“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul, than the way it treats its children.”

Nelson Mandela

While Greyson was quickly able to identify exactly where the stifled crying was coming from, he wasn’t able to actually see where the child was. In between them there had to be dozens of rows of seats sporadically filled with other summoned heroes. He saw one beast woman who appeared to be some sort of feline derivative, a group of three early preteens, as well as others that ranged from college age to even a few old men. Most surprising had to be the other various races that were sprinkled in with the run-of-the-mill humans such as himself. There were a few that looked like he would expect, elves, a dwarf, one humanoid plant, and even more that he couldn’t identify or take a wild guess at.

He scanned all of the individuals and groups that were between him and the crying child and wondered if he was imagining it, or if everyone in this area was making it a point to keep themselves busy and ignore the sounds. Well, he supposed not everyone was ignoring it, there were quite a few of them that appeared truly ignorant of the situation. For the rest of them though, he felt a large wave of disgust lash out through him. Instantly, all of those that were ignoring the situation froze in place, one arrogant looking noble type going so far as to fall to the ground as the pressure of his gaze passed over him.

Congratulations!

You have unlocked the Skill: Killing Intent

Huh. That hasn’t happened in a very long time.

Greyson quickly dismissed the notice that had come into his vision and continued his appraisal of each of the beings in front of him. As he looked at each of them, he couldn’t help but feel nothing but contempt. Without waiting another moment, he rejected them all as inconsequential and not worthy of another second’s attention and began his way over to the corner of the room that the sniffling was coming from.

Those that had been in his range all let out a collected breath of relief. While some of those present were known heroes of realms, even they had felt the pressure that held them in place as the newcomer had passed judgement. The ones that didn’t have the stats to hear the child were all looking around at those that had frozen in place, especially the arrogant noble who had fallen. He quickly jumped to his feet brushing, off the dust that had collected on his exceptionally gaudy robes. Sweat beaded down his head, but warring emotions raged across his face. Abject fear and rage for being forced into any action that he did not approve of. Eventually, reason fled from him and he stormed over to Greyson as he crossed the room.

“Now listen here you miserable miscreant! How dare you show one such as I, Melvin von Regulus, such disrespect! I demand that you stop and grovel before me so that I do not have you executed for this transgression!” The imperious noble, while starting off with merely a loud talking voice, ended up screaming at Greyson. Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth splattering a few bystanders as well as landing on Greyson’s arm.

The long strides that were eating up the distance abruptly stopped as Greyson stopped in his tracks. Because of the suddenness of his cessation of movement, the momentum that Melvin had acquired, and Melvin’s complete lack of awareness, Melvin plowed right into him. Where in many cases this would have led to both of them falling in a comical fashion, one in which Melvin would have ultimately found himself groping Greyson, instead Melvin bounced off the rock-solid Greyson falling again into a heap on the ground.

Most individuals would have begun to realize the difference in personal power between the two, but Melvin’s unrepentant entitlement surged even further to the surface. He slowly managed to push himself back to his feet. Each motion came with a single word, increasing in volume again until he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

“YOU! YOU! HOW DARE A LOWLY ONE SUCH AS YOURSELF CAUSE ME TO SULLY MYSELF AGAIN! THAT’S IT! NOT EVEN IF YOU PROSTRATE YOURSELF BEFORE ME NAKED AND BARK LIKE A DOG WILL I SPARE YOU FROM THE EXECUTIONER’S BLOCK! YOUR AREEEERK!”

The rant was abruptly silenced mid-sentence as Greyson lost what little patience he had left. His hand outstretched, a single finger still extended from a flick. The flick had hit the illustrious Melvin Von Regulus squarely in the throat, momentarily closing the airflow needed to be able to speak. Additionally, it sent the pompous noble back a few steps from the personal space he had invaded when cursing Greyson up and down.

Greyson slowly turned the rest of his body to face the Regulus heir, the killing intent rolled off of him in almost visible waves. His normally jovial light blue eyes had turned to glaciers promising no trace of life and nothing but the cold weight of eons grinding everything in its path into dust remained. Where the flick he’d struck Melvin with would have let Melvin breathe a moment after he adjusted, the gaze and killing pressure squeezed the remaining air from his lungs, constricting them so they were not able to take another breath in. Ever so slowly, Melvin’s vision began to blacken at the edges as the world tunneled down to nothing more than Greyson’s frigid eyes.

