'A Northern' stood expressionlessly, watching the mayhem that its master wrought with a crude laughter plastered on his face.
Up until now, it had been doing its work of diligently cutting apart the viscera of the slain monsters to harvest three beast cores each.
But right now, that task proved to be quite a daunting one. Regardless, the clone stood with no shred of expression on its face.
It was like a statuesque version of Northern, only that this statue had more flesh than stone.
Black flames eerily illuminated this area of the forest. Even Mr. Fluffy had to take a brief pause.
As compared to before, from a small interloper to an enormous abhorrent harbinger of crude and unforgiving lacerations.
Before its stalwart brown teeth, and lightning speed, even the Bulfors who are born predators now had no choice but to become prey.
The white varmint transitioned between their muscle frames, in a wake of deep gashes and splattering black blood.
However, even it was taken aback by the might of Northern's attack. The sinister flames that burned in the forest reflected in its widened blue eyes.
And those eyes glimmered with adoration for the man that stood in between them...laughing.
'Sweet... really sweet!'
Northern looked around, awestruck.
'This is a work of art, oh crap, have I always had an artistic side to myself?'
Art was the one thing Northern had always sucked at.
'But I think I'm a very good artist in this world. An artist who can do amazing things with flames. Just look at this.' He raised his head to the flutters of flames that didn't look like they'd chill anytime soon.
A smug grin spread across his lips, 'I have to give it to you, Northern, you're good!'
He folded his arms and laughed for a couple more seconds.
'Alright, that is that about that, let's see how much I gained, the system kept pouring in...'
He summoned the panel.
Name: Northern Longguard
True Name: [Nameless]
Attributes: [Formless], [Spawn of Void], [Limitless Void], [Vestige of Chaos and Void], [All Eyes], [Chaos Thread], [Flames of Chaos]
Talent Fragments: [81/2000]
[Copied Talents]: [0/2]
[Attribute Abilities(Active/Passive)]: [9/10]
[Owned Items]: [Mortal Blade], [Eternal Twilight], [Silver Sword], [Death Glare] and 24 others.
'Eighty-one, that's fair... since beast rank gave three fragments, I guess I killed about twenty-seven?' He looked around, dazed for a second, 'wow... maybe I underestimated what Black Flame could do.'
Augmentation, [Black Flame] proved itself to be flawless, just by using the flame to augment himself and his sword, an apex level monster shuddered in fear.
And just by attacking one monster, every other caught the flames and burned to their demise, dancing in unorganized choreography.
It made Northern once again... grin with a sinister glee.
He clapped at himself, 'Alright, alright, let's move for real. Time to move things to the next level.' Northern grinned and continued forward.
The clone was still way back, harvesting cores from crisply burned bodies.
And Mr. Fluffy was right behind him, his eyes gleaming with a radiant glow of respect.
Both of them marched forward for a while without encountering any forest. In fact, Northern would say they've pretty much explored the forest path that led straight to the gate, since they were now standing in front of the gate and couldn't find any more monsters.
'I'll be disappointed if that is the case really...'
'So, only about twenty-seven beast rank monsters exist in this forest. And Instructor Annette said it's dangerous.' He shook his head dejectedly and circled back.
Even though his sensibility to life through Chaos proved to be quite effective, at the same time it felt so fickle that Northern had concluded earlier that he shouldn't depend too much on it for perception.
When it came to sensibility and perception, he doubted if anything could surpass the human senses being trained to their optimal state.
With the overwhelming unlimitedness that being a drifter offered individuals, Northern knew or suspected that it was probably possible to hone his five senses so much that they'd function at a transcendent level.
Of course, it was all speculations. Right now, he didn't know for sure.
'But I'm going to try all of my speculations. Everything!'
Even the fear of death would not stop this part of his adventure. No doubt he was all about survival but that didn't mean he was going to stay complacent as an excuse for avoiding danger.
'My goal is to become so strong that survival becomes a cakewalk.'
Northern after a while had gotten back to where he burned a couple of monsters, the clone was still tearing out the cores.
"Mr. Fluffy, how about you join him. Remember that time we picked cores back in the rift?"
Mr. Fluffy seemed to remember just fine, he licked Northern who giggled in response.
"Right right, I know too. They were ironically good old days and you were very small then."
He looked at Mr. Fluffy, his spit, rolling down his armor, "Man, you sure grew up fast in six months I guess." Northern smiled as he addressed the white varmint.
Then their beautiful moment was suddenly interrupted by a loud guttural cry.
"DAAAAAARRRRRKKKK TEEERRRRROOOOORR!!!!!"
Northern raised a brow and looked around, as black birds fluttered off the forest immediately the cry reverberated in it.
"What's this? What's going on?" His brows creased into a frown.
He turned to Mr. Fluffy and his clone.
"You guys stay here... I'll go check what exactly could be wrong."
He shot forward like a loosed arrow, swiftly traveling through the forest — towards the mansion.
But instead of going straight, he ran around the forest. If he was in the front of the mansion, where the voice had come from was the back.
The mansion was situated in the middle of the forest, Northern instead of running straight through decided to run around the forest.
It was an instantaneous decision for two reasons.
First reason was that, even though he could tell where the voice had come from, it was vague.
Maybe the distance was too far for him to read the flow of chaos that weaved the soul of that person or the ability was not just accurate... it could be that not all souls are weaved by these strings of chaos.
Second reason was he wanted to also see if he had missed any monsters, it was an opportunity to clean out the crumbs he could have missed.
'One cannot afford to overlook these things.'