Hiro turned around and looked at the guards chasing him and sighed, he quickly jumped into the air and broke past the tree line in an instant before landing softly on top of a tree. The aura surrounding his body surged towards his eyes and he quietly began observing the situation.

As Hiro watched the guards and mercenaries fight in the darkness he frowned, currently they were doing a good job fending off the bandits from the carriage and the cargo, however, the bandits had released a number of wild beasts such as wolves, boars, and foxes to aid them.

He didn’t know how to bandits were able to keep themselves from being assaulted by these beasts, but the guards and mercenaries were having a tough time dealing both with the bandits and the beasts.

As Hiro continued he noticed that as some bandits were injured, they would immediately retreat and be replaced by even more bandits. Hiro closed one eye and focused on using a single eye allowing him to zoom in and have a better look, “Now then just where are you coming from....”

Hiro zoomed in on one of the injured fleeing bandits and began following him by jumping from tree to tree silently. He was careful not to stray too far away as all the leaves and vegetation made it rather difficult to keep track of his target.

As he followed the retreating bandits he took a mental note of where their reinforcements were coming from and tried mapping it all out in his head. He noticed that, while the caravan was originally surrounded after the bandit reinforcements came in a majority of their forces were stationed at the north and south.

As Hiro went deeper into the forest he realized the bandits would start as a single large group of reinforcements before splitting up to support the other sides. And as Hiro tailed the injured bandits he noticed that after the bandits reached a point in the forest they disappeared.

Hiro stopped in his tracks and watched the area the bandit he was following disappeared into. He was certain he couldn’t have lost sight of him under these circumstances. Then after several minutes of waiting, a ripple appeared in the air and another large group of bandits jumped out and began heading towards the caravan.

“A barrier of some sort?”, Hiro paused for a minute before hesitantly jumping down into the part of the forest the bandits appeared from. As he reached the region slightly above the point the bandits disappeared too, he felt his feet come in contact with a very thin film-like surface covering the air and as he broke through he watched as the originally dark forest transform into a well-lit campground.

The campground was relatively large and was filled with injured men, cages, and several groups of bandits preparing their weapons or eating. Hiro looked up at a startled pair of bandits that were just about to leave, and just as he was about to yell something Hiro lunged forward and grabbed the bandits chin and the top of his head with his palms and twisted it snapping the bandit's neck.

The bandit beside him screamed and drew his sword swinging it down at Hiro. Hiro reinforced his arms once more causing them to faintly emit a blue light and grabbed the bandits wrist. He quickly stomped his foot down onto the bandits to hold him down and twisted his torso using that force to punch the bandit in the chest.

This caused the bandit to loosen his grip on his sword and as Hiro twisted his wrist he was forced to drop it. Hiro pulled the bandit's arm down, causing the bandit's upper body to be tugged forward before he was met by an uppercut to the jaw.

The noise from Hiro’s short exchange caught several bandits attention and they all shouted, “Intruder! Kill him!”

One of the bandits covered in a robe who was tending to the wounded, turned around and grabbed a wooden staff behind him. He pointed the staff at Hiro and began chanting. Hiro noticed this and grabbed the sword at his feet, and it at the mage passing by several other bandits.

But as the sword was about to pierce the mage a figure suddenly dashed forward and struck the sword into the air. This figure was a woman with bright red hair wielding two sabers. She was quite lightly dressed, wearing only some furs and pelts allowing Hiro to see the dozens of scars lining her tanned body.

Hiro clicked his tongue and grabbed a dagger from the corpse of the bandit whose neck he snapped and quickly retreated as several bandits charged him.

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He hurriedly exited the space jumping back into the trees, but as he was about to make his escape into the tree lines he felt a sudden heat behind him and as he turned around he saw several fireballs flying towards him.

Hiro gathered the aura surrounding his body and focused it into the center of the dagger in his hands before throwing it. As the dagger touched the fireball, the aura within seeped into it causing it to explode prematurely. The fireballs explosion managed to shift the trajectory of the other fireballs but Hiro was also partially caught in the blast as the force of the explosion knocked Hiro back.  

As Hiro was trying to get back on his feet, a bandit jumped towards him and swung down a large war axe. Hiro gathered his strength in his upper body, and the aura around him changed from a blue to a white as he caught the axe’s blade between his palms. The Bandit was surprised that a child managed to stop a strike backed by his weight and the weight of his the heavy war axe, and this brief moment gave Hiro enough time to reinforce his leg and kick the bandit in the chest.

However, unfortunately, Hiro had exerted too much strength in his attempt to defend himself moments earlier and this resulted in the strike being far weaker than he would have liked. All Hiro could do was used the strike to distance himself from the bandit with the war axe as he noticed several other bandits were already quite close.

Then Hiro noticed a flash of light from the corner of his eyes, and he swung his right arm to the side as hard as he could creating a powerful gust of wind. This was able to stop several arrows flying through the air or knock them away far enough that they could be ignored. Though he was unable to stop all the arrows as there were simply too many archers among the bandits causing two arrows to pierce his left leg.

Finally, the red-haired bandit who appeared to be their leader showed up, she looked at Hiro and laughed, “Don’t kill him! We’ll get less out of him dead than alive!”

The men around her cheered, and several men with swords, spears, and axes charged at him. Hiro, exhausted, glared at the bandits, “Ah man, how pathetic….”

Hiro exhaled, and suddenly the light surrounding his arms and legs vanished. Even the energy strengthening his eyes which allowed him to see in the dark as well as he could, and the extremely faint aura around his body disappeared. Instead, all of his energy was concentrated in two fingers on his right hand, his pointer finger and his middle finger.

Hiro charged the bandit with the war axe, and before the bandit swung down his axe, Hiro suddenly accelerated and his right hand pierced the bandit's heart. Then suddenly, the light around his right fingers vanished, and gathered around his left fingers as he swung his left hand back and as if it were a sword it cut through another bandits neck.

The bandit with the spear saw this and grew enraged. He thrust his spear at Hiro, but to his surprise, he saw something white and red before his very eyes before his vision went black and he screamed in pain as his friend's bones were ripped out and used to blind him.

Hiro then grabbed his spear and threw it as hard as he could into the distance. The red hair bandit panicked as she moved to intercept it, but as she was charged forward she heard the flap of some wings and out of the corner of her eyes she saw Hiro right beside her.

She screamed and swung down her sabers in a panic, but Hiro just flapped his wings and shot to the sky. As she looked up at the sky and glared and Hiro, she heard a scream behind her, and the area behind her lit up.

She turned around and the mage who had shot the fireball earlier was pierced through the chest by a spear. The red-haired bandit clenched her fists, and shouted, “You son of a bitch I’ll kill you!”

Suddenly she shot into the air and kicked herself off a tree rapidly spinning like a top. However as she was about to hit Hiro, she suddenly felt her chest burn. And as Hiro dodged her strike, she looked down and two arrows had pierced her chest.

Her complexion paled and she asked, “This is...how did you...”

Hiro descended and replied, “It was no big deal really, blood is quite a powerful medium for mana. It’s quite fascinating really.”