The young man slowly walked through the burning ruins of the village. All around him screams and shouts filled with dread, fear or determination could be heard. The sound of clashing swords and splintering shields filled the air. But he didn’t seem to notice them. Either this or he didn’t care about them.
The only thing this young man obviously cared for, was reading the small book in his hands, while he slowly walked over the numerous corpses all round him. And despite the pools of blood and bits of flesh all around him there were no signs of stains on his clothing. The scene was too surreal and it almost looked like the young man was walking in an entire different dimension, a dimension far away from all this blood and gore.
Suddenly a panicked scream came from inside one of the few remaining straw clad shacks. Fear and absolute horror resounded in this one shrill scream, echoing through the whole village, just like a plead for help that no one would never hear.
He sighed and then put away the book into a pocket of his long cloak. Shaking his head, he mumbled. “It’s always the same….“
He sighed yet again, suddenly looking quite sad. Then he turned into the direction where the scream came from and walked into that direction. While he unhurriedly crossed the thirty meters of bloody corpses between himself and the small shack, faint words came out of his mouth and formed a song.
The words weren’t loud, but they still spread through the are.
“War has finally come,
But where have the warriors gone?
True men of honor, True symbols of war!
Where have the warriors gone?
The fights of the past have long since passed,
Only Dust is left behind.
The fire of mankind has burned down,
Where have the warriors gone?”
His words were carried by the light wind and spread around the entire village. Passing by the fighting man and screaming children. As they echoed into nothingness the fights cooled down as everyone realized what was happing.
Then the young man’s voice became louder.
“For pride and for glory they went into war,
They fought in seas of blood and gore.
They never raped, they never killed,
The old and the young they never harmed.
Their lives they gave and lives they took
Warriors fought for fighting’s sake
The Warrior glory awaits,
The soldier just death escapes.”
He stopped singing as he entered the twilight of the shack.
Inside the building the only light source were the small rays of sunlight that came through the gaps in the wooden walls. Straw was spread all across the ground and dirt could be seen in the corners. In the very back of the shack two shadows moved, one male and one female.
The female, a young woman was staring at the young man that had just come through the door, shock filling her expression. The male on the other side somehow hadn’t noticed the sudden visitor and was violently trusting into the female’s precious parts. He seemed like he had lost his mind, foam coming out of his mouth and fervent eyes that were staring at the young woman with a scary expression of madness.
The young man’s expression remained a little bit sad, but it was clear that the sadness wasn’t related the raping of the young woman. The faint sadness one could detect on this man was directed on the crazed man who wouldn’t stop trusting into the young woman. It wasn’t that he pitied that man. What he pitied was what this man was standing for. He pitied what had become of human kind.
“You…. Are no warrior.”, he faintly spoke. “Ah, I wonder will I ever get across a battlefield without this stuff?”, his shrugged his shoulder.
“Well not that it matters…. YOU will die anyway!”, his face suddenly turned freezing cold.
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A terrifying aura exploded from the young man and filled the shack, no it filled the entire village and even the fields around the village. It was an aura of absoluteness. An aura that no one would ever go against. Anyone who stood before this aura would not dare to miss out on any order, even if following the order would cost the own life!
Even if the body didn’t want to comply, the soul would!
“Die!”, a single word escaped the young man’s frozen expression and bore down upon the maddened man.
The later’s expression suddenly twisted even more, making him seem more like a monster then a human. Then his eyes suddenly blanked out and his body started to spasm. He felt pain worse than anything he had felt ever before. Pain that no one could even start to imagine, pain that came from his soul and not his body. It was the pain of his soul disintegrating itself!
Then the pain disappeared and the man fell to the ground. He was death, his soul had destroyed itself after hearing the young man’s order.
The young woman that was still lying in the corner was completely shaken as two words resurfaced in her mind.
‘Immortal’!
She couldn’t help but stare at the young man in front of her and her mouth slowly opened. “Immortal sir…. Please help our village!”
She was extremely clear that the young man in front of her was incredible. Not to mention the soldiers that had attacked the village, even if the whole force behind this soldiers came they would still tremble in front of this man, regretting to have come to this small desolate village!
The young man chuckled wryly. He knew that once he stepped into this, there was no way to stay out of the battle again.
“Girl”, he suddenly called out to the young woman.
