Screams were constant. The cries of horses. The blood flow.

The Imperial Knights sliced through the enemy ranks smoothly. They continued to approach the center, where the group of mercenaries were.

“Kairin! There’s spearmen trying to make a phalanx, some hundred meters ahead. We must change change our course, or we might take unnecessary losses.”

“No need for that.”(Kairin)

The young captain stopped, and made a sign with his hand. Some seconds later a shower of arrows were unleashed onto the enemy.

The arrows came dropping from the sky, hitting anyone in their way.

Joh and his group watched as the imperial projectiles penetrated each of their comrades.

“Wha-!”(Joh)

“Are they nuts?!”

“Don’t they care about their cavalry?!”

The men were shocked. It was the first time they saw such behavior from the Empire’s soldiers. However, time didn’t stop during their shock. The men died, shielded themselves or got wounded.

The formation broke. The ones who were once ready and determined to follow Joh’s orders, lied on the blood of their fellow men.

Joh’s chest was pierced by an arrow, and was now drowning on his own blood, as he panicked and grabbed his own throat.

The boy was in the same place as before. Not one arrow had hitted him, you could consider it a miracle, if not for the hedgehog like oldman who stood at his feet covered in arrows.

Not quite sure of what had happened, he walked around the battlefield. With spear in hand, he moved through the corpses of other soldiers, and in the end he found him.

The person in front of him, blood flowing from his mouth, lung pierced, dead eyes.

“Joh?”

The body didn’t react. As he confirmed he was really dead, the boy began searching the pockets of the man. After picking a ring with some inscriptions on it, he noticed a certain noise in the background sticking out from the others. Recognizing the sound, the boy ran towards the troops away from the targeted area, and tried distancing himself from the threat as fast as he could.

The Imperial horsemen recontinued their slaughter, trying to divide the Carstvo army in half.

“See?”(Kairin)

“Yes, indeed. I didn’t expect you to have horse archers.”

“No one would have. I believe I am the only captain with horse archers in the whole Empire, being the only one with a customizable training, so it’s a nice surprise for the enemy.”(Kairin)

“I see.”

“Now then, we’re almost there.”(Kairin)

The cavalry reached the behind of the enemy main force. After that, they encircled the barbarian army, while their infantry attacked the remaining army.

A complete massacre was taking place.

As the surrounded barbarians were rapidly losing numbers, the boy went to the back of the army. Here, the ferocious knights he was trying to escape from, were murdering anyone who tried to exit the encirclement.

The boy knew he had to get out if he didn’t want to share the same fate as Joh. So he tried to come up with a plan, taking in account his wounded leg and lesser strength.

Meanwhile, a few hundred soldiers away. The leader of the 2º Battalion of the Imperial Cavalry, stood near the enemy leader, King of Carstvo, Kralju son of Vladar.

“Foolish king! You could have spared your people from this massacre, but instead you chose your own pride over them!”(Kairin)

“What!? Do not come here with those fancy lies. You won’t trick me, Fitte!”(Kralju)

“Yeah! You imperial bastard forced our hand, and you call yourselves righteous. Ha! What a joke.”

“So be it. You’ll die here either way.”(Kairin)

Quickly, the king’s men dwindle, leaving only the country’s ruler and his right-hand man left.

“It was an honor, my friend.”(Kralju)

“See you in Valhalla!”

The two men, together, charge towards the commander with a big smile and eyes showing commitment.

As the pair gets close to Kairin, the riders surrounding them unsheath their swords and start slicing their opponents as they pitied them.

After the two of them became a bloody mess, Kairin got off his mount and took his new sword out of the scabbard.

“Consider this an honor, dead king. You will be the first to feel the taste of my blade.”(Kairin)

He pressed his sword against the neck of the corpse and with minimal effort he cut through the muscled neck of the king.

“Amazing. This, really is, a holy sword.”(Kairin)

He grabbed the head from the muddy soil, climbed onto his horse and stretched his arm in the air.

