We rode towards the smoke as quickly as our mounts could move. It seemed to be coming from the overpass bridge. The very same bridge we took the first time we entered the city. While not the only entrance to the city, from this side of town it was the most convenient. We rode past a few other entrances that had been blocked off or were too far from the main road for ease of use.

I doubted the city or any cities for that matter, would remain this spread out in the future. It was likely the cities would be walled off. Making safe zones for non-combatants to protect them from roaming monsters. It would also help position the soldiers at easily defensible chokepoints like our overpass.

We zipped down city streets, the ravor beasts easily navigating even the concrete roads. We were closing in on the checkpoint. There was still some smoke, and from this close, I realized it wasn't coming from the crossing. It was farther in the city, perhaps near where the army headquarters might be. Whatever it was it didn't bode well for the citizens.

We came around the corner of the building, the checkpoint was now in sight. Before I could react, bullets started zipping past us.

"Oh, shit. Get down!" I yelled, spurring Bella back behind the building as the automatic weapons fire became more accurate.

Bella let out a yowl of pain, she was struck with a few rounds before we could safely get back to cover.

"Are you injured?"

My heart pounded as we made it to safety. I jumped out of the saddle, quickly casting Rejuvenate on Bella. It was quite different to be shot at by a pistol or rifle vs a light machine gun. The system could mitigate the damage some, but these were large rounds.

"We both took a few hits," Fiona said through gritted teeth.

I looked at her, and the bleeding wound in her gut. Blood was already pooling on the ground under her.

I hit her with Healing Touch. I expected she would need more, a gut wound was bad.

I pulled out one of my health injectors and stuck it into Yonel. He hissed at me and tried to bite me, but I was able to avoid the half-hearted attempt. I had not been hit by any of the bullets, finally, Lady Luck had smiled upon me, instead of pimp slapping me. I cast another Healing Touch on Fiona and her bleeding finally stopped.

I could still hear sporadic gunfire rake the building we were hiding behind. The thick masonry seemed to be enough to keep us safe, for now.

"We need to move, they are probably going to try to pin us down so they can surround us."

"Those didn't look like soldiers," Fiona said, storing her mount.

"I didn't get a good look so I will take your word for it."

I stored my mount as well. While fast, they would make too large of a target. We needed to do some surveillance to see what was going on. I had an idea who it might be but it needed to be verified. It would be much easier to do so without large animals trailing us. This would also give us the opportunity to cut through houses and side streets. Making it easier to avoid any unwanted attention, until we could find another way across the freeway. Waiting until night wouldn't be an option. It was early morning and I doubted our enemy would wait for us to respond.

I racked my brain trying to think of a way to bypass the checkpoints as we made our way south through the neighborhoods. A few times we had to duck into a house as we saw armed groups running down the street. This was when I got my first good look at who was attacking the town. And wouldn't you guess it, the damn Black Dragons had arrived.

"You think these men are from the garrison to the north?"

Fiona just shrugged, "I don't see where else they could have come from. If the man you questioned gave you accurate information."

So a hundred mid to high single-digit fighters with possibly over a thousand slaves forced to do their bidding. I didn't know how many soldiers were in town but I knew they had been spread pretty thin. There had also been quite a few non-combatants as well as outsiders.

Hopefully, at least some of the soldiers remained to help the citizens.

"Let's try to take the next patrol, it would be nice to get some questions answered."

Fiona just nodded, gripping the pommel of her sword until her knuckles turned white. I could understand her feelings. After what they did to her and what they are doing to innocent people, who could blame her for wanting some revenge.

We made it a few more blocks before spotting a group that would work. Only one in the group was wearing an armband, the others sported slave collars. The slaves wielded weapons, but the Black Dragon member wasn't sporting a weapon at all.

"Magic-user," I hissed to Fiona.

"Let me engage him, while you keep the others busy... Try not to kill them, if you can help it," she said, looking troubled.

I would try my best but I gave the woman no guarantee to their safety. If she could finish off the mage with the armband quickly it shouldn't be a problem. If not, then it was them or us and I would always choose us.

I charged out from behind the building, yelling to draw their attention. Fiona sprinted off through an alley, to get the drop on the mage. All six turned to look at me, I saw the mage giving them orders. The five slaves rushed towards me. Hell, one bolted towards me like an Olympic sprinter, iron bar raised, ready to bash me over the head.

The man's burst of speed shocked me for a second. It wasn't nearly as pronounced as my Blink Step but it was significant. I checked the sprinter's information.

