Chapter 31

Magical, mysterious; these were the words that came to mind. Lwanda gently stroked the jade like vines, the vines squirmed and pulsated as they tried hard to recover. The intense fight, the ripping and tearing from the beast had taken a toll on them. It was evident they had expended a great deal of energy to keep up with the damage. Waves of gentle almost unnoticeable energies flowed within the vines making their way to every inch of its body, beginning the repair and rejuvenation process.

Lwanda studied the vines, his gaze was that of confusion, he yearned to understand, his desire was to unravel the mystery of the vines, just what exactly were they and where did the regeneration ability come from. This world was indeed mysterious and magical and thus Lwanda shouldn’t be taken aback by such happenings but still, he couldn’t help it.

“Regeneration by eating a plant, this is crazy”

Lwanda shook his head, this was something unheard of, back on earth countless centuries of research and unimaginable sacrifices had been made to come up with something remotely similar and here he was looking at a seemingly ordinary plant that had the same ability as centuries of work, this was just absurd.

“Then again animals here are meters tall and have magical crystals in their bodies so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised"

Lwanda shook his head and cast all the questions aside for now, he had more pressing matters to handle.

“I don’t have much time, that bastard will definitely be back soon, I don’t feel like dealing with him anymore, I better make a speedy exit”

Lwanda looked through his makeshift bag, the crude bag had splashes of blood on it, he touched the blood, running his fingers gently on the blood-soaked feathers. It had been a while since his hand was severed and the blood was dried up already, the feathers felt rough to the touch but he didn’t mind, his fingers felt the blood, traces of dry blood stuck to his thumb and index finger and Lwanda gentle rubbed them off, he glanced at his right hand, the scene of his hand being severed replayed in his mind and he couldn’t help but feel a cold shiver, he had been in real trouble this time, he really almost died.

“Luckily the bastard preferred playing with its pray otherwise I would have been a goner”

Lwanda sighed deeply, this place was simply too cruel for his taste, but this was the dish he’d been served, he had no option but to take it.

Lwanda searched through the bag, after a short while he took out two calabashes. These were items he’d unexpectedly come across on his journey here and they’d been a life saver in storing water. Lwanda shook dry the already empty containers. The water in them had served as his source of sustenance during his stay at the paradise piece.

The empty calabashes whistled as Lwanda shook them in the air, the high-pitched whistle only lasted for a second but he still looked around cautiously, he didn’t want to attract the jaguar’s attention. He held one calabash and swiftly brought it to the closest vine to him. With one slash of his stone knife, vines juices poured into the calabash. The vine swiftly regenerated, and the gash sealed up.

Lwanda frowned, he’d expected this to happen but he couldn’t quit help being upset.

“This is going to be annoying; it serves great as a shield, but I guess everything has a downside. The universe really is always perfectly balanced”

He knew this was going to take a while but there was no other way about it, he could only hope the jaguar stayed longer.

“It did suffer some serious injuries this time, it should be away for a while, I just hope it’s enough”

Lwanda sent a silent prayer to the cosmic forces then held the calabash tightly and continued hacking at the vine, he made deep cuts repeatedly trying to match the vines’ regeneration, he worked fast and hard maximizing the time he had left.

20 minutes later and Lwanda was finally done with the first calabash, sweat dripped down his face, this was more work than he’d expected.

“I don’t think I have enough time to fill the next calabash, the jaguar will be back soon”

Lwanda said to himself. The 20 minutes had been the most intense moments for him ever since the fight with the jaguar, his heart was beating wildly, a sense of doom always enshrouding him, he’d expected the jaguar to pop out at any moment and that feeling was the worst kind of psychological torture; dreading the inevitable and still staying to witness it, it was a lot.

Lwanda clasped the calabash tightly, he knew he had to go, staying there longer meant the jaguar could catch up or worse still he’d have to undergo that psychological torture all over again, he wasn’t looking forward to it in the slightest.

“I can’t be too greedy, I have enough for now”

Lwanda swiftly packed everything in his bag, with his staff in hand and bag hanging safely behind him, he cautiously exited the vines’ labyrinth. He made sure to sense his surrounding just in case the loathsome jaguar was laying in ambush. After confirming everything was safe, he quickly exited the labyrinth and made his way north.

“I hope it won’t hunt me down, because that will be a pain”

Predators were conceited beings, it was entirely possible for the jaguar to hunt Lwanda down till the ends of the world wanting to finish off what it’d started, plus it already had a taste of Lwanda’s blood, if it fancied it a lot then rationale would go out the window and the most basic instincts would take over, by then it wouldn’t be too difficult to continue chasing after Lwanda, hunting him down. Lwanda was aware of this fact and it frightened it, but then again from his observation of the jaguar he’d come to realize it valued this paradise piece, probably the magical spring. It was likely that it wouldn’t want to leave it behind. Given a choice between the spring and Lwanda, he deeply hoped the jaguar would choose the former.

Lwanda speedily made his way through the vast forest, he had his guard up the whole time but oddly there didn’t seem to be any other living creatures in this place other than the jaguar and the butterflies.

“Strange, there isn’t anything here. Is it because this is the territory of the jaguar? Or did it eat everything already?”

Lwanda understood from his encounter with the jaguar that it was on a different level from the creatures he’d met so far. The creatures in this world seemed to have differences in strength and the law of the jungle prevailed, stronger beasts were bound to have territories and the statuses they deserved.

He continued his journey; walking and sometimes sprinting, he was determined to get as far away from this place as possible. As he passed the numerous gigantic trees, the rays of sunshine continued to fall on him, the intensity and frequency of exposure to the rays increased as he journeyed farther and farther away from the spring, it was obvious he was slowly making his way out of the paradise piece thus the spacing and number of trees increased and decreased accordingly.

After more than a day Lwanda finally felt the dry desert air brush his face, the dry whistling air left a deep desire to hydrate as it passed by, Lwanda looked at his bag but sighed instead, he didn’t have any more water left and he sure wasn’t going to waste his vines sup. He just had to bear with it. After 30 more minutes of walking, he finally made his way out of the paradise piece, the land before him was just as dry and barren as he’d expected it to be, dusty winds rustled by leaving behind slow whistles, giant dust clouds covered massive parts of the scenery limiting his vision.

He used his hand to shield his eyes from the dust whilst trying his best to observe his surrounding, an act that was rendered almost impossible by the dust clouds.

Lwanda stared hard trying to make out the shapes beyond the dust clouds, he sighed in frustration; it was evident how annoying he found this whole process. He continued to stare trying his best to make out at least a shape to have a vague idea of his next traveling destination on his way further north. He continued to stare until suddenly his eyes widened with shock, he couldn’t conceal the surprise all over his face.

The shock was soon replaced with a deep grin, the wide grin covered half his face, revealing his white bunny like front teeth. He took a huge leap forward, burning with anticipation.

“Finally !!”

He exclaimed, before making a switch departure.