“Your king is Dead!”(Kairin)

The strong voice of the Regnanium, caught the attention of the soldiers, the barbarians mainly. And, as they looked at the dirty head of their supreme leader, they lost hope. However, the Imperial soldiers were overflowing with high moral, and happily crushing their adversaries with bright smiles on their faces.

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Carstvo was already doomed, and now the illusion of winning was lifted. This was a losing battle, and they were shattered.

This turn of events made numerous troops retreat, running for their lives.

Seeing this the boy took the chance and ran with others while using them as cover.

Likewise, the cavalry commander had a similar idea, and also reacted. He selected fifty men of his battalion and went on a hunt for the fleeing numbers.

“Shit! Why are they chasing us, we’re already leaving the battle!”

The kid didn’t run as fast as these men, due to the wounded leg, so the only way to outrun them and not be left behind was producing other victims. He instantly stabbed the leg of one of the men ahead of him the moment he heard the galloping of a horse, this of course made the middle-aged man fall to his doom.

“Arg! What the f-”

His words didn’t finish. The boy looked back to confirm the horse’s delay, and now the man on the floor was missing the upper part of his head. Next to him, a armored knight with blood dripping from his sword.

In panic, from the quickness of the death of the man, he tried to stab another person. However, the man who was supposed to act as his pawn, noticed the actions of the boy, causing him to defend himself and overpowering the boy by hitting his face with the handle of his weapon. The boy fell from the pain, hitting the ground, face first.

The knight cleaned his blade and looked at the boy, this caused him to smile.

“You’re quite mean, kid. Dooming someone for your own sake? Ridiculous. You do understand that you will die either way, right?”

“I-I don’t kn-”

“Must say.”

The knight interrupted the young boy.

“You must have quite some luck to have the opportunity to meet me. I mean, if you were found by my subordinates instead of ‘moi’, they would just butcher you, you see.”

“Subordinates? Who are you?”

“My goodness. How come my fame still didn’t come into these garbage people? I’m obviously the most powerful man of Regno.”

“W-what?!”

Powerful man, he said. Clearly not the emperor, but maybe powerful in strength and fighting? The boy thought.

“... ximus?”

The boy whispered.

“What, talk louder.”

“Lei... nen Maximus?”

As those words left his mouth, the boy began slowly walking backwards.

“Leinen? Leinen!? Why does everyone think he is so goddamn great, huh?! He’s just a weak dog of a man, doing everything the Emperor asks, always asking for permission to do whatever. No, I’m not that failure of a man, I’m his son, Kairin.” (Kairin)

“What are you going to do to me, why didn’t you kill me?”

“First, start running. Second, because I wanted to have little fun”(Kairin)

“Heh?”

“Shoo, shoo. I’ll count to sixty, so go ahead, run.”(Kairin)

The face of the younger one, started sweating and whitening.

“Wait, what do y-”

“Five, six, seven, …”(Kairin)

The count forced the boy to start running towards the woods.

Kairin took his bow out and loaded it with a red arrow.

“Stupid kid, you may be able to run quite fast with a wounded leg, but it’s still can’t outrun an arrow.”(Kairin)

Kairin unleashed his arrow onto his target. And just as the boy was entering the tree lines, the arrow scrapes his cheek.

The boy fell once again, and makes a horrified scream.

While the boy stands up, the hunter puts a finger in his mouth and then feels the air.

“Wind, uh.”(Kairin)

The young man loads yet again his bow, but his prey had already ran into the forest.

“Damn. Well, it doesn’t matter. He has tracking paint in his cheek and a wound in his leg, he won’t be hard to find.”(Kairin)

The boy was running with everything he had, he tried to ignore the pain and let the adrenaline take over his body.

The young captain rode through the woods as well, following a faint trail of paint and blood. It was inevitable, he would get him.

