Ray and Klan were running away from the soldiers when Klaude was holding them back. But, as they were about to get away from the guards, four more of them came and blocked their path.

⌈Get them!⌋ (Soldier)

Taking one of the soldiers' shout as a signal, all of the soldiers leapt at them. Ray and Klan stopped running towards them and started running towards the opposite side, from where they had come.

⌈There!!⌋ (Klan)

Klan saw an alley that was to the left of the path they were currently running on. Without hesitation, Ray and Klan ran into it. After running for a short while, they felt that the area was getting a little hotter, and they could see red light coming from the end of the twisted alley. There were sounds of laughing and screams as well. However, they could care less about all of it, as there were soldiers coming from behind them right now. After exiting the alley, both of them stood stock still in their tracks. No, it would be better to say that they were forced to stop in their tracks by the scene unfolding in front of them.

⌈W-What's going on?! Hey Klan! What the hell is going on here?!⌋ (Ray)

When Ray looked at Klan standing at his left after asking this, he could see Klan trembling with a pale face. But he was not much better either. Although he had the composure to shout all of his questions, by no means, Ray was in a condition to make any calm decisions. In front of them, they could see many soldiers fighting the residents of the slums. This was the inner area of the slums of Border town. The area of all the bigwigs who had their roots spread in both Raian Kingdom and Seiren Kingdom. By no means was this an area which could go down just like this.

There were people fighting with swords, and there were soldiers fighting with spears and bows. Some people were being killed, some were killing. Some people fought with a desperate expression on their faces, some slaughtered everyone around them while laughing maniacally. The soldiers with bows were mainly setting fire to all the area. It was because of them that this place looked like a forest on fire.

The soldiers were killing everyone in front of them, be it Men, Women and even children. When taking a closer look, Ray saw that many of these people were not part of the slums. Some had come from outside the slums as well.

⌈YYAAAAAAAHHH!⌋

There was a shout from behind them. They did not who was shouting, but both Ray and Klan jumped forward without looking back. They fell down face first and a sword passed by just behind their backs. While they were standing still, the soldiers had caught up with them and attacked from behind. Both of them ran as fast as they could. But in this chaos, they could not get away. There was a man blocking their way, holding a spear. He was wearing the same uniform as the guards behind them, but he was holding a spear instead of a sword.

The man lowered himself and took a posture to stab. Seeing this, both of them felt as if a cold wind was coiling around their body. Their speed slowed down. The man in front of them had a smirk on his face. Klan believed this would be the last day of his life. And as he was thinking of giving up and stopping to make his death as painless as possible,

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⌈Don't stop! Keep running!⌋

He heard a shout. When he looked at the direction the shout came from, he could see Ray. He was taking out his dagger with a determined face. Klan did not feel hope at all, however, seeing that Ray had not given up, he felt some courage and moved forward with tears streaming down his face due to fear.

Ray was not all that better himself. Seeing that his escape route was closed from both sides, he decided to fight back. After telling Klan to not stop and taking out his dagger, he saw that the man in front had all his attention on him. His smirk grew wider as Ray got closer with his dagger. Just as Ray was about to enter the range of the spear and the man was going to stab,

⌈Fllaaaassshh!⌋ (Ray)

⌈...?!⌋

Ray disappeared from the man's view, and appeared right in front of the man holding the dagger in both of his hands. As the man understood the situation, his expression distorted in astonishment and fear with his previous smirk disappearing from his face. The man tried to kick Ray away. But before the man could take any action, Ray thrust the dagger in the man's neck and twisted the grip. The man died before he could even scream.

Seeing this, Klan got surprised. He had never seen anyone kill another man in front of him, therefore, Ray killing the soldier in front of them, he was very shocked. But his fear of death was greater than his shock. He kept running without thinking and eventually passed Ray who had stopped after killing the soldier.

Ray picked up the spear from the fallen soldier and looked back, there were two soldiers coming for them. Both holding a swords in their right hands. After picking up the spear, Ray bent down his waist and took the posture of stabbing. As the soldiers got near,

⌈Flash!⌋

Ray once again used the same skill and appeared in front of the soldier. The soldier was surprised as Ray was clearly a little away from them. They had seen him take down another soldier using a skill, but they had thought that a kid like him can only use a skill like that once and had not expected him to use it again. Alas, it was too late. Ray was in front of the soldiers and they were clearly in the range of the stab. Moreover, the momentum of using the skill had not dispersed.

Before the effect of Flash could end, Ray stabbed the soldier in front of him with the spear. The stab combined with the momentum of the skill Flash created a tremendous force behind the spear and it easily pierced the man's stomach exiting from his back. The man coughed up blood with an expression of disbelief. Seeing this, the other soldier swung his sword with an expression of hatred.

Ray was very tired after using a skill in succession. His body felt like it would break apart. Especially his right arm with which, he had stabbed the soldier. It trembled when Ray tried to even move it a little bit. But seeing the sword coming towards him, Ray forced himself to move. He held up his left hand holding the dagger to defend against the sword.

When the sword and dagger collided, the shock transferred to his arm was so great that it got numb. Ray fell back from the force of the swing and dropped the dagger. He felt as if his right arm had turned into lead, and his left arm was throbbing in pain.

⌈You Son of a bitch!⌋ (Soldier)

The soldier came towards him with his sword. He was going to stab Ray. It felt as if time had slowed down. The sword coming towards him, the voice of the soldier and himself, these were the only things present in this world. His body felt tired and he did not have the willpower to move even an inch further. He gave up all struggle. At such a time, he felt his eyelids growing heavy and his body entering someone's embrace. It was an embrace that he remembered well. It was soft, and gentle like his mothers'. All struggles ended, and he felt that he could finally get away from all the suffering he had to face in the past year. He felt the pain ending and a gentle warmth spreading on him, and closed his eyes.