It had been a whole day and Yuga hadn’t returned to the spot where he fought the raimeh the previous day. They were supposed to be moving on to the next thing today but he was no where to be seen. Did he meet his end fighting a beast beyond his current strength? Or maybe another voyager. That would be a disappointing end but also unlikely. Kirveas had a feeling that even if it came to that he’d still pull through somehow.

Speak of the devil, he was approaching where Kirveas was, with a loud thump? No, something else was with him. As the sound of thumping got closer he could see what was causing it. A large beast, its height rivalling the top of the trees, walking on four legs was approaching with Yuga sitting on its back. Its entire body was covered in thick fur, its paws lacked claws and it had no tail.

“Where did you find yourself a melan.” asked Kirveas.

“This probably probably isn’t what you think it is.” said Yuga.

Kirveas raises an eyebrow in question. Yuga jumps down from the beast and as he does the large beast shrinks and turns into an extra layer of clothing on him. Kirveas’ expression turns serious and he asks in a low tone “What is that thing?”

“I don’t know, I was hoping you could tell me.” said Yuga “I found it yesterday and spent the whole night trying out what it could do. It can change its form to whatever it observes. But not just that, as far as I can tell it can transform into anything at all, and become an absolute perfect copy.”

“Anything?” asked Kirveas.

“It even transformed into me.”

“That is….. incredible.” said Kirveas

“So you don’t know what it is?”

“Even less than I know what you are.”

“I’m probably human, just rare. I can use drive. Didn’t you say only humans can use it?” said Yuga.

“That doesn’t exempt other possibilities.” Kirveas taps something on his left wrist, just like he’d done when Yuga first met him. A bracelet that was much wider than a normal bracelet. He points it at Yuga and holds it there for a few seconds then withdraws his hand.

“That thing on your wrist, it’s what allows us communicate, right?” asked Yuga.

“Yes. It’s called a voyager Gauntlet. Every voyager has one. It has a lot of useful features. Like scanning for example.” Kirveas replies all the while looking at the device. “I don’t know what that beast is and it’s not in the database of this thing either.”

“How unusual is that?” asked Yuga.

“It could have come from an unknown, unexplored planet. But that would still be unusual giving that all the planets near Lehrone have been explored. It must’ve come from somewhere very very far.” Replied Kirveas.

“Did you hear that mimic? Guess we’re both rare. One in a whatever number of people and creatures there are”

“You named it mimic? How uncreative. And it listens to you?”

“Surprisingly.” answered Yuga, tapping the creature wrapped around him as a shirt.

So not something strange about himself this time but a strange creature thought Kirveas. “Now that we’re over that, I said we’d be doing something different today. Not necessarily different, you’ll still be fighting beasts, just a different kind and in a special place.”

“Let’s go then” replied Yuga stretching his body while getting ready.

“Follow me.”

This time they don’t walk, Kirveas breaks into a sprint and Yuga follows. He had no problem keeping up at this pace. The results of his training. They covered miles in seconds and after a minute of running they came to a halt. The place they stopped at was warmer than others they’d been to. The snow was already melting and running off as water. More notably, the land in front of them was barren. Out of the vast green grass, a large circular patch of it was just barren as if it was a world on its own and didn’t adhere to the laws of nature. In the middle of it was a hole surrounded by monsters. They were insect-like but they walked on two legs and had four limbs in total. They didn’t have any appendages on their upper body, instead their limbs curved into deadly sharp blades. They stood unmoving as if they were statues.

“These are your next opponents.” said Kirveas.

“Stay on that tree for a while” Yuga tells mimic. It transforms into a bird and perches on a nearby tree. He walks towards the barren land and steps a foot in it but as soon as he does he jumps back in alarm, putting up his guard and staying on alert. “What was that?”

“You could feel it, couldn’t you? That ominous feeling like it rejects your very existence” Kirveas replied “That is a ‘danger zone. A danger zone is any area which is deadly enough to cause serious harm, render incapacitated or even kill a voyager.” Kirveas elaborated “Not every danger zone feels like the one you just stepped into but a majority of them do. And they’re a lot of them through out the regions, on every planets and even space. This a tier seven danger zone, the lowest possible.”

