Chapter 206 Volume IV - Chapter 51: White Furred Tiger
I held my breath, didn't move a muscle, and just stood where I was.
The ground shook like an earthquake. An intense, suffocating pressure spread through the atmosphere. I narrowed my eyes and hid my mana, my being. I didn't come out from behind the stone I was hiding behind, I didn't even take my eyes off where I was looking.
'Wait a little longer, Adrian.'
If I hadn't restrained myself, I would have started shaking from breathlessness, from stress. Still, when my life is at stake... There was nothing else I could do.
And so the ground continued to shake. Seconds passed, then minutes. Finally, when the amount of shaking had significantly decreased, I heard a voice in my mind.
'You can come out now, but don't stop paying attention.'
I took a quiet but deep breath, rose slightly from my hiding place, looked into the distance, and focused on one thing in particular.
A neck the length of a long apartment building and above that neck the neck of a creature I had never seen before in my life. I couldn't see its face, but I didn't need to. I could still feel the ground shaking from its steps.
It was strong, so strong that even if it had noticed me, it probably wouldn't have cared about me.
For a brief moment, as I looked at the creature, I wondered how I was still alive. It didn't last long, though, and I quickly started moving in the opposite direction from where the creature had come from.
How long has it been?
I looked at my watch, and the date told me that I had been here for a couple of weeks.
More precisely, I had just finished the third week and was about to enter the fourth.
I put my watch down and kept moving forward, hiding. After weeks of moving forward, where I was now was a 'rocky' place. There were not many trees around, but there were indeed a lot of 'stones', big and small.
There were such huge stones that one could almost see entire hills made of a single stone. The ground was already made of stones that resembled pebbles. At the same time, I had moved so deep into the Neutral that every creature I encountered was stronger than me.
The only beings I could fight were weak, powerless hatchlings.
Without Lithoa's guidance, I would have been dead from the start. He... He knew this place, the creatures, what was dangerous and what was safe, like the back of his hand.
'Do you see the hill in front of you?'
It was hard not to see what he was talking about. Because it was the most prominent thing in the area. A large, wide, and huge hill that started to rise with a slight slope and increased in slope as it rose... Like a mountain range, it stretched for quite a long distance in a way that prevented me from seeing behind it.
I think it would be more accurate to call them 'mountains' rather than hills...
'After you cross that hill, you will come to a huge lake. The opposite side of the lake will be snowy, at least it should be if the climate hasn't changed. You will head toward that snowy side, but before you enter that area, you will head northeast toward another hill you can barely see out of the corner of your eye.'
I don't know why, but this time his voice sounded different from the previous times. It was more... definite.
'Are we close?'
'Yes, almost. My house is in that hill you can see out of the corner of your eye.'
I swallowed slightly, took a deep breath, and looked up at the sky for a brief moment.
Lithoa's house was close. I was really close to my goal.
All I had to do was hang on for a few more days and most of my work would be done.
I picked up my pace a little, my steps quicker. I was impatient because I was curious about what I would encounter in the place where Lithoa used to live, what I would learn, and what abilities I would acquire.
Nevertheless, it didn't take me long to stop after I quickened my pace.
I paused, and for a moment the silence of death surrounded me. The wind, the insects, the birds, the branches of the trees... Everything had stopped moving.
I could understand why nothing moved. Because I was in the same situation.
My muscles refused to work. I felt a strange, frightening sensation all over my body that prevented me from moving a muscle.
I wanted to look around to see what was causing this feeling, but I couldn't even do that. It was as if my body was under someone else's control, not obeying me.
Then I heard a growling sound, and my eyes widened as the sound of footsteps on the stones, large and small, filled my ears. I looked here and there with my eyes, the only organ I could move, looking for something.
I still couldn't find it.
'Lithoa!'
'What Lithoa, brat! Run!
My heart accelerated, and adrenaline spread throughout my body. My muscles suddenly released at Lithoa's command. Mana joined the natural flow coursing through me, forcing it to flow even more violently, and I looked behind me, craning my neck against the pressure, albeit forcefully.
