Reverend insanity: Rotten to the core

A/N: I am greatly surprised by the amount of support and attention this fanfiction has gained considering the relatively small fanbase of Reverend Insanity.

This Junior will do his best to be worthy of the seniors' attention and support. Still I am plagued by my responsibilities and assignments from my sect (school), so I can't guarantee a stable or regular update schedule.

Still I will attempt to refine perseverance Gu lest I be plagued by regret Gu.

*****

The merchant caravan was on a tight schedule so they could only stay at each trading location for a week at most before they had to pack up and leave to their next destination.

Although today was the day of departure, everyone was in a good mood, the merchants that belonged to the caravan were glad to have made some profit while the Gu masters and even mortals were happy to have acquired such "rare" and exotic goods.

The economy of the Gu world was not well developed with no easy way to acquire goods beyond trading with merchant caravans.

Standing in a crowd of mortals who watched the departure of the caravan, Malenia gave the departing figure of the caravan a cold glance before she turned and left.

For the next month, Malenia went about her days like usual, carrying out chores, hunting in the forest for wild game and training her body.

On the thirty first day of the month, the large full moon rose in the sky and Malenia awoke in the middle of the night.

Moving silently in her dark room, she silently pried open a few floorboards and reached for a three meter long, black box hidden below the floor.

Holding the black box, Malenia approached the window to her room before opening it and jumping out.

Moving like the wind, Malenia ran south at full speed until the sun finally rose, stopping to recover her stamina, Malenia sat on a tree branch, after moving at max speed for a few hours she was already around a hundred or so kilometres away from the village.

She couldn't even recover her breath before the tree branch she sat on twisted like a python and tried to entangle her before she jumped away.

Soon the whole tree started moving by itself as it's branches lunged at her, brandishing her sword, Malenia cut through the branches as they came one after another.

The severed branches fell to the ground and the tree shook as it howled, it wasn't long before the other trees began to stir in response to it's howl and started attacking her one after another, looking at the hundreds of branches that attacked towards her, Malenia had no choice but to flee.

As Malenia ran through the forest she quickly realised that the entire forest was full of hostile trees that tried to entangle her in their branches.

Two hours later, Malenia having finally escaped the forest full of moving trees sat inside a cave as she panted in exhaustion as sweat soaked her entire body.

Once again before she could recover her breath a loud roar shook the cave as a large bear walked out from deeper in the cave and set it's blood shot eyes on Malenia's exhausted figure.

***

Back at Malenia's village, Malenia's parents had already discovered her disappearance and after a burst of panic, rushed to the Gu master overseeing the village to ask for help.

Looking down at the two kneeling figures of Malenia's parents, the rank two Gu master in charge of the village felt annoyed.

Although he didn't care about these mortals, his mission rating would be affected if something happened to them.

Standing up, he ordered the village chief standing behind him, "Order a few men from the village to go search for the girl, if you can't find her by sunset then write her off as having died while working in the fields."

The village chief bowed respectfully and went out to convey the Gu Master's orders while Malenia's parents looked helplessly at each other.

*****

Malenia cut a large chunk of meat from the dead bear's thigh, pondering for a few moments she decided against starting a campfire to cook the meat and hurriedly left the cave.

A few minutes later, a pack of large black wolves rose from the shadows of the cave as they sniffed around, noticing the bear's corpse they quickly surrounded it as they greedily tore through it's flesh and drank it's blood.

After travelling outside for not even a day, Malenia fully understood the difficulty of surviving outside.

Unlike the forest near the Shen clan where beasts were periodically culled by Gu masters, beasts here were allowed to expand without facing the threat of Gu masters which resulted in every nook and cranny being filled with all sorts of hostile creatures as they competed for survival.

Not even the trees or ground could be trusted as they could hide all sorts of threats inside them or be threats in disguise themselves.

After a long search, Malenia finally found an unoccupied cave on the side of a mountain where she could rest.

Holding the large chunk of meat she acquired earlier that day, Malenia started eating the meat raw. She couldn't take the risk of the smoke from a fire attracting some kind of beast or even worse, a wandering Gu Master.

The worse situation would be being found by Gu masters from a clan as they patrolled.

The raw bear meat was tough and chewy while having a metallic taste, Malenia watched the sun set silently before going to sleep.

Surprisingly enough, Malenia's sleep was not disturbed and she was able to enjoy a full night's sleep which restored her energy.