CHAPTER 12

A year later . . ..

Standing alone at the middle of a training room with sweat tickling down his half naked body, Larry tightened his grip on

his halberd as he prepared for another round of harsh training. Over the course of a year, he had gotten accustomed to his

weapon and could now manipulate its powers fairly well. Not only him, his friends had also been training with their weapons

and had discovered the individual powers they had been gifted.

As for the sanctuary, it had grown fairly well as more survivors joined them, and even gotten a name - THE SANCTUARY

OF MYSTERY - in relation to a rumour that had some how found its way around the sanctuary. The rumour was about a group

of mysterious people that lived in the sanctuary, as protectors and governors. The name however was just hearsay until a few months ago when the sanctuary was under attack from a neighbouring sanctuary that wanted to devour them for their resources and members. The group - as the story went - appeared out of nowhere and dealt with the army of that opposing sanctuary until they were forced to withdraw. After that, they vanished like the wind. The news of the defeated sanctuary spread far and wide eventually leading to the rapid growth of the sanctuary. Some of the members of the defeated sanctuary even directly joined them, abandoning their sanctuary like nothing happened. Today the sanctuary could . . ..

“Thinking aren’t you?”.

A voice jolted him out of his thoughts.

“You should be careful where you pop out Marvellous. . .”. He smirked and replied, “You might pop out in front of my

halberd one day”.

“Ah!. . . Sure but my sword will be there to stop it”. Marvellous replied.

“Hmmm. . . Fine then, let’s just spar. ’t has been a long time since I got into a fight and my bones ache for one”. Larry said.

Without a waste of time, Larry got into a fighting posture and with a shout summoned the powers of the halberd. The wind howled as the halberd sliced through the air and space seemed to release a groaning sound under the force, seeing the improvement of his attack, Larry smirked. In the face of the attack however, Marvellous smiled devilishly. Drawing his sword from its sheath, he slashed. Under the force of the slash, the air actually groaned and a shockwave shook the sanctuary as the forces collided.

“You have really improved in the past few months”, Marvellous said.

“You yourself are not bad. . .”. Larry replied, “But for an half zombie, if that’s all you’ve got, then you are really weak”,

he smirked.

“Hmmm. . . You really think that was my full strength?”, Marvellous smirked. He knew his friends had been constantly

training to be able to surpass him, they wanted to prove to him that he did not have to worry too much for their safety. But

how could he not?. “Well you are in for an heart breaking surprise”, he said.

“Bring it on!”.

Drawing his full might, Larry readied himself for the attack, no matter what he didn’t dare underestimate an attack from

Marvellous. Watching his preparatory efforts to defend against his attacks, Marvellous smiled. Transforming into his zombie form, he suddenly moved. Raising his sword, he slashed with his full might. Time froze, the earth rotation stopped and the light of the sun faded. Faced with an attack of such magnitude, Larry’s eyes widened in fear. Pushing himself past his limits, he raised his halberd to defend. But just when it seemed the attack was about to land, it completely disappeared.

“What do you think. . .?”. Marvellous asked, “Do you still think I’m weak?”.

“You!. . .”.

“Is this why you guys want to destroy the sanctuary?, not even bothering to control the range of your powers. All because you guys are sparring, you want to kill the helpless survivors in the sanctuary?”. Ebbie suddenly appeared.

“And there I was wondering if God suddenly decided to call the rapture in the zombie apocalypse, looks like I was wrong again”, Comfort said also arriving at the sparring ground.

One by one the group members appeared, each with their own piece of scolding for the two spar partners. After a few scolding however, the group members directly forgot their reasons for gathering at the spar ground and began to chat about

random stuff. Not their faults though, after all they were still ultimately teenagers who had been too busy for months to even

visit each other. They had successfully paired with their weapons during their periods of seclusion but their friendships were lagging behind and they had to catch up.

“The sanctuary is in need of supplies”, Basit suddenly recalled.

“Hmmm. . . I guess it’s time for another trip again”.

“Whatever happened to the seeds we brought back from our last trip?”.

“Yeah!. . . What have they done with them?”.

“Whatever. . . I just hope this trip is fun like the last one”.

“Yes that’s true. The last trip was exciting”.

“How long has it been?. . . Three months?”.

The composed teenagers suddenly became chatter boxes.

“Hey. . . Guys!. . .you’re getting noisy. At this rate, we won’t be able to avoid attention”. Marvellous silenced them.

“Get ready. . ., it’s time to go on a trip”. He said, “An exciting one at that!”.

Rising, Marvellous went out of the training room. ‘It’s about time these kids go on another trip, perhaps they will get a chance to burn energy’, he thought.

Putting his sword in its sheath swung diagonally across his back, Marvellous sped walked to the far end of the sanctuary

where a lone building stood imposingly. Without wasting time he began to pack cloths, food, lighters. . . anything he felt would come in handy was thrown into the bag.

Few minutes later. . ..

Everything was ready, taking one last sweep look at the house, Marvellous turned and left for the sparing ground to gather

with his friends. “It’s time to speak to Maxwell”, he said.

“Hey mister. . .” he said as he arrived at Maxwell’s office with a gust of wind that seemed to resemble a tsunami.

Naturally, after successfully pairing with their weapons, a form of power seemed to being unleashed within them. Speed was

one of the common power all of them had.

“Hey, seems like you are finally free to come see me today”, Maxwell replied.

“Relax buddy, we’re going on another trip. But something tells me that we will be gone for a long time. Look after the sanctuary well when we are gone huh? And don’t forget to grow food. The resources from the previous world are running out, facing the plundering of the full force of the world, eventually we will have to depend on the resources we grow”.

“Huhh. . . sure. . . sure I. . . Huh. . .sure I got it”. Maxwell replied, clearly unclear on what he felt was the hidden meaning

behind Marvellous words.

Marvellous could tell that he was puzzled and confused, he could tell that thousands of questions were running through Maxwell’s mind. But he did not think that it was time to speak yet. Perhaps if there was still time when he returned, he would speak plainly, but he knew that Maxwell wasn’t ready to receive whatever he had to say. His instincts were ringing bells of danger for the future, but he had no idea how to reveal that to Maxwell. Besides, it was not like he himself had the complete

answers, he only knew that something big was about to happen!.