ENDLESS MYTH : Surpassing The Gods.

The roar was soon followed by other roars less powerful but still intimidating. Sol was surprised, by using his senses, he barely managed to feel a large congregation of power ahead to them, where the pack of the nightmare they have previously seen and baited had made their nest.

"[FARSIGHT]",

 After murmuring those world, the red eyes of Sol began to glow. The world around him began to advance at a rapid pace. What he was seeing now wasn't the large around him, but a clear zone where three young men where fighting a group of beasts.

Well, fighting was a big word. It was better to say that the beasts were playing around with them. The three were rather weak, only one of them was at the hero rank and from how things seemed they wouldn't last long. Some of them were already bleeding large amounts of blood. Opposite to them were four of the eight heroes ranked he felt back then accompanied by fifteen trainee rank.

After observing a little and being sure that it wasn't some kind of trap, he took back his sight and the view around him became normal. While he was observing, Feng and Alex were waiting. They already know that he was the best scout out of the three of them.

"So, what did you see ?" asked Feng Huan after he saw that the eyes of Sol had stopped glowing.

Sol explained clearly what he saw and his deduction to them. Once he finished The other stayed a little silent. Finally, Sol said.

 "We have two choices. Either we use them or we save them". 

"what are we waiting for? We must go save them" the one who spoke with urgency was Alex. 

"wait, let me explain things clearly", Sol added before she went out. 

Frankly, Sol was of a mind to simply use them. The fewer candidates there were, the more points could be collected. What more they could take the badges of those three and boost their own points. On the other hand, saving them could mean potential ally, but such an alliance would be weak and fragile at best.

 The world was a cold place. In heroic tales, saving someone once would immediately give you their most undying loyalty. In real life, however, even if you saved someone and all his family, he could still stab you in the back without remorse if he received enough benefits to do so while forgetting all the good you did to him. 

Sol refused to gamble on the true nature of people he never meets. He didn't even trust his own teammates. He only trusted the fact that they would fight for their best interests.  He trusted few people, he only trusted four people.

Sol gave his own analysis of things to Feng Huan and Alex (of course minus the part about him not trusting them. )

"I say that we must save them. Even though they have a talisman, such a thing can never fully be trusted."

 Alex was still urgently talking, then she turned her face to Sol and added, "Sol, didn't you say that noble fought for the greater good. Why are you still hesitating ?"

(so this is the feeling of someone shooting his own foot) 

Sol was a little bitter. Still, he was rational. Right now he had no choice than to go save them. The link of their group was too new. If he refused her now, not only she might not listen to him, but even if she listened to him their future interactions would be extremely strained. 

He now turned his attention to Feng Huan who had stayed strangely silent. "Feng Huan, what do you think ?"

"I think that we have no need to choose, we can let them fight to their best and diminish the number, then once they will be on the verge of losing we save them and after that, we steal their personal badges". 

Sol was a little stunned. (what a devious guy) . It's not like he didn't think of such a plan. But doing so would let too many loose ends to deal with. Still, this plan seemed the best one. So he finally said.

"Okay guy, let go, we have people to save" 

As soon as he finished, a gust of wind went past him. It was Alex, she was running on the wind and was climbing higher and higher. This ability was an inherent one of all the dragons. 

Soon, a second gust of wind, this time a little hotter went past him. It was Feng Huan, he wasn't running, he was truly flying, wing made out of fire were blazing on his back.

Sol looked at the two of them and sighed. Strictly speaking, Hydra was also a dragon. A powerful one at that. So Sol could also fly like them. This kind of ability was so innate that there wasn't even a need to put them on his system. Still, he didn't. He knew nothing of the guys they were going to save. In order to save them, they will have to fight. Fighting means showing to future enemies most of their power. The fact that he could fly could serve a powerful Ace in the future. 

Still, even though he didn't fly, Sol wasn't that much slower than the other two. A forest was hell for most fighter, but the forest was truly a paradise for someone like him. 

As he took a step, the wind around him began to greatly distort. Time seemed to come to a crawl around him. As he took the second step, he was already many meters ahead, after a third step he was gone from where they were planning to put a camp. Still, just as he was about to completely disappear, he turned back once and looked at a specific zone before continuing. 

----------

A young woman appeared a few meters from where the team of Sol previously stood. She wore a green tunic and her hairs were wild and undone and on her hands was a black bow.

