Can you feel your heart burning? Can you feel the struggle within? The fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make.

You cannot kill me in a way that matters.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

Unknown.

So this is how it ends for you?

Had I known what you’re capable of, of what you used to be long before this? Maybe then I could’ve helped if not out of duty or valor but from respect. No man deserves to stand at the end of the world with only ashes to his back and a sword in his hands.

I close his eyes gently.

I could bury him but something tells me he’d like to stay this way a little longer, standing tall with his sword firmly between all he cared for.

I move on, tracing a trail through the forest a mixture of blood and tears leads me deep within the magical woods.

It’s rare these moments, where for that brief second I can remember the old days when I could stand next to a person and not bring fear. I used to be quiet, and funny sometimes, but when you do work as vile as I do you start to lose yourself. I can think clearly during tragedy only comprehending my deepest emotions when I’m in the face of human suffering.

My curse I call it. To ignore screams of pain, those begging for life as their innards drop to the floor, my hands wet with blood.

I want to feel sympathy in this moment, to bring comfort if there’s anyone still alive out there but I can’t. I don’t feel any emotion in what I’m doing and it haunts me. I’m lucid and yet I still feel nothing towards the trail.

No, with what I just witnessed something is wrong, and I can’t help but fear the worst is already upon us.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

Xavier thirty minutes earlier.

The gate has been blown off its hinges, and the solid piece of metal that Arvi couldn’t open solo has been reduced to a pile of molten slag. My body is trembling as I crawl under the cover of smoke and ash. My goal is a small trapdoor in Arvi’s house, the girls should be hiding there waiting for rescue.

Arvi didn’t expect this, I didn’t think this was even possible. He said that Nomads are something he and his late wife prepared for saying they’d fought them in the past. He said he knew the tricks they used and how they thought of us as less than animals. That’s why the village was laid out as one big trap. The walls are wooden to encourage breaking them and setting off the spell. The homes are large and full of luxuries to entice looting rather than just burning the place down. No wells so that they can’t be poisoned while everyone sleeps. There’s more but so little of it matters right now.

The village fought back but it wasn’t enough, there’s blood everywhere I step. Through the smoke I can see the silhouettes of bodies, I turn away before I accidentally identify someone. Pools of blood have my front half drenched in crimson only the knife in my hand helps me focus. The steel blade is razor sharp honed by Oliver to a ridiculous point just looking at it has me worried I’ll cut myself by accident.

There’s a figure in the distance close to the bonfire pit calling out seems necessary but I stop the words in a muted choke. They’re moving in a small pattern and I’m mesmerized for a brief second as I try to understand just what they could be doing in all this chaos. Then my heart sinks as I inch closer. Pinned under what I can now identify as a large man, one I’ve never seen before is a child. Tommy, I think his name was, was one of the boys around Emma’s age, they would always play together in that big gaggle of children and toys.

Now his arms are bare of skin and the man resting atop him is working to slowly peel away the flesh of his face. Suddenly I realize with extreme clarity that I’m standing over the man as he works on the child. He hasn’t noticed me at all too engrossed with his work to sense me as I grip the six-inch blade tighter and tighter.

I’m weak, I’ve known this for a while now, that compared to the people of this world I’m so much weaker. I can’t jump as high or run anywhere near as fast in especially inept at lifting things but you know what we have in common?

Our flesh is equally weak.

The blade slams into the space between his shoulders and a cry of pain has him topple forward his knife clattering away. He reaches out for it with a hand I crush the finger under my boot heel. Again I sink the blade into his flesh this time letting it linger inside his back. I twist as I pull away. He cries out and for a brief moment panic fills me, I can’t fight on even grounds with one person let alone a group. So I silence him with another stab.

I learned a lot about medicine while my sister was in her coma, namely that if you were careful you can do all sorts of stuff to the neck without killing someone. A soft gurgling is the only noise he makes as I tear into his trachea careful to avoid the arteries he’ll drown long before he bleeds to death this way. But alas I don’t have the time to watch him drown in blood. I slam the blade into the side of his temple and pin his head to the dirt for a brief moment.

I push him off the boy and cover his form with my cloak long past the point of caring about the rain.

I’m able to reach the house without further event. I have to step over a smoldering wood pile before I can enter two unknown men lying dead just outside. It seems that while Anna was attacked she dealt with them quite easily. The floorboards creak with every step as I make my way to the study where I should find a well-hidden trap door. It is there and I thank fate that it doesn’t look damaged, my hand is resting on the handle when I hear a soft sob for another room.

Sneaking around the corner I find my door ripped open and a sound coming from the dim room.

A wet sound.

The sobbing is louder now but easily drowned out by the sound of wet flesh hitting flesh. Anna locks eyes with me, her body is covered in cuts at every possible point, a large pool of blood staining the bed below.

My blade reaches the back of his neck the moment I spot his pants around his ankles. He falls limply to the ground and Anna lets out a scream of pain as he almost takes her with him. I grab her shoulders and pull her up towards the bed, her naked body heaving with every bit of motion.

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“Emma, study.”

Her voice is hoarse and barely a whisper, I can’t imagine how long she’s been screaming for help.

