The man was a Hunter. He was part of the earth, part of the nature that had once given breath to him. And even though he had fallen from grace, fallen so far that he was now just an old eccentric living at the edge of a forgotten village, he had never forgotten. And right now, at this moment, he was a Hunter again.

The merchant’s caravan that visited the village of Brasbury every six months had been delayed and though the villagers assumed that the caravan had finally just decided to stop coming, the Hunter had suspected something else, something more sinister. His old senses had dulled over time, but not totally faded, and because of his natural instincts, the Hunter had decided to pick up his weapons again and search the forests that had once been his home.

The Hunter, after days of searching, finally heard sounds in the far distance, the clashing of swords, and the yelling of desperate men. He rushed through the undergrowth faster than he had moved in many years and reached the edge of a clearing where a terrible scene met him.

The once great caravan, with its chain of wagons stocked full of wares, was burning. Smoke permeated the air and the wind was pushing it towards the Northern edge of the clearing, away from the Hunter, which is why he could make out the two groups of fighters in front of him. The side of the merchants was obvious: the crude, but practical basic armor and sword that each guard received as part of their payment to protect the caravan marked them as friendlies to the eyes of the Hunter.

The attackers however were a mystery to his observant eyes. Each of the attacking group was dressed differently, some in leather, others in nicer armor. Each had a different weapon to wield and there was no cohesion to their group. The attacking group outnumbered the guards 2 maybe even 3 to 1, yet they were much more chaotic than the group of guards that, although looked young and fresh, had had some training instilled in them since they joined the guard corps, which is why they were holding their own against the attackers. But just barely. The Hunter was here to break this stalemate.

The Hunter burst forward in a flurry of action, his sword out and ready for use. He found one of the attackers isolated with a guard, who was on the ground trying to futilely protect himself as the man dressed in leathers slammed an axe over and over again into his armor.

The Hunter reached the fight just as the axeman reared his weapon back to slam it once again into the guard. He analyzed the attacker and instantly figured that the most vulnerable part of him would be the neck area. With all of the grace of a rolling boulder, the Hunter brutally stabbed into the back of the neck of the attacker, instantly killing him and ending his attack on the guard.

As he fell to the ground, the Hunter quickly checked the guard but realized that at some point the guard had finally succumbed to the blows, yet the attacker, in his bloodlust had not realized he had been beating a dead corpse over and over again.

“May you find peace in the Great Beyond,” the whispered words of the Hunter flowed out naturally, even though he had not said them in many years.

The Hunter did not speak these same words to the leathered attacker, and as he checked him, the Hunter caught sight of a metal collar attached to his belt.

“Slavers,” he spat out in disgust.

His eyes hardened as he turned, seeing groups of fighters attacking each other through the thick smoke. The Hunter then sprang right back into action, brutally ripping through the chaotic ranks of the slavers, spitting on each of them before jumping right back into action.

The tide was turning and both groups knew it. The slavers, at first, started to avoid the maelstrom of death the Hunter had brought to the clearing, inadvertently opening up an even larger hole in their ranks that the Hunter obviously exploited. The guards, meanwhile had started to fight even harder, seeing that the new addition to the fight was not just helping them, but singlehandedly turning the tide in their favor.

And just as the group of guards had started to celebrate, knowing that they had successfully defended an attack on the caravan and would receive a bonus in pay when they returned, just as the slavers’ numbers had started to dwindle to the point where the Hunter had decided that victory was inevitable, a storm smashed into the right flank of the ranks of guards.

The Hunter rushed to the right and slashed out slicing the throat of another slaver, one that hadn’t been a part of the large disorganized group he had seen, but instead was part of the smaller group that had pillaged the caravan while the guards had been busy with the main force of attackers.