She was Artemis Sagittarius, one of the nobles who participated in this test. She looked at the direction where they went with a peculiar light in her eyes. She had heard from the crab girl that the fourth noble on this test was the [FALLEN STAR]. From the rumors, he became completely crippled, and could barely use any form of power. Some rumors even said that he lost all his blessing and only retained the use of aether. Still, from what she saw, rumors should really never be trusted.

She didn't know how strong he was right now, but she wouldn't belittle him like the crab girl seems to be doing. A true hunter never underestimates his prey. 

Artemis turned her back and went to rejoin her team. Even though she was surprised, it didn't matter. Prey would always be prey. No matter how strong he is, she would hunt him down before the end of the test.

"[STEALF]"  as soon that she said that word, she disappeared as mysteriously as she appeared. 

-------------

Sol was running closely behind Feng and Alex. As he runs, he thought about the feeling of the danger he had. It feels like something was locking on him. This feeling didn't last long, but he still felt it. He didn't know who made him feel this way, but that person was dangerous.

He cast aside that thought once he saw his two teammates slowing down and landing not too far from the battlefield. It didn't take him long to reach them. After stopping next to Alex he asked her. 

"So, how is it going ?" 

He didn't really care, but he at least hoped that the opposite team managed to kill one or two of the hero rank nightmares or at least cull the numbers of beast. Still, as he observed the fight he was left a little disappointed. The result was extremely bad. They had only managed to kill five of the fifteen trainees.

"It seems like it will be as far as they can go." was all Feng Huan remarked.

Sol looked at the two of them. He saw clearly that despite his laid back attitude, Feng Huan was a little worried. The reason Sol said that his plan was devious was that today was only the first day. Even if they were robbed of their points today, they could still earn later. So all in all Feng Huan mainly wanted to save them but didn't want to go against Sol.

"Sigh!! Let's go. Anyway, after killing those beasts, we will get a sizable amount of points. Let the hero monsters to me and fight against the trainee with the other teams"

After saying that he began to walk without paying head to them. 

------

The hero ranked the members of the team was huffing hard, the air didn't enter properly, he feels like he would be collapsing any time soon. He was reaching his limit 'To think that we would be eliminated so soon'.

He couldn't believe how unlucky they were. This morning, they managed to hunt a few errands beast and were on cloud nine. Since he was the strongest, he was chosen as their captain. Everything was going well until they intruded a beast nest. 

He didn't know why, but those beasts seemed extremely enraged and sent a large pack to kill them. He really didn't understand, they didn't even launch an attack. Why would they want to destroy the three of them off so much. 

As he observed the situation around him, he couldn't help but feel despair. Even though they managed to kill some beast, it was truly far from enough and only managed to enrage them more. He began to think if they should simply give up. 

Stuck to his neck was the talisman given by the school, he didn't even need to move to tears it. After all, you never knew what would happen. Some enemies were too fast to respond to. So an emergency measure who needed movement wouldn't even be activated most of the time since in a life of death situation any useless movements mean instant death. As such the talisman was built in a way that simply wishing for it to tear would suffice.

(Shit, why? I'm so unwilling) . 

He was hesitating, he felt like crying. He knew that if he persisted, it would only lead to death, but given up now would make him lose all hope. There no second chance. If he failed he would have to find a second class academy or sell himself to some organization.

" Fabrice, I'm sorry. Arghh!! " 

One of his teammates screamed as he was struck by the paw of a nightmare. Before he was bitten to death though, a blue shield with the form of suddenly came around him, and with a flash, he was gone. It was clear that he used his talisman in order to escape. 

This brought him back to reality. This wasn't just his life he was betting. The two behind him only meet today, there no way they were going to die with him. The second one behind him seemed to hesitate. Seeing this, he made a decision, losing one already made the situation impossible. 

" Shit.., let forfeit" just as he was about to make his mind.

*BOOOOMMMM*

A large fireball exploded between him and the nightmares. The heat rushed to his face making him choke a little while the light nearly blinded him.

 When he finally managed to open his eyes, he was totally flabbergasted. he saw two people in front of him. A young s.e.xy woman and chubby guy. The fact that the two of them were floating was already surprising enough, but what really shocked him was that in front of him a large crater was made. Out of the ten beasts who were playing with his team, four were already killed and the six others were gravely wounded.

Fabrice was extremely happy, but his happiness didn't last long when he remembered that there four other beasts even more dangerous. So he screamed. 

