I ran through the wastelands. Actually what I was doing was more akin to short bouts of gliding through the land, intermittently kicking the ground, and leaving behind small craters. The attire I was donning clung tight to my skin and the pouches hanging from my belt swang wildly in the air.

It was quite peculiar to re-experience after all these years the sensation of mana washing over my entire body. From a certain point of view, it was more comfortable than in the past, as the corrosion effect mana could exercise on me was basically null, but from another angle, it felt worse, as the inhibiting effect it had on my increased sensitivity was greater.

My destination was several kilometres away from the border, but it wouldn’t require more than a few minutes to reach it at the speed I was currently travelling. It was true that in the last few years, I had not been particularly active, but this didn’t mean I hadn’t undergone any sort of growth. My current self was not comparable to my past self.

While I ran I scanned the horizon, looking for traces. Once I was at a certain distance from the Perimeter I found an interesting rock formation and approached it in a couple of leaps. I walked on top of the gravel-covered terrain and thrust my left foot into the ground. The sound of scattered stones and broken bones was accompanied by the loud pain-filled screams of the one hiding under the sheets of pebbles.

“My leg!” cried out loud the individual emerging from beneath the cobbles.

His body was in layers of interlocking chain armour and a partially pulled-out blade hung from his side. He looked healthy overall, except for the fact that his knee was completely pulverised, with the leg bent horizontally.

He sent me a hate-infused gaze and tried to bring one of his hands to the blade, but before he could do so I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him from the ground. He let his weapon fall away from his reach and he tried to scream while I grasped his neck, but not a sound could escape his throat due as I squeezed it shut.

He grasped my arm with his hands, trying to break himself free or at least reduce some of the pressure. It didn’t go according to his plans as after a while he fell limp, with no fresh oxygen in his lungs and no blood reaching his brain.

I let go of him and he fell back to the ground like a rag doll, his broken leg bending in an even less desirable direction. Almost as quickly as he had lost consciousness he started to come back to his senses. Once our eyes met, there was no more hostility in his gaze, only fear.

“I’ve received your call. Where are the others?” I spoke succinctly.

“How did you find where I was?” he asked in a trembling voice.

I trampled his hand in response, shattering it. He let out a pained grunt but bore the pain while clenching his teeth.

“Answer my questions,” I admonished him, implying I would hurt him further had he tried to stall for time.

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“T-three kilometres away in that direction,” he answered, pointing with the index of his healthy hand.

“Is Isaac Grant there?”

“Yes”

“Good,” I put an end to the conversation by putting my hand on his forehead and driving his head into the ground. The ensuing blood splattered onto the ground.

Although the damage I had just inflicted on him seemed to be severe, it wasn’t actually that significant. He had a fair chance of recovering. Anyway, I didn’t care if he lived or perished. From his equipment and level of strength, it was quite clear he was just an expendable scout.

I left him behind and started running again in the direction he had pointed to. The more I neared the place the more I could perceive the presence of other people. It didn’t take long before I finally reached the destination.

In front of me, in the middle of an open field with nothing for miles in all directions, there stood twenty different individuals. They were arranged in a circle formation, surrounding two figures obstructed from my view. They were covered from head to toe in thick plate armour and were heavily armed.

A metal chain was tied around their waistline and from it hung a triplet of bladed weapons, a knife and two swords, one curved and the other one straight. Half of them held spears in their hands spears, halberds or other similar weapons as their primary, while the other half was armed with projectile weapons such as bows and slings, made from some kind of wood I couldn’t identify.

Silent and perfectly synchronised, they opened up the formation, leaving a trail for me to enter its core. The figures which had been hidden from my sight became finally visible: a middle-aged-looking man, who appeared to be the captain of the group of assailants, donning a grey bushy beard, playing with a dagger in one hand and holding a flimsy-looking spike in the other, and Isaac, in utterly wretched conditions.

His clothes were completely thrashed, and his entire body was exposed to others to see. He was battered and his skin was riddled with deep wounds and scabs. A couple of arrows were embedded in his back and the spike firmly held by the man went through his left ankle and into the ground, anchoring him to it. Thick chains were wrapped around his body and limbs, keeping him in a kneeling position, unable to move. His eyes were shut tight and his chest barely moved, signifying he had trouble breathing. No matter how you looked at it, he had been driven to death’s door.

I did not like it. Not one bit.

I turned my gaze to the culprit. His equipment was somewhat different from that of his subordinate. Although he donned plate armour too, it was less bulky than that of his subordinates, leaving him with more freedom of movement. The knife which hung from his side was similar to the ones I had seen, but the other two weapons were quite different. They were two whip swords, swords whose blades had been replaced by an extremely flexible cutting edge, elongated to metres long and segmented to allow for high degrees of bending.

“Let him go,” I intimated, audible irritation in my voice.

“Well well well, we are a bit rude, aren’t we? The first thing to do when meeting someone new should be to introduce oneself, shouldn’t it? Well, I will gracefully pardon you considering the exceptionality of our first meeting. I am…”

“Do not speak,” I interrupted him, annoyed by his way of speaking.

He clicked his tongue while moving his raised index fingers left and right.

“No good, no good, no good, this is no way of speaking to your elder's young man. You should learn to…”

He barely managed to avoid my fist making contact with his face by pointing the dagger he had in his hands to Isaac’s throat, making me stop in my tracks.

“... That was unexpected,” he said with a big smile.