A huge, white-colored fur greeted me. I was locked in ice blue eyes that seemed to look down on me, on everything here. The vertical pupils that found a place in these eyes pierced my soul.
A tiger, a gigantic tiger. All four limbs were swollen, ready to react at any moment. Pouncing on me was one of these 'reactions'.
Each moment I gazed into its vertical pupils, I felt more and more intense pressure.
I should have listened to Lithoa, why did I look back? I should have run, I should have used Mana Ascension and gotten away with everything I had.
Why didn't I do it?
Am I going to die?
How many times have I already come back from death... I can survive this too, right?
In this way, in the midst of all this tension and all these thoughts, suddenly something happened.
I heard a voice, a voice echoing in my mind.
A laugh.
'Pft, ahahaha!'
Lithoa suddenly started laughing for no reason.
I couldn't understand what had happened. The expression on my face changed, and then Lithoa's voice echoed in my mind again.
'Don't tremble, stand up straight. Keep your gaze cold. The tiger you see in front of you is named Kari. Command her by name.'
Ah...
No way...
I did as he said. The huge tiger hesitated for a moment as my gaze cooled on her. Then I spoke sternly, just as it had been described to me.
"Kari, please stay where you are..."
The tiger suddenly trembled. I saw her vertical pupils dilate into a circle, and then I saw her white fur slowly fall down.
"Introduce yourself, tell her that I am your master.
"My name is Adrian Caleo, I am Lithoa's student, I am here to find his home."
The huge tiger looked me up and down with her vertical eyes. She looked hesitant, yet her hostility was gone.
'You can say that my soul is with you, tell her about the deal you made with me. She will trust you more if she knows I am alive.'
As I told the tiger everything I knew about Lithoa, what had happened the day I met him, the tiger sat quietly and listened. She understood me. She couldn't speak maybe but she certainly understood. Maybe she could also speak but she preferred to remain silent.
It was frightening, actually. To have a creature standing in front of me that could probably kill me with one swipe of its claw... It was really scary. Yet strangely, I realized that the more I talked, the more comfortable I became in front of her.
She didn't have that strange aura that the creatures had. The more I told her about Lithoa, the more I told her that he was alive and connected to me... the more friendly she seemed.
Finally, when I asked her briefly if she could help me, there was a short silence between us.
The silence made me swallow involuntarily, even though the air around her was fine for the moment.
When the tiger suddenly got up on all fours, I almost jumped out of place, but when I saw that she was still standing where she was and that her pupils were still round, I took a deep breath.
The tiger just looked at me for a moment. I also kept looking at her and then I started sweating. It was strange. I didn't know what she was trying to tell me, what her purpose was.
'She's waiting for you to get on.'
She's waiting for me to get on...
Wait, what?
I glanced briefly at the tiger. She looked like an honorable creature, noble. Is she letting me sit on her?
Lithoa is not fooling me, right...?
'Kari is a good friend, you can stroke her fur if you want. You'll like her, she's not as honorable or stubborn as she looks. In fact, she's kind of a smarmy thing.'
I glanced at the tiger who was still standing where he was.
Smarmy? This tiger here...?
No... I'm not going to try.
I swallowed, and that's how I approached her. Although I was still a little scared, I gently put my hand on her and then the tiger leaned slightly.
My heart skipped a beat as I climbed on top of her in one swift movement. I expected her to throw me off her back and show her fangs, but she didn't do anything wrong.
In fact, she seemed content, completely contrary to her presence. As the tiger started to move, I realized that this was the first time I had ever done this in my entire life.
I had never ridden on any animal in my life, let alone such a powerful creature, so... it was even stranger for me than it already was.
The tiger moved slowly at first. It seemed to wait for me to get used to her as if she realized I wasn't very comfortable. Nevertheless, she slowly increased her speed. After a while, though, I gave myself over to her, jumping here and there as she quickly climbed up the mountain Lithoa wanted me to overcome.
I smiled involuntarily as I held on to her thick fur, the wind hitting my face with a pleasant sensation. I had never imagined it would be like this. However, what I was feeling now was excitement.
It was fun.
Yet there was something else that made me feel excited.
Lithoa's house, my target, was now closer to me than ever.
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