After dealing with the brute, the two elite warriors carefully entered the faintly lit basement and located the guard they were pursuing. He was just proudly standing there, grinning like a maniac.

"What's so funny?" Hirishima asked.

"Maybe he has gone psycho after his plan miserably failed," joked Subaru.

"Tell us everything about how the king came to know of Hosh... the outsider. Maybe then we will let you get out of here alive," Hirishima addressed.

"Screw you! I ain't gonna tell you shit!" the guard yelled.

Hirishima began walking towards him to punch him on his cheek, knocking him down. He then proceeded to grab the guard's forearm and threatened, "Not the answer I was looking for, maybe you don't value this arm."

"And you don't value your life!" the guard laughed.

"Wait Hirishima! There is someone else here!" Subaru yelled just as his friend used his leg to lock the guard in place and twisted the arm to dislocate it.

"Ahhh! Shit! Sir! What are you doing!? Why did you let him!?" the guard shrieked.

"I have no use for a weakling like you. Besides, you have fulfilled your purpose to me," a tall man wearing an emerald battle armor with streaks of red running through his proportions spoke.

The armor was light, yet reinforced each vital part of it's wearer perfectly. It's shoulder pads, Torso and lower half resembled that of a Shogun Samurai.

He slowly walked out of the dark corner and showed his face. He had fairly long black hair and was wearing a black eye patch on his left eye.

"What the hell!? It's.... Tamura! You are still alive!?" Hirishima was astonished as soon as he saw his face.

"We thought Erashi killed you! We even buried your damn body!" Subaru was just as shocked.

"Even Erashi has his secrets. Enough about that, where is the outsider?" Tamura inquired.

"Like we are going to tell you that easily," Hirishima rejoined.

"Then let us fight. I want to test my strength against the two best elite warriors out there," Tamura proudly proposed.

"You got some nerve, first you start killing your own comrades and then by some miracle you come back to life just to act cocky enough to challenge us?" Hirishima fumed.

"That's right, because now I am even stronger than Erashi," Tamura replied.

"As if! Hirishima can you believe thid guy?" Subaru interjected.

"Why don't you stop talking and find out for yourselves?" Tamura began walking towards the two warriors.

The lead guard begged as his commander tread past him, "Please sir! Fix my arm first! It hurts so bad!"

"Sure." Tamura grabbed the dislocated arm and started applying force in the opposite direction.

"What are you doing sir!?" The guard felt more pain than before.

A bit more force completely ripped the arm out from it's attachment along with the ligaments and tendons hanging out. The guard hollered from extreme pain as a stream of blood started leaking out.

"Great music for our battle, don't you think!?" Tamura laughed as he threw the arm to the corner, creating a streak of blood on the ground.

"You sick bastard!" Hirishima growled.

"Cool down and listen, you engage him head on while I will find an opening from the behind," Subaru whispered out his strategy.

"Fine." Hirishima rushed at Tamura and launched a punch aiming at his head. His target quickly swayed left and countered with a punch of his own. He blocked the punch but the immense force pushed him back.

"What is this power?" Perplexed Hirishima.

"Do you like it? Here, have some more!"

Tamura closed in on Hirishima with a single step and released a hefty uppercut.

Hirishima predicted this move and stepped back just at the right moment. This gave Subaru an opening to grab Tamura from the behind. To his surprise, their opponent rolled right to completely evade the attack.

"Damn it! How did he get that fast?" Subaru complained as he diverted his body's balance to launch a kick aiming right at Tamura's back.

Tamura smiled as he grabbed the leg aiming at him and swung the elite warrior in the air. The swing had enough force that Subaru hit the ceiling and fell down on his face.

"Only cowards attack from behind," Tamura jeered.

"Shut your trap!" Hirishima leaped towards Tamura and initiated a swift barrage of consecutive punches aiming directly at his opponent's torso.

Regardless of how fast each punch was, each and every one was dodged perfectly by Tamura. After a few seconds Hirishima grew tired and his latest punch was off-target. Tamura took full advantage of this as he punched the weary warrior in the chest. The impact had such immense force that Hirishima's armor cracked at the sight of the collision and he fell way back on the wall behind him while throwing up blood.

"What the hell kind of training did you do? You are as strong as an elite demon now!" Hirishima heaved.

