Chapter 53

Ash had hunted in the forest near his village with his dad many times, although they were hunting small game like a dear only, still, he had learned how to stay hidden while moving, treating the large rocks as trees he was going from one to other staying in the shadows. He had to abandon his trolodyte because that would put him too high and easy to spot. But he didn't want to lose the speed, at his normal speed it would take weeks to see the whole canyon, but then he had an idea that had been in his mind for a while, he focused some mana on his feet and onto the shoes, soon little sparks started coming from them and when he moved he was much faster instantaneously, it wasn't easy to adjust with the new speed and dynamics, he wasn't exactly running now, more like jumping from place to place fast. He was headed straight in one direction he wanted to get a feel of the whole place, he wanted to know what was beyond these cracks before he was attacked by a goblin.

The goblins were in underground caves, he saw the entrances to these caves from time to time but didn't stay to look, soon they started getting lesser and lesser in numbers until the terrain changed slightly, the rocks were finally getting smaller, and the air a bit hotter.

The cracky terrain was turning more softer although still white in color. When he came out of the canyons he found himself in a barren land with broken earth all around and i the horizon the sun was blazing hot, it looked like the sun was intentionally blasting its heat on a particular part of the earth. He could see great big sand dunes from his position, and they extended to wherever he looked. The burnt lands, what once was a very prosperous city and now it was just a desert.

But if the stories were true that nobody, neither man nor monster could survive in the burnt lands then where did the goblins come from? Were they always there?

"Have you seen enough?" Maya's head appeared without her body from a shadow and she asked looking around.

"Yeah let's go back, " he said and turned but then spotted something on the far horizon.

"Wait! I think I see something there, " he said.

"You probably just see the ruined castle, " said Maya.

"What there are still ruins here? I thought everyone was gone, " said Ash.

"Yes there are ruins, how else would they know there was a city here once?" she said.

"I want to go there, " said Ash.

"In your dreams, you take one step on that and it will swallow you whole, you have no idea the kind of things that sleep under there, people have gone crazy just staring too long at it, let's deal with this goblin problem first and then we can think of risking our lives some other way, " she said.

Ash took one last look at the ruins in the far, they seemed to be calling him somehow.

On the way back, as the sun had started setting, the temperature had started going down too, the canyons didn't get much light through any way they were like a very dense jingle of rocks. Halfway through Ssh heard something that made him stop in his tracks and hide behind a rock.

"A small party of goblins coming this way, just stay hidden, they aren't many but they have a shaman among them, " whispered Maya out of the shadows. Ash was too curious to see a goblin shaman for the first time so he stayed there looking through a crack behind a large rock.

First, the goblins appeared scurrying around like rats but then a much normal normal-sounding voice came behind them giving them orders, the language sounded very normal but he just couldn't make sense of the words. And then the shaman appeared, the shaman was very different from a goblin, just one look told Ash that this wasn't an idiot beast but an intelligent creature, he had proper clothes on, a grey rob, several necklaces and rings on him of bones and shells, a wooden cane whose wood was twisting and turning very unnaturally. The shaman looked like a human mage, only he had green skin and big fangs like a hobgoblin, it looked like the shaman was trying to look like a human mage he even had a long beard. He kept shouting orders at his goblins and they were completely frightened of him.

That's when Ash noticed something peculiar, a red colored ring on the shaman's finger, it was very different than the rest of his stuff, and it looked elven-made, he remembered very well the curvy and graceful design of Aria's sword and other elven thi gs he had seen so far, the ring was elven, maybe he had taken it off a dead soldier in the battlefield, only something seemed familiar to him about it. He tried to move closer to get a better look at it but ended up stepping on a loose rock and lost his balance fell down with a loud thud out of the cover of the rock right in front of all the goblins. There was a moment of shock as both parties looked at each other and then the goblins cried their sheer high-pitched cries and the shaman pointed at him and shouted something.

Ash got up on his feet quickly as the goblins swarmed over him, he pushed more mana into his legs and jumped straight up ten feet from where he was standing just in time. The goblins turned around they weren't even able to see with his speed where he had gone. They were looking around in the shadows and Ash saw that one by one they started falling down as Maya from the shadows took care of them. Maya was using a poison-tipped blade, a slight knick was enough to cause instant paralysis and then eventual death. 

The shaman wasn't standing still now, he had started chanting a spell, and extending his hand outwards a green smoke started appearing from it, the smoke grew thicker and when it vanished there was a big furry wolf-like four-legged creature growling at Ash. It jumped to meet Ash in mid-air, Ash used to sword to stop its fangs but its claws still managed to scrape his shoulders and arms. They both came down with the impact, Ash didn't wait for long and took on one of the advanced forms Sasha had taught him, he wasn't sure how effective it would be against an animal though. The wolf plunged for him once again, Ash slid sideways and slashed at the wolf's sides with his sword, and he added his mana into the sword, he was going to call it the lightning blade from now on. The lightning blade was much more effective and faster than a normal blade, it didn't just cut the wolf but shocked and burnt him too. The deep and long wound on its side was still sizzling with sparks as the wolf cried like a small dog and didn't stand up again.