It's boring!

"Did you manage to free yourself?" Liam's tone was nothing sort of friendly. Instead, he sounded pissed off.

"Not yet, but we are getting closer to it." the both of them said, trying to explain themselves.

"Okay, rest here and then get going. The Purple Runners have been dealt with, so you should be safe for the moment," the command in his tone left no room for argument, and neither did they want to.

"Thank you, sir," they were truly thankful for being alive.

"You, sit down! I need to check something," he pointed to the wet girl. Well, the woman behind the twins as she was older than him.

"W-why?" She stammers, as no other person had talked to her so disrespectfully.

Liam closed his eyes and took a few slow breaths, trying to stay calm.

"To check if my intuition was right and see if you have a natural-born core, or is it made?"

"Na-natural b-born core? What is that?" the question marks were practically jumping one every part of her.

"You should feel its presence when I check. Now sit down!" He ordered, losing his patience.

She plopped down the next moment as the tone Liam had used just now left no room for arguments. Her father had such a tone. He used it a lot when he was tired and needed something done.

But right now, when she looked at the man in front of him. She could see that he was having a problem staying calm. So she better do as he said, better not anger a person she wanted to get to know better.

'Something must have happened,' she realized that the children were gone, and he was very agitated for some reason.

She and the twins saw something was wrong. They noticed a few other things, but they didn't say anything. They thought that it wasn't the time for that.

Fearing that he might explode if they delayed him any longer.

Liam sat down in front of the woman. He closed his eyes to calm down. Nothing good ever came from being too agitated.

He focused on the energy inside him. Soon, Liam opened his eyes and looked at the woman in front of him like he was examining every bit of her. Like he was looking for a flaw in the system. She was having a hard time staying calm or even staying still. A blush was forming on her lovely face as he could see the man's face with his hood a little higher than before, and he looked unbelievably handsome.

"What is your name?" He asked the question calmly.

"Willa deSculby."

"Well, Willa, this won't hurt but focus and feel," he said right before placing one hand on her head and the other on her stomach.

She was so stunned that her name had prompted no reaction, and when he placed his hands on her, she was still out of it. The bush had vanished instantly and returned at full force when she understood that his bare hand touching her.

Despite that, she focused and began feeling something new in her body. Something seemed to be reacting to whatever he was doing.

'What are these and … what the hell is that?'

She could feel some kind of channel or channels carrying some sort of energy. She wasn't quite sure what she felt, but it brought the energy to a round thing inside her.

"Yes, you seemed to be worth the time I just lost to saving you," he said and got up. "Rest up and meet me at Palmo. I'll be staying in a similar place under the name of Liam. If possible, keep them as your guards and don't tell anyone what you just felt," he listed off his instructions, neared the river, formed a symbol in the air, and made it move into the water. After that, he repeated to all of them, "You didn't see me do anything!"

After that, he left the clearing. Leaving them all in a state where they couldn't even utter a word. They were all dazed, but Willa managed to form a question.

"You didn't tell me you were going after him."

"We didn't believe that we could catch up to him," they answered without thinking.

"Why did you call him Master?"

"We want to serve him and hope to learn what we can from him."

"That is similar to what I want from him." she realized in wonder.

"Well, it looks like you seem to have something that he is interested in."

"It seems so," she said, dazed, recalling what he had said. "He seems to want you too."

It took them an hour to recover from what had just happened. An hour later, they managed to get ready to move out but discovered that the sun was coming up. Opting to stay on that clearing for the Daylight Dreams.

The next day they found themselves in a weird sort of pickle.

Willa was being stared down by a giant snake, with large spikes and needles covering its scales.

'What is happening now?'

Nio had returned from his task. He found Liam and the others all gone. There were three new two-legged beings in the clearing. They all had the scent of Liam on them. One seemed to be one of those with a core. Nio was curious about the creature but was more interested in where Liam had gone. He couldn't sense him anywhere nearby. He checked; Biff was still in the water.

'How long will he take?'

He wasn't good with finding answers or looking for them. He preferred when someone just gave them to him. The only one with answers could only be Biff as if he could ask the humans. So he curled up and waited for him to wake up. It was nearing the next sunrise when Biff woke.

Willa and the twins thought the giant monster to be sleeping and quietly sneaked off.

Nio watched their journey. He didn't sleep. For some reason, he felt anxious about things. It was the first time he couldn't sleep. This was a freaking novelty to him.

Biff woke and received the message Liam had left for him. A tentacle shot out of the water finding only Nio on the shore.

"You seem to have gotten something good?" He asked, noticing that something in Nio had changed.

"Yes, but what did Liam say before he left?"

"Ah, that! I was supposed to stay close to the three people on the river bank while he goes on a killing spree."

"A killing spree?"

"Some group of humans seems to have taken Haru and the humans," he explained, unable to believe it himself.

"How did the humans manage to get Haru? She is like us," Nio scoffed at his words.

"I don't know. So, what humans am I supposed to watch over?"

"Maybe the ones that left when they woke up yesterday?"

"Where did they go? Down the river?"

"Obviously. They smelled of Liam, so they must have followed him, in their 'human' pace." exaggerating the word human as he thought of them as being abominably slow creatures.

"So, let's start heading slowly down the river as well. It's boring here." Biff suggested.

"I like boring. What's wrong with boring?" Nio tried arguing with him.

"It's boring," he said as it was obvious.

They started their journey bickering with each other.