Age of Heroes

Ana was speechless. There is a variety of expression in her heart right now. Relived seeing that he is not dead, but then a new emotion spring inside her.

First it was awe and then came her anger. She really could not believe Arial stupidity…even if he is an unrivaled expert.

Arial smirked

'What? Shocked of my prowess?' He said proudly. 

He is satisfied looking at Ana shocked expression. He has been telling Ana countless of times, that he is an unrivaled expert of martial arts and she would always scoffed.

'I tell you, I'm t-'

'What did you do! Idiot!!' she screamed in disbelief holding her face in shock( for some reason, I think this is wrong. Any one has a better idea?)

'What?' Arial said not understanding. A moment before she grieved his death, now she called him an idiot?

'Are you showing off?!' she said grumpily.

'I know you are an expert but why did you have to destroy the cave.' She said, clearly anger and exasperation mixed into one.

'Ah!' Arial finally realized and was flustered. He did not anticipated that his burst of energy would crumble the cave.

'I…I' he really doesn't know what to say in a situation like this, so he could only stutter and looking at Ana apologetically. 

What should he say? I'm sorry he mused. Like that will work! he scolded himself.

The direwolf beside Ana was growling.

'Now where will we sleep tonight?' The thunder overhead is still thundering and droplets of water began falling.

'Great! Now it's raining!' Ana said, clearly frustrated.

'Fine! Don't be so angry. I will find a new cave.' Arial said clearly dissatisfied. He just got his powers back and now he is being scolded. 

Who dares scold him in Eden! Now he is being scolded by a woman younger than him. 

He closes his eyes and cast out his senses and then he finds an abandoned cave nearby.

'I found one. Follow me' and Arial dash, stepping the grass like he is floating. This is his lightness technique. 

All Conquering Lightness Technique. 

It could be compared to Walking in the Wind lightness technique of the Central Plains martial arts. 

Arial feet did not even touch the ground, instead his feet is only touching the tip of the grass, walking on top of grass, almost like he is floating.

He was fast. In one dash he has already disappeared from Ana sight. Ana jump and ride her direwolf. 

She orders the direwolf.

'Follow him' the direwolf nodded and sniffing it noses, it run through the plains, fast as the wind, rushing through the rain. 

Ana uses her hand to cover up her face from the droplets of rain, stinging like needles, each time, it slammed into her face.

The speed of the direwolf is not that inferior against Arial. 

But Ana, who is not as fast or as strong as these two beasts, could only struggle holding her direwolf fur with her left hand, while her right hand covers her face, praying that she would not fall down.

The wind pressure slamming on her is powerful. 

She is barely holding on until her direwolf stopped suddenly and she is almost thrown out from the direwolf back.

'Hishh' she complained as she dismounted the direwolf.

The rain is still falling and it began to pour more heavily. 

'Here it is.' Arial said, gesturing with his arms, his skins look paler than before, his face was sweating…..gold.

Ana closes her eyes and opens it again and it disappeared. 

'Must be my imagination' she said.

Gold is the blood of immortals and gods. Ichor blood. To mortal eyes, they look like gold but to those Gods and Goddesses, it is their essence, leaking out because of heavy injuries.

In front of her was a huge cave, with green moss on top and even mistletoe on the entrance.

'Mistletoe, huh?' Arial said smiling a bit and chuckles. 

'What about it?�� she said not understanding Arial chuckles as she enters the cave. 

It was dark and gloomy and there is a lot of pebbles but it also spacious than their previous caves. 

A few moss on the left side of the cave but other than that it looks habitable.

'This is good. Very good. Arial, you have done a great deed. You found us this great cave.' she said in a satisfied manner, smiling as wide as possible.

Arial shakes his head in confusion.

Arial of course does not understand how could cave be habitable but he was not the people of the Thirteen Tribes, of course he could not understand. 

His people live inside cottages, houses made of mud for even the lowest of their kind. 

Arial himself in his first timeline lives a pretty comfortable lives, even though his father was a farmer. 

Land is abundant in Alan. 

Unexplored lands and abandoned lands. 

Then in this timeline he becomes an Emperor. He lives in palaces, in castles and villas. Of course he could not understand how Ana could see this cave and is pretty satisfied with it.

