Hector POV

Hector was the third son of Lord Brandish. Unlike his other brothers and sisters, he didn’t have something that made him stand out. This made him pretty bitter at times, but he had found his true calling.

A couple of years ago a powerful group approached him with an offer. He didn’t know the exact name of the group, and he was happy not to. People like that were not very forgiving to people who stuck their noses into their businesses.

The offer was simple. They would offer him treasures and other valuable items. In return, he would do some favors for them. These favors varied immensely, some were jobs as a messenger and some were like the ones he was currently doing.

He was told to make some trouble for Wendy Belick. They didn’t specify the exact methods he was supposed to use or expected to. However, the only requirement was that Hector had to harass Wendy and the people around her.

The group didn’t give him much explanation, but from the little they said, they wanted Wendy’s father to sell his building. They wanted to make Wendy’s experience in Heston difficult and force her to leave the city.

Her father was ridiculously overprotective of her and if she were to leave, he would most likely follow her. That was their plan. They wanted to force Wendy out so that the father would sell the building when he went with her.

At least that was what Hector was able to determine.

And while he didn’t enjoy harassing young women, they paid him very well for this job. The entire case of Tier 3 pills was more than enough to override his moral boundaries.

A chance to advance a couple of my skills? I’d be crazy not to do it.

Every man has their price and for Hector, that price was in the form of a case of water affinity Skill Strengthening Pills.

With this, he could potentially push [Rain Step] to its next level. It had been stuck at Level 5 of rare for a while now. Or he could use them on his [Water Strike] skill. It had been capped at level 14 of uncommon and getting to rare would be such a huge improvement. He couldn’t imagine the power boost he would get once he got his second official rare skill.

He would become even stronger than he already was.

He and his three friends were currently harassing the young girl. Trevor and Fulton were holding the girl’s boyfriend by the arms. They weren’t hurting him, at least not that bad. A few nudges and a couple of smacks on the top of his head were all they did to the poor loser.

“Hey! How’s it going?” some random person called out to them.

He turned to look and frowned at what he saw. It was some weird young boy wearing a black cloth around his lower face. You could really only see his black eyes but you could see signs of his young features.

He could also tell that this dumb little kid was smiling from underneath his mask. Which was honestly a bit more creepy than he wanted to admit.

“Mind your own business,” Cole scoffed at the kid before turning away and ignoring him.

The boy didn’t go away, in fact, he got closer to Cole and softly touched his back to get his attention. Cole must have decided that his patience had run out and so he reached out to the young boy and shoved him right in the face.

Hector expected to see the kid go flying back into the dirt, but instead, he found himself confused when the boy didn’t move an inch.

He also knew that Cole hadn’t pulled back his strength that much either. He never did, he liked showing off his strength too much to do that. So when the kid literally didn’t move an inch, subconscious alarm bells started to ring in his head.

However, he ignored those alarms, reasoning that it was just him trying to give the kid a break.

The creepy kid still hadn’t moved and was still staring at Cole with that chilling smile that showed through his mask.

“Get lost kid,” Cole said, not sounding as confident as he usually did. The kid still didn’t say or do anything in response.

Trevor seemed to have enough of the kid’s antics. He let go of his hold of the girl’s boyfriend and walked over to the kid. He reached down and grabbed ahold of the boy’s shoulder, trying to drag him away from them.

However, the second he touched the boy, Trevor froze like a statue. It was like time had stopped. But he was still able to talk it seemed.

“What the hell,” Trevor said shakily.

What happened?

“What are you doing, man?” Cole asked.

“I don’t know. I can’t move!” Trevor exclaimed. Hector could see that Trevor was struggling hard but nothing he did was able to let him move.

Cole was the first one of them to react. Unfortunately, his first instinct when reacting was violence, and threw a wide haymaker at the kid’s head.

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However, that only served for Cole’s body to freeze as well. His body was suspended mid-punch.

The boy turned to look at Fulton and him with eerily calm eyes. Then he swiveled his gaze to the young couple. “Are you guys okay?” he asked kindly. This time the smile didn’t seem as creepy through the mask. He realized why the boy’s smile felt creepy. It was because when he smiled at Hector and his friends, his eyes were like a dead fish's. However, when he smiled at the couple, they showed actual life.

The girl who was still shaking stammered out a reply that nobody was able to understand and glanced rapidly between the frozen forms of his friends.

The boy continued to ignore the four of them. “Would you like for me to stop these boys from harassing you?” he asked his voice steady with confidence, bordering on arrogance that needled Hector’s own pride.

The girl looked at Hector and back at the boy, nervously nodding her head.

The boy slowly walked over to the girl and his direction. Hector didn’t know what to do. He was frozen with indecision. However, he did the first thing that popped into his mind when the boy got within distance, he activated [Water Step].