"Still think Erashi is the strongest?" Tamura questioned.

"Not without a doubt! Now rot in hell bastard!" Subaru and Hirishima both struggled up at the same time and rushed at Tamura.

"You persistent little shits! Know your place!" Tamura retorted and grabbed Subaru from the face and lifted him up easily. He then proceeded to throw him at Hirishima, knocking them both back on the ground.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Elite warriors my ass! Now tell me where you hid that boy!" Tamura began to lose his patience.

"You expect us to give in that easily, Traitor!"

"Kill us right now! As a warrior, we will die with honor!" Both warriors shot.

"Funny how being a warrior taught you nothing of what actually matters and yet you call me a traitor," Tamura countered.

"What's that? Huh? What could be more important than protecting the weak and innocent from those fiends!" Hirishima yelled.

"If you didn't catch it by now, no use telling anymore." Tamura began walking towards the downed warriors.

"We were a great team together. Me, you, Hirishima and Kieri. What made you kill all those warriors just out of the blue that day!?" Subaru queried.

"That life is behind me now! As a former warrior I fulfilled my purpose. Now, I have no regrets," Tamura stated.

"And what was that!? Killing innocent people and your comrades? Or joining the King's guard and look down on the commoners?" Hirishima asked.

"Neither, my purpose was to protect someone I love. Doing so made me stronger than any warrior. As you just saw, I manhandled you two without breaking a single sweat," Tamura proudly replied.

"Protect who? Who could be that important that you became a monster?"

"How did you gain such strength in such a short time?" Hirishima and Subaru questioned.

"No more questions! Tell me where the boy is and I will let you both live. Otherwise, you and your loved ones will be tortured to death," Tamura threatened.

"I told him to run as fast as he can towards the warriors headquarters. Go and show your traitorous face there," Hirishima responded.

"Fine, don't tell me. I have a plan that will lure him in." Tamura kneeled down and hit Hirishima on the side of his neck which caused him to faint instantly.

"Hirishima! You damn traitor! I should've killed you back then by my own hands!" Subaru snapped.

"Relax, he isn't dead." Tamura did the same with Subaru, causing him to faint as well.

Meanwhile, Hoshi was running hastily through the deep forest while a couple swordsmen were pursuing him on foot. He pushed aside all the sharp leaves in his way, forming an abundance of cuts on his bandages.

"(I can't lose them no matter how much I run, should I just take them both on? That guard mentioned the king wants me alive which means they will not use their swords)," Hoshi pondered.

After a few seconds Hoshi came to a halt and turned around. He balled his fists as a small stream of blood ran out of them.

"You finally gave up? Now be a good boy and come with us," one of the swordsmen spoke.

"Like hell I would!" Hoshi angered as he grabbed the handle of his wooden sword and unsheathed it.

"Oh look the brat's gonna fight with his stick!" the other guard jeered.

"Shut up! This sword is made of the wood extracted from the primordial tree itself! It is harder than a rock!" Hoshi yelled.

"Primordial tree?"

"Harder than a rock?" The guards began laughing.

"Come on kid, cut your little bullshit. Last chance, come with us and we will not lay a finger on you."

"No way! (Sir Hirishima and father believed in my potential. There is no better way of unlocking it than risking my neck)." Hoshi determined.

"You stubborn brat!" One of the swordsmen unsheathed his sword and charged at Hoshi.

"Hey dumbass! The king wants him alive!" the other swordsman yelled.

Hoshi stuttered and only managed to raise his sword vertically, unintentionally blocking the horizontal sword slash. The metal on the blade of the guard's sword chipped off as it flew out of his hands upon collision with the wooden sword.

"What the hell!? You weren't kidding," the guard astonished.

"Woah, even I am surprised. With this I can fight anyone," gloated Hoshi as he raised his sword.

"Don't get too excited kid!" The unarmed guard tried to punch Hoshi but he swung his wooden sword and hit him in the face, knocking him out easily.

"No way that sword is made up of wood! What sorcery is this!?" The other guard perplexed, shivering in his place.

Hoshi dashed at the frozen guard and hit him in the stomach with his sword. This made him puke up blood as he flung back into a tree.

"Wow, I didn't expect you two to be this weak," jested Hoshi.

