New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

His skin had turned a dark shade of red, with his clothes suddenly a little tighter on him. Horns rose over his head, a foot high, a ball of black fire hovering right over it.

His body had also grown a couple of inches taller, his legs elongating, as did his arms and feet, making him look an entire size bigger.

Alex could feel the teeth in his mouth had all gone sharp, with canines almost peeking out from the corner of his lips.

His vision had also changed as the world's colours warped into a thermal filter, ranging from shades of blue to shades of light orange.

Spinning on himself, very little orange appeared in his eyes, aside from the trees and critters that populated the northern lands.

This vision was strange to him, and it took a moment for him to get used to it.

"Is this how he always sees? This is like this old movie, where an alien hunts down humans with his super-advanced suit..."

But he couldn't sit around and gawk for too long, either.

He had quite the distance to cover, and the night was already close, given how far north he was.

He had wasted a lot of precious time finding the fauna agent's cabin, and then the rest of his day was also wasted talking, eating, and driving to the village.

He estimated he regained consciousness around ten in the morning, and it was now close to two in the afternoon.

With the sun starting to lower, he wouldn't have much time before sundown.

He needed to get moving.

Lowering his stance, Alex dashed forward.

The dirt kicked up as he did; the ground digging a few inches, the power in his legs too much to handle for the forest ground.

His acceleration was instantaneous, and he ran faster than anyone should. But he wasn't too estranged to the feeling, as he could still run faster in New Eden.

He did have a few trips and close calls, as he was not used to the thermal vision. When the temperature reached the lows that it did up north of Quebec, everything aside from living things turned blue.

But he quickly got over this issue.

Alexander understood how they managed to reach so far in so little time.

He was running at what he estimated to be at least sixty kilometres an hour and knew he could go faster. He wasn't sure how fast and wasn't inclined to try it out in a forest, but fast enough to make record time home.

But the occasion to try it out soon came to him.

About an hour into running, Alex reached an impasse on his travels as a mountain range rose before him and a river closed in on his left.

He wasn't too keen on climbing the ridges, as it would slow him down considerably, but looking across the river, he could see a stretch of flatlands between two other mountain ridges.

The river wasn't too wide, with plenty of small islands in its center, and Alexander knew he could make the jump at the speed he was going.

Without slowing down his gait, Alex hooked left, reaching as close as a foot away from the river bank, before jumping with all his strength. He vaulted through the air, reaching thirty feet up and leaping across the first stretch of water.

He soared through the air for a few hundred feet, landing with both feet in the water, but on solid ground, before hopping a few meters more to be on the island, resuming running and repeating the process.lightsnovel

The second jump was much shorter and barely inconvenienced him as he resumed running.

Following the river bank for a few kilometres, he finally reached the flatlands he had seen in the distance and grinned.

Alexander lowered his center of gravity again, pushing his legs to the maximum and going into a sprint.

The wind across his face accelerated as he picked up speed, and dust kicked up behind him.

Most of the flatlands he ran across for the next two hours were covered with pebbles and patches of tenacious, wild grass. There was also the occasional small pond, which came from the melting snow and different elevations of the ground.

He couldn't maintain a sprinting speed for more than fifteen minutes, which was already more than a human should be capable of, but it helped him cover much ground.

He estimated he reached over a hundred kilometres an hour at sprinting speed.

It might be slow compared to cars of modern times, but no one would dare call him slow.

After all, no man in history had ever run this fast.

Then again, could he still be considered a man?

Alex decided he should stop soon as the sun reached its lowest point. There wasn't much cover to be found where he was, nor any sign of civilization nearby, but he needed to rest.

A fortunate turn of his bodily changes was that the demon body had no issues with the surrounding cold. He wasn't sure if it was because of all the running, but his blood felt like it was boiling inside his veins.

This meant he wasn't in any danger of catching a cold or freezing to death during his high-speed escapade.

But that wouldn't be the same for the night.

Finding a little outcropping of rocks that formed a natural barrier against the plain's winds, Alex stopped there. This little circle would at least keep a part of his heat contained around him.

There was nothing to make a fire out of, but that wouldn't matter.

In the center of his makeshift shelter, Alex used his mana to light a magical fire to keep himself warm as he contemplated the sunset.

When the sun had gone down completely and the stars started lighting the night sky, Alex sighed at the view.

"I wish the stars were this visible in the city. I'll never get tired of this sky…"

Memories of him and Kary watching the starry skies of New Eden, sitting on a high branch of the Tree Palace, came to his mind, making him smile.

lightsΝοvel He realized during the day that his thoughts rarely went toward her as a demon. But as soon as he returned to his human form, images of her and her lovely smile flooded his mind.

He missed her.

"I'll be home by tomorrow afternoon. I hope she hasn't gone back to her house…"

He fell asleep thinking about what to tell her when he finally met her again after a month of being AWOL.

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