'What are you looking at? Come on! Enter and help me clean this place if we were to sleep tonight.' 

Arial nodded. Ana is smiling. For the thirteen Tribes who have to endure hardship, caves are something natural. 

After all their ancestors used to live in caves, before they became nomadic. Then they settle into villages. 

Then as the village got bigger, it turns into cities. 

Opening cities, they were conquered. Then they were liberated. And conquered again. And through all this turbulent times, they lives in caves, tunnels, great jungles with their large trees, plains that as expansive as the sea, and many other places.

They are used to life in the wild. And even though Ana live in the Bastion for almost all of her life, she is a Cassini.

They are warriors. 

They have the blood of warrior in them. One could not deny their blood. She is a Cassini and no matter how gentle she is, her blood is still of a Cassini.

But other than that, it also serves as a place for martial artist or great mage to seclude themselves to train their powers.

Arial on the other hand, is a special case. 

Considering his reserve of internal energy is unbelievably high and that his internal energy technique is pure, he did not have bottleneck in gathering internal energy inside his body.

Arial look at the mistletoe again.

'What?' she said. From the beginning Arial could not help but look at the mistletoe.

'I just remembered a story about the mistletoe in my place.'

'Stories will have to wait after we lit up fires, and make sure this cave has no slithering beast or poisonous insects. And don't forget that this all happen because you are showing off.' Ana said, her hands on her hips.

'I was not showing off!' Arial said defiantly.

'Sure, seems like it.' Ana countered

She walked to her direwolf and unloads the firewood. 

Then she unsheathes her dagger and is preparing to scour the caves but Arial stopped her from going further inside the caves, his eyes look alarmed.

'What are you doing?' Ana ask, as she is being blocked by Arial.

'Let me do this.' Arial said confidently

'It will be faster if we do it together.' She said. Even though Arial is an expert, he did suffer injuries a few days ago. 

Ana could not believe in that short span of time, Arial is fully healed.

'No…it will be faster if I do it alone' and Arial smirked.

'What do you mean? Don't exceed your limit' she reminded.

'You were only recently healed. You should take some rest before employing energy again.' She advises Arial with great concern.

'Don't worry. Just start the fire.' She was hesitating but Arial eyes shows that he is determined. 

'Alright' she said, incredulous but she still listen to Arial. As she turns she heard a thud. 

Arial is sitting cross leg in the entrance of the cave. 

What is he doing? Ana mused. Then Arial closed his eyes and the temperature in the cave dropped terribly low and Ana shivers, she could see the vapors of her breath.

'What is happening?' and then as she said this she could all her hairs stand up in fear. 

Arial is focusing his energy and activated the Third Stage of Heavenly Blood Technique and all the beast inside the cave is shivering and as they shivered, they squirms, and those insects that have eyes, suddenly explodes into a pool of blood. 

A large serpent in the deepest part of the cave suddenly exploded, the centipede beside it squirms and struggle to release itself from some invincible force and it also explodes into pieces, a few parts of its bodies is still squirming even after they exploded. 

A few insects on the ceilings also dropped down, squirm and explode. 

All around the caves, other than Arial, Ana and the direwolf all living things inside it is exploding like fireworks, the caves was stained with red blood and the stench wafted by, until it reaches Ana nose. 

Ana who is very sensitive to smell, could smell the stench of blood and she look in fear at Arial.

This is the man who declared himself as an unrivalled expert. Maybe I should ask him to join me to go to the Adventurer Guild? she mused.

She was about to make light of this situation and tries to joke that Arial is dirtying the cave but then she stopped as she sees, Arial is not yet done with whatever he is doing , as a pool of blood is congealing on the center of the cave. 

All the blood in the cave move to the center, merging with each other. 

In the span of a minute, a pool of blood is formed. All this blood merging with each other, releases a deathly smells, and an intense pressure of death.

The stained blood on the top of the caves also moved by itself and joins the pools. Ana look in shock and increased fear.

What technique did this Arial learn! This is such a fearsome technique. Arial on the other hand using all of his concentration to targets only which he regarded as enemies.

As the pool of blood become bigger and bigger, suddenly it stopped and the pool become still.

There is no more blood in the area to merge with.