"Thanks!!! But we should run, we should use their confusion to get the hell out of here."

They didn't seem to hear him. The young woman took a step and began to walk in the air as he advanced toward the remaining beasts.

"Fatty, if we add the one you killed now that means you already killed six beasts. Let those six to me" Her voice was a little rushed.

"Are you sure you can handle six of them at the same time?" The guy, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned.

"I can, arghh !!! he pissed me off so much. Let him deal with the last four since he wanted to do it so much. If he fails we will at least be able to mock him later." The chubby one just shrugged. 

"[PURPLE LOTUS: THOUSANDS THRUST]", 

Purple flames suddenly appeared on the gloves of the woman, they grew and took the form of a large spear. Fabrice felt something weird. Firstly, the four beasts should have already come from where they were after seeing the situation. Secondly, after the woman used her flames, the heat didn't increase but on the contrary, began to decrease rapidly. The aura around the girl began to take a purple hue. As he was staring at her, it felt like he was seeing a majestic and power primordial beast. He almost felt as if he was unworthy of seeing her figure. 

Still what was happening in front of him was too beautiful. A rain of cold fire fell from above like divine punishment. Each thrust from the spear would have been enough to gravely wound him. The rain didn't even last ten seconds. When it ended all that was left was the corpses of the beasts filled with so many holes it was frightening. The beast weren't even able to put any forms of defense against such an onslaught. 

"Truly a barbaric woman. You said that you would take your time, but you went all out from the beginning. You must be really worried about Sol." the chubby one, as if totally immune just smiled and said sarcastically.

"Shut up", Was all she could answer with a light blush on her dark skin. Then as if she remembered their existence, she turned her head toward us with a face full of concerns. " Are you alright? Sorry that we couldn't come sooner, you lost a teammate."

Fabrice was once again surprised. If someone told him that such a kind girl could emanate the kind of presence she did earlier he would never believe it. 

 Still, he had to answer. "Thank you for saving us". 

So he stood up and bowed a little as he said it. He was really embarrassed but he was also relieved. Even though fighting with one less teammate would be hard, they at least still had some hope. 

"Don't worry, now that we are finished here, we better go help our teammates. What about you guys" 

She answered a little urgently. It was clear that while she was worried about them, her priorities weren't on them.

He felt a little bad. Her teammate was most likely being devoured by the beast as they were speaking. It was impossible that he managed to hold them for so long and had he escaped they would have come here long ago. He didn't even feel the slightest fluctuations of energy signaling a fight, so it must have been pretty one-sided. But he couldn't say that to his savior, so, after sharing a look with his teammates, he said "Please let us follow you for a while"

 She just nodded and added "I'm a Alex and he is Feng. More formal presentations will wait for later. Let go see how he is going". 

As they advanced at a fast pace, they finally reached the clearing where the four heroes ranked beast was supposed to be. But what he saw would mark Fabrice for all his life.

He wasn't wrong when he thought that the fight was one-sided. He also wasn't wrong in not having felt any fluctuations energy.

The only mistake he did was in who would be one on the receiving end. In the clearing, an extremely bloody scene was being drawn. 

One young man, with black hair and glowing red eyes, was hitting a beast with his b.a.r.e fist. The beast was simply whimpering and was completely unable to fight back. it was the last one, the corpses of the other three were already unrecognizable. As they neared him, It didn't take long for the beast to breathe it last.

Fabrice felt a little nauseous. It's wasn't the first time he saw a beast dying, he also killed his fair share of nightmare beast during his training. But it was the first time he saw such a gruesome death. How was it possible to win in a contest of pure strength with a beast? How could a man possess such a powerful physical strength?

If the girl who saved him was a majestic angel, then the one in front of him was a bloody devil coming out of hell. The blood on his fist, the smell of iron in the air, the chunk of flesh on his clothes. Everything was extremely eerie and exacerbated his need to vomit.

As the young man turned around to look at them, he felt his heart nearly stop and had trouble breathing. The eyes who crossed his weren't the eyes of a man but the eyes of a beast. The way he looked at him made him felt true primal fear. Still, this feeling didn't last long, as if losing interest in him, the glow in the eyes of that monster abated and he turned to face his teammates with a smile '.

"Sorry for the delay guys, I wanted to try something."

This smile, on this night, was truly terrifying.

AN : This chapter is the one I should have posted tomorrow so there will be no release on Wednesday. Also what do you think of my new cover picture? Is it better or worse than the old one?