Fenrir's Journey : I Shall Devour The Heavens!

Since she had no need for sleep, and could easily see in the dark, Fenrir continued forward along the path without stopping for the night. There were a lot of other scent trails that had started to congregate together and the path through the wilderness had become flattened from the passage of many people. It wasn't like the roads from her previous world, but Fenrir felt like this was likely a route that was used by a lot of people over the years. The strange thing was that, even though she had continued along the path for a while, there had yet to be any signs of people...Just as she had started to wonder if her assumptions were incorrect, Fenrir smelled a foul stench, like burning flesh and hair. She scrunched up her nose before leaping up into a tree to get a better vantage. In the distance, Fenrir saw smoke rising out of a section of the forest and decided to investigate. There were plenty of scents for her to follow now, and finding her way back to the road wouldn't be difficult. Fenrir had always had a good sense of direction, never getting lost even within the complex arrangement of her Master's home.As Fenrir neared the source of the smoke, she smelled several other foul scents and could hear the sounds of ongoing combat. Then, breaking through all other sounds, Fenrir heard the scream of a woman, crying out for help. Followed by the scream, Fenrir heard the sound of harsh laughter, causing her ears to twitch as she leaped through the canopy to see what was going on.It didn't take long for her to come across a young woman, possessing long black hair and a strange white outfit with one of the sleeves torn. There was blood staining the white cloth as the woman ran away from a man that smelled like he often bathed in blood and never washed it away.Fenrir watched as the woman twisted her body like a willow, striking out with a straight longsword that didn't seem practical for combat. At the same time, the woman cried out, "Ding Zan, you disreputable cur! How dare you attack disciples of the Flowing River Sect!? The Elders will destroy your entire family for this slight!" The man, Ding Zan, parried the sword with a strange hand ax, sneering as he said, "Lang Yahui, I warned you the last time we met that you shouldn't have been so prideful. Don't blame me for a fate you brought upon yourself. You should have stayed holed up in the Sect like those other snot-nosed brats. Don't worry though, I'll at least allow you to experience what it means to be a woman before sending you off to drink your soup!"After parrying Lang Yahui's blade, Ding Zan used strange zig-zag footwork that caused his body to distort as he attempted to sever the tendons of her arm. With a fretful and panicky expression, Lang Yahui swiped downwards while trying to open up a distance with Ding Zan. She knew that, if he managed to disarm her, the only options left to her were to take her own life, or suffer a tragedy as Ding Zan took much more than just her life...(Fenrir's Commentary: 'The first time I meet people in this world and they are trying to kill each other...')

Just as Lang Yahui thought she was about to have the tendons of her wrist severed, a flash of blue appeared in the periphery of her vision. In the next instant, the man she had been powerless against had both of his arms frozen solid. Judging by the expression of his face, it was just a light layer of ice either as Ding Zan jumped back and shouted, "Who is it!? What grievances do you have with me?"Jumping down from her perch, Fenrir looked at the injury on the woman's arm before turning to the man and saying, "You shouldn't be attacking other people. Leave this place before I kill you..." Using the same intimidation method she used her in her previous life, Fenrir glared at the man with her scarlet eyes and smiled slightly when she saw his body tremble. However, when he suddenly scowled towards the woman behind her, Fenrir was very confused as he shouted, "So, the Disciples of the Flowing River Sect have conspired with Demons!? Good, good, good! Run along and wash your neck, Lang Yahui, as you'll want to be nice and clean when the Enforcers come for you!"With a face full of disgust, the man looked toward Fenrir and silently cursed, "Damn bitch...you'll pay for this..." before turning around and running. He didn't get far before the woman, Lang Yahui, suddenly shouted, "Please, you can't let him run away! If he returns to the City, it will spell disaster for my Sect!" Though she didn't want to rely on a 'Demon', Lang Yahui had no choice at this point, as the alternative would lead to, not only her own death, but the deaths of her fellow Disciples.Fenrir frowned, annoyed by the fact that someone other than her Master was telling her what to do. However, her impression of the man had reached an all-time low when he suddenly called her a foul word under his breath. She had never been insulted in such a manner and, hearing the word 'bitch', Fenrir couldn't help but want to tear him apart. Even so, she settled on just maiming him instead, as Fenrir didn't want to become a killer so easily. Her Master had told her to only kill if her life, or the lives of the people she wanted to protect, were in danger.Moving forward with her [Shundo], Fenrir used her [Severing Claws] to cut off the man's legs, sending him tumbling to the ground with a shriek reminiscent of a pig being slaughtered. As he tried to stop the bleeding, the man looked up at her with bloodshot eyes and shouted, "You filthy bitch! Arrgg, I'll kill you! I'll kill your whole disgusting race!"Hearing the man's threat, Fenrir just tilted her head to the side and said, "There are no other Vanargandr...and you are too weak to threaten me. If you don't want to die, you should wrap up your wounds and stay quiet..." Just as she finished saying this, the woman, Lang Yahui shouted out from behind, "Please, you must kill him! If you spare him now, he'll just hurt more people in the future!"Since the woman had once again tried to order her, Fenrir snapped back towards her with an icy cold voice as she said, "Then you kill him! Fenrir is not your tool!" Without waiting around to see how things played out, Fenrir ran to the direction where fighting was still ongoing, determined to help out if she could.(Fenrir's Commentary: 'Only Master can tell me what to do! Nobody else! Never!')

After killing the monkey, Fenrir noticed that there weren't many other strong monsters within the forest. Everything she hunted down only gave the most minimal of challenges, causing Fenrir to feel like she had returned to the upper floors of the Dungeon. Even when she found a strange rhino-like creature, nearly 10m tall, Fenrir felt like there was much difference between it and a Level 1 Goblin. One hard hit to the neck had been all it took for Fenrir to completely chop off its head, almost as if its thick hide was nonexistent...Deciding she wouldn't be able to grow any stronger within the forest, Fenrir decided to just pick a direction and follow it until she either found more monsters or people. She had noticed there were some scents of humans within the forest while she was hunting so Fenrir decided to follow one of them to see where it led to. If she could find people, it was also possible she would be able to collect information about this world and any strong enemies that were present. This would be a lot more efficient than just trying to hunt down monsters on her own, as people had a tendency to collect information on dangerous areas in mass.After running for around eight hours, crossing nearly 10,000km, Fenrir finally came to the edge of the forest. She looked back, giving the place she had called home for the last two months one last glance before following the scent trail she had been tracking. The fact that it had been a strong scent, that covered such a vast distance, made Fenrir feel like the person she was tracking should be somewhat strong.Fenrir didn't know how powerful the people in this world were but, after hearing her Master talk about Cultivation in the past, she knew there would undoubtedly be people stronger than she was. One of her immediate goals was to find out how the people in this world graded their strengths and, if possible, pick up the methods they used to train. Her Master hadn't been able to give her a Cultivation method so Fenrir wanted to try and find a suitable one after reaching civilization.By the end of the day, Fenrir hadn't found any sign of civilization at all, not even a small village. One thing she knew for certain was that this world was much larger than where she came from as, if her memory was accurate, the entire Continent had only been around 25,000km wide. Now, she had traveled nearly that same distance and hadn't even found a single living person. This told Fenrir that the population density of this world likely wasn't that high, or that they congregated within large cities. Having such vast wastelands was very abnormal, as Fenrir could tell that the land was arable. This meant that it was probably the monsters that prevented people from establishing farmland in these areas, hinting that the 'average' strength might actually be very low...?(Fenrir's Commentary: 'This world is so vast...')

Chapter 23: First Contact