Chapter 18 - Beautiful hell

Tiberius was a little surprised by his answer. It is true that he did stop a god’s attack with a single movement. But it does not mean he could protect them in Tanshy by himself.

“Why do you trust him too much?” Tiberius wondered.

“Wouldn’t you trust your dad?” he replied.

“Never seen him, so can’t say.”

“Oh, I am sorry.”

“It is nothing, really. I just have never seen him. Before I was even born, he went for a work trip and never came back. I lived with my mother and then lost her too. But I never hated my dad for it,” he giggled. “How can you hate someone you have never even seen?”

Jack did not reply. There was nothing he thought he could say. He only lived with Rael and other people after turning ten, and he had never seen his family.

“It is great that you all accept him as a father, though,” he added. “Trust me, it is hard to accept someone else as your family. I never could.”

“It was hard for us too, not going to lie. But when you see someone who went against the whole world to protect you, you can’t just sit there and deny him.” Jack said with a smile, “Anyway, wake him up; we are here.”

Saying this, he lifted his hand to carefully land the carriage with air magic. The wind irritated them and the horse, of course, but aside from Tiberius, they were accustomed to it.

“Wake up,” Tiberius repeated multiple times as he was shaking him. “How deep is your sleep, dude?”

Slowly he opened his eyes, like a tired cat, and checked his surroundings for a few seconds.

“We are here; let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Where? Are you kidding me? Where you wanted to take me, of course!” Tiberius got mad.

“Oh, really?” He rubbed his eyes. “Great job, Jack,” he said, and in response, Jack just did a thumbs up. “Now, let me sleep five more minutes and we will see the—”

He slept again.

“Are you kidding me? Get up.” Tiberius began to shake him again but it did not work.

“Forget him; he won’t wake up until his sleep is full,” said Jack, getting off the carriage. “Come on, let me show you the surroundings while he has his beauty sleep.”

Seeing that he has no chance of waking him up, he got out of the carriage. Immediately, a strong scent of dead bodies hit him. He covered his nose with his arm sleeves. “What the hell is this smell?” he said with a disgusted voice.

“Welcome to Tanshy, where you will smell dead animals because the hunter did not like the meat of its prey, so it just left it somewhere to rot,” Jack explained.

“Or two predators fought and one died.”

“That’s also a possibility. But we will never know, because unless you are a big animal, you are still in the food chain.”

Tiberius nodded as he slowly lowered his arm. He was getting used to the smell, even if he did not want to. Also, Jack had created a slight wind to help clear the air, which was extremely helpful.

Even with the smell, the place looked too great to be called Devil’s Land. Tiberius expected a red place with a swarm of monsters, waiting to shred you to pieces. Even though the second part of his thought was true, the first part was totally wrong.

This place was nothing but what nature should be. A range of mountains stretching as far as the eye could see, almost all of which were covered in various trees, plants, and flowers. Small animals like rabbits, cats, and wolves, as well as insects like bees, butterflies, and ants, made this place feel more like heaven than hell.

He went away and picked up one of the flowers, which had a purple color and looked like a violet. He brought it closer to his nose and its smell was a little different than the ones he had smelled; it was sweeter.

Suddenly, Jack took the flower from his hand and threw it away. "What are you doing? "Do not pick every flower you see here," he said with a slight panic.

“Why? It smelled good.” Tiberius frowned.

“Look,” Jack said, pointing toward another purple flower. “You see that?” he showed.

“Yes, what’s wrong with that?”

He was still confused and a little bit annoyed by Jack’s actions. A place like this was his dream and Jack was not letting him enjoy it.

“Just wait,” he said.

Slowly a bee that was way bigger than the average ones came closer to the flower he was pointing at. In a single moment, the flower's petals expanded, engulfed the bee, and swallowed it whole.

"Shit," Tiberius jumped back slightly. “What was that? Is that an insect-eating plant?”

“Kind of,” Jack replied. “They are called ‘Hungry Violet,’ a wild violet basically. Because of its sweet smell, insects try to collect nectar but become nectar themselves.”

“It could tear my nose off…” he said with a scared voice, remembering how he brought it close to his nose.

“It probably wouldn’t. You don’t have mana, and that flower detects mana. But that one,” he showed a blue flower a few meters away, “it doesn’t care if you have mana or not. Anything breathing can be eaten. However, it is not strong enough to tear your nose off.”