After playing cat and mouse for a while, Kairin reached the end of the red path.

No more blood, paint, footprints or any other sign of movement. He looked up, and suddenly the boy tackles him from the horse.

“Ha! Not bad, but a bit predictable.”(Kairin)

“Arg!”

A small knife had pierced him in his abdomen, and yet again, he was in serious pain. The boy, although badly hurt, hadn’t been injured in a vital spot.

“Tough little guy, aren’t you? Maybe you’re actually worth the effort. I’ll grant you a death by my own special sword.”(Kairin)

He unsheathed his blade once again.

“Screw you! *cough* I-I’d rather kill myself!”

“Rude, even at death’s doors.”(Kairin)

Kairin hits the boy’s head with the handle of the sword, making him fall onto the dirt.

“The hunt is over, it was fun.”(Kairin)

As the knight lifted his sword to deal the final blow, the boy grabbed a handful of dirt a threw at his soon-to-be murderer’s face.

“Ag! Fuck! Just give up, you little twat!”(Kairin)

The swordsman dropped his sword on the ground, instinctively trying to remove the dirt from his eyes. This opened a small window, for the boy to disarm his opponent whilst he was blind. The moment he grabbed the sword, he swanged it towards Kairin. Unfortunately, the weight of the sword wasn’t in his calculations.

The sword made him lose his balance and fall towards, where the horse was. As soon as the blade made contact with the rising leg of the horse, blood began to spurt everywhere.

Amazingly enough, the cut was swift and clean. But the horse’s cries showed everything but.

The boy was still surprised about the abnormal sharpness of the sword, that he didn’t notice the yelling of the captain.

“You fucking cunt! How dare you!”(Kairin)

Kairin was able to remove most of the dirt in his eyes by now, making it easier for him to see. Unfortunately, what he saw, wasn’t the best of sights.

His favorite mount missing a leg, and one of the Empire’s national treasures and also his sword, in the hands of a low-life barbarian kid of an enemy nation.

“What. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH MY SWORD!”(Kairin)

The boy ran and ran. He had to, if he didn’t want to be killed. He didn’t even had a chance to fight his adversary, all he could do was making him disarmed.

He ran, but he wasn’t fast enough. Kairin grabbed him by the hair and pushed him down.

“You really think you can run from me? Me!”(Kairin)

He closed his fist and started punching the boy’s face without mercy. His cheeks ripped more with each punch. He then started kicking him, his stomach, his face, his genitalia. He was breaking him apart.

The broken boy, tired and in a otherworldly pain, squirmed. The young man crouched, grabbed his head with his two hands and whispered.

“You fucking retard piece of shit. Why. Why won’t you just DIE!”(Kairin)

His hand started going down his head to his neck, and as he prepared to start strangling the kid, the boy used his lasts efforts to bite his offender. Just a bit, to let him go for just a few seconds, so he could feel a bit free from Kairin’s grasp.

This moment was fatal. As his head lifted towards his opponent’s and he opened his jaws to bite his nose, a horrible mistake from Kairin’s part succeeded. He saw his prey trying to bite his face, so he tried to dodge by lowering his head.

Unfortunately for him, when the boy began to bite, right as his head lowering. Causing the teeth to catch the left eye.

The pressure caused by the boy’s upper teeth in Kairin’s forehead and his lower jaw in Kairin’s eyeball caused the eye to squeeze until the incisors cut it. The moment the small tear appeared, a white liquid flowed between the boy’s teeth, dripping from his mouth as he bit the skull of his enemy.

The screams of his opponent were sudden and hysteric.

“Aah! Ggk! Wha-! Ma’ fackin eye!”(Kairin)

The boy, crawled away from the captain, and then tried to get back up. As he stood up, he spit bits and pieces of Kairin’s eye, as well as his own blood. He once again got the dropped sword, and began running away, hurt and slowly, but not looking back.

He only stopped running when he ceased hearing the screams of Kairin.