Chapter 226 - Master Knight Monk
Back At Avrion city, another meeting had been called between the elders to discuss a serious problem that they had yet to deal with.
"Has there been any more news on the mysterious beast that's rumoured to be around the City?" Sylvia asked.
Wilfred stood up to give a report.
"There have been no sightings of the beast itself but it has nearly completely emptied the hunting grounds, our knights have found that the nearby bug forest nest has been completely destroyed, meaning there are no longer beasts roaming inside," Wilfred explained.
Sir K then stood up to add to the report.
"The only information we have had is that there has been more sighting of beasts bones in the swamp hunting ground. It seems like if we let it continue soon, the beasts in that area will all disappear as well."
Although some people might take beasts disappearing as good news, this wasn't good news at all. Beast spawned from something called a beast nest. It was a powerful single beast core that was located in the hunting grounds somewhere.
Usually, a beast nest would be surrounded by 1000s of beasts, and were usually located underground or inside a mountain out of sight. It was nearly impossible for a human to be strong enough to locate and destroy one.
But the thing was humans had a use for Beast crystals. They powered nearly everything in today's society. If the beast nests were destroyed that meant they would no longer be able to hunt beasts and obtain their beast cores.
Now that one of the hunting grounds near Avrion had been completely wiped out, this would be a major hit on their finances and only just when things were starting to look up again.
"And what of the hill's near the mountain?" Slyvia asked.
"It seems like the beast has stayed away from there for now." Wilfred said, "Perhaps this is because it is in the Wyvern's territory."
Slyvia breathed a sigh of relief. If the beast knew not to disturb the Wyvern that at least it meant it wasn't as strong as the Wyvern itself.
"We must send a scouting team to the swamps straight away."
"I have already sent our best knights." Sir K said.
Inside of the swamp Monk, Dan, Martha, Bader and Sloth were currently walking through the muddy water.
"Man this place stinks," Dan complained. "Did we really have to be the ones to go to this place?"
"Stop complaining." Said Martha, "The city needs us, besides you've done nothing but laze around while the city was being rebuilt, maybe you can make yourself useful this time."
"Over there," Monk said as he pointed at a pile of bones.
The group quickly moved through the swamp to discover the skeleton of a large snake.
"It's at least of the intermediate level," Monk said as he examined it.
"It's just like the reports, the beast has been eaten clean and has not left anything behind," Badger said.
Sloth gulped.
"Hey, are we really going to fight this thing?" Sloth asked.
"We just need to check out what it is first, we have no clue what it looks like," Monk replied. "Of course if we think we can take it, I don't see why not."
All though Monk was confident the rest of the group was not. In the time that Ray had left, Monk had grown into a true dependable knight. After Sir K was promoted, Monk decided to work harder and eventually got promoted to the position of Master knight.
Monk now trained the new Black sash knights at the academy. At first, the students would laugh at him for his small size but Monk quickly silenced them once he showed his black sash skills. He had improved more than anyone over this time period.
He had wanted to go out on an adventure with Gary, Ray and Jack. After all, they were the original Trio. But in the end, Ray had said it was too dangerous for Monk and those words were what made him train and work harder than ever.
The group continued to travel through the swamp and they started to see more and more bones. They followed the bones assuming they were heading in the right direction. It was hard for them to tell how long ago the beasts died as there was no flesh to indicate. The more time that had passed the more the flesh would rot but there was no way for them to tell.
As they went deeper into the Swamp suddenly a heavy fog had surrounded them.
"Stay close everyone," Monk said, "The beasts have better eyesight than us in the fog, also I Have a strange feeling."
The group proceeded cautiously step by step. But the fog now had completely covered their sight and all they could see was each other.
"I think we should head back," Dan said.
"I actually agree with you for once," Martha said.
"Yes, but there is a problem." Monk explained, "Which way is back."
The fog was so thick they were unable to tell where they had come from. Monk made sure that they didn't travel too far into the fog in case this happened. However, before monk knew it the fog had completely surrounded them.
It was as if the fog was moving and alive.
"I'm sure it was this way," Martha said as she took a step forward.
Suddenly, when Martha placed her foot down at the ground, it startled to crumble away. The ground around her started to disappear and she started to fall. Then something had wrapped around Martha's leg and attempted to pull her further down with it.
"Everyone Run!" Monk shouted.
But while everyone ran away, Monk had dived in towards Martha. He Grabbed onto Martha and saw the tentacle-like figure wrapped around Martha's leg. Monk immediately took out his dagger and used all his Ki to cut down the tongue in one attack.
It had worked and Martha was now free. Monk then Grabbed Martha and lifted her into his arms, he started to jump up on the crumbled rocks, one after the other, as they fell into the endless fog. Until they had eventually reached safe solid land again.
"Thank you Monk," Martha said trying to calm herself down.
"Wow, that was close wasn't it?" Dan said.
But Then Dan noticed something strange about Monk. He was slightly shaking as if he was fighting against something.
"Guy's don't go looking for me, head back to Avrion and warn them all."
"What are you talking about!" Martha shouted now worried why Monk was acting so strange.
Then when Monk could fight against the force no longer. He was pulled in at lightning speed away and into the Foggy pit.