Fleetfoot/Berserker | Level 4

Another surprise. This was the first dual classed person I had run across. The fact that he had hit level 4, even with the XP hit, meant he had done a lot of fighting. He was still quite a distance away, even with whatever skill he used. I took the time to examine his friends.

One appeared to be a beast girl.

Silverfang | Level 7

Silverfang was an odd class name, the fact that she was a silver eared cat girl with what looked like razor-sharp claws made me wonder if this might be an advanced class.

Next up was a beefy mountain of a man, carrying a sledgehammer. The weapon had to have a face on it larger than my head.

Stone Crusher | Level 5

The next one to the party seemed odd; he looked to be part human, part machine.

Cyber Soldier | Level 6

The last one and also the slowest was a frail old lady, carrying a long cane.

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Totem | Level 8

I remembered the class from one of my possible choices. I knew it was capable of buffing and healing and I could already see she was pulling out little carved figurines.

'Well guess I get to see if I made the right choice in class,' I thought as I activated Blink Step. I blurred past all the fighters, deciding to try and disable the older lady first.

I hit the old lady with a Stunning Gust, it was one of my weakest abilities. She doubled over as the attack hit her but the stun didn't activate. I raced back to my original position just as my spell faded. I swear I gave the group whiplash. Their heads whipping back and forth to try and track me.

The stunned slaves halted for half a second before they all looked at me, anger in their eyes.

"You harmed Granny!" the Berserker bellowed in rage.

Geez, these people acted like they weren't just about to beat me to death, and yet I'm the bad guy.

I looked behind the venerable granny, seeing the mage engaged with Fiona. He was putting up a decent fight but I could tell Fiona had the upper hand. I didn't have any fear of her losing to the mage. Our practice together showed me how capable she was. She deftly avoided some spells and knocked others right back at the caster, trying to break his shield.

It was easy to tell she had fought wizards before and if it wasn't for the five annoying flies buzzing at me, I would love to watch her dismantle this individual.

The Berserker was now close enough to take a swing at me with his metal pipe. I utilized the footwork Old Man Trumbo taught me. Spinning to the side to avoid the blow. I wrenched my staff into the back of his knee and pulled, causing him to do some painful splits. Before he could retaliate I dipped out of range, knocking his pipe away with a quick spin of my staff. I reset my stance, ready for the next opponent.

I smiled; of course, it was the beautiful cat girl, every weeaboo's dream. She slashed at me with her silver claws, leaving glowing trails in the air behind them. I leaned back from her swipe and bopped her on the nose with my hand. It was quite easy. My stats were much higher than hers.

"Bad kitty," I said, waving a finger at her.

She hissed at me and flattened her ears. My god was it cute, ahem, in a kitten sort of way. She was so mad she failed to react as I cast Earth Fist under her foot, spinning her off to the side to impact the Berserker that had just recovered his footing. Time to see if she had the reflexes of a cat. She did not. She collided with the man, knocking them both to the ground.

I was probably enjoying this more than I should. Fighting, just for the sake of fighting was amazing. Too bad it was almost always followed by fighting for the sake of surviving.

The Stone Crusher arrived and swung down at me with a powerful overhead strike. His massive hammer glowed red from some ability. I tried to back up but noticed my feet wouldn't move. I didn't have time to look down to see what was restricting my movement, but I could guess who did it. I had two choices as the hammer fell. I decided to save my trump card for later. Instead, using Godly Might to enhance my strength.

My staff disappeared into my ring as I raised both of my arms to intercept the strike. My arms strained as they absorbed the blow. Only the Stone Crusher's surprise allowed me to wrench the weapon from his grip. I tossed the weapon away and the man took a step back in uncertainty.

I knew it was a risk to block the weapon with my hands but I wanted to save my other spell in case I ran into Sharla and her cronies. Sure I could multicast it, but that would leave me with little mana left to fight with. Because of my choice, I took a fair bit of damage from the Stone Crusher's empowered blow, but not nearly as much as I could have. My health dropped 156 points and I had to hand it to the guy, for his level that was a pretty impressive strike.

But now it was my turn and I had a new skill to test out. I Imbued my staff with electrical damage and flicked the blunt end out. He wasn't able to dodge back in time. The man's muscles locked up as the elemental lightning coursed through his body. I took this brief respite to look down towards my feet, seeing that they were encased in vines. I gave the old lady a disbelieving look and she just shrugged at me.

I sighed, cutting the vines away before the last attacker finally trundled his way up to me. For a half-man, half-robot he was quite overweight. At least that's what it looked like at first. As he got closer I saw it was some sort of metal plating that made him look bigger than he was.

"Alright tin man, want to dance with some electricity," I said, giving him an evil smile while spinning my crackling staff menacingly.

