During the next several days Alex continued to jog westwards while cultivating and healing during the night. The stinging pain was slowly replaced with annoying itch and the ugly wounds got scabbed and looked as if he was only bruised all over. Unfortunately scabs covered most of his face as well and Alex understood he would unlikely be able to live in a city or a larger settlement because of his ‘new’ looks, but it was also fine.

What baffled him was no matter how far he went, he found burned towns and villages everywhere as well as hundreds of murdered civilians. During the day he was mostly running and that could only mean the rebel psychopaths were mounted and moved partially through the night to stay ahead of him.

Another strange thing was the number of rebel forces. If one took the capital Zamora as the center, than if the rebels went on killing in all directions, their forces should spread out and sooner or later there should be settlements that survived. Be as it may, Alex judged that at his current pace he soon would to catch up to the rebels he was currently tailing.

It happened sooner than he expected. The same evening he noticed a distant smoke and immediately slowed down.

It was another village that currently was burnt down. In the very center a couple of men in dark leather armor were looking after twenty odd horses, while a bunch of others were gathering the villagers. In fact, ‘gathering’ was not the proper term.

Thirty to forty people – women, children and elderly in poor clothing were clustered together and the rebels were pushing and pulling villagers from more distant dwellings, gathering everyone like livestock. Male villagers, no matter if they resisted or not were killed on the spot as if to avoid potential surprises while the rest could only watch the scene hysterically crying and begging for mercy.

Alex also watched the sight hiding in bushes on a small hill right next to the village. At first he came over to take a look purely out of curiosity and maybe to gather some information so he could decide on how to precede. But now he stared at the ruthless slaughtering with clenched fists and tears in his eyes. He had an inkling his current state was mostly caused by the feminine hormones raging, but the inhumanity in front of him went against anything he believed in.

It was true he didn’t care about human lives or any lives for that matter. Since everyone would reincarnate, it didn’t matter much how long they lived. But it mattered how they did! And to cause such suffering while having those disgusting smirks on faces had no excuse – be it religious or political. The most horrifying thing was that it probably happened all over the Hallancia kingdom, not only in front of Alex’s eyes!

Alex kept taking deep breaths in order to calm himself down and when a shrill scream echoed nearby and a young woman, probably around the age of twenty five holding a child in each of her hands darted out from a small house while two men, one young and elderly tried to hold back three attackers who were about to go and search their house.

Such tactics didn’t make any sense to Alex – why would they wait until the last moment? Or did they have a delusion their home would not be searched? Be as it may, the three men cut both villagers down like vegetables and jogged after the escaping woman loudly laughing in amusement.

Meanwhile the most horrifying sight Alex had seen in all his lives took place. Apparently annoyed by the audacity, the rest of the rebels began to slaughter villagers where they stood. Heads, hands and pieces of flesh began to rain all over the place and Alex felt his vision blurring, but then his heart almost stopped.

The young woman suddenly turned towards the hill he was hiding on and made her last desperate attempt to escape. The two kids in her hands were hysterically crying, but she continued to run while hugging them tightly.

Finally one of the men had enough, took a small crossbow from his back, slowly cocked and loaded it, pointed it at the woman who was already almost on top of the hill and took a shot.

To Alex’s surprise, woman didn’t cry out in pain, nor did she stop after the bolt dug in her leg. She continued to run as if nothing happened, but then one of the man finally caught up and slammed the flat side of his sword on her head. The young mother stumbled on the ground, but still managed to protect her children from the fall. She intended to get up when the attacker stepped on her back pressing her to the ground, but she still desperately tried to protect her children without making a sound.

It all happened few meters from the spot Alex was currently hiding at, but luckily for now no one noticed him.

“Don’t kill her yet! She’s pretty!” The second rebel caught up and stopped the slashing motion of his colleague.

The first one widely grinned and turned the woman over with his foot, but she kept hugging her two children closely while hiding her face close to theirs.

“What are you two doing?” The third man finally caught up and asked in an annoyed voice.

“Boss is having fun, why shouldn’t we?” The second rebel asked back, loudly laughing.

The third looked back at the massacre below the hill in the village and said, “Fine! But I’ll go first!”

And then began to take off his pants while the other two grabbed one of the kids each from mother’s arms and threw them aside. The young woman finally realized the situation she was in and hysterically screaming began to struggle, but the three men only laughed.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

If a second earlier Alex was frozen in shock, now he felt blood rushing to his head. His right hand instinctively grabbed the sword handle and a split second later like a ghost he arrived next to the woman. The man with lowered pants noticed Alex first, but before his expression could change, he was stabbed in the eye.

Contrary to everything Bill taught Alex, he didn’t fall back this time. The only thing he wished in the world was to chop these bastards in pieces thus the retreat was out of question. Luckily the decade of perfecting the thrusting motion had burned the move in his bones and purely on instinct he performed two more trusts from where he stood.

One of the remaining men died instantly, like his colleague, but the second attack slightly missed and severed the third man’s carotid artery. Blood sprayed on Alex’s face as the man fell down, but before he could let out a cry of pain, Alex cut his head completely off.

