Chapter: 184

Looking up, a giant grey bird with four wings flew over the skies. The feathers at the end of its four wings were ten times longer than the others, and they seemed more like ceremonial ribbons. It’s head had a long black beak which looked like polished obsidian with three large brown eyes on each side of its head.

The whole quiet atmosphere changed in the forest, replaced by complete tension. It’s size alone caused Jay to hold his breath out of fear; it was hard to tell but Jay thought it would have been at least three times as big as the adventurer association – including the courtyard.

Even as he watched it, he could hardly believe his eyes – that such a huge creature existed which he had never heard of. A single flyover would cause all seven races to stir, perhaps even new wars would be started because of such an event. If such a lifeform was sentient, it could rule over all the races – and they would have no choice but to bow down before it in fear and reverence.

Whatever this was, it was beyond his level. Living a quiet life in Losla, he had never seen anything like it.

It’s casual fly over caused Jay’s chest to feel tight. He could do nothing but stand before it and await judgement, yet the bird didn’t even acknowledge Jay’s existence as it flew by. Perhaps it didn’t even notice him. It seemed like Jay wasn’t even worthy of being a meal, he wouldn’t even make up for the energy required to fly back up into the skies again – due to the bird’s altitude and weight.

The majestic creature was leisurely gliding high above, just under the clouds, completely uncaring of whatever was happening on the ground; however it was still effortlessly travelling at least ten times faster than a horse.

Wherever it was going, or whatever it was doing, Jay wouldn’t know. He would perhaps never see it again. It was flying beyond the known world – all seven races had only shared a small part of this world which was called the known world, each of them slowly conquering monsters in the wilderness to expand their nations – though sometimes it was impossible as god-like monsters like this bird were present; this would result in war with other nations, fighting another race would sometimes be easier than dealing with a legendary monster.

The human race was just an ant among ants when compared to the horrors and powers that existed in other parts of this world. This kept them, for the most part, from splitting apart their own kingdom and having civil wars.

It took a few minutes before it disappeared into the skies, and Jay watched it silently in awe. He knew he would probably never see something like this again – something which made him stand in amazement.

He didn’t realise it, but this experience would become ingrained in his subconscious, driving him further – instead of aiming at becoming strong among humans, he would aim to become stronger than all, never satisfied or prideful about his own power.

The whole forest seemed to be quieter afterwards.

Jay looked around for a moment before grabbing a stick and piercing some of the freshwater crayfish which would become his breakfast.

Marching back up the hill to the campsite, he gathered some dry sticks on the way. Other than the bird, there was not much out of the ordinary down here.

Getting back to camp, he noticed the others were still sleeping, so he sat down quietly and prepared at the campfire. The fire was mostly white-grey ashes, but after some prodding he found some glowing red coals underneath.

Jay snapped up the smallest twigs and added some dry bark, scrunching it in his hand until it looked like a bird nest. He poked the nest into the coals and blew on them, causing them to glow brighter until the twigs burst into fire.

With the flame restored, he added slightly larger twigs and worked his way up to larger pieces of wood until the fire was stable again.

He took out the crayfish, some sausages and a metal skewer he had taken from his butchery, piercing the sausages and crayfish and began grilling them.

It wasn’t long before they were sizzling, and a delicious garlic smell wafted from the sausages, causing the others to wake up out of hunger.

Naria was the first to get up. It seemed that she was too shy to ask for some food, as she sat near Jay and watched the sausages cooking silently, however it was more likely that her trauma was still affecting her as she was still either unable or unwilling to talk.

After a little while the food was ready.

Jay planned to eat them all himself, but had compassion on the young girl and gave her a sausage, along with some trail mix. The trail mix was mostly made up of dried fruit and nuts.

He also checked her water bottle to make sure it wasn’t empty.

Naria tried to eat the sausage but it was too hot, so she picked at the trail mix slowly while periodically testing the sausage with her tongue. She was awkwardly holding it on the skewer since they had no plates or cutlery.

Jay was slightly amused as he watched her eating, she would get distracted by the trail mix and the skewer in her other hand would slowly lower to the ground.

He shook his head with a smile,