Justin soared over the enemy camp. They were difficult to see through the thick canopy of branches, but when he hovered close above them, he could easily make out the soldiers and tents. He flew through a gap in the trees and perched himself high up in one of them, retracting his large white wings, his sword in hand.
Justin was still invisible. He’d only been using the item for maybe a minute or so—it hadn’t taken him long to get here. He felt a little bad using the item like at all, as it wasn’t his, and he could see there was a hard time limit on it. Once that hour had been used up, it could never be used again.
She gave it to me without asking for any sort of contract. She just… trusted me.
He touched the ring on his finger as he waited. He wasn’t going to attack until Allegra came in as a distraction. He looked down upon the enemies from his perch, counting up how many invaders were in this camp. The camp was larger than the first one they’d encountered—the one that Xavier had blown through easily, taking control of them with his Willpower Essence spell.
Elian bit his lip and wondered how he was going to deal with so many enemies. He counted over two hundred of them—over two hundred!
Was this just a stupid mistake? Maybe I should have waited until I could bring Howard and Siobhan along, or even Xavier. He would have made quick work of these guys.
Then he saw the captives Allegra had mentioned. She’d said there were roughly twenty Earthling captives in the camp, but from his count he could see at least thirty-three of them. Then he remembered Allegra’s words—how powerful she said he was.
He started scanning the enemies.
{Human - Level 20}
{Human - Level 22}
{Human - Level 20}
{Human - Level 21}
{Human - Level 25}
That Level 25 was the strongest one he could find. She looked to be their leader.
The portal stood proudly in the middle of the camp. It must have been the same one Allegra had come through. He wondered what life was like on the other side.
He let out a long, silent breath from his perch. He might not be a lot of levels higher than them, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to tear through them with ease. He remembered that boss fight in the last dungeon, and how careful he’d been there. It had turned out that he hadn’t needed to be so careful—he could have taken that boss out with ease if only he’d went in headlong.
Besides, I have even more advantages—like the fact that I’m invisible.
He wasn’t sure what to do about protecting the hostages. He wasn’t a healer, nor a tank who could use a taunt spell or take someone else’s damage. Nor would he be able to just take control of everyone in the vicinity and call it a day.
They’ll be in danger, but I doubt they’ll threaten them. Why would the invaders think I even cared about them?
Whatever his odds of winning this, he wasn’t able to turn back anymore. It wasn’t just his life that would be in danger in this fight. Allegra had put her trust in him for this, and lent him an item of great value so he could complete the task.
I won’t let her down. I won’t let anyone down.
One of the guards near the outskirts of the camp shouted, calling for the woman who appeared to be the camp’s leader. The Level 25 he’d seen. The woman looked to be some sort of ranger. She had a heavy bow strapped to her back and light leather armour that looked as though it would help her mobility. Something told him she wouldn’t have a great deal of trouble hitting a flying target.
I’ll deal with her fast.
There was a small commotion as a crowd slowly started to form. He watched as Allegra walked into the camp. He couldn’t make out what she was saying. The words weren’t in English, and for some reason the System was no longer translating for him. He supposed it only did that when words were meant for him, so unless he acquired some sort of translation spell, he assumed he wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on enemies all that easily.
Now’s my chance.
Just about everyone in the camp was facing the one direction—toward Allegra. He dropped down, spreading his wings to let him glide and land softly on the grass below. He was on the other side of the camp to where Allegra was performing her little distraction, a distraction which seemed to amount to her announcing that she was here.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I’m glad we did that truth contract and I know she isn’t leading me into a trap.
It felt wrong, attacking someone while he was invisible, but he reminded himself why he was here, and what these people had done. Just like when he was in the melee, he turned off the part of himself that worried about morality and moved forward to get the job done.
Suddenly, he felt a lot more relaxed. In fact, he didn’t just feel relaxed, he felt excited.
This fight was going to test his abilities.
And it was going to be a lot of fun.
The first solider went down easily. Justin didn’t even have to use Power Strike—just one swift swipe from his sword and the man’s head was separated from his body. The man fell down—his head going one way, his body going the other.
Justin felt like he was in an old samurai movie, or that he was an anime character…
Either way, it was pretty awesome if you forgot about the fact that these were real people he was killing.
He took down ten enemies this way before anyone even noticed what was going on, then chaos was unleashed. Weapons were drawn or summoned from inside of Storage Rings. People shouted. Screamed. Turned frantically, looking this way and that, nothing but fear in their eyes as they had no idea where the threat was coming from.
Justin took off three more heads, stabbed one guy straight through the neck, then soared up with his wings and sent down Air Strikes at soldiers on the other side of the camp to create more chaos—each Air Strike took down a single enemy.
