“A bit close for comfort don’t ya think?!” William yelled, heckling the guy with terrible bow aim.

The only answer he got was three lines of bandits charging At the wall, all melee types, three dozen or so bandits, with the remainder in a neat little line firing bows and using magic with two Medics behind them, clearly there to support a never ending volley. That was all William could see of the situation as he was forced to duck below the palisade wall to avoid the volley of arrows and magic projectiles. He heard the oncoming rush briefly before the momentum was broken by the various spikes and barricades erected outside. This bought him a few moments to think of a plan. About thirty seconds later he felt the first few bandits to reach the wall slam into it. He knew the palisade would hold for a couple minutes, but that was it. He waited for a handful of seconds for a lull in the volley before emerging.

William took the opportunity in the lull moment to pop up with one of the two poison water buckets and proceeded to splash it in a line across the attacking bandits. Screams and grunts of discomfort and pain erupted from below, some of the people making sounds he never imagined could come from another human being. With the suffering bandits acting as a wave breaker of sorts, William turned his attention to the ranged group. He had a tried and true method with his self proclaimed Alpha Strike combined with [Flash Stride]. Unfortunately, William could tell from the formation that he could see that the attack wouldn’t wipe them all out in one go. He would take out most, leaving about five ranged bandits and the two healers. As far as he knew currently, resurrection magic was yet to be proven as a real thing in GAEA. Killing most outright, would give him time to go after the healers.

With a plan of attack that was simple and effective, William rested his hand on his side sword, readying the draw motion for when he emerged from his movement skill. With an activation of [Flash Stride], William was nearly upon his foe. He couldn’t quite make it to the backlines, but was close enough for his attack to do its job. He was glad the leader was with the other melee fighters as they should be unaware of his attack. William unleashed his Alpha Strike and watched as the wave of energy sliced through so many bandits. It was his biggest attack so far, and he was even pleased to see that one of the medics behind the line was also caught in the wave. There was a cacophony of panicked, enraged, and fearful shouts and William used that commotion to charge at the remaining medic.

The guy panicked and tried to flee. Unfortunately for the Medic, Dexterity was important when running up hill and William had a goodly amount of it. The last thing that the enemy saw, and felt, was the tip of a sword thrust through his back and out of his chest. With a dying gasp, the bandit spasmed and then collapsed, dead. [Danger Sense] flared up, prompting William to dive to the side, narrowly avoiding multiple projectiles. It seemed that the ranged enemies had regrouped and began an offensive on William instead of the palisade.

William had felt like a gymnast, dodging and weaving through the various projectiles launched at him, and as he moved, William was getting closer to the ranged foes, a spectre of oncoming death. Within a minute, the bandits that remained lay dead at his feet, no healer to support them. Snapping of wood sounded from below, and William saw the palisade starting to crack and splinter, chunks being hacked away by an aggressive horde. A horde that were still oblivious to his current antics. William still had one charge of his sword left and [Flash Stride] now off of cool-down. It wouldn’t do to just hack at their back line, otherwise he couldn’t stop the forward bunch form smashing the palisade down and rushing the village. The wall was going to break, but he wanted to be inside for it. It was then that he had another good idea.

William walked down at a leisurely pace, keeping mental timing for when the palisade broke as that was the linchpin of his plan. It wasn’t long before logs collapsed and there was a brief pause of processing from the attackers, before some cheers. That was William’s prompt, and he used [Flash Stride] again to appear in the gap, unleashing his second sword charge, combined with [Vortex Slash] and [Mana Investment]. The strike wasn’t as devastating the second time around; it never was. The sheath’s charged up Mana being expended on the first use, but it still did good work. About fifteen bandits now lay in the breach as bloody remains. The bodies acting as a small wall of their own. Seeing this, William had yet another good idea.

He hopped on top of the bodies and started slashing, dodging, weaving. Each move was a precise execution of the Arcane Sword and its sword-forms. Every kill was another proverbial brick on his wall. It didn’t take long for the leader to get involved, or the person who William had assumed was the leader, until he saw them. It wasn’t the same guy who they had encountered previously, meaning either the one that had attacked William before was either the leader, or worked for the guy currently in front of William. It didn’t matter he supposed, dead was dead after all. The ‘leader’ was...mediocre. He wasn’t very vicious or unrelenting, and usually switched out with one or more of the remaining bandits, hoping to overwhelm William with numbers. Numbers that were dwindling fast. Mental fatigue was beginning to gnaw at the back of William’s mind as all the dodging and blocks consumed more SP and for the first time in a while, William’s SP dropped below fifty percent.

Another two minutes passed by with more bandits adding to the pile of corpses that now formed a four foot mound of flesh and blood. Atop it like a god of war stood William, drenched head to toe in enemy blood, chunks of viscera and flesh in his hair and in some creases on his clothing. His side sword had become stained in crimson, seeing the most action it ever had. The only remaining one was the ‘leader’. He wasn’t a threat to William and as such, was insignificant. The remaining foe did manage to fight his way to the top of the mound, now level with William. It was commendable for someone so lacking, a someone that assumed forty people would be enough to kill one man. In open fields with no cover, he would be a dead man, but fortunately for William, the environment was on his side. William had shifted his actions to those of just deftly blocking the bandit’s attacks. This was swiftly ended by a deflection of the bandit’s blade and a [Vortex Slash] targeted at the man’s legs.