Tiberius didn’t understand everything he said. He was still counting himself lucky to not pick the wrong flower.

“But they don’t look amazing; why does it gotta be dangerous?” he wondered.

“That is why it is called Devil’s Land. Hell is supposed to look amazing to attract you. But…”

“But?” Tiberius wondered.

“Harald thinks there is something wrong with these animals and plants. He says they are not supposed to evolve like this under normal circumstances. This looks more of a mutation than evolution to him.”

“Could be,” Tiberius said, scratching his head, acting like he had an understanding of mutation or evolution. In reality, his confused look gave everything away and actually, Jack was happy with it. He also didn’t know anything about what he said and never understood them. He knew that these plants and animals are strange, but why should he care about their mutation or evolution? He cares about food, sleep, and occasional games with others.

They walked around for a few minutes, and Jack pointed out some dangerous animals from a distance and explained them briefly. Tiberius usually found these types of explanations boring, but seeing them in person made it more entertaining.

Because there was nothing else interesting to show without going deeper since they had landed on a calmer side of Tanshy, Jack suggested they return to the carriage and wake Rael up. Tiberius agreed with him and followed him, but before they could reach the carriage, they heard their horse neigh, attempting to free itself from the carriage.

"Oh shit," Jack exclaimed, looking up at the sky, panicked.

“What? What happened?”

“It is bad. We are in trouble,” he said, rushing toward the carriage.

“What’s going on? Will you explain?” Tiberius followed him with panic.

“It is afternoon.”

“And?”

“The reason we came early in the morning is because animals here sleep until afternoon. Animals in swarms and some big ones wake up as Ignition rises, and the rest wake up in the night.” Jack explained while running.

“Which means?”

“Can’t you see how the horse is reacting?” He got mad. “Something big is near; we need to find a safer spo—.”

A loud noise came from behind him, interrupting his sentence. When they turned back, a dragon the size of a five-story building landed in front of them, shaking the ground and opening its wings. The spikes on its head and tail gradually turned red, and it opened its mouth, which began to shine.

“Move!” Jack screamed, holding Tiberius’s arm, and running to the side to protect themselves. As they did so, the dragon's mouth expelled massive amounts of fire, consuming everything in its path.

“What are we gonna do?” Asked Tiberius with fear.

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean you don't know? Can't you use magic on it?”

“I could cast an illusion on it but their mind is strong against it. And my nature magic isn't well developed for fighting yet.”

As they were talking, the dragon had located them once again and started to breathe to attack again.

As it was about to use its fire, it stopped. The fire, shining spikes. All stopped in a moment. Dragon was equally perplexed as Tiberius and Jack.

“Did I sleep too much?” A voice asked. When they looked carefully, they saw the source of the confusion. Rael stood next to its leg, leaning against it with his arm. Using his other hand, he was yawning and covering his mouth.

“I wish I brought a sword,” he said, kicking the dragon’s leg and breaking it. The dragon let out a shriek of agony, so loud that Tiberius could feel the roar in his bones.

Following the roar, it flipped its wings as a way to fly and escape. Rael took swift action upon noticing this and climbed on it before its tail lifted off the ground.

Dragon was already off the ground and flapping its wings, trying to look for the reason why he got hurt. Rael was climbing toward its head using the spikes. As he was on his neck, he held one of the spikes and, with a strong kick, broke it. Dragon felt this and was about to shake its body to yank Rael away, but Rael quickly flipped the spike toward its neck and pushed it down as far as it could.

Dragon lost its control and started to whine. In a few seconds, it crashed into the ground.

Before it did, Rael had already jumped off of it and landed on the ground. Then he rushed toward its head, and with his bare hands, pierced through the dragon's neck and punched it a few times to make sure its head was severed enough.

A minute later, he came out of its neck and walked toward them, covered in blood. “You guys good?” He asked.

“Yes, but can you be faster next time?” Jack raged a little, “We could die.”

“Then wake me up early.”

“We tried, but you asked for five more minutes.”

“Oh, my bad,” he said, like it was nothing. “Next time you are gonna deal with that yourself. Anyway, let’s get closer to a river so I can wash this blood off. We have a place to visit,” he added, as he took his shirt off and walked toward the carriage.

Tiberius continued to stare at them, perplexed by Rael's calm demeanor in the aftermath of what had happened. But most importantly, how the hell did he do it?!