-Vol 5: A New Life-

-The man in the sea of blue flames-

“Excuse me, sir, unauthorized people aren’t allowed to enter.” A military man stopped Joy, who was rapidly approaching the restricted and barricaded area around the dungeon. Joy was already running at his full power, and his head was filled with worries for Kenshin. When he saw a military barricade, he didn’t think much and just jumped over them.

“What the?” the military man screamed in fright. Just as he was about to pull out his handgun, another military man came and stopped him. glaring at him harshly, the other military personnel growled: “What are you doing?”

“That man…” the first army man just about to say something but was stopped by the second one, “He was a hunter. Can’t, you see how high he jumped just now? And you are going to fire at him? are you out of your fucking mind? Did freedom starting to wear off on you?”

Joy didn’t mind them, he was running as fast as he can towards the dungeon gate. He just had one thought in mind, and that was to reach there before its too late. A few twists and turn, he came into the same tunnel-like dungeon entrance. But, right now, there were a few people wearing armors and holding expensive looking swords were standing guard in front of the entrance.

As he neared, one of them stepped forward and stopped him. Adjusting his posture so that he would look more intimidating, he said, “Excuse me, pal. Currently, this region is sealed off to normal hunters. Return to where you have come from.” But joy spared him a glance before turning away and staring at others. They were kind of standing in front of the gate, so unless they step out, he couldn’t enter.

“Move! My friend is inside there. I need to go and help him.” Joy spoke a single sentence and pushed away from the man in front. Just now he took a glance at the license plates hanging on their belt and found nearly all of them were red. That means they had yet to awaken and even didn’t belong to DCB.

Certain things would make people instantly recognize when someone is a DCB agent or level 100+ hunter. DCB usually issues their license in the golden plate for magic skill users and silver plate for normal/physical skill users. Those who surpassed level 100 and awakened, a unique seal would be given to that hunter, which would be visible on the license itself. This seal would be in the form of curved lines coiled around a star emblem. The higher a hunter’s level and the more he or she had gone through awakenings, the more such curved lines would appear on their license.

When he saw the license plate of this man as well as everyone here, he confirmed that they weren’t from DCB, let alone someone of the same level as his. Him not blowing his top on them was already considered lenient enough.

“Hey! Wait, how dare you to treat me like this? Do you know who we are?” the man who was pushed aside shouted angrily. He placed his arms on a short dagger strapped to his belt and was about to pull it out.

“Don’t even think of doing that. You don’t know me, don’t bite more than you can chew.” Joy’s serious voice which was like calm water in cold night floated in the air. His body started to give off a pressuring aura as occasional lightning flashed across. Unbridled killing intent came out of his body in waves, shrouding the area in a fearsome atmosphere.

“Hik!!” the man, made a muffled sound when the pressure crushed his psyche and courage to dust. Evidently, he had low WIL in comparison to Joy. It's not only him, even the group of similarly dressed men felt chills down their very souls, while feeling their will crumbling under the cold stare of the bald man standing in front of them.

“Hmph!” Joy snorted once again and stepped inside the gate. He saw the familiar space twisting, before arriving on the other side after a fraction of second.

“What the hell?” Joy shouted loudly when he saw the appearance of what used to be a huge grassland. Gone the lush grasses, gone the serene atmosphere, what he was seeing was nothing but a sea of fire. Its as if he had come to the lower level of hell instead of a dungeon. Everything was burning, as far as his eyes could see, fires burning with its embers touching the sky itself.

The ground had already partially turned into lava, with lava bubbles bursting everywhere.

But this was not the surprising part, the most surprising part was that the flames that burn everything weren’t the normal red, orange or white but pure blue. The whole grassland was burning in blue flames that swirling like they had their own mind. He could even see fire snakes and dragons slithering within the fires that enveloped the dungeon.

“The hell is this? Is this the same dungeon we came to afternoon? Did they change the theme or something? Ah damn…Kenshin!! are you here?” Joy called out for Kenshin. He coated his body with a thin layer of his WIL and magic and stepped out of the protective barrier of the teleportation circle.

“Fuck! It's so damn hot here…what the hell happened?” Joy walked step by step, minding the fire that looked like they could burn even water. He had no doubt that he would turn to ash if he touches these flames without protection.

“Kenshin!! you here? Kenshin??” he continued to call his name.

*crack*

As he was about to take a step, his legs landed on something crunchy. Looking down, he found a humanoid skeleton without legs. Instead, it had a long and powerful bone shaped like a tail from its pelvis.

“A lamia? Or is it a naga?” Joy couldn’t tell for clear what species the skeleton belongs to. But his heart started to pound loudly when he saw a huge skeleton that resembles the skeleton of a monkey was burning in the distance. He was quite far from it, but he could still tell just how big it was.

“Damn! Kenshin was fighting that thing? Is he still alive after that? KENSHIN!!” Joy hurried his pace, trying to find any hint of Kenshin. As he went further in, he saw many big and small skeletons still burning from the blue flames. After jumping over a huge flame wall, he finally saw the silhouette of a human standing in the distance with their back at him.

“Kenshin! is that you?” Joy asked once again and stepped closer. But the more he got closer, the more he became aghast and flabbergasted. He although finally confirmed that it was Kenshin, but dared not to believe it.

He was entirely covered in the very flame flames that were currently burning everything around him. not only that, he could feel his thoughts gradually taken over by bloodlust and destruction, at the same time, he felt a weird bout of clarity that he normally didn’t feel. It’s a conflicting feeling, making him think of both destruction and preservation, of both killing and saving.

“Did he just awaken?” Suddenly Joy shuddered from head to tail when he thought of this possibility. Squinting his eyes and taking a closer look at everything, he came into a frightening conclusion, “Fuck! He is really under the process of awakening…I must get out of here as soon as possible…fuck! Fuck!! Such bad luck…” while cursing silently, Joy stealthily stepped back, trying not to attract his attention.

But he had completely forgotten that just before this, he was shouting as loudly as he can…how could Kenshin or whoever in that shrouded flames not hear him?

Just as Joy about took a step back, he suddenly shuddered and hastily raised his right arm to shield his right head. Soon after, a flame covered leg came at him and impacted against his hand, sending him flying across the burning grasslands.