“Right.” Yuga replied. He breathes out then braces himself as he attempts to step into the zone again. He walks into it and winces a little but regains himself. He takes a few steps further in and looks back. Mimic is prancing up and down a tree branch. Kirveas just stands there expressionless. He continues walking till he reaches where the beasts stood. They still hadn’t reacted. There were about twenty of them.He fires a blast of energy in their direction and as soon as it got close, one of them suddenly became animate and used its blade limb to slice it in two and the two halves of it flew off and exploded in the distance.

Before Yuga could respond, the next thing he saw was one of those blades, a hair’s breadth away from his eyes. He pulls his head back and the blade slashes through the empty air, missing his head by a millimeter. These things were really fast, he was nearly unable to react. Three more of them attack him at once and he bolts out of the way in a flash and appears a few meters back, leaving their blades to cut into the ground where he once stood.

One lunges at him and he sweeps it of his feet with his leg. Then he front kicks it, sending it crashing into another one following behind. He uses the force of the kick to launch himself into a backflip and lands on his feet with a skid. He immediately rushes forward at the nearest beast then gets into a boxing stance. He weaves and dodges a slash and returns a straight punch. The force of it blows the creatures head clean off. Another one attacks him from behind aiming for a spot below his right arm. He catches the blade with hand and the attack causes his palm to bleed. He grits his teeth and with a grunt, he squeezes the blade till it shatters. He turns around and drives a shard of the blade into the creatures head, killing it instantly.

More of them coming

He tries to dodge an attack from one them but for some reason he’s too slow and it slashes at his thigh. He moves back to gather himself. His vision had started to get blurry and his body felt heavier as if his muscles were now made of lead.

An effect of the zone?

Kirveas stood at the edge of the danger zone, observing his performance. One thing he’d learned about Yuga from watching his battles was that whilst he might've been new to being a voyager he definitely wasn’t a stranger to battles. His battle senses were sharp like that of an experienced fighter. Wherever he was before now, he’d fought a lot. At the moment he seemed to be having some difficulty, his movements had slowed and he’d resorted to balling up himself in defense whilst trying to avoid attacks. The effect of the danger zone had finally kicked in. Still…… when Yuga had entered the danger zone the monsters paid him no mind, only attacking when provoked. And the effect was only getting to him now. That was something that never happened. More reason to question his humanity and nature.

It was time to go searching again, he had spent a little over two weeks on this planet and had made little progress on his search. The gates were destroyed so there was no way to report his progress. Yuga would probably be fine, or die off but that wasn’t his concern at the moment. He turned around to leave walking slowly for a short distance before vanishing out of sight, moving at unfathomable speeds.

***

Can’t continue in this condition. I can barely defend myself and I’m too slow to attack. Focus, shake off the feeling. With this resolution, his vision became more stable and he felt a little lighter. He’d managed to shake off some of the effects. But a new problem quickly arose. From the hole in the middle of the zone, vines burst forth and tangled his feet, dragging him towards the depths of the unknown. He tried ripping it off but it was too tough so gave up and remained still. Waiting.

While he was being dragged, the creatures didn’t give up their attack and came at him. But the first to get there was unlucky, the moment it tried to attack Yuga he suddenly awoke from his still state. In a flash he formed his hand like a blade and swiped, breaking off one of the creature’s limbs. He catches the severed limb off the air with his right hand and uses it to slice through its head. After killing it he uses the blade to cut up the vines, freeing himself. He gets up from the ground and turns to face them. Both sides size up each other for a moment before the creatures resume running at him.

He stayed still and concentrated gathering mal energy in his palm, more than he usually did.

Venerable Lance

The energy shot forward with incredible speed. The monster at the front of the pack tried to use its bladed limb to slice it as was done before but this was a far more powerful technique and it simply blasted through, destroying its blade. It continued on its path, destroying its head and obliterating the rest of the creatures behind it with a huge explosion.

He’d performed Kirveas’ technique though a lot less powerful than the original. All the creatures had been defeated. He turned around to leave but then he heard the sound of scrambling. It was coming from the hole. From the hole climbed out more of the insect-like creatures, twice the number of the previous batch, all giving off the feel of hostility. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face them.

Come