The bandit let out an excruciated scream of pain before crashing onto the mound. Looking down at his knees that had now became bloody stumps.

“My legs! I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!” The man pleaded, tears now forming.

William sighed, holding the sword to the downed bandit’s throat as he replied, “you are the leader? I find that hard to believe.”

“I...I’m not…the leader I mean, I’m...his son. If you spare me...we can make a deal or something. I don’t wanna die, pleeaase!”

“Interesting. Where’s your father? Is he the leader of you blue guys, or the leader of the whole thing?”

“Blue guys?! We’re...the Blue Jacks. Famed Highwaymen? You’ve...never heard...of us?”

William shrugged.

“I haven’t, but that didn’t answer my questions, did it?” William said, tilting the blade so a dribble of blood was drawn.

“I’m sorry...please...no, I’ll tell you. My father is...the leader of our group. Darris Bloodsoaker is the...leader of our...alliance.”

“Alliance?”

“Us, the Strays, and...the Bloodsoaked Brotherhood.”

William was surprised at that. Three groups of enemies, not two.

He digested the information quickly before replying, “so which of the three contains the leader of this alliance?”

“Blood...soaked, Darris’s...name sake. The Strays...are busy...fighting elsewhere, so...even if you...win this day, you...won’t be safe.”

“A problem for future me. I assume the other group fighting my companions currently are these Bloodsoaked?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The bandit nodded lamely having paled further, presumably from blood loss. The two shared a look, and William knew it was time to end it. He wasn’t going to get any more from this guy now he was on death’s door. William pushed the blade into the man’s neck, ending his suffering.

William cleaned and re-sheathed his blade, taking a deep breath, sharpening his focus. He turned to look back at Greenwell, and was relieved to see that the wall and gate still held, with spells and arrows being sent out at the enemy. There were a couple injured people laying down below the palisade, medics tending to them. He could only see a partial view of the battle as the huts obstructed most of it. It seemed to be going well though, and held more hope of the day being theirs. The hope was swiftly reduced several modicums as the sound of another group came from the hill nearest to William.

“Of. Fucking. Course,” William said, under his breath.

As he stretched his limbs and adjusted his balance atop the mound of bodies, William looked on at the approaching force. It was similar sized to the first, but had some distinct differences. Most of the enemy held pitchforks, wooden clubs and the like. There were several individuals amongst the three clusters that formed the next ‘wave; for lack of a better word, all central with swords and spears. William could tell the sword wielders carried greatswords, even from the distance apart, as the proportions compared to the weapons’ owners would match with his mental picture. He also noticed that they weren’t as blue. The only members that bore blue paint were the bandits in the middle of the clusters. William decided an [Identify] should be used and his eyes widened at the results:

{Ascension_Protocol}

Human – Level 1 – Fighter Level 1

{End}

He was shocked. What were level one people doing attacking Greenwell? They didn’t really have decent weapons and appeared tired and malnourished. Were they slaves? He didn’t want to have to fight the new enemies, as he knew that it would just be a waste of energy. His identify caught a few more in its range when he thought about it, and they were all the same, except for the guys with blue on them. Those were what he had expected to see:

Human – Level 8 – Fighter 8

Human – Level 7 – Fighter 7

He didn’t understand why the weaker ones didn’t just all rush their…captors? They had the numbers after all. William reasoned in the end that they were beaten down to submission beforehand. It was the only logical explanation that came to his mind. It made his job harder, knowing he would probably end up killing people who didn’t even want to be there, that did nothing wrong. He did feel ashamed, however, that he could come to that decision as easily as he did. He had well and truly embraced his ability to kill his foes, regardless of whom they were. He was drawn out of his thoughts as he heard some inaudible yells from the blue painted members of the enemy force, seeming to command the rest to charge.

With a sigh, William adjusted his stance as best he could atop the corpse mound he had built. He did briefly wonder, about how it was so easy to make such a creation. It turned out that bodies were actually pretty damn solid when piled together. Every new kill became a new layer, another brick.

It didn’t take long for the enemy to reach him, as William started blasting, having summoned Sharpie from his Spatial Ring and using it to conduct another [Vortex Slash]. He didn’t use [Mana Investment] this time, however, as he didn’t want to cleave through too many, hoping that the first few deaths would rout the weak ones, allowing him not to practically genocide a large group of locals, or who he assumed were locals the bandits had captured anyway.

