NOVEL NEXT B2 | Intermission 1
The Dark Forest
Year 820 | Month 5 | Day 2
The quiet chirping sound of the night fill the Dark Forest as cicadas and various types of birds’ chirp. And just like every other night in the Dark Forest, the wraiths gradually move through the night, heading towards any sounds and instantly silencing them by frightening off the creatures making them.
But in one cave within the Dark Forest, a creature rests, indifferent to the weaker wraiths outside of the cave.
This creature is one dubbed Thrix 2 by the great and all-powerful Wrath. His master who had so graciously left him to train in the Dark Forest.
Thrix 2 has been fighting against the monsters in the Dark Forest for longer than it can remember. Ever since his master had to leave him.
Even with his meager intellect, the beautiful creature whose form is that of a large creature with two long, stick-like legs connected to webbed feet, with a mostly bird-like body attached to two featherless wings and a short neck understands just what his master meant for him when she left him behind. She meant for him to train in the Dark Forest until she returned.
He knows with absolute certainty that she did not abandon him. That she will be back.
And now, as he wakes up once more to another night in the Dark Forest, he stands tall on his webbed feet, his glowing yellow eyes beaming in the moonlight entering the cave and walks over to the cave’s entrance where the old barrier is still located. The barrier he had lived in with his master, Wrath.
The moment he steps through the barrier, he runs into a wraith. But the wraith doesn’t last long against his overwhelming power, instantly finding its body becoming naught but stone at the hockathrix’s gaze.
Because the hockathrix has grown over the time he’s spent in the Dark Forest. He has become Tier 2 and is proud of it.
Finally, he believes he is strong enough to stand at his master’s side.
He just hopes she’ll come back soon to pick him up.
But he doesn’t let those meaningless thoughts cloud his feeble and sorely lacking intelligence that he personally believes to be incredible. Instead, he marches on through the Dark Forest, turning any monsters he finds to stone along the way.
All while avoiding the locations with Tier 3 monsters within the Dark Forest. Not because he’s frightened of them, of course, but because it’s their territory. And he’s just polite.
It has nothing to do with their ability to tear him apart.
Thrix 2 keeps his head held high as he continues turning monsters to stone, only to pause when he feels a sensation coming from the direction that his master had originally left the forest through. A familiar sensation that he can only barely sense through the bond he and his master had forged.
One that tells him his master is back on the continent again.
The incredible hockathrix was worried when he sensed his master leave the continent. But now that she’s back he believes without a shadow of a doubt that she’ll be returning to him soon.
So he waits. And waits. And after half the day of waiting realizes that the sensation isn’t moving any closer to him from the other end of the continent.
But instead of despairing, he just comes to the conclusion that she must be busy with something.
His terrifying master would never forget about him. Therefore, she must be doing something important right now and cannot return.
So the great hockathrix must simply wait for her return.
Out of nowhere a large abomination whose level reaches Tier 3 suddenly jumps out of the bushes, making Thrix 2 jump backwards with a honk of fright before running away as fast as his stubbly legs will carry him.
A tactical retreat. He’s convinced that he must merely retreat and leave the abomination alive now so that he can take him on later, after the abomination has had its fill of the creatures around it that it’s targeting instead of him.
Thrix just doesn’t feel like dealing with it as he runs away, honking in fear with tears flowing down from his glowing yellow eyes from the terror of the abomination.
He still manages to convince himself that he’s just giving the abomination face.
Because he’s the great servant of Wrath herself. He could never lose to a mere Tier 3 abomination. It’s just not in his nature.
He continues running while honking without pause until he reaches the solitude of his master’s cave once more.
The great Thrix pants in exhaustion after stopping in his cave, blissfully ignoring the sounds of the abomination slowly crawling after him now that it’s dealt with the other monsters near it. Because his master’s great barrier will block all dishonorable entry into his abode.
After all, that is what his second teacher who is friends with his master told him. And anyone who is friends with his master is almost a master themselves. They’d have to be to be on equal footing enough with his master to be called a friend.
Of course, the hockathrix was skeptical of the human’s words at first, but then the human proved to be the original creator of the barrier soon after appearing through a portal. So he quickly grew to trust in the words the human taught him.
And ever since then, Thrix 2 has been waiting patiently for his beloved master’s return.
Ever so patiently.
The abomination reaches the cave and starts slamming into the barrier to no avail, making the cavern walls shake slightly and knocking down dust in the process.
Ever so patiently patient. As all hockathrixes should be.
Because nothing in the Dark Forest can frighten a servant of the great and almighty Wrath.
Thrix feels pride at those thoughts as he cowers in the corner of the cave.
Still patiently waiting for his master’s return.