The man looked horrified but was unable to oppose his orders as he continued his approach.

"This is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me."

I sprinted forward, now free from the vines. Just before I reached the man I saw him raise his arm. My instincts screamed for me to dodge and who was I to argue. I leaped to the side, avoiding a red beam meant to slice me in two.

'That's no fair, I wanted a laser arm.'

The Cyber Soldier tried to readjust his aim but his agility was very low. I managed to get back up and sprint to his opposite side. I tapped him lightly on the arm with my staff as I passed. That was enough for the elemental damage to cross over into him.

It seemed like he was highly susceptible to electrical damage. His arms went limp as he seemed to shut down, falling over backward. I knew he wasn't dead, I didn't receive any experience so at least that was a positive. Looking over I saw the Totem readying another ability. She pulled out an almost finished carving. The item appeared to be about a foot long. It looked like she only needed to add some final touches.

I admired her foresight. Truly it was a brilliant strategy, having almost finished totems. It meant she could quickly add the missing details, producing whatever totem she required. I couldn't get to her in time unless I Multicast Blink Step. No matter what I thought, it just felt wrong beating up an old lady. Fiona was still fighting the mage but I decided to pull out my other trump card anyway. I pulled the Black Dragon armband from my inventory and put it on.

"Stop attacking."

All five stopped what they were doing, well four of them did, the fifth was still rebooting. I was glad the command worked. I was more glad that all five didn't attack me together. If they had I would have been forced to go all out, and it would have likely ended in at least a few deaths. It was almost like they were trying to do the bare minimum their orders required, well all except the Berserker, who got angry after I attacked the old woman.

The mage realized something was wrong and tried to yell out orders, but Fiona used his distraction to skewer him through the throat. The man grabbed at his gaping wound, trying to keep his blood in while producing a healing item from his inventory. Fiona just grabbed his hand before he could use it. The man struggled for a few more seconds, before falling over dead.

"Well, that was fun," I said to the gathered slaves, "Any chance you folks could answer some questions for me?"

The five were eager to disclose anything they could about the movements of the Black Dragon. I found out there was one lightly guarded railroad crossing three miles down. They also confirmed my assumptions that they had brought the entire garrison along with over 1200 slaves to attack the city. Finally, they were able to confirm that slaves were used for leveling.

The slave controllers got 65% of the experience a slave earned, no matter how far away they were. Go figure, our little Chaos Mage, Sharla Cotton controlled a third of the slaves in this attack group. The rest was split among twelve other individuals all over level 14. Occasionally groups of slaves would be "rented out" for others to quickly level. Allowing more members to hit double digits, to help shore up their main fighters. The five weren't sure what the skill or magic was that allowed this, and could only confirm the rental part of it because they were on loan to the mage. He had wanted to level faster without putting himself at risk.

"Jokes on him," I said, looking over at his corpse.

"Look, you five need to find a safe place to ride out this insanity."

They all looked at each other, unsure of what to do before Granny spoke up.

"You need to order us since you are wearing the Black Band," she said, waving away my horrified look, "We all know you saved us but we are still compelled by the collars."

I knew I could remove the collars but I didn't have the time right now to do it. I had a good idea of a place they should be relatively safe. Hopefully, it would be far from any Black Dragons. Maybe the Commander could figure out how to remove their collars. I would check up on them once I dealt with our local threat.

"There is a town up north about a hundred or so miles. I want you five to head there together. Protect and defend each other on the way. When you get there, find the barracks. You can't miss it and tell the Commander I sent you. Give him this and tell him what it's for," I said, handing over my last extra armband.

"If you see anyone in need try to help them but avoid any Black Dragon if at all possible. I will find a way to remove your bondage, try to stay safe."

They all looked at me, tears in their eyes. It had probably been the nicest orders that they had received to date but I couldn't have them sitting here and crying.

"Go," I said quietly and the group ran off. Hopefully, to some semblance of safety. The big guy carrying the still unconscious Cyber Soldier across his shoulder.

I removed the armband and stuck it back in my inventory. Despite how useful it was it left me feeling dirty. I looked over to Fiona as she approached. She must have finished searching the body for anything of value.

"Anything good?" I asked.

"Small storage ring, some slave collars, a few potions, and about a hundred credits."

I just nodded. She killed him so all the loot was hers to keep, but she still handed me half the health potions and half the credits. I just smiled and shook my head, not like I was going to turn down free loot and money.

"You ready?"

"Yes, did you find us a way across?"

"Possibly, we will need to scout it out before I am sure."

We headed off in the opposite direction of the freed slaves.