Even with his mitigation, the attack carved through two rows of the weak ones. The gap he held was limited to four or five abreast, making for an effective shooting gallery in a sense. He then did a [Vortex Thrust] that pierced through two more in front of him and penetrating into a couple rows behind those. With both his semi-ranged options on cool-down, he started fighting the traditional way. Weaving, blocking, parrying, countering. All the techniques he had picked up from the way of the Arcane Sword were paying dividends. Naturally, his foes weren’t strong, but there were a lot of them and most had pitchforks and farming equipment which were not something most sword users would need to encounter in such a world. He still took injuries in the process, cuts along his side, scratches, near misses, and a couple deeper ones to the body, but activating the Syphon rune on his blade healed most up. He had only been at it for thirty seconds or so, when one of the actual fighters appeared before him, greatsword swinging in a sharp, downward arc. William was able to register the angle of the attack in his mind easily, and countered by raising his shield at an angle, timing the impact with [Indomitable Parry], driving the bandit’s sword to the side and down into the mound of bodies. The impact cleaved into the bodies causing an eruption of blood. The opening had presented itself in the form of an exposed throat. A swift slash across it ended the man with a deep and bloody gurgle the only response from his foe.

It was then back to the shit stuff of killing weaklings. The process repeated itself for the most part over the next twenty minutes. William was pleased that after killing three quarters of them, the weaklings still alive fled for their lives, leaving two remaining bandits. The enemy pair looked at William, then at the mound below him, and back up at him, before shaking their heads and retreating also. A look at his resources told William he was low on MP and SP. He popped out a potion for each and downed the contents. A decision that he regretted immediately, as both tasted herbal, but unique from each other, creating a taste that was absolutely dire to William and his taste buds. He couldn't argue with results however as he saw his bars replenish.

The corpse mound had grown more, standing at about seven feet roughly. He thought to the betrayal still at hand, and considered going to find the Duncans, but he decided to do that after decimating the bandits. It would be more satisfying to see Walter’s face of shock when they won and he knew he fucked up. He was indifferent with Allan and Leanne however, viewing them as annoying, but not loathsome. He didn’t know whether the parents were also involved, but he would find out and execute them all if they were guilty. As if on cue, William felt some eyes on him. It wasn’t a triggering of [Danger Sense] he knew, but more of a sixth sense in a way. He turned to look at the spot he thought the eyes originated from. It was the hut with the non-combatants. He saw that they all looked up at him atop that mound, a mix of expressions on display. His parents looked worried, Devlin, and Frenn looked impressed, Noctis and Armine were less focused on him and more at the bodies below him, their faces showing...pity? He didn’t dwell on it, however, looking at the Duncans who looked fearful. William focused his gaze on Walter, flaring his aura faintly, just enough that it was conveyed in his eyes. It was a knowing look, one that he knew would make Walter aware that his schemes were known by William.

Walter shivered at the gaze and broke eye contact quickly. William held his eyes over the Duncans for a few more moments making the message clear; things would be settled later. William turned his gaze back to the hill, waiting for the next wave. It came in the form of three people. One looked familiar, jogging Williams memory. It was the Blue Jacks leader. Beside him were two others in blue, bearing thicker leather armor than what he had seen so far. He wondered if it was the equivalent of Heavy armor, but made out of leather. It didn’t matter, he knew, the enemy were the enemy and they would die like the rest.

William watched as the three approached and stopped at the mound of corpses, some horror apparent. William found that odd. Why would such scum be horrified at a pile of bodies?

“Where’s my boy?” The leader said, looking concerned.

The horror now made sense.

William shrugged, nonchalance radiating from his body language as he replied, “Somewhere here,” Gesturing with his bloody blade to the pile of bodies.

William watched the expressions shift on the man’s face. First was worry, then brief shock, followed by sorrow. The sorrow lasted for a few long moments before it shifted to anger and hate. Their eyes met, William’s seeming indifferent, the bandit’s convey a plethora of emotions, but the dominant one was definitely the anger.

“My boy. You took my boy!” He roared.

“How many ‘boys’ have you all taken? Good riddance to bad rubbish,” William replied, distaste in his mouth.

He didn’t want to speak Ill of the dead, but he knew that an emotional opponent would be more prone to mistakes. He had no illusion that the leader would be the strongest foe of the Blue Jacks at least, and the two bandits beside the man seemed like guards, or elites in game logic. He would resort to any means to protect what was his.

“I’ll fuckin’ kill ya!” The man yelled rushing at William, drawing his sword.

The two in thick leathers followed with spears in hand, the leader now climbing the mound with the two following nearly at the mound also. This would have been a bad spot for William typically. The spear wielders would be a significant threat in such a scenario, ready to stab him in the sides or back while he clashed with the leader. Fortunately for William, he had [Flash Stride]. Activating the ability, William appeared behind the spear wielders slashing at the neck of one, severing it and shifting into a spin that set William up for a slash at the kneecap of the second, cleaving the leg at the joint. The Spear wielder tried to thrust at William as he fell screaming, but missed, allowing William to parry the strike and return a counter, severing one of the man’s hands, prompting the bandit to roll on the floor in agony. William didn’t finish him off as the guy wasn’t going anywhere and could have useful information.

William turned back to the mound, noticing the leader atop it, sword pointed down at William. He then knew that his attack was a mistake. He had lost the high ground.