He reappeared in a flash right to the side of the boy and sent a fist empowered with [Water Strike] at the boy’s chest. It was overkill, he knew that, but he also didn’t know why his friends had been frozen like they had either and he wasn’t taking any chances.

However, just before his fist reached the boy, he felt something envelop him like a blanket. It felt like he was moving through thick water, but unlike his friends, he was still able to move a little bit.

Still, it didn’t seem like that mattered too much. It would still take well over a couple of seconds for his fist to reach its destination at this rate. The boy calmly looked at his slowly incoming fist and gave a shrug. He raised a fist up and cocked it back slowly. He took his time, doing two short practice jabs in the air before striking out a lightning-quick punch.

Hector tried to activate a defensive skill in time, but something was preventing him from activating his skill.

He wasn’t even able to catch the full strike. All he remembered was the embrace of darkness.

***

Julius POV

He looked at the knocked boy he just punched. He tried to hold back within reason so it was unlikely there was any real damage. The boy still seemed to be breathing, so he considered that a success.

Julius turned to look at the last remaining boy from the group. He had let go of the other boy and was just staring fearfully at Julius. He hadn’t moved an inch. Unlike his friends, whom Julius held in place with kinetic energy and aura, he had chosen to stay frozen like a statue on his own.

He just shrugged uncaringly and went over to the other two boys who were actually frozen in place. Their wills were shockingly awful. There was no way he should have been able to disable and prevent a Tier 3 from moving that easily.

At least the leader seemed to fare a little bit better. Though, in Julius’s defense he would have been able to immobilize completely if he wasn’t holding the other two in place. Multiple targets he learned were pretty hard to hold at once.

The two boys stared at him in shock. They hadn’t been able to see what happened, but they probably heard their friend hit the deck.

“What did you do to us? What kind of item are you using to freeze us like this?” The boy who pushed him in the face asked.

Why do they always think it’s an item that is responsible? I don’t really mind because it helps me out, but it’s still kind of insulting.

He didn’t choose to answer them. Instead, he walked in front of the boy who tried to drag him away and gave a quick strike similar to what he did to Hector, knocking him out instantly.

He had a feeling with wills as weak as theirs, he had a pretty good chance of knocking them out with pure aura and will, but he didn’t know what kind of damage that might do. For all he knew it would cause severe damage. And he didn’t want to do that, no matter if they kind of deserved it. He would save that for people who really warranted it.

When he saw his friend getting punched in the face, the face-pusher guy seemed to struggle much harder. It was actually a much better attempt than their leader. If it was before, he might have gotten free. However, it didn’t do him much good now. Julius was able to put his entire attention on him and with a simple effort, prevented him from moving.

Julius walked up to the frozen brute and apologetically patted his shoulder.

"You are making a big mistake, I will fucking kill you!" The brute yelled out.

Julius ignored him and sent two quick hooks into the guy’s chest. He heard a couple of ribs crack and then sent another one at his face, knocking him out instantly.

It was the same treatment Julius subjected to his other friends, plus a few additional strikes. Though to be fair, he deserved it. There had been no reason to shove him in the face, he could have simply pushed him in the chest. The face push was just a power play because he felt he could bully Julius and Julius did not appreciate that at all.

This was the repercussion of his actions and Julius didn’t feel bad about it at all. The last guy tried to run when Julius was busy but was quickly frozen too.

“You two okay?” He asked the young girl and handsome boy while walking over and knocking out the last boy casually. The two of them looked at Julius with fear, but the girl seemed to gain some courage to speak.

“We are, thank you,” she said shakily.

“Of course. It was no big deal,” he told her. It really wasn’t. It’s not like it took him much effort these four thugs were embarrassingly weak. Also, he was walking by, so perhaps it was just meant to be. It wasn’t like he could have really walked away after seeing that.

However, that didn’t mean he had to stay around either. Once he made sure he didn’t detect any injuries on them, he started to walk away.

“Hey! Where are you going?” The girl’s friend had finally mustered his courage to speak and was in the process of fixing his hair that was mused about.

“Um, away from here?” He asked like it wasn’t obvious.

“Are you just going to leave them there?” The boy asked while pointing at the other’s prone figures.

“Well… Yeah. I’m certainly not going to waste my time dragging them somewhere,” Julius said a little annoyed at the guy’s attitude. He felt like the boy could have shown a little more gratitude. He did save him from being bullied around after all.

“You should really wait around until the guards come around,” the boy demanded.

Julius just shook the audacious attitude of the boy. He turned to look at the girl to see if she was seeing the same thing. Luckily, the girl seemed to have more sense and was looking at her friend with disappointment. Julius gave her a knowing look once they crossed gazes and turned around to leave.

He didn’t stop even when the boy yelled after him, though fortunately the boy quickly stopped when the girl rebuked him.

However, Julius didn’t really care all that much. He had more important things to do right now.

A stall that sold delicious meat skewers was calling his name and he was hungry.