Unknown Odyssey

What he saw was a massive boar-like creature with huge canines protruding out of its mouth, munching on a similar monster like itself. Momentarily frozen, he regained control of himself and shifted from the doorway, cold sweat running down his body. He forced himself to calm down and relax. He wanted to entertain the thought of running away, but he had a rethink.

"This place will be filled with monsters of all kinds. Running away won't do me any good if I just run into another one, probably. I can't keep running away... I need to test my abilities. Luckily, this one doesn't look like much trouble," he muttered to himself.

He peeked at the monster, which was still munching on its meal but appeared to be almost done with it. "Good, it seems like it didn't notice me," he thought. Then he observed the entire place, noticing one of the walls was still in good shape and was in a position where an upper section was supposed to be but was apparently destroyed. It still stretched forward with a few pillars supporting it, directly over the monster, with a hole letting the rays of the sun illuminate it. A plan formed in his head.

Sneaking quietly past the doorway to avoid alerting the monster of his presence, he peeked one last time. Seeing the monster was almost done with its meal, he increased his pace to the wall. Getting there, he saw some vines. Tugging on them to see which one was okay for him to use, he climbed one of them, quietly going up the vine. He stepped through one of the windows of the wall, directly landing on the upper section silently. His heart was beating wildly; each step he took could potentially lead him to his death. Forcing himself to calm down, he located the hole directly above the monster below. It was a wide hole, enough for him to fit through with arms outstretched—not that he planned to outstretch them. He looked at the monster with a grim expression, gulping silently. He pulled the scabbard with the knife from his backpack and gently put the backpack down. The monster still hadn't noticed him.

He held the scabbard, hesitating for a moment. He steeled his will to kill the monster. With a look of determination, he pulled the knife out from the scabbard and jumped. Within a split second, the monster raised its head towards him, but it was already too late. As it raised its head, the knife buried into its head, sinking further and further with ease. The monster fell to the ground with a loud bang. Enel twisted the blade again in its head to confirm if it was dead. Feeling no response from the body, he fell down, feeling exhausted. The whole experience and fear had exhausted him thoroughly, even though the kill appeared swift and easy. His mind was on the verge of breaking. Feeling relieved a bit, he thought to himself, *I actually managed to kill it. That was awesome and easy as hell... Wait, that was almost too easy. How did I manage to pull it off?*

Then he looked at the monster and the knife lodged in its head. Pulling it out of the head of the monster, he looked at the eerie eyes of the dead creature. Shivering, he looked away, putting the knife in his view. He studied it and noticed something written on the handle of the knife and also something written on one side of the blade, but it was in a strange language he couldn't understand. The knife had a strange presence, almost like a bright aura that had a chilliness to it. He wanted to wipe the blood off, so he cleaned it on the hide of the monster. Noticing a few cuts on the hide of the monster, he touched and felt it was very hard.

"Woah, note to self: never wipe blood off the blade," he muttered.

Then he tried something. Taking a deep breath, he focused on the knife, straining his eyes. His vision changed, and everything became more detailed, but he was almost blinded by a bright light coming from the knife. Using his hand to block his eyes and slowly adjusting to the light that shone like the sun was right in front of him, he studied the surroundings. He saw the wisps were swirling around the tip and edge of the knife. As he studied the knife further, something caught his attention. The handwriting on the blade finally seemed understandable to him. He felt as if he could make out the meaning of what was written there. It said, "This Blade is given to Julius, only son of Khankri, who successfully slayed the 7 mist terror titan and was given to him by the bright lord of the Enmest empire of the Dagone dynasty, Lord Camrine II."

Experiencing a migraine again and bleeding from his nose, he sat to regain his senses. Remembering what he read, he shuddered. "Dagone dynasty? That is like two thousand years ago," he whispered. Taking shaky breaths, he forced himself to calm down again. *If this is true, it certainly explains a lot. Julius... hell, who hasn't heard of him? If this blade is truly the blade... no, it can't be,* he thought. His mind was on a rampage. *The blade of Julius... there was only one blade gifted to him by the bright lord. If it's this blade,* he thought.

Suddenly, the blade effortlessly piercing through the head of the monster did not seem like such a big deal. It was only bits of what this blade was truly capable of because this was a legendary blade. If he wanted to survive, he would have to cling to this blade like his life depended on it—because it partially did. He knew what the sword was capable of, at least part of the capability that the general public knew, which was its ability to gather aether from the surroundings to reinforce itself. It also had an enchantment that prevented its edge from dulling or going blunt, and it was virtually impossible for it to be destroyed. He also knew how Julius and his crew went down and how the dynasty ended. He knew that the World Eater was responsible for Julius and the bright lord's downfall because they were of the same crew with five others, each with accomplishments and feats that baffled all. But Julius and the bright lord were simply outstanding even among their crew.

This revelation further confirmed one of his suspicions regarding his eyes. He finally figured out what those wisps were—they were aether that is scattered around the world and aether residues. "Then that would mean those gems were aether gems... or rather aether crystals," he muttered. He was convinced that this place was from 2000 years ago at least. Smiling at the knife in front of him, he picked it up, realizing he could see aether in the atmosphere and also aether residue. Though he was confused as to how he gained the ability to see aether, as he was well aware that he didn't possess that ability before, only one thing came to his mind.

"That tree... I don't know what it did to me or if it's good or bad, but for now, it is going to be of great help to me," he said. He had a vague sense that it had other abilities than that, but what he was sure of was that it could see aether and that it strained him mentally. With that, he got to cutting a few pieces of meat from the monster. After cutting a big enough piece, he threw it through the hole above and also threw the knife upwards. The knife simply pegged itself to the wooden floor. Then he held the scabbard in his hands and also jumped up through the hole. He pulled the knife out of the wooden floor and got to cutting the meat into small, sizable parts, hoping to find somewhere where he could probably roast it before it started to rot.

Cutting the meat, he looked at the knife once more and the engravings on it. He saw it was in the same language he couldn't understand. Having another suspicion, he strained his eyes again, seeing as he could read them again. He confirmed it—the eyes also granted him the ability to understand foreign languages, even ones he had never seen or heard in his life. He had three more suspicions to confirm, and he would undoubtedly get the chance to confirm one of them sooner than he thought.

As he was cutting the meat into pieces and stuffing them into a small sack in which he poked small holes to allow air inside, he tied it to his waist. Just as he was about to continue, he felt slight tremors. He stopped moving and felt the ground vibrate more and more, almost like there was an incoming earthquake. He ran outside the building and looked towards where he felt the tremors coming from. Looking towards the direction, he saw the forest in the distance. Though it was tiny due to the distance, he could see the trees shaking. Straining his eyes again, the forest suddenly appeared closer so he could discern what was happening. He saw trees being thrown around violently. Trying to look harder, he saw through the trees, and what he saw made him pale