66 Two Roads

'What is this monster's weakness?', Edwin thought. 'How can I beat it?'

While he was thinking of a way how to prevail over the monster, more trees were sliced apart by the monster's seemingly indestructable claws.

Small craters also formed everywhere around the area where the monster was rampaging.

After some time, Edwin got an idea and sent a flash towards one of the beast's eyes!

The demonic crocodile paused all its movement as it sensed danger. It immediately reacted by moving down its eyelids.

However, Edwin's flash this time was abnormally faster, because this time he injected more internal energy than the normal amount!

Before the monster could close it with its eyelids, the flash already hit the beast's soft eye!

"ROAR...!", the demonic crocodile howled in pain. Its scales suddenly changed and became a bit spiky.

When Edwin saw what was happening, a bad feeling welled up from inside him and he increased the distance from the monster.

In an instant, several hundreds of spikes made of its own scales were ejected from the monster's body and went all over the place, piercing everything nearby.

As the barrage of spikes stopped, the battlefield could be said to be utterly devastated.

All the trees in the vicinity fell down as its lower part was destroyed, the large boulders were pulverized into many more smaller rocks and the ground where the monster was standing looked like a sea of scales.

Meanwhile, even if Edwin already retreated before the beast could even initiate the earlier attack, several dozens of spikes still went towards him, he dodged most of it, while a few left some tiny cuts on his robe.

If he reacted much slower, his body would've been full of bloody cuts by now!

Following which, the demonic crocodile's condition went back to normal, except for the fact that it was a bit larger now, and the injured eye has been healed!

"How can I even beat the demonic bear if I can't even beat this demonic crocodile?", Edwin muttered.

Then, he remembered that Allen taught him about something.

During a certain day of his training...

Edwin was jumping tree by tree, running away from something.

Or rather, somebody.

-sou-

As he was about to jump over to an another tree, a flash suddenly appeared and intercepted him.

Edwin was caught off guard and he slipped from the top of the tree, but as he was falling down, he used his daggers to stick himself onto the tree and safely landing on the ground.

-sou-

Another flash came towards him from his side.

The boy noticed it but it was too fast for him to dodge, so he could only block it with both of his daggers.

-clang-

He blocked the flash with both of his daggers, but Edwin had to take several steps back because of the sheer power of the ranged attack.

In a blink of an eye, a figure appeared behind him and kicked his back, sending him away.

Due to his unstable footing, he wasn't able to plant his feet firmly and he rolled away on the impact.

Finally, he stopped rolling with his back facing the sky.

Edwin didn't even get to move when a foot pinned him on the ground on his head.

"Haven't you learned how to use flicker? Why didn't you use it?", Allen asked.

"I feel like it's such a waste to use it.", Edwin replied.

"And why is that so?"

"I won't even be able to escape, you'll just notice me easily. Also I think it's much better to use it for attacking.", Edwin answered.

"If you can't escape, then hide instead. Easy as that.", Allen replied.

Allen removed his foot from Edwin's back and helped the latter up.

"Again.", Allen said.

"Can't we take a rest first?", Edwin asked.

"No, or do you want me to double the difficulty your current training method?", Allen warned.

"Damn it, you're so ruthless.", Edwin grumbled.

-whoosh-

Allen suddenly started to act and charged at Edwin.

The latter was caught off guard and when he blocked Allen's strike with his daggers, he flew away again.

Edwin: "I was joking, I was joking!"

...

The ground shook repeatedly as the monster attacked again and again.

Now, it could be seen that Edwin was having a hard time, until he accidentally tripped on a root of a tree.

The demonic crocodile then took this chance and slammed down it's claws upon Edwin.

The boy frantically used his hands to cover up his head, but how could that protect his body from the attack?

-bang-

Dust and snow floated up onto the air after that heavy strike.

When everything settled down, the monster raised its claws to check on the human.

The beast was expecting a crushed bloody body, however, Edwin's body was nowhere to be seen, there wasn't even a trace of blood anywhere!

Seeing the result of the attack, the demonic crocodile repeatedly stomped on the ground in rage, as he was about to run amok and destroy all the nearby trees, a wail came from the river, which prompted it to get back its senses and run back to the river.

Meanwhile, inside the crown of a tree, Edwin was nervously covering his mouth with both of his hands.

Earlier, the Edwin that that was crushed by the monster was only his clone.

During the fight, he got a chance to get away from the beast's sight. He replaced himself with his clone while he used flicker to escape onto a branch and climbed up to the top of the tree.

Or else, he wouldn't have made such a small mistake by tripping on a root.

It might be a demonic beast whose senses were boosted; nevertheless, it was still a crocodile, which was much better hunters in the water than on the land and was great at making sneak attacks.

If the battle happened on the river, Edwin won't stand a chance, or if he was closer to the river earlier, he would've perished without knowing how he died.

Just like normal species of crocodiles, they prefer to make sneak attacks while hunting for food.

In reality, he was actually planning to lead the monster away with his clone, but it was too weak and couldn't keep up with its attacks, hence, the clone tripped.

When he heard a splash of water, Edwin knew that the beast returned to the river, but he didn't dare go out yet, fearing that the monster might attack him again.

It was only a few hours later that he dared to go out of hiding. First, he reclaimed the hook and rope that he used earlier from the remains of the trees.

As he was going to finally go out of that place, another wail came from river and froze Edwin into place.

However, nothing happened afterwards.

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He inwardly let out a sigh of relief and escaped from that location.

Nighttime...

Edwin found an underground cave devoid of any monsters.

There was a bonfire which was lighting up most of the parts of the small cave.

He was currently cooking meat that he got from killing boar on the way.

The boy started to eat the meat while thinking, 'So that demonic crocodile was only guarding its baby?'

He remembered the wail which made the beast go back to the river.

'Lucky guy.'

After he finished eating, Edwin took out the codex, "I hope you can make me stronger."

"The person that killed my father might just be a normal human, but I still want to get stronger, I can probably... no, I can kill whoever that guy is... and make him pay for what he had done."

"There is truly nothing enough in this world.", Edwin muttered as he remembered what Allen said to him.

'He's wrong. I will prove it by killing whoever that guy was. It will be enough for me.'

Finishing his meal, he then trained a few more times before sleeping.

***

On the other hand, at Eastern Horizon City...

James was sleeping soundly when he suddenly woke up, and a translucent black barrier appeared around his room.

The barrier restricted all noise from the outside world, and prevented anybody from hearing on the inside, and the barrier, came from none other than James.

The kid threw himself off his bed while wailing in pain.

Black smoke came out of his orifices which formed a hand that tightly held his head in a bid to crush him.

His eyes were turning black at fast rate. He was losing his clarity and control!

"G-get o-out of me!", James resisted the grip. "I know you won't dare crush my head!"

The grip only lasted for a few seconds and it disappeared.

The barrier around his bedroom also disappeared along with the black hue from his eyes.

James panted while wiping off the sweat off his forehead. Afterwards, his stomach suddenly rumbled in hunger.

"I'm not hungry.", he muttered.

His stomach rumbled again.

"I said I'm not hungry!", he angrily said.

Following which, he went on top of his bed again and covered himself with his blanket, but even so, he was still shivering and he kept muttering something under his breath.