"There he is! He knocked out two of us? Kid can fight." Four more guards showed up and one of them was an archer.

The archer climbed up a nearby tree and readied his bow with a mildly sharp but long arrow. Meanwhile the three remaining guards surrounded Hoshi. They were all wielding long bamboo like sticks, putting him at a tough spot.

"(One wrong move and they will pin me down. That archer is a problem as well, I have no choice but to try this)," Hoshi planned.

"Give it up kid, we will not hurt you if you comply with us," a guard spoke as Hoshi changed his posture.

He now lowered his body by flexing both his thighs and legs while holding his sword horizontally along his right body wall. He closed his eyes and remembered a past event.

"This is one of the fundamentals of our power. You have to hold your breath in while clearing your mind completely," Ander explained to Hoshi.

They were standing in an open field with yellow leaves scattered on the ground. The area resembled an oval ring, its boundaries were made up of small thickly barked trees arranged in rows. Surrounding the two were three practice dummies made up of thick brown ropes.

"Like this?" Hoshi attempted to hold in his breath but failed to clear his mind which mildly frustrated him.

"It's alright, I didn't get it on my first try either," spoke Ander as he closed his eyes and changed his posture to the one Hoshi took above.

"The trick is that you focus on the darkness within your shut eyes. Imagine as if you are running through that darkness without actually moving a muscle. Then breathe in and hold it as if you were consumed by the deep abyss," Ander stated before he held in his breath.

Hoshi couldn't even see his father's moves and the targets were all decimated as he blinked. The next thing he saw was his father's ambient red aura emerging from his body while he sheathed his wooden sword.

"Wow! That was so fast! What is that technique called?" Hoshi sputtered.

Ander turned around and faced Hoshi only to pass him by and walk away, leaving him puzzled.

"(Even after mastering how to clear my mind, I was never able to perform it. That was because I always thought of it as some technique. Overtime, I realised it was actually a state. One of four as my father mentioned)." Hoshi mirrored his father's teachings and a faint red aura began flowing throughout his body.

The guards were all shocked to see this supernatural sight in front of them. Hoshi then slowly opened his eyes to reveal both his irises glowing red.

"What is he? Some kind of a monster!?" The guards went in an even higher degree of shock.

Hoshi followed up by only taking a single step and he instantly zipped through the three guards, leaving faint traces of his after image behind. He finished up by throwing his sword very swiftly at the archer, knocking them all down in an instant. The sword flung back towards him and he grabbed it without a single stutter.

"(That's why father never answered my question and walked away that day. It was something I had to figure out myself. Even though this state enhances your speed significantly, it's real training was related to the mind)." Hoshi's entire body was overflowing with aura as his eyes emitted small streaks of red lightning.

"Bravo! You are the one! My ticket!" A mischievous looking man wearing a long brown hood walked in clapping.

"(What in the? Doesn't look like a guard.)" Hoshi got alerted and he wielded his sword in a defensive position.

"Relax, put the sword back." The man raised his arms.

"Why should I? I don't trust a single inch of you," Hoshi rejoined.

"That's cold for someone who is here to save you," the man replied, walking lightly towards Hoshi.

"As you saw earlier I don't need saving. Now step aside, I need to find Sir Hirishima." Hoshi began walking sideways, keeping his sights on the stranger.

Suddenly, his body became insanely heavy and black smoke started emerging from it. "My body!? What's happening to me?"

"How should I know? But it sure is interesting." The man gazed.

"I can't lift my body anymore, did I overdo it? My father never mentioned any of this." Hoshi fell to his knees, struggling to lift his body.

"Don't worry little bird, I will take care of you while you are asleep." The man grinned.

"Don't you dare try anything. Who are you anyways?" Hoshi peeped as his body pushed him down in prone position.

"Who am I..? Hehehe, you wouldn't believe this but I," the man began.

Hoshi fainted a moment later before he could finish.

The man sighed and attempted to pick up Hoshi but backed off once he made the first touch. "What? He is burning hot."

"He must be around here somewhere!"

The footsteps of a few guards alerted the man to swiftly pick up the boy and the wooden sword before he began running. "(Shit, gotta hurry. I wonder why this kid is ridiculously hot though. If I wasn't used to this, I would've never managed to carry him.)"

End of chapter six.