BXBX NOVEL Chapter 1 - Leo Heart
Chapter 1 - Leo Heart
Author: M_W Cancer
Grammar Checker: M_W Nomral
50 years have already passed after the Humans of Earth got transported into a new world called Celestial World. It was a long 50 years of endless suffering, deaths, torments, and with no other choice aside from running from one place to another.
From the 7.5 Billion total population of the Humans of Earth to a mere 1 Billion remained alive throughout the 50 years span of time.
Although a population of 1 Billion may sound a lot within planet Earth. But, in this Celestial World, a population of 1 billion could only occupy a little tiny speck of land. Even this small piece of land that the Humans occupied was still being shared by countless other Foreign races more powerful than the Humans.
Humans were no longer the dominant creature anymore unlike those on Earth. Even 1/4 of the remaining Humans were slaves of the other Foreign races.
But everything would be changing soon...
Inside a forest, an 18 years old young man was currently riding on his horse, moving really fast to hunt for the prey in his front.
This young man has black hair swaying with the wind, a black pupil reflecting his maturity and experience, a slightly bit muscular body due to always hunting, a bit of a handsome face, and a 6th-foot tall height.
This young man\'s name was Leo Heart, the second child of the Heart Noble Household.
Leo was born after the catastrophe had befallen to the Humans of Earth. So, he is a member of the first batch of people being born within the Celestial World. His parents were the first generation of Mages born from the Human race, too. Hence, being given a hereditary Noble title Viscount of the Humans.
Just like on Earth, the Nobles in this world were people who are wise, powerful, rich, entitled with land and the power to rule, and a member of the higher hierarchy of the Humans. However, being a Noble wasn\'t really a great thing anymore at this age.
Becoming a Noble only meant that the person being entitled as such would be battling in the War of Races, defending the Humans\' existence from the other Foreign races trying to invade the Humans\' territory.
Naturally, with capability comes great responsibility. Since Leo\'s parents were the first ones becoming Mages, and thus being granted the title Viscount, they had also become the first group to defend the territory of the Humans. Unfortunately, it was through these reasons why Leo\'s parents and brother had died. Moreover, he was still 8 years old at that time. Being alone at a young age was a really depressing thing, especially in such a cruel world.
However, despite losing his parents at such a young age, Leo didn\'t lose all his hope in life. He had kept on living, and his parents\' death had only made him mature much earlier than the other kids, which has then made him the rightful ruler of the Heart city.
Being born in the Celestial World, Leo had long been aware of the situation of his race. He had long known that sooner or later one of the members of his family would die. So, maturing was a given already, only in his case was much earlier than the usual.
*Rustle!
Inside a forest, a small moving beast that looked like a rat was running fast.
This beast was called Magical Beast Green Rat. A common rank Magical Beast that has no extraordinary ability or unimaginable power. It was just an ordinary rat, but just as much bigger than the ordinary rat, intelligent, powerful, and had been living in the wilderness throughout its whole life. It was named as such since all the unique beasts within this Celestial World are unlike the ones from Earth, hence being labeled as Magical Beast.
*Huff! *Huff! *Huff!
Behind this Green Rat were fourteen men riding on an ordinary horse, chasing closely behind.
"Stop running, goddammit!" Leo cursed loudly while he keeps on urging his horse to run faster to follow closely the half a meter tall Green Rat.
*Whoosh! *Whoosh! *Whoosh!
Dozens of arrows from Leo\'s 12 soldiers suddenly came down raining from the sky, trying to restrict the Green Rat\'s path of escape.
"Young Master, slow down!" a 40 years old man was closely following behind Leo, also urging his horse to quickly follow behind Leo\'s leading horse. This old man was Leo\'s Butler named, Xiao. Butler Xiao was a Chinese man and has longed been at the side of Leo, specifically ever since Leo was still a baby until the present age.
"No way, Butler Xiao! If I don\'t catch that rat this time, then we will not have any hunt for today!" Leo quickly replied in front as he keeps on urging his horse to run faster to follow the rat closely, his silhouette going deeper and deeper into the forest.
"Aysh!" Butler Xiao shook his head helplessly after realizing that his persuasion to his Young Master was just useless. He could only follow behind since Leo was his Young Master.