‘Stop!’ Alex inwardly screamed.

His mental state urged him to rush down the hill and continue what he started, but the few bits of remaining common sense commanded to retreat. There was no way for him to defeat every rebel in the village, not even considering the fact one or more could be Qi masters.

Alex dropped in his knees trying to force himself to stay put, took two deep breaths and finally managed to calm a bit down.

‘Damn!’ He cursed to himself, ‘It’s so hard to be a woman! Not only they get the annoying periods, the mental state is less stable as well! … Right! The woman!’

In his thirst for blood Alex completely forgot about the person he wanted to save, but now he rushed over only to find lifeless eyes staring back at him. He was certain the three rapists intended to kill her after the deed and the earlier shot in the leg was definitely not fatal, but for some reason she was already dead.

Alex quickly checked her pulse and breathing, but then noticed blood coming from her mouth. While he was observing events from the side, the poor woman decided to take her own life by biting her tongue off rather than experiencing the three brutal villains raping her. She knew she and her children would be killed anyway, thus didn’t hesitate one bit. Alex was not clear why she died so quickly, but the only thing he could wish her now was to be born in her next life as a bird so she would be to be able to fly, freely enjoying the world.

A quick thought of ‘if I wasn’t hesitating – could I have saved them?’ ran through Alex’s head, but he instantly dismissed it. Not only he had no chance of bringing her away, she was carrying two children as well!

‘The kids!’ Alex inwardly shouted.

When attackers grabbed the two children from woman’s arms and threw aside, they suddenly fell silent – probably after loosing their consciousness and Alex completely forgot about them. Now that their mother was dead, they would certainly die as well.

Alex sighed at such thought and turned to leave. He had to move fast before anyone below the hill began to search for the trio. A couple kilometers back he crossed a river, approximately forty or fifty meters wide, and there he could loose the rebels in case they would come searching for him. He was not as adept in hiding his tracks as Bill was, but he learned quite a bit from the older brother and was confident in his abilities.

Few seconds later Alex was almost hundred meters away from the spot he was hiding at earlier, but suddenly his steps became heavier and slower until he fell down on his knees grabbing chest with both hands and trying to catch his breath. Physically he was uninjured, but there was this stabbing pain in the heart that kept intensifying the further he went. At first he tried to ignore it, but with every step it became stronger and in the end he almost screamed in agony.

“F*ck!” Alex loudly cursed and punched the ground, and after few shallow breaths began to repeatedly punch it over and over again while cursing, “F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! …”

All his lives Alex had lived for himself and the closest relationships with other people he formed were those of convenience or profit. But now there was a voice in his consciousness screaming ‘You can’t leave them behind!’. Such concept went against his basic principles and existence as a whole!

His reason kept telling him to ignore it, but the stinging emotional pain felt so realistic and physical he couldn’t leave. This inner conflict almost drove him mad and he had no clue how to deal with it.

Alex looked up in the sky and hissed through his teeth, “Fine! But you can’t force me to be born as a woman ever again!”

He turned towards the village and in a lightning speed rushed back. He blamed going against the common sense on the hormones again and ‘made the deal with God’ he never believed in only to somewhat justify what he intended to do.

No more than two minutes had passed since the massacre in the village began when Alex returned on top of the small hill. Trough the bushes he quickly observed few of the attackers cleaning their weapons and others performing another search, looking for the potential survivors. No one had noticed what happened on the hill earlier, thus Alex heaved sigh of relief and quickly found the two bundles where both parent-less children lie unconscious.

He sighed again after verifying they were alive and immediately dashed away carrying the two bundles just like the late mother did few minutes ago.

Alex didn’t try to hide his tracks, but directly ran towards the river. He was certain this murder squad had their trackers and could follow him even while mounted, therefore the most distance he could gain was until anyone in the village found out what happened to their three comrades.

He had never ran so fast in his life, but for some reason it felt as if he could run like this for tens of kilometers. Obviously he blamed the hormones again, but this time they worked in his favor and only when the river was in sight, he heard a long distant whistle of alarm.

Alex threw a glance back, but it was too far to see if anyone was already following him. He widely grinned and rushed into the quick stream, and when he was ten or so meters away from the riverbank, water was already waist deep. After throwing his weapon towards the middle of the river, Alex took a couple of deep breaths just like he was about to dive in. Then he slowly lie on the water while making sure the two unconscious kids could breathe freely and let the stream carry him.

There was no way the pursuers could quickly find him now. Firstly – they had to search for him both up- and downstream and on both riverbanks at that. It meant they had to split in four groups. Secondly – the pursuers always had to be weary of an ambush – what if he was a Qi master or someone with good archery skills? And finally – the sky was darkening and in half an hour it will be dark, and under the cover of the night he could float till morning. The water was chill, but not as cold as in the well few days ago and all he had to do was to channel a bit of Qi into the two small bundles that currently were lying on his chest.

‘Damn hormones!’ Alex cursed to himself, but this time smiled towards the sky. For some reason he felt really warm.