“S-sir Immortal?”
“What would you say…. Would a righteous person kill every of these bastards in the village?”, he smiled faintly.
The young woman was confused over the Immortals words, but she still nodded. The young man closed his eyes, the smile on his face only broadening. Then he nodded his head, opened his mouth and a word came out.
“Die.”
It was unlike the last time where the word seemed to domineering to withstand. Last time there was no other choice but to heed his orders and die, but this time the word didn’t seem to be an order. It was more like a question. A question asking them all to die.
The woman was shocked as she felt her own soul suddenly tremble and disintegrate.
“S-SIR IMMORTAL???”, she panicked even more as she felt her consciousness fall apart bit by bit. It wasn’t like the mad man’s death before. There was no pain, nothing. But it was even more scary as it happened without any kind of ripple on the Immortals face. It was as if all of this was just natural, something that had to happen.
Despair rose in the woman’s mind and she already gave up as….
“Just joking, you won’t die. But remember my words… to the powerful, what difference is there between you and the other ones?”, the Immortal suddenly spoke and her soul instantly restored itself. In just a moment everything went back to how it was before, just as if nothing had happened.
While the young woman couldn’t quite comprehend, what had happened just now, the Immortal walked out of the shack into the light of the setting sun.
The weather was wonderful with just a few clouds on the otherwise golden sky. It almost looked like a scene from the paradise,
As long as you didn’t look at the countless death bodies that were scattered across the whole village. In between the countless death soldiers, the villagers slowly rose their heads and watched across their burned down village.
Of the two hundred buildings that had previously stood here only twelve could be used and the rest was burned down. At least the fields around the village still had their crops growing on them and they would have enough food to survive through the soon coming winter.
But even if they had food, without shelter many would get ill and it would be an miracle if even half of them survived until the next spring.
The young man just shoot a glance at these villagers before grabbing into his long cloak and pulling out his book. Without looking back he silently exited the village, while burying his head inside the book.
This wasn’t his problem. In the first place he wasn’t a part of this village or the fiefdom it belonged to. He wasn’t even a human in the same sense as they were.
He was an immortal, a being that wouldn’t grow old, potentially living for all eternity. An existence that was powerful enough to raze down a country with just himself. There was a difference like heaven and earth between them and himself.
So why would he intervene in a battle they fought?
“Am I a righteous person?”, he shook his head.
“Maybe.”
It wasn’t because he was a just person that he helped the village. Calling himself a truly righteous person would be wrong, he wasn’t righteous at all. For him it didn’t matter if things happened or not. If he wasn’t there it wasn’t his problem.
He wouldn’t interfere in a battle even if thousands were to die. He wouldn’t take revenge for people he never knew.
But once he saw something he deemed wrong he would stop it with all of his might!
Instead of being called righteous he should be called someone with principles. Principles that he would protect as long as he was present.
War was to be fought between warriors.
Those that chose to become warriors would take lives and they would eventually give their life. And in exchange they were rewarded with glory, pride and respect. This was his ideal of war.
To take the lives of innocents was wrong!
This was the reason why he appeared at so many battle fields.
He had a nickname: ‘Warrior Seeking Immortal’. The Immortal that constantly wandered over the battlefields searching for warriors, for those who could be called righteous even in war!
And this was why he had killed the soldiers in the village.
‘Warriors await glory, Soldiers escape death.’
And those that killed innocents wouldn’t escape his sight!
He sighed yet again as he looked up from his book.
“Yet again no true warrior hm? I wonder… they call it humaneness… but why is it so unhuman?”
He stretched his neck as he looked up into the sky.
50 years, 3657 battlefields. Not a single person worth to be called a warrior.
“I wonder if I will ever find such a human….”, he scratched his neck and took another step. Then he suddenly frowned.
‘This patch of weed?????’
Right in front of him was a small grass plant growing right on the path. It’s small leaves had a faint light and glittered in last remaining light of the evening. But that wasn’t what shocked the Immortal so much. It was the amount of the energy called qi that was stored inside of this small plant in front of him.
He blinked. Then a grin came onto his face.
‘Interesting!’
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Remark from the author: To they guys reading i can promise at least three chapters a week, any more then this is depending on motivation and my freetime. A second chapter is coming tomorrow.