Running deeper and deeper into the forest, Leo, along with Butler Xiao and the former\'s 12 soldiers, was finally able to corner the Green Rat. With a sling of the string from Leo\'s bow, the Green Rat was immediately penetrated through from its eyes, going straight to its brain with an arrow, hence finally getting killed.
"Congratulations, Young Master!" Butler Xiao said as he moves his horse to come closer to Leo\'s side.
Leo excitedly motioned his men to grab the Green Rat\'s body. However, before his men could really approach, he suddenly and quickly motioned his right hand again, ordering everyone to stop their approach towards the body of the Green Rat.
"Something is wrong!" Leo suddenly warned to everyone as he surveyed his eyes around his surrounding. Looking around, he quickly realized that the forest was unusually quiet at this moment. He has been in this forest a lot of times before, so he was already extremely familiar with its environment. However, unlike the normal silence of this forest, where he can still hear some birds chirping and other insect\'s sounds, this was his first time to encounter this sort of silence in this forest.
"What\'s wrong, Young Master?" Butler Xiao asked in concern as soon as he arrived beside Leo.
"No sounds of birds or even insects. Aside from us, there is no other sound at all!" Leo replied, eyes full of alert.
Hearing his Young Master\'s concern, Butler Xiao quickly started thinking, "I\'ve heard some merchant talk about this before. If the noise in an environment isn\'t the same as usual, then it only means that a predator strong enough to silence every Magical Beast is currently near our area!"
Leo immediately understood how dire the situation is. He swiftly urged his horse to turn around as he also sent out an order to his men to prepare for a retreat.
"Men prepare your horses! We are getting away from this place!"
Although Leo wasn\'t sure whether what Butler Xiao had said was true or not, it was still much better to be safe than sorry. After all, it was just a Magical Beast Green Rat, nothing comparable to their own lives.
Just like what Butler Xiao had said before, as soon as everyone had prepared their retreat, multiple Magical Beast howls were heard just a few dozens of meters from their current location.
"Run!" Leo quickly yelled to the others before urging his horse to run opposite from where the sound had come from. With his years of experience hunting Magical Beast, he had long learned of the very fact that every Magical Beast would be attracted to the blood of any creatures that they can smell nearby, which exactly meant that they will be attracted towards where their current location was.
Getting away from the place as soon and as far as possible would be the best option to do at this very moment!
While his horse was quickly running away, Leo can\'t help but to swiftly turned his head to take a glimpse behind him to see what kind of Magical Beast was going to be attracted by the Green Rat\'s blood.
Looking behind him, Leo immediately shivers for a bit as he saw that it was actually one of the strongly rumored Magical Beast Wolves, the Silver Fur Wolves.
The Magical Beast was a wolf covered with silver-colored fur, the reason for its name. These wolves\' silver-colored Fur was akin to the toughness of an Iron Armor.
Seeing the pack of Silver Fur Wolves, specifically 12 wolves, thoughts of having a horse with more legs quickly surfaced in Leo\'s mind. Actually, not just his mind, but everyone else\'s, too.
Leo had long learned some information about Silver Fur Wolves since he had been hunting for the past 10 years. It was boldly capitalized that such Magical Beast has this type of fur where an iron weapon would have a hard time to deal damage to its body.
So, looking at their weapons, Leo quickly thought that how could their weak steel weapons be able to even cause any critical damage to such Magical Beast?
"Dammit, how come this type of Magical Beast is around this place?! We aren\'t even that deep inside this forest yet!" Leo exclaimed loudly in horror as he keeps on urging his horse to run faster.
Awoooo!
One of the wolves loudly howled while staring at Leo after it heard the latter\'s loud voice, which also quickly alerted the other wolves around.
The other wolves immediately turned to look at Leo and his group. Looking between the small Green Rat and Leo\'s group, all of them swiftly moved away from the rat they were currently eating as if realizing that it was much better to hunt the Humans in front of them than this one little rat. After all, there were 12 of them. As such, a little rat wouldn\'t be enough to fill their hunger.
The wolves then began chasing after Leo\'s group...
"Fuck!" Leo swore as he realized that it was actually his stupid voice that had attracted the attention of the wolves.
Leo immediately grabbed the handle of his sword, preparing for the worst-case scenario...