And from the group of ten stepped out a man that was obviously the storm that had killed the five guards laying at the feet of the Hunter and at the same time, broken the right flank of the defenders. The man was the strongest of the group, and so he was obviously the leader. He was one of the only people not dressed in any type of armor, and instead was just wearing a pair of leather pants that emphasized the large muscles that covered him. He was holding a great sword that would’ve burdened even the Hunter with its weight, yet the man was holding it with only his right hand just as easily as the Hunter held his own sword. A smirk twisted the slaver’s lips as he tossed a black bag backwards, one that most likely held the valuables they’d stolen from the caravan.

“So,” a guttural voice emanated from the fearsome leader of the slavers. “You are the man that killed most of my men. And from the way that you ripped through their bodies, I suppose paying you to leave is not an option.”

Suddenly, another group of 5 men appeared from the smoke, dragging screaming bodies behind them. The Hunter caught sight of the collars on the necks of the merchants and their wives and his face twisted with rage. Without saying a word, he rushed forward towards the leader, blade poised to strike.

The large man moved much faster than any man at his size had any right to, rushing forward to meet the Hunter.

He’s only half a step from the Spirit Realm, the Hunter thought to himself.

The two men met in the middle, the slaver’s great sword coming down in a large arc, while the Hunter twisted his body to the side as to not get crushed under the weapon’s weight. As the sword passed by, the Hunter noticed a film of gold light covering the blade of the great sword.

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The Hunter knew this wouldn’t be as easy as he had originally thought, noting that the leader of this group of slavers had mastered the Sword Earth, and so could now externalize his Heavenly Energy to create a sharper edge on his weapon. So now, not only were the slaver’s speed and strength enhanced by his high cultivation level, he also had a technique to ensure a greater attack power.

The Hunter and the slaver exchanged moves, the Hunter making sure that his opponent’s sword didn’t even come close to touching him. However, he realized a problem when his sword finally caught his opponent’s skin. The Hunter’s sword was able to barely pierce the skin of the slaver, and as first blood was finally reached, the slaver took a step back and chuckled.

“Whoever you are, no matter how fast you might be, my skin has been toughened from my cultivation technique and you cannot hope to bleed me dry before you run out of stamina,” the slaver said.

And for the first time in the entire fight, the Hunter answered. “And yet, experience has empowered me much more than you can ever hope to achieve.”

“And what says I will never achieve your ‘power’?” the slaver mockingly asked. “After today, I will be rich enough to buy another cultivation technique, pushing me into the Spirit Realm.”

“Because you will never have the chance,” the Hunter said, cutting him off.

The Hunter then closed his eyes and reached towards his diminished core drawing out a sliver of the vast amount of energy that still existed there. Anything more than a sliver, and the entire clearing would be obliterated, not only killing the group of slavers, but also the people that the Hunter had decided to protect. And another, more sinister reason was the cause of the Hunter using the smallest amount of energy possible. For he could only hope that no one from above was watching this exact clearing in the Dorinthian Forest and would finally end the man that had once been the greatest Hunter in all worlds.

He used two thirds of the energy he’d drawn out of his broken core to cover his blade with an edge, the same way the slaver had done. The rest of the energy, the Hunter used to infuse his legs and arms with strength and agility, ensuring that he would have the upper hand in the rest of this fight.

When he opened his eyes, the large slaver, unsurprisingly was right in front of him, great sword raised for a killing blow. However, now that the Hunter had finally decided to use the energy from his core, this fight was already over, the slaver just did not know it yet.

The Hunter sidestepped, letting the energy covering the great sword pass within a couple inches of his body. His own blade snapped out, slicing through the steel-like muscle of the slaver's chest like paper. It ripped through his heart, the same heart that was infused with the Heavenly Energy that would have one day become a core. Yet the slaver was never given the chance to enter the Formation Stage.

However, like an abandoned string on the wheel of Fate, the large slaver’s weave was cut from the mortal plane and sent to the River of Death as his body fell to the ground. The remaining slavers had disappeared as soon as they saw the Hunter gaining the upper hand, using their speed and body Techniques to race away from the scene.