“Shh. It's over, it's over he’s dead you’re safe now.

Look at me!”

She struggles to even turn her head but she looks at me tears in her eyes. She whispers something but I can’t hear. I lean down. It’s still too quiet. My face is inches from hers as I hunch over cautious not to hurt her.

“Thank you.”

And then she kisses me. Too shocked I don’t fight as her tongue and my intertwine, the two of us locked together ignorant of the horrors going on around us.

She’s limp when I pull away.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

Arvi.

Haa.

My sword is heavier today than normal. I promised a distraction for Xavier and I suppose I’ll be delivering it, one way or another.

“You seem tired Shield!

Have you given up already? And I was so entertained a moment ago!”

I swing my body filled to its absolute limit with mana. Two spears of pure light are shredded as I push past them still swinging. Two heads go flying in a spray of blood.

A third spear slices through my side leaving a deep gash.

“Bastards!”

I grit my teeth pulsing my mana into my shoulder, a small white shield glows. My wounds are closed but not healed. Fire suddenly surrounds me in a semicircle leaving only the leader at my front.

“This was fun and all but I’m meant to keep these ruffians in check and losing too many might not bode well for the higher-ups.

You may die now.”

Yellow mana, I leap away less than a second before a pillar of electricity rises from the ground scorching even the dirt black. Two can play this game. Blue coats my body the layers thicken more and more as I buy a few seconds dodging. He can likely tell I’m preparing to cast just as I can see his movements but what he doesn’t know is how I’m going to cast.

Blue erupts from my body but instead of taking form and striking him, I hit myself with the mass of mana. Strength courses through my body and the mage's eyes raise in curiosity. Keep watching you bastard I’m gonna surprise you real good.

With my strengthened body I take in even more mana than last time and again after dodging more lightning and a fireball I consume the spell. My muscles rip under the strain but again I repeat the process this time my body feels weaker, so close.

With one last surge of mana, I stop still a burst of magic hitting me, the mage is stunned but quickly grins when he notices how little his magic did. Hells I hope you forgive me, Hilda.

With all the strength I can muster, I go to repeat the cycle but instead of using my own mana, I pull. The mage's eyes widen and he loses that shit-eating grin. The cycle is moving on its own.

I only have a few seconds.

I swing, and the fire vanishes, alongside every head save for the mages. Smug bastard thought to duck beforehand. I move and find myself in reach of the mage. He tries to leap back but I’m too fast right now.

I don’t swing my blade instead grabbing him by the neck with one hand and pinning an arm with the other.

“So long fucker.”

I crush his neck like a dried twig.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

Unknown.

I land beside the White Shield who swings the moment I do, he’s pretty fast with what he’s done to his body but I’m easily able to dodge.

“Where’s the man who came with you?”

He goes to spit and I slap him, careful not to kill him.

“Ugh so useless, here!”

I lift my sleeve and let the tattoo glow. He slumps in relief.

“He’s in the village's largest house’s safe room.

I told him to flee if I don’t come back after twenty minutes. It’s already been fifteen.”

“Do you want me to make it quicker?”

“No, it’s fine.”

I step back and watch the odd nature of his last spell. Mana normally used to strengthen oneself is being pulled endlessly from the environment. It feeds off itself growing larger and larger until at last his body can take it no longer. His chest pops like an overripe tomato.

He stood till the very end.

The man is gone from the house and village but there are clear signs of kills here and there. Sneaking kills that no fighter would use let alone something a Nomad would dare to do. They always make a show of their raids. I have to push my senses with the chaos and rain around me but I hear footsteps heading into the woods. Then I hear a soft twang and a scream.

Getting rid of the archer who fired took a second but in that second the man took the horses and vanished far beyond what my hearing allowed. I can follow the trail easily enough but with the lead a horse to give it might be better to search the area.

Something I find is shocking, to say the least, I’m unsure whether the Nomads did this or the man but in either case, it might explain why he fled so soon.

When magic is cast it always leaves a faint remnant of what mana was used to create it; this is true for even master mages. So why is there a corpse burst in half from the waist and not a trace of mana in the slightest? I even look to the best of my abilities, nothing, as in no mana. That man just ripped someone in half without strengthening himself, even I can't do that without some mana.

The trail ends as it touches a stream, he’s long gone.

—{}{}{}{}{}—

Xavier.

I want to clutch my side in pain but doing that would drop Emma and the massive book that she clutched like it was her, sister.

I let her keep it.

The horses thankfully know to slow the fuck down when inside a forest and this gives me a chance to ride through a stream for a little while hopefully dropping any would-be tails. I can’t be sure that the bastard who shot me won’t be chasing me as well, the good news being that the other horse followed me. I don’t wanna think about being chased by one of these monsters.

I make it to the edge of the forest before a realization hits me, the whole city was prepping like it was the apocalypse. There's no way in hell I’m getting anywhere near it. Whoever attacked it is probably a lot stronger than what they’d send to some outlier village.

Oh fuck I’m dizzy. I set down Emma and promptly collapse under a tree. These things aren’t so bad once you get used to them, sure they hurt a little to look at but Arvi said that’s because they fold in on themselves.

Weird ass trees. Sleep hits me like a truck.