Chapter 2: A destined encounter
For more than a hundred years, Lance has continued to be pursued by bounty hunters and those that wanted his death without even trying to understand him.
As time continued to pass, Lance found himself forced to live in the middle of a sacred forest, which few people would brave to enter, in the hopes of avoiding his pursuers.
“How ironical that I would be doing the same thing as her.” Lance couldn’t help but laugh at his situation.
While foraging for food he heard a weird scream in the distance, at first it sounded like a screech caused by a fearsome beast, but after a few seconds of unnerving silence, a different type of scream was heard that caught his attention.
A scream of despair, a scream of pain and anguish, a scream only a parent would make, trying to protect his child.
Without any hesitation he started to run towards the source of the noise, hoping that he was not too late.
When he got there, it was already a massacre, tens of bodies were lying around ripped to shreds, looking around very carefully he notices the scent of something supernatural and also a mana reservoir of huge proportions.
Whether it belonged to the beast or not, was what made Lance hesitate for a second, as it would have meant fighting a beast with immense power.
Another human scream forced him to head to where the beast was at.
As he entered the small glade he could see that the beast was a manticore, a weird abomination made out of different types of creatures.
It had the head of a lion, the tail of a scorpion and the armor plating of a crocodile, as he inspected the creature closely Lance saw that it was about to kill a little girl who was holding with all her might one of the bodies.
Lance knew that in all likelihood, that it was her father or mother, but because of the corrosive trait of the manticore’s poison the body was completely destroyed.
Watching the manticores every move, Lance waited for the best time to strike, but the little girl who see’s Lance, tries to scream for help, but her throat could no longer utter a single word.
Instead, she pitifully stretched out her hands as if trying to cling to the only hope she had left in front of impending doom.
Lance gripped his fist when he saw the little girl struggle for help, reminding him of how his father was struggling with his disease every day.
From time to time when the disease worsened, his father would stretch out his hand as well, a hand Lance grabbed without hesitation.
“Son…promise me…that you would do the same act for anyone in need…it is a simple act…but nonetheless an important one…that can save someone’s soul from utter despair.” In his soul Lance always followed his father’s words and they never failed him once in all this time.
By the time Lance slips out of his day dreaming, the manticore finished feeding on the last corpse and aimed it’s fangs towards the little girl.
Lance also makes his move, jumping on the back of the manticore and driving his claws right through the armor plating in hopes of finishing it quickly.
However the manticore wouldn’t give up without putting up a good fight and managed to hit Lance with its tail throwing him of the manticores back.
Hitting his head on a tree and fainting, he leaved a huge bloodstain where he had hit his head.
Seeing as Lance was out for the count, the Manticore tried to finish him with the poison, but the little girl frightened by what happened to her parents before her eyes, produced a scream filled with mana so fearsome it awoke Lance and terrified the manticore.
