A Sweet Farewell

I apologize for not releasing a chapter for a few days, I was sick for a while (not the virus that shall not be named) and was unable to release a chapter during that time. Sorry for the wait!

As per Helios's orders, Ray ran along the path at a speed faster than he had ever ran before. He was traveling so fast, in fact, that he couldn't even hear the sound of his feet hitting the ground as he sprinted by.

Ray knew that time wouldn't be the main problem. Ten minutes had passed since the altercation with Ursa, which had taken up 15 minutes, and leaving the village had taken up another 5, meaning that out of 5 hours, he had only used up half of an hour. The journey usually would take him around 2 and a half hours, and there was only one fight remaining due to Helios stopping Ursa, meaning he had 2 hours to fight his last opponent. However, that would only be if he could quickly recover from the backlash of the technique that he had used against Ursa.

Almost on queue, Ray began to feel the immense energy that had previously been circulating throughout his body fade away, as the black markings that had previously been running down the sides of his arms and neck also started to fade. Along with this, the slits in his cheeks changed back to their normally bright-yellow color. Ray felt himself slowing down dramatically, and his ears were serenaded by a multitude of sounds that he had previously been unable to hear due to the speed he had been traveling at.

A sharp pain began to resound throughout his body, but he kept on running, biting on his lip to ignore the pain that was coming from each and every cell in his body. Blood began to trickle down from his lip and into his mouth, filling it with the taste of iron.

"I can't stop now… If I do then I won't be able to become a heaven piercer… Dad always told me about what it was like to stand on top of the world… I wonder if I'll find him at the top of one of the claws..." Said Ray to himself as he kept on running along the path, at roughly one tenth of the speed he had been running at before. Ray spat out towards his side, leaving a moderate amount of blood on the side of the path.

As he ran, Ray began to take deep breaths to dilute the pain. He slowed his pain down momentarily to catch his breath, looking ahead of himself to see that directly in front of him was a massive rainforest which spanned the entire length of his field of vision.

"That's the three quarter mark." Said Ray out loud, taking deep breaths between each word. "I'm almost there. Just you wait, Grandpa."

Ray began to run once again, the pain finally leaving his body, as he entered the rainforest. He looked upwards to the canopy hundreds of meters above, which almost completely blocked the moonlight from above, except for above the path he was running on, which was illuminated by milky-white beams of light peeking through the leafage.

After running for a while, Ray saw a figure standing in the path out in front of him. They were facing away from him, so he couldn't see their face, but Ray still knew exactly who the figure was.

She had long, snow-white hair, which ran down to the middle of her back. Her skin tone was almost the exact same as that of Ray, and she also didn't have the green plant-like skin that common Sunbringers had on their lower arms, meaning that she was a noble Sunbringer. She was also fairly tall, at around 6 feet tall, making her 8 inches taller than Ray was.

Ray slowed down to a walk as he approached the figure, sweat beginning to drip down from his chin onto the ground below. *Grandpa, I didn't think you would actually pit me against her, of all people.* Ray nervously thought to himself.

A red aura suddenly began to swirl around the figure's body, and her hair began to flow around her erratically, almost as if heavy winds were blowing against her.

The figure turned her head to the side, revealing a gleaming set of sapphire eyes glaring directly at Ray, appearing to be purple due to the red aura surrounding her body. Under her eyes were 3 yellow slits, which appeared to be orange due to her aura.

"Hi, mom." Said Ray with a nervous gulp as his mother, Andromeda, turned fully around to face directly towards Ray.

Andromeda began to walk forwards, with her eyebrows still angled downwards in a glare, and Ray felt himself unable to move due to the immense pressure she gave off. He could feel the heat of her glare on his face, which felt as if it was melting off of his skull itself.

Ray tried to speak, but could only let out a stutter as his mother now stood directly before him.

"Ray…" Said Andromeda in an enraged tone, not letting up her glare.

"Mom- I-" Ray found himself able to barely make out a few jumbled words amidst his stuttering, but was unable to form a cohesive sentence.

Ray looked up in horror as his mother brought her open hand upwards, as if she was going to slap Ray.

Ray closed his eyes and braced himself for the pain as Andromeda threw her hand at Ray's face in a slapping motion.

However, Ray found that there wasn't any pain, and he instead felt his mothers soft hands caressing his cheek. He opened his eyes to see tears falling from her eyes just before she pulled him into a hug, pushing his face up against her bosom.

"Ray, if you ever see your father down there, tell him that I miss him. I know this means a lot to you, and I don't want to be the type of mother to deprive their child of their hopes and dreams." Said Andromeda, wiping the tears from her eyes. She broke out of her hug with Ray and gestured towards an opening behind her. "Go on, Ray. Just know that no matter what happens, we will always love you."

Ray opened his mouth to speak, but found himself interrupted by two pairs of footsteps behind him.

"And don't let up on your training, Ray." Said Ursa while rustling Ray's hair with his hand. He brought his mouth towards Ray's ear and began to whisper. "If you do, I'll personally come down there myself and beat the shit out of you."

"Yes sir!" Yelped Ray in a surprised voice.

"The whole thing about the three fights was a lie, Ray." Said Helios from behind. Ray turned around to see Helios smiling.

"Here, take this." Said Helios before handing Ray a green pill.

Ray took the pill and immediately felt all his injuries begin to heal, with a fair bit of pain coming from the gash in his left thigh due to his body healing at such high speeds.

"The entire concept of this trial was that the Grand Chief knew that you would make it to the burial grounds with much time to spare, so he asked us to act as fighters, where only the first of us, being Ursa, would somewhat get into combat with you, in a sense working as a test of courage." Said Helios, taking a deep breath afterwards due to having said this all in a single breath. "However, the Grand Chief also planned a second part to the ceremony specifically for you."

"And that would be…" Asked Ray, expecting an answer.

"You'll find out if you walk about fifteen steps in that direction." Said Helios with a laugh, pointing towards the graveyard entrance, before walking over to Ray, pushing Ursa aside, and rustling Ray's hair with his own hair. Ursa could only watch in shock as this happened, and a depressed expression came upon his face. "Have a great life down there." Said Ursa and Helios at the same time.

"We'll miss you so much." Said Andromeda, before pushing Ray forwards along the trail.

"Go on!" Said Andromeda. Ray could see that the smile on her face was fake, meaning she was holding back her tears. "Goodbye, my son."

Knowing better than to wait a few moments longer and cause his mother even more pain than he already had, Ray walked forwards with pride in his step, not looking back a single time.