60 Bull Serpent

Savyrran glanced at the gray time monitor on her wrist. Three hours. Only three hours of the time was gone. Within the last three hours, many of the applicants had reluctantly formed teams so as to make the hunt for the cores easier. In fact, one boy had asked Savyrran to join their team, however, Savyrran had politely declined.

Thus, she was all alone now that all the applicants had dispersed into the length and breadth of the vast forest.

The forest was green through and through, as far as the eye could reach. The trees were incredibly tall, as though reaching to the skies, and they were very well spaced. In spite of how high the trees were, and the shade they provided, the rays of the sun still managed to filter through and light up the forest.

Savyrran stooped in her tracks, completely lost. Her sense of direction was nothing to write home about, how was she supposed to traverse in a giant maze like this one? On top of it too, she had to find soul beasts to hunt. Where was she supposed to start from?

Savyrran understood that all soul beasts contained cores within them. The core, which came in different shapes and sizes, contained the soul energy of any soul beast. To extract the soul energy of a soul beast, one needed to remove the core first. It was quite easy to get access to the cores of common class soul beasts, because they were relatively weaker and more abundant. However, those from rare class and legendary class soul beasts were quite hard to get, thus, they could fetch a huge sum of money when sold.

Savyrran had never fought any soul beast before. However, since she had fought a beast-type soul armos before, she had a rough idea of what it was like to fight a soul a beast. But of course, that blood flame tiger she had fought about ten years ago was merely a common class soul armos. This trial was something much more.

"Are they even sure there are any soul beasts in this forest?" She said to herself. Ever since she started walking, she had not met any living being. How large was the forest that she had not even come across a single applicant yet?

After walking for several hours, the sun began to set and the forest grew darker.

"Maybe I should find somewhere to rest for the night." Savyrran said to herself.

She heard a rushing of many waters in the distance and when she got closer to the sound, she saw that it was a waterfall.

"Wow…." She breathed, her eyes taking in the full length of the high waterfall. Savyrran caught sight of a cave close to the waterfall. A smile grew on her face when she thought about finally finding a resting place for the evening.

But before Savyrran could even enter the cave, a thunderous roar followed by a piercing scream tore through the dark cool night. Savyrran suddenly stopped in her tracks the moment she heard the scream. The first roar definitely belonged to a beast while the second one sounded like a person. It was as though whoever was screaming had seen the face of evil itself. Though Savyrran had not been frightened by the noise, its suddenness had startled her.

"It's coming from the cave."

As the words came out of her mouth, she found herself entering the cave, however, it was so dark that she could not move past beyond its entrance. Savyrran breathed in slowly as she thought of what to do next. She couldn't just blindly walk into a dark cave. Who knew what kind of traps were inside. But at the same time, she could not bring herself to leave either, after all, there must be someone in there who needed help.

In that instant she remembered something, bringing a smile to her face. Slowly, she rubbed her own space ring, and after a few seconds of casting her consciousness within the ring, a small lantern appeared in Savyrran's hand. She pressed a button on the lantern and then a bright white light flooded the cave.

Savyrran closed her eyes briefly in order to adjust her eyes to the abrupt illumination. With the cave illuminated, she could now see everything clearly. It seemed the place was empty, however, she did not for a second lose her guard. Though she could not sense any soul energy within the cave, she knew there was someone or something in here.

There were several white crystals scattered in a deliberate manner across the floor of the cave.

Light crystals. Savyrran thought. She had been wondering how the academy had been recording the trials. Of course, they had been using the light crystals to do it. It seemed that at this very moment, there were people watching her every move back in the academy. For a while, Savyrran wished Ovandarrak was watching her trials too.

Hssssssssss….

A high pitched hissing sound snapped her back into reality. Then there was a low growl.

"What is happening here?" Savyrran whispered to herself.

Following the sound, she soon came across a shocking spectacle.

Savyrran raised the lantern in front of her so as to make sure that her eyes were not playing any tricks of her. No, they really weren't. There was actually a large serpent, as thick as a person and as long as… Savyrran was not sure how long it was, since the serpent had coiled itself multiple times over. However, its thick black body, with two long horns on its head, was at a fully erect position. The high pitch hiss reverberated throughout the cave, giving Savyrran the chance to see the serpent's long white fangs.

But the serpent had not noticed Savyrran's presence. Instead, its deep black eyes were fixated on a huge brown bear with orange eyes lying over someone as though shielding the person from the giant snake.

In one swift motion, the bear jumped towards the serpent, and with its large paws, smacked the large head of the serpent into the wall. But the serpent seemed to have the upper hand because it recovered quickly and then sank its long fangs into the neck of the bear.

A thunderous roar echoed throughout the cave, almost shaking the ground itself. But not only did the bear scream, the person lying on the floor screamed with terror and then began to spasm on the ground. The serpent used its long thick tail to whip the bear into the air until it crashed right back into the wall several steps back. The bear disintegrated into tiny orange specks until it was no more.