The Hunter looked up to see the group of merchants that the slavers had taken as slaves, lying dead on the ground, throats cut.

So, even after all of that, I still lost, the Hunter thought to himself. Yet he knew that if he had used more of his power or techniques, this side of the Mortal World would’ve paid in much more than a few bodies.

As he sighed and turned to chase the stragglers down and kill them, for he still had the power to do that, he heard a cry from the burning wagons. A cry that could stop even the coldest of men. The cry of a small child. The Hunter looked towards the wagons and heard the child cry out again. He looked back and saw the group of guards, exhausted and ruined from the fight, more than half of them lying on the ground, dead.

Seeing that none of the guards had the strength to do anything, the Hunter sighed again and turned towards the wagon. He used his speed infused body to rush to the wagon where the cry was emanating from. The Hunter ripped the door off the wagon in question and rushed into the flames, searching for the crier.

It took him seconds to catch sight of a crib in the corner, somehow untouched by the fires and debris that littered the rest of the wagon. Seconds later, a flash of light rushed out of the wagon and stopped at the edge of the clearing.

The Hunter looked down at the fresh faced baby in his hands and realized that he couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. However, for some reason, as soon as the child had left the flames, he had stopped crying and his intelligent, dark eyes stared back at his savior. If the Hunter didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought that the child’s cry hadn’t been one of chaos but one of attention, like he was crying for someone to save him.

The Hunter made a decision in that second, a decision that would shake the foundations of all worlds in the future. Maybe it was the intelligence in those eyes, or the potential to cultivate that the Hunter had picked up on. Or maybe the Hunter was just reminded of an old friend from a long time ago. Whatever it was, in that second the Hunter had already decided to take the baby back with him.

The breeze had stopped and the fires had started to die down. The sounds of debris falling and guards clamoring had fallen away. It was as if the entire Mortal World had caught its breath and was focused on this exact point.

The Hunter’s gruff voice cut through the air. “You will now be known as Mordekai.”

And the world started to breathe again. But, its everpresent calm aura was tinged with something new. Something that if the Heavens above picked up on, would raze half the world to the ground if they weren’t bound by laws unfathomable to the most genius of mortals.

In this moment its aura was tinged with fear.

***

At this very same moment, the one that many choose to call Death stood at the banks of the river he guarded, watching as the child was taken away by the Hunter. He turned then, his hood riding up his face before he caught it.

“Are you sure we did the right thing?” Death asked the black silhouette next to him.

“I haven’t been truly sure of anything in centuries, old friend,” a sharp voice answered him from the shadows. “But I do know this is the best chance we have.”

“You felt the tremors,” Death said. “Even the Mortal World is afraid. Shouldn’t that at least make us pause.”

“The Mortal World hates change. Both of us should remember that clearly since the Heavens were once on our side. And this child, no matter how many paths Fate has created for him, there isn’t a single one where he doesn’t bring change.”

“We cannot be certain those changes are positive,” Death countered. “He could one day choose to ruin the world with his power, just like…”

“It doesn’t matter. At this point, we have run out of options. If he chooses to restart, maybe it is better than what they’re doing up there anyways.”

“And what about the child himself? You knew that there was no chance the Great Beyond would accept a lost soul and so his only choice was being forced into a new body. And this doesn’t even touch on the things that Fate has planned. If we go down this path, there is a high chance he will break.”

“As I said, it doesn’t matter,” the silhouette said with a sigh. “I know you’ve had your doubts, but if you felt so strongly about this, why did you choose to rip his soul from the River and let it choose its path? Without our meddling, he would’ve faded away and neither the fate of this world nor ours would’ve been called into question.”

Death stood there for a second, and then sighed and answered. “Because no matter how much I don’t like it, I do agree with you. He is our last chance and even if he breaks, at least this prison surrounding both worlds will disappear. It is my hope that he chooses otherwise.”

“We will wait and see,” the black silhouette said, fading from the world of the River of Death.