The deceased rider had dropped his sword when Tibaut took out the horse's legs. He noticed its glimmer in the forest and hurriedly ran to it and picked it up.

The three riders seemed to all have the general idea of keeping away from him and attacking from a distance.

(“I don't see how the extra metre or so of range that sword will give you will help you out.

Then shut up and watch.”)

He wasted no time choosing which of the men to chase and made his way over.

He dodged another stone rod from the floor and made his way towards the horse. The rods came out at a glacial pace and weren't a concern. However, the others decided to tag in as well.

As Tibaut ran towards the rider of his attention, a stone pillar was made a ways in front of him.

“Is the guy controlling that blind?”

The rider made an odd move and decided to stop moving.

Tibaut felt there was something strange going on but decided to push through anyway.

He heard the sound of crackling quickly approaching from behind and narrowly dodged. From its appearance as it shot past him, it was a beam of ice.

It moved slowly and lasted for a few seconds before disappearing.

(Whew, if it didn't move so slowly after its initial shot, I might have been down.

It wouldn't have been anything you wouldn't survive. Besides did you not notice what they did?”)

“Huh what are you-”

His feet left the ground without his permission and he was now airborne with his head making its way towards the forest floor.

(“They used that stone rod to absorb the attack of the missed ice beam. It caused a formation of ice around it, that you so happily lost your balance on. Maybe my expectations for you were too high.

Oh shut up, I was focused on the beam, I hadn't seen anything like that before!”)

He heard the earth move beneath him and desperately moved his head to the side. A stone rod came from the ground and scrapped his neck but thankfully nothing more.

It took everything Tibaut had not to empty his bowels and quickly recover.

The other rider was still close and Tibaut wasted no time throwing the sword. The rider created a stone pillar to shield himself but that wasn't Tibaut's goal. The sword was aimed towards the horse's rear legs.

It sent the horse to the ground and the rider wasn't reassured by the sounds of ice slowly approaching him as he got back to his feet.

Tibaut soon came before him and the man used an attack he believed to be surefire. He aimed, using his body to obscure the incoming rod.

He believed it would end there but as soon as he fired it, Tibaut backed away.

He ended up killing himself without so much as a scar on Tibaut.

(“Didn't he realise it shook the ground whenever he did that? I could feel it from here.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It appears humanity has taken a nosedive in quality recently.”)

The other riders quickly turned around and began an escape. Tibaut picked up the fallen rider’s sword and chased the other two like a starved beast.

(“Kill them or don't, there will be others that will be alerted regardless.

If getting rid of them gives me an extra hour of free time then I'll take it. Also, I'm not trying to kill them, they seem to be doing that themselves.)

He threw the sword but the distance was too great. They reacted to it in time and dodged the blade.

But the direction one dodged sent them into a tree and to the ground.

(“I can't believe that worked, couldn't he have just slowed down?

Wouldn't you have been able to defeat him regardless?”)

He paid no attention to that person and ran past him pursuing the other rider.

A beam of ice came from behind but it wasn't too hard to dodge and for caution, he decided to jump over the area of the tree he blasted.

The last rider continued along with Tibaut in hot pursuit.

(“It seems the bush of the forest is slowing them down.

Thank God, I don't know how much more of this can take.”)

The only thing that pushed Tibaut along was the initial adrenaline he got from seeing his enemies. Otherwise, he was completely spent travelling here.

He still couldn't close the gap and became impatient. Which resulted in drastic measures. He gritted his teeth as he fought through the pain and shot off a fire lance at the horse's leg, causing it to stumble and later lose its balance.

He shouted in pain as he ran towards the last rider. He jumped off the horse before it tripped over itself and landed on him as gracefully as a cat.

He unsheathed his sword and ran towards Tibaut without an iota of fear in his eyes.

He took a blow to his torso but withstood it and countered with his sword.

(“Clean hit, heh the bastard is…”)

His counter strike landed but it was far too light. The most annoying thing about it to Tibaut was the fact it stained his shirt and left a massive rip in it.

Tibaut struck back with a blow to his chin and sent him to dreamland. He fell to the floor and his skull made an unpleasant sound when it hit the forest floor.

Tibaut had his hands on his knees gasping for air and shouting in pain.

“*Gasp* Fuck! *Cough cough*, son of a bitch what happened to me!?”

The forest echoed with his swears and he had to slowly limp over to a nearby tree in an attempt to hide himself.

(“There's still one left.

I know. God damnit.”)

The adrenaline had worn off and he was now struggling to stand up straight. He peeked from the tree and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

(“He's likely hundreds of metres behind. Let's hope he doesn't have binoculars.

Stop trying to will bad stuff into existence.”)

He began walking in the silent forest for several minutes before he ducked behind another tree after hearing a branch break.

(“I believe that was you.

…Why are you so talkative now, and not during the boring journey here?”)

He slowly made his way towards the area where the horse had crashed into the tree and he began hearing the horse's neighs of desperation.

He soon got a visual of the horse and its rider.

“I don't think I've ever seen a person run that fast.” She said, sounding a mixture of amazed and distraught.

She was rubbing the neck of the horse in an attempt to comfort it. It didn't seem to help as it continued neighing loudly all the same.

“I knew I wasn't cut out to be a guard. They'll probably punish me if I head back.”

She looked at the horse and sighed.

“What do you think I should do, Dolly?”

The horse paid her no mind and continued neighing in agony.