn't progressed at all due to his fragile body.

But despite all that, he still felt like something was wrong, and the problem didn't come from him, but from something else. It was almost like something was stopping him from progressing.

"You can't win this..."

Rolem and Langris were having a sparring match in front of the estate's gate, and clearly, Langris was losing by a large margin.

There was a clear physical difference between both, Rolem, with his muscular body, and his long black hair which reached his shoulders was way stronger than a skinny Langris who spent all his day training and trying to improve.

Langris had bruises everywhere and was breathing heavily, while Rolem barely had a scratch on him.

Abruptly, Langris dashed towards Rolem with a determined expression.

However, Rolem didn't even move an inch and looked and Langris with a tired expression.

Langris swung his sword sideways to Rolem's neck once he was close enough, but without much effort, Rolem blocked the attack with his sword.

"Is this all you got?" Rolem said as he facepalmed.

After he said that Rolem got caught off guard, and Langris inflicted a knee strike at the level of Rolem's ribs.

Due to that, Rolem tilted sideways and exposed the left side of his lower body. Langris took advantage of that to attempt another sideway swing.

It seemed like the attack was going to hit, however, at the last moment. Rolem's aura started to get more and more intense, at a point the small rocks on the ground started to levitate, and he suddenly released a powerful shockwave which repelled Langris meters away and landed brutally on the ground.

"You are a very good fighter Langris, the only problem is that physically, you're not on point, and you are not making any progress in your breathing techniques," Rolem said as he walked to Langris to help him up.

"Yeah... but I train every day, so why the fuck don't I get stronger?" Langris said with a depressed expression.

"There is surely something that you're doing wrong," Rolem replied as he helped Langris up, "you have got to train on your breathing technique because I can assure you that in swordsmanship, you are way better than me,"

Once their sparring match was done, Langris headed back to his room to train on his breathing technique.

After 30 minutes of breathing rhythmically, going in deep concentration, Langris felt no progress or energy inside him.

"Why the fuck can't I progress, it's been so many years that I've been wasting, but I haven't felt an ounce of Zeal energy inside me..."

He clenched his fists, frustrated about the situation, he was working so hard, yet, he wasn't progressing at all. It was at this moment that Langris started thinking,

'It's like my path was already written, and I was destined to become a scholar... For fucks sake,'

Lost in his thoughts, he was interrupted by the entrance of a chubby young teenager. That boy was Morlen.

"Hey Langris, are you okay... I heard you lost a fight against Rolem again,"

Morlen walked towards Langris and sat next to him on his bed.

"Yeah," Langris said with a slight smile, "but it's nothing, I'll continue training until I get there,"

Langris tried to show that he was still motivated, but Morlen knew that he started to lose hope.

"How about we do something else for once?" Morlen said to cheer Langris up.

"Do something else, like what?"

Without answering his question, Morlen grabbed Langris's hand and pulled him from his bed.

"Just follow me, I've got this relaxing place I spend time at when I'm stressed,"

"You spend all your days eating and sleeping so how on earth are you stressed?" Langris replied.

Morlen brought Langris out of the estate, and beyond the plantations in the Red Benettry forest accompanied by a guard. In the forest, they walked deeper and deeper inside, at a point, Langris started to ask himself where Morlen was taking him.

"Where are we going Morlen?" Langris asked him as he was looking around just to see large red maple trees everywhere and hear the chanting of birds.

"Ahh, we've arrived!"

Morlen led him to a threshold covered by a curtain of plants and other vegetation. As he walked closer to the threshold, he moved the curtain of plants out of the way, and beyond was a marvelous place presented to Langris.

Inside the cave was a magnificent and tall waterfall, with a lake at the end of it. The cave was surrounded by rock giving it an open cylindrical shape. The light from the sunlight hitting inside the cave gave even more beauty to the marvelous area.

"It's beautiful..." Langris exclaimed.

Both the guard that accompanied them and Langris were shocked and amazed by how impressive the cave was. This led to asking themselves how Morlen found out about such a place.

"When did you find this place?" Langris asked Morlen.

He looked away and shrugged, he decided to not tell anyone about how he discovered this place.

"Enough with the questions, if you want to fully grasp this moment, then take your clothes off and dive in!"

At the moment he said that Morlen took his clothes off and dived into the water creating a big splash due to his immense size.

For a moment, Langris hesitated and thought it was better for him to go back, but then he realized that the objective of coming here was to relax and have fun.

"I guess spending a few minutes to have fun wouldn't hurt," Langris said before him jumping into the lake.

Langris proved to be a great swimmer despite his febrile body, and the lake was bright and clear, so you could see even when under the water.

As Langris was swimming, and going deeper, he realized that there was a hole big enough for someone like Morlen to enter.

He looked intensely at the hole from afar and realized that it started to glow. Something inside the hole started glowing white.

Langris looked at the hole with more intrigue, but he started to run out of breath and went back up to the surface.

"You're a great swimmer!" Morlen exclaimed sitting on a big rock near the lake.

Langris ignored Morlith's compliment and started to get more intrigued by what he saw.

"There is something down there..." Langris told Morlen.

"What?" Morlen asked.

Without answering, Langris dived back into the lake and went straight for the hole which was still glowing. The bright and clear water made it easier for him to see and spot the hole.

When he got close to the hole, he felt an airflow coming from it.

"There is something at the other end of this hole..." Langris thought before entering it.

The path was straight and big, so Langris didn't have any problem swimming through it, but the main problem Langris feared was that he would run out of breath before he reaches the other side.

After about 20 seconds, Langris reached a point where the hole was directed upwards, so he swam in that direction. The more he got closer to the surface, the brighter the white light was.

At the breach of running out of breath, Langris emerged from the other end of the hole,

He quickly headed for the closest land which was a large rock near the walls of the cave.

He laid on the rock for a moment to catch his breath, "Holy shit, even my previous body was more endurant than this,"

He turned his head to see where he was and realized that he was in some sort of hidden cave with an underground lake.

"What is th-" Before he could finish his sentence, he felt once again the shining white light coming from a path on the other side of the cave.

"I've got to find out what this shit is," Langris told himself, "in most of the films I watched on earth, things like this mean you got something nice at the other end,"

He suddenly dived into the lake again and headed for the path. Once he reached land, he saw the passage emitting bright white light.

He followed the light through the path, and despite him getting closer, it seemed like the path had no end.

Suddenly, he had finally found himself in front of the white and bright light. The light was so intense that Langris had to cover his eyes in the beginning. Then, immediately after, the light started to diminish, and Langris could now see properly.

When he saw the source of the light, he couldn't believe his eyes, a glamorous figure, with white clothing, long white hair, golden eyes, but most importantly, white beautiful wings. The figure was leaning back on a large boulder, and blood was pouring around the floor in the area he was in.

The white cloth was stained with an enormous amount of blood, and the figure's skin color looked pale. Despite those facts, only one thing went through Langris's mind,

"Is that... Is that an angel?"