Make them think it’s more than one person attacking them.
Justin found himself wishing he had some sort of area of effect spell right about now.
The yelling was becoming louder, the panic more intensified. People were shouting all manner of things, but he couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Part of him was glad for that. Though he didn’t have to understand them to see them pointing up at him. They couldn’t see him flying through the air—the invisibility the ring’s imbued ability offered him was still intact, but they could see where his attacks came from.
Allegra had disappeared from the mass of invaders, slipping backward through them with ease. A few soldiers looked her way, shouted something, but she wasn’t the only one trying to flee. And they had better things to do than haul her into the fight.
He had no way of stopping their communications with their home world. He didn’t know what they would report. They weren’t able to scan him, and even if they did, it wasn’t as though he was as high level as Xavier.
So maybe it didn’t matter if they got away. He gritted his teeth, and landed amongst them with a thud, slamming his sword straight through the top of one of their heads. That’s when he set his sights on the leader of the force. She was one of the only invaders among them that still appeared to be calm—or, if not calm, at least somewhat composed. She had an arrow nocked, her bow fully drawn. She’d released a few arrows into the air, but none of them had hit him. She was clearly the better trained of them all, but that didn’t mean she could see him. Justin wondered what the commanders of these forces went through versus those they commanded, as they were all the same level.
The woman was coordinating a retreat back through the portal. Justin thought that was a rather cowardly approach, but it was probably also the wisest thing she could be doing right now. Hard to fight an enemy you can’t see. Still, he wished he could take out that damned portal.
It was when she started gathering the captives that Justin felt anger grip his chest. A part of him had been thinking their retreat would be a good idea. Letting them go would be easier than taking them all down. But he couldn’t let them take the captives. Earthlings as slaves at all was a horrible thing to contemplate. Earthlings as slaves on other planets? That made him fume with rage. He wouldn’t let something like that happen.
His imagination ran wild, putting his mother into this position. A slave being driven to another world. She would lose her will. Lose her light. Become an empty shell of the person she used to be. The person who’d helped make him into who he was.
No. He wouldn’t stand for that happening with any of them.
Give them something to focus on.
Justin deactivated the ring’s imbued ability. Heads turned his way. In their shock he separated three from their necks before they could do anything about it. Now, the leader was setting her sights onto him. Blood splattered onto his face from the men he’d killed. He grinned through it, probably looking like an absolute maniac, but he didn’t care. He ran straight at her.
She released her arrow. It glowed green, and a liquid dripped from its metal head. It flew directly for him, and he knew if he didn’t move it would hit him in the head or neck.
Justin cast Slip Dodge. He ended up a few inches to his left, still sprinting all out. The arrow zipped by him. The wind it created shifted a lock of his hair.
Then he disappeared again. Turning invisible right before the woman’s eyes. He leapt into the air, pumping his wings once for air, then came down at her from above. The shock of their enemy appearing before them had given the whole force pause, momentarily halting their retreat through the portal.
None of the captives had yet to make it through.
His sword pierced the commander’s chest. The woman didn’t die instantly like the others.
Blood spurted from her mouth, but she was laughing, making a weird gurgling sound. Why in the world was she laughing? There was a fierce light in her eyes, a gleam that he didn’t understand. Then something began to glow about her neck. She wore a crystal there. Some powerful item?
Justin’s mind zipped through all the possibilities as he stared at the women. His first thought was it must be some kind of self-destruct. He tried to pull back, pull his sword out, but she moved with surprising speed and gripped onto his back, her bow on the ground forgotten. She was stronger than he anticipated. But she wasn’t stronger than him. He’d be able to get out of this hold—
He just didn’t have the time.
The necklace glowed even brighter until he had to shut his eyes from the pain. The world shifted around him. The very air felt different. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt something like this. His body now instinctively knew what had just happened to him—he’d been teleported. Except this teleportation didn’t feel nearly as smooth as any teleportation he’d felt before. It was rough. Jerky.
The light dimmed. Justin opened his eyes. They stung, and he could still see little motes of light floating in his vision and blinked them away.
His sword was still all the way through the woman’s chest, piercing her straight to the hilt. The expression on her face hadn’t changed—a sort of mad, twisted glee. But the light that had been shining in her eyes, that weird gleam, was long gone. Her eyes were blank. Lifeless. The kill notification came. He ignored it. Pulled his sword out of the woman, then looked around.
He wasn’t in the forest anymore.
Stone walls surrounded him on three sides. The third side was vertical bars.
Justin had been teleported directly into some sort of prison cell.
“Oh, shi-”