Arnold had been walking for hours, and hadn’t even been granted a second to rest. Their journey to the Camp had a hell of a walk... No food, no water, and Arnold was about to give up.

He dropped to the ground at once.

"Can I just get some water, please?" Arnold looked up at the girl, who only smiled and turned to the boy.

"He said he wants water. What do we do?" she asked.

"Then we give him water," he said.

At that moment, he had started loosening his belt, and the very next moment, a certain liquid had started dropping on Arnold’s face.

The moment he looked and realised it was not water, Arnold stood up and began to throw up.

At once, he threw himself at the boy who seemed to have been enjoying what he was doing, but just as he was about to attack him, a certain hit struck his back, sending him about five metres before he landed on the stony floor.

"ARGHH!"

He turned and noticed that it was the girl who had attacked him, and she was having fun laughing with the boy while they watched him in pain.

Arnold gritted his teeth, stood up, and attempted to go his way.

"I’m done with you guys... I’m no longer a part of your Wanderers’ shit!"

Just when Arnold was about to walk away, both figures followed up almost immediately, and it was at that time that he knew that he would have to beat them to get his freedom.

"You really want to break your pledge, pal. The Leader wouldn’t be pleased when he learns about this," the girl said.

"Who’s The Leader?" Arnold asked with a glare.

"The one who leads us. Our leader," the boy announced.

"Well, I don’t care if he’s pleased or not. I’m not just going with you anymore. I don’t want to be a Wanderer anymore. You guys are some crazy jerks," Arnold said.

"You promised to join. You did. You made sure we save you from getting captured by the guards of that city. Now, you must pay the price. You must be part of us," the girl stated.

"You can’t force me to do what I don’t want to. You just can’t."

Arnold already had his fists clenched, enraged. This was the moment where he would have to set himself free and find his way back to Blood Trial Outpost.

He wasn’t with a bow and a quiver, so he couldn’t use his Profession skills to face off with them. Thus, he would have to face them with his Talent.

[Talent: Base Control.]

[Talent Description: You have the ability to control anything that a living organism is standing on. Be it floors, grounds, tiles, rocks... Anything. You can cause it to break, enlarge, or explode.]

Arnold already knew that he had a very powerful talent, and that’s why he would bury these two to make sure he got freely out of there.

He activated one of the talent skills that caused the ground to open beneath their feet, and the next moment, Arnold watched them sinking into the ground.

A smile appeared on his face at once, having realised that he was stressed for nothing before getting rid of them.

However, while he was about to turn and leave, the whooping sounds he heard made him turn at once.

The two figures had miraculously emerged from beneath the ground where he had sent them, soared up, and had aimed several strikes at him.

Before Arnold could know it, a certain burst of green and blue lightning came hitting him with an unforgiving impact. This time, he was sent flying twenty feet, and landed about ten metres away.

Arnold slumped at once, losing consciousness. And before he finally closed his eyes, the thing he heard was:

"You don’t have a choice, pal."

...

When he woke up, Arnold found himself inside what looked like a tent. He was hit by a certain excruciating pain in his head, his chest, and his... That thing in-between his legs.

The moment he realised the pain, Arnold quickly placed his hand on it, and when he did, he happened to not have felt anything.

He gave it a better and deeper touch, and still, he just couldn’t feel anything. He didn’t want to tell himself that it was no longer there.

He didn’t want to believe it.

But just after touching, finding, and touching all over again, the truth became evident.

"No!!!"

Arnold screamed hard, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

Two men quickly approached him at once, holding his hands while he tried to sit up. It was at that moment that Arnold realised he was strapped to the bed.

However, that was the least of his concerns at that time, because he was still shocked that he could no longer feel his d**k anymore.

"I can’t feel it! I can’t feel it. What did you do to me?!!! What did you do to my penis?!!!"

A tough scene had escalated inside the tent, and the way Arnold was reacting had left the two men with no choice but to knock him out.

If he kept shouting, he might just attract the Leader and get him angry. So at that point, they had to make him stop.

POW!

...

A single hit and Arnold was unconscious again, and by the time he had woken up, he was in another tent with several figures surrounding him.

He saw different faces. Unfamiliar faces.

He happened to remember the two people he had encountered, and how it hadn’t ended well on their way to the Camp.

The next moment, he realised he could be in the camp, and right after, he remembered what had happened earlier.

All the memories came hitting him one by one, and this time he decided not to scream.

The first thing Arnold did was to check if it had all been a dream. He touched that part, and it was the same result. He couldn’t feel a thing, and the pain was still there.

At that point, he came to truly realise that these people had cut off his penis, and he was going to be without it for the rest of his life.

"NOOOO!!!"

There again, Arnold screamed hard like a madman, but this time, he wasn’t knocked out. He was allowed to express his sorrowful feelings.

He was still screaming hard when he heard a voice from the side.

"Hello, Wanderer. I’m Clawrer. Nice to meet you."

******

When the runner reached Terror Lake, it came to a stop at the very exterior part of the scanty forest.

Roman was the first to jump down from the top of the runner, before North and Rena came out.

Roman observed the entire place, and was amazed by how it looked.

Terror Lake was a vast forest of shrubs that stretched quite far into the distance. And at the center of this forest was a large lake spanning over a two-hundred-metre radius.

How a Sea Dragon could be in such a place was a mystery to Roman, but wasn’t the Badlands all about mysteries?

The truth behind him guessing that it was a Sea Dragon when North asked them was that Roman’s sister used to tell him stories from books she had read while he was away at the academy.

One day, she told him a story about a Sea Dragon in a lake, and he was completely gutted because no one had ever heard of a dragon being in a lake, much less a monster named a Sea Dragon.

It was all fiction...

But now, that fiction had happened to become reality, and Roman couldn’t wait to see a Sea Dragon with his own eyes.

However... What if it wasn’t a Sea Dragon that they would have to face today?

What if it was something else?

KRRRRRRR...!

By the time they had stepped out of the runner and were about to push towards the lake, a certain creaking sound caused them to pause at once.

"Plant eyes on all directions. It’s going to charge out," North said, her eyes alert as they all made a formation by drawing close to themselves, facing different directions.

KRRRRRRR...!

KRRRRRRR...!

The sound continued to roll for several minutes, and finally stopped without them getting to see a thing.

There was no sign... No shadow... No figure.

Everywhere went silent after a moment, and they stared at each other with weird faces.

But then... When they were about to continue moving, a sudden thud resounded from behind, and the trio turned right at once.

Something they couldn’t immediately grasp descended on North, and the next moment, it had already devoured her left arm, cutting it off.

Roman’s eyes widened.

Rena froze in shock.

They immediately charged and attempted to attack the monster, but before they even did, North had already used her right hand to stab the monster in the head.

She was down in pain, but she never screamed. She only gasped and shifted a bit back.

Then she placed her right hand on the already battered left shoulder.

Suddenly, her arm began to grow, coming out from her shoulder. Roman and Rena watched in awe, but what was more interesting than seeing someone they had already thought was going to be one-armed getting her arm back?

Roman especially was very relieved, but truly, he was still stunned by how she had done that.

When her left arm was fully back, she raised her head and looked at them, who were still staring at her.

"What? That’s Absolute Regeneration."