Although Leo\'s group was riding a horse, it was basic knowledge to know that all Magical Beast was much faster than Common Beast.
As time ticks on, the distance between the wolves and Leo\'s group was slowly shrinking.
50 meters.... 30 meters.... 20 meters.... 15 meters.... 10 meters....
Awhile later, Leo\'s group was finally surrounded by the wolves. With no other choice left but to fight, Leo and the others quickly dismounted from their respective horses, bravely while preparing their weapons to fight the Silver Fur Wolves.
After landing on the group, Leo swiftly unsheathed his sword with his right hand while holding the leash of his horse with his left hand as he suddenly said to his horse, "Sorry buddy, but I will be using you as a shield today!"
Although, Leo knew that it was somewhat cruel to use his horse as a shield for the Wolves, but surviving in his current situation was his top priority.
After being born into this world, Leo was quickly taught by his parents to use everything within his surrounding as a tool if ever his life was threatened. Though he was already old enough at that time to know that sometimes it was cruel to do so. But, for the sake of his survival, it was important to learn to be willing to sacrifice a few things despite it being against his own will.
The Celestial World was, after all, a world of Survival of the Strongest. He was always reminded that being weak would only cause him his death from a very young age and that being strong was the only way to allow him to keep on surviving in this World. So, sacrificing his horse to live was a really small price to pay!
"Ready yourselves!" Leo yelled as he pointed his sword in front of him. In front of him was a wolf currently showing its sharp teeth while at the same time staring at him with thoughts of killing him for his delicious meat.
"Yes, sir!" Butler Xiao and the 12 soldiers nodded in unison to express their understanding.
"Hmph! Tasting us would not be that easy little dogs!" Leo said before he quickly charged himself towards the wolf in front of him, while at the same time also pulling his horse from behind. The horse was helplessly acting as his shield from any possible attacks to his rear.
After getting within range, Leo immediately slashed his sword towards the wolf. But the wolf wasn\'t stupid enough to just let this weakling Human to hit it with the sword.
Leo missed, but he didn\'t panic as he quickly backed away a little, preparing himself from the wolf\'s possible counter-attack. Exactly the moment he positions his sword in front of him for defense, the wolf also swiftly charged to his right side.
Leo slashes his sword in front of him, trying to disrupt the wolf\'s path of attack. But unexpectedly, the wolf didn\'t mind his slashing action at all as it continued to launch itself towards him.
The wolf was obviously aware that Leo\'s slash was only meant for disrupting his attack pattern. So, the wolf didn\'t mind it at all as it kept charging towards Leo.
Left with no other choice, Leo lowered his sword as he dodges to the side before he quickly decided to use one of his family\'s techniques, the Guided Horse Kick. A technique that uses the kick of the horse which was currently acting as his shield, as a weapon. This technique needed him to guide the horse\'s offensive attack towards its target, the exact reason for its name.
Leo quickly jumped back to distance himself from the wolf before he dragged his horse to a position where the wolf was most likely to land.
As soon as the wolf landed, Leo hit the back of the horse.
*Pungg!
The horse swiftly kicked, which had exactly hit the head of the wolf. With how strong the kick of the horse was, the wolf was immediately sent flying towards a tree on his right side and fell into dizziness.
Not wanting to waste the opportunity given by his horse, Leo swiftly charged towards the wolf as he quickly stabbed his sword inside the wolf\'s eyes, the only weakness he knew that he can exploit.
With his weak weapon and with how tough the wolf\'s body was due to its silver fur, Leo long knew that its eyes were the only weakness that he can use to immediately kill the wolf.
*Pluck!
The sword penetrated through the eyes, then going deeper straight to its brain.
*AWOoooo!
The wolf howled softly as it finally took its last breath.
Leo wiped off his sweat with his sleeve before he looked at his surrounding. He quickly saw that the remaining wolves were already falling back as if realizing that they were already at a disadvantage.
Turning his head around, Leo started checking his soldiers. Out of the twelve soldiers that he had taken with him, five were injured; three with a serious injury, while the other two only had a slight injury.
Leo can\'t help but exhale in relief since fortunately, no one has died.. He then immediately ordered his soldiers to assist the five people and to quickly begin cleaning up the place.