1 Rebirth

'Again'

Colston thought as he looked down at his body. Perfectly chiseled muscles along with a great height. He had already lost count of how many times he had been reborn but just his face changed every time. Even the age at which he reincarnated always remained the same, eighteen.

Strangely, he always had clothes on. Inspecting his current attire which consisted of form fitting black shirt along with a similar colored pants and shoes he thought,

'Ah, the era has changed yet again.'

The one thing which managed to keep him hooked throughout his never ending cycle of life was the progress of mankind, although his innate curiosity at everything played a big part in it as well.

Colston shook his head to get rid of the faint dizziness which always accompanied him after rebirth then got up and looked around. It was dark all around, even his better than average eyesight couldn't make out anything.

'Looks like some sort of cave. There must be an opening somewhere.'

He thought after he extended his hand to get a feel of his surroundings. Colston walked around what he thought to be a cave for a minute before he felt something which could get him out of it.

'Looks like a boulder.'

He thought after putting both his hands on it, moving one of his legs slightly behind the other, he exerted strength on to his hands.

His perfect posture refined through countless practices allowed him to bring out the maximum force, making the well developed muscles of his arms bulge out slightly.

The boulder instantly began moving, just a few seconds later, water instantly began rushing in from the top, drenching Colston before moving onto the deeper parts of the cave.

As if thinking about something, he increased the amount of force and pushed the boulder, a few seconds later, the boulder abruptly sank down.

'I was correct, it's a water body. There isn't much pressure, I must not be too far away from the surface.'

The cave he was in was located inside a water body. Colston unhurriedly began swimming upwards in order to get out of the current situation, he was all too well versed on how to deal with unexpected situations after rebirth.

'I need to find a human settlement first.'

With that in mind, Colston began walking in a random direction. Wanting to find where the human settlement would be in the middle of a jungle without any equipment, leads or information would be close to impossible even for him so he chose a direction on random. The night time would just impede his calculations if he attempted one.

After walking for thirty minutes, he heard a rustle of bushes from up ahead. Colston instantly slowed down his speed and the sound of his movement which was already too less to notice minimized even further.

'A fight.'

Colston noticed after watching the situation in front of him unfold. A group of people were engaging with a large amount of animals.

'They've grown yet again.'

Colston thought as he noticed the weapon they were wielding, he had named them as guns when he invented them in the past. He could easily notice a few changes made to the guns to adjust to the different terrains and ranges.

It was more like a slaughter with how things were going, yet the troops halted after a set number of animals were left. He noticed one of them, with a slightly different uniform than the rest wave in a direction.

Colston followed the direction of his signal and noticed a four wheeled heavily armored vehicle located there. The door of the vehicle opened and a slender leg stepped out of it, followed by a second then the rest of the body.

Colston could judge that she was a fairly healthy individual and a rather well trained one noticing from how she walked.

When she was near the troops, the man who had signaled towards the vehicle removed the scabbard attached to his waist and handed it to the lady.

'They still use cold weapons? Shouldn't they be long out of use now that firearms have been developed? Or are they still rare?'

Colston let go of those thoughts and focused on the lady. Her long black hair was tied neetly in a bun, probably to not let it affect her movements.

She removed the sword from the scabbard and handed the latter to the man. Holding the sword in her hand, she gazed at the various animals as if scanning them and immediately set off running towards one.

'The weakest one.'

Colston noticed as he saw her approaching the tiger. The lady had accurately picked out the weakest of the bunch alive.

Judging from her running form, and her hold on the sword, Colston guessed that the lady was experienced in fights like these. The surrounding troops having no intention to help just reinforced his guess.

Colston stayed at his spot without making even the slightest sound thoughout the duration of lady's battle with the animals, not moving even by a inch.

As he had initially guessed, the lady was experienced in fighting, but he could still spot several flaws in her fighting style. Instead of flaws, it was more like her style wasn't suited to fighting the animals.

Colston who had lived since who knows how long, could come up with various styles to defeat the animals way more efficiently even barehanded.

He had lived through the times when humans relied on killing animals to make their living. Naturally, the techniques they had developed and perfected in that era couldn't be reproduced this easily.

Just when the fight was about to end, a leopard broke out from the fight and ran away in the direction where Colston was hiding.

The surroudings troops made no movements to block the animal which tried to escape from the battle. They had been standing there motionless from the moment the lady had begun fighting.

Colston swiftly thought about various situations and immediately settled upon confronting the animal.

He stood up from his spot, briefly surprising the leopard along with everyone, and quickly pushed down on its forehead

Taking advantage of its momentary loss of balance, he moved his hand a little forward without any delay and swiftly executed a one inch punch on its neck.

*SNAP*

The sound of its neck breaking was extremely clear in the quiet forest, the lady having finished her battle already. She visibly flinched at the voice before she narrowed her eyes at him.

The entire process of his battle was still fresh in everyone's memories, from his unhurried movement of disrupting the leopard's movement, and taking advantage of its initial momentum to let the neck slide under his lifted hand before swiftly executing a perfect one inch punch — which many experts take even as long as a minute to get in form for — on it, giving the leopard a quick death.

The entire process from pushing the forehead to snapping its neck didn't even take a second if one counted literally.

The troops which hadn't moved throughout the battle and even when the leopard ran out, quickly pointed their weapons at him.

Walking over the dead corpse of the leopard, Colston moved into the open area without showing any reaction to the guns being pointed at him and said,

"My name is Colston Cero. I have lost my way in this jungle after losing all my equipment, could you please show me a way out?"

He had a smile on his face the entire time plus his body posture didn't betray even a single ounce of nervousness.

The lady's entire body was covered in clothes, exposing not even an inch of skin. Just her face was partially covered in a mask. The upper portion of the face was out in the open, showing her fair skin, and her almond shaped brown eyes.

After a moment of tense silence, she opened her mouth and said,

"Twenty three kilometres to the west from here is the Clinton city. You should be able to find your way out from there."

She immediately turned around and began walking towards the armored vehicle after she answered, her sword leaving behind a trail of blood.

Colston shouted and thanked her before he turned in west, which was opposite to where her vehicle was and began walking.

The differently dressed man signalled his men to put down their firearms and follow him back to their vehicles.

When the lady entered her own armored vehicle and started it, the rest of the vehicles around her's went into gear one after another, positioned themselves around her and soon left the area.

"Captain, why didn't you let us shoot?"

"Check your gun closely."

The person who had asked closely inspected his gun and soon broke out in cold sweat.

"You noticed? I noticed mine a little late too. If we had shot our guns after being blocked like that, its very likely we might have injured our hands, or worse shot ourselves."

Hearing that, every person checked their guns and noticed a small barely noticeable stone stuck in a core part of their gun, making everyone go quiet.

*****

'Clinton city huh? They didn't change the name. I suppose I could get some information if my laboratory there isn't destroyed.'

Colston thought while walking leisurely. A while later he thought,

'An academy doesn't seem to be a bad idea. It's been lifetimes since I attended one. Guess I'll attend one this life.'

Soon he picked up pace and left the area, returning the scene of battle to its usual calm, the various corpses of different animals painting an eerie scene in the calm of night.