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“If you ever speak this way again, or even hear of it, I will kill you. You will just cease to exist, and the multiverse will be a better place for it. In fact, maybe I should just get rid of you now.” Those near enough to hear Greyson speak were terrified. It wasn’t the talk of killing, it was the casual way in which it was done, as though it was nothing more than picking up a cup of coffee on the way to work. There was no anger or malice, just a clam statement of fact. None around Greyson were more terrified, however, than Melvin von Regulus who at the end of Greyson’s speech, promptly fainted into a puddle on the ground.

Greyson snorted at the wasted pile of life and resumed his gait to where he’d heard the crying coming from. While the quiet sobs had stopped for the moment, he felt as though that was done more because of the tension in the room than for a lack of grief.

Just great, scare the kid away before I even have a chance to figure out what is going on. Great work Grey, wouldn’t mom just be so proud of you now.

Grey scowled to himself and quickly shook his head to banish the unwanted thoughts of a home he knew he would never see again. Instead, he focused on listening, so he could pinpoint the child’s location. Having crossed the room, he began to peer around the remaining rows of seats searching for the child.

It didn’t take too long for him to see a small mop of chocolate brown curls almost completely hidden under a set of seats. It may have helped that one of the people, a smaller boy somewhere around fifteen or sixteen looking terrified and relieved gave him a small nod and gestured to the seat three down from him. Greyson locked eyes with him for a minute and then gave the boy a slight nod of acknowledgement.

Moving slowly, he made his way so that he was just a seat over from where the child was hidden, he took a seat, letting out an exaggerated breadth of relief. He then kicked his feet up onto the seats in front of him and slouched down in the chair, letting his head fall back.

“Phew, it feels like forever since I was able to just relax like this,” Greyson said out to the empty air, purposefully keeping his head back and staring at the ceiling high overhead. He listened closely and waited to see if the child would say or do anything with his intrusion into their hiding space. He stayed in place for just over a minute while he contemplated his next course of action. While he was worried about what to do, an opening presented itself. A lone sniffle.

“It’s been tough for you too huh?” He asked casually, not moving from his spot, slowly counting the dots in the ceiling as he waiting to see if the child would respond to him.

While he didn’t get any verbal confirmation of his question, he did get two more sniffles and a slight “uh huh”, so quiet that anyone that hadn’t developed their stats to his point wouldn’t have been able to make it out.

“Well, if you want to you can tell me what happened. I promise I won’t yell and if I can I’ll even help you get back to your mom or dad,” Greyson softly gave the offer, bringing in feet down and hunching over so he could see the child out of the corner of his eye. He made sure to avoid any sort of eye contact or even looking in the general direction. Children, like some animals, did much better if they didn’t believe they had the direct attention of someone bigger than them.

“Mommy and daddy are gone.” It was said in a very soft flat voice. While one would normally expect more tears to follow this, the child had changed slightly. Their head slowly coming forward to stare at Greyson. Sad, tired, green eyes fixed upon Greyson, while hands wrapped around knees to curl into a tight defensive ball.

“Did you get stuck in one of the big circles of light and brought here then?” He questioned gently.

“Yeah.”

“Was anyone else with you when this happened?”

“Yeah.”

“Are they still here?”

“No…” It sounded like the child wanted to say more but didn’t know how to explain it.

“Tell you what, why don’t you come up here and tell Uncle Greyson how you came here, and I’ll see what I can do to help you.” He held his breadth, hoping that he didn’t push things too far too fast. The seconds seemed to drag by as the child thought over what he said.

“Are you a bad man mister? Mommy said I shouldn’t trust bad men.” This caused Greyson to let out his breath in a long chuckle, that ended up turning into a full belly laugh.

“While I may not always be a good man, I can promise you now, by all the gods and the system, that I will never intentionally harm you or let you come to harm when I can avoid it. You are safe with me.”

Ding!

You have sworn a Binding Oath to the System.

We sure hope you know what you are doing.

Break this Oath at your own peril.

He dismissed the notice as soon as it popped into existence, not for the first time being a bit annoyed at the system for interfering when he was in the middle of something. Waiting on baited breath, he wanted to see what the child would do.

After about a minute or two of staring blankly off into space, which could only mean that the child had received the notification as well, the child turned and looked up at him. As he turned to also look down at the child, he realized that it was a little girl, likely no more than five or six years old. Chocolate brown hair framed a cherubic face with intense emerald green eyes brimmed with tears.

In a flurry of motion, the girl launched herself off of the ground and hugged Greyson tightly, sobbing uncontrollably into his chest.