As Savyrran saw what was going on, she suddenly realised that the bear was the soul armos of the person lying on the ground. No wonder it had been trying to protect its master. That must mean that that serpent was a soul beast. She was about to get her very first core; how lucky she was.

But first things first, she needed to help the person, else that soul beast would definitely kill him.

Hssssssssss…

The giant serpent flung its thick tail towards the weak child on the ground. The tail came crashing down at the very place the child was. However, once the serpent lifted its tail, there was nothing in sight. There was no blood even to at least show that the child had been crushed into bits.

"Looking for this." Savyrran said loudly, gaining the attention of the horned serpent for the first time. She was holding the teenage boy in her strong arms like he weighed nothing at all. The lantern was standing right by Savyrran's feet.

"Wh…what are y… you… doing…?" The boy whispered weakly. His eyes were a pale orange and there were deep wounds all over his body.

"Shhh…." Savyrran whispered, not for a second taking her eyes off the giant horned serpent.

"No… Pl…please…go. Ju…just…go. You…will die."

A yellow halo slowly grew around the blackness of the serpent's eyes until its eyes looked like a black ring embedded within a yellow ring.

Hssssssssss…

The high pitch hissing, ten times even more terrifying than the first, echoed throughout the cave.

Though she could not sense the soul energy of the soul beast, Savyrran instinctively knew that the serpent was about to use its full strength.

Quickly, but gently, she put the boy behind her, from harm's way. Then after subtly rubbing her space ring, Badisk appeared in her right hand.

The snake bared its fangs and then lunged its thick body towards Savyrran.

A grin widened on Savyrran's face. "You seem mad about something, little snake."

Hssssssssss…

How much she had missed swinging her dear sword. After so long, she was finally having a taste of a real fight. Hopefully, this giant serpent proved to be a formidable opponent.

Before the serpent could reach Savyrran, the girl had already disappeared from her position and instead, was speeding towards the snake. Clutching her black sword with nimble strength, she swung it in one swift motion at the snake's head the instant she appeared before it.

It was a silent painless death for the serpent since not a single sound escaped from it giant head as it rolled over the ground. Savyrran sped out of the way before the endless gushing of thick blood could spray her.

This was not fun at all, she thought. For a second, she had hoped this fight would be glorious, instead, it had not even lasted a minute. How disappointing. Was this snake that weak then?

"Hey… stay with me. I will get you help." Savyrran said when she got to the boy lying on the ground.

The boy weakly grabbed onto Savyrran's hand. "No… It… It's fine. I… I'm go…ing… to die… Bull… ser…pent… poi…son… ."

Suddenly, a yellow light appeared in the very place the bull serpent had died. Once the light disappeared, the bull serpent and the blood disappeared too. It was like nothing had even been there in the first place. Then a yellow palm sized gem fell out of nowhere, rolling over to where the two children were.

"Ta..ke… it. The c..ore. An…And take… this…" The boy lifted his ring finger. There was a silver ring on it. Savyrran recognised it as the rings they had been given for the trials to store their cores.

"I can't do that. Let's go, I will find a way to get you out of this forest. You need help."

"No…no…" A loud scream escaped from the boy and then he began to tremble violently as he tightly held on to Savyrran's hand. Tears flowed down his face freely, and his orange pupils dimmed until they became brown.

Savyrran clenched her fist as she helplessly watched the boy writhe in pain.

"Pl…please… kill me. Please. Pl..please… Kill me. Th… The pain… t…too… much.. please." Blood oozed out of the boy's nose and eyes, as he pleaded with Savyrran.

Savyrran felt a tight painful tug in her chest. It wasn't that she was physically in pain, but she could not explain it either. Watching the boy suffer was too painful to watch, and for a moment, she considered his wish. Maybe, the only way she could help was to end his suffering. It was a long way away from the academy, and every minute she wasted taking the boy back to the academy was another minute the boy suffered. From all the blood he was losing, it did not seem he could make it either.

Also, clearly, the serpent had damaged the boy's soul armos by the way it had attacked the bear. She was totally helpless in this situation. Had Ovandarrak been here, he would have at least known how to treat the poison and reduce the boy's pain.

So she did the only thing she could. She gently held the boy's head, and then calmly soothed him. "It's okay. It's all going to end now. Shhh…"

Then in one clean movement, Savyrran snapped the boy's neck and everything was still.

"Rest in peace." She whispered as she closed the boy's eyes. Savyrran sat back on the ground, a wave of guilt washing over her. Maybe if she had come earlier, the boy would still be alive. Slowly, she took the yellow core. A yellow core… which meant that that giant snake only had yellow soul energy. No wonder it was so weak. She put the core in her trial space ring. At first, she had thought against taking the boy's space ring too, but when she remembered that he had offered it himself, she finally decided to take it.

Inside, she removed five other cores, all of which were from common class soul beasts. With the yellow core, she now had six common class cores. How was it that she had never even met a single soul beast? It was almost like all the soul beasts were hiding from her or something.

Finally seating back down, she closed her eyes and then leaned back on the wall. The exhaustion she had incurred from the day began to creep into her body and soon she fell asleep.