Quan rushed down the country road. He was late and knew he was going to hear about it from his mother. Fifteen years old now, his father had him perform the morning chores and maintain the forge without supervision. Today was a holy day, and his mother had herded them off to the temple ahead of him. Leaving him to catch up when he could.

This morning he had tripped, dropped a bucket of garbage all over the forge. He couldn’t leave it without risking a fire from the ever smouldering furnace, and he couldn’t clean it without making himself a mess.

With an angry warning, he’d been instructed to catch up when he was done and presentable. So now he ran as fast as he could, best clothes hurriedly adorned, his short black hair combed in the way his mother liked, hoping he’d arrive before the ceremony started. He was still a shorter boy at only 5'4, but he had solid muscles for a boy his age from his time in the forge and skin tanned from working in the yard beside it.

A minute later, he saw the familiar building of the country temple his mother preferred. It was a small temple meant for a modest gathering of rural worshipers. All the temples in town surpassed it in size and embellishments of value. It was a few extra minutes walk here than one in the city, but her family had prayed at this temple for generations, and she wanted to keep the tradition. Smoke rising told him he was late as the priests had begun their rituals.

He slipped inside the wooden door, turning to try and close it quietly. Then he felt the weight and cold steel of a sword on the back of his neck.

“Don’t move, boy. Behave, and we’ll be on our way once we’ve enriched ourselves in earthly treasures.” Quan turned slowly and saw another man holding a crossbow pointed at him a short distance away.

The man who spoke waited a moment to see if the boy would cause problems before sheathing his sword and reaching for some rope to bind him. A partner stood a couple of steps away.

The nervous boy scanned the one-room temple he knew well. Six men had taken the congregation hostage, apparently to rob them. They wore simple clothes, and all had swords and two carried crossbows that he could see. They wore no armour at all, just simple farmer’s clothes, all relatively new. The rest of the congregation gathered and huddled near the front. Two men were going through the crowd stealing valuables while another two were at the front, robbing the temple itself, including the two that met him at the door. He scanned the nearly one hundred people looking for his family as the bandit reached out to tie him.

He quickly spotted his siblings huddled around his mother. He couldn’t see his father's large frame in the crowd of people. But his eyes were drawn forward as he heard the sound of a man being struck. He went limp beside two other bodies he recognizes as the priest and his father.

Quan shifted his gaze to the man nearest him and looked at him suspiciously as rage started to build inside him. "You're not going to let any of us live, are you?". The slight smirk was all the answer he needed.

He pulled his hands from the rope the man was trying to tie and grabbed his arm instead. He spun in a circle throwing him bodily away from the congregation he was robbing. He leapt at the second man bringing him to the ground as he turned to face him.

The man fell on his back under the weight of the jump, and Quan followed him down, raining several heavy blows from above on his face quickly making a bloody mess.

He turned to the man he’d thrown who was calling for help. The man pulled a knife as Quan charged in a blind rage. The bandit tried to speak, but whatever he wanted to say couldn’t get past the sound of the rumbling rage in his ears.

The bandit thrust with his dagger as he got close, but Quan’s speed outmatched his, and the bandit’s wrist was grabbed in the young blacksmith's iron grip. He shoved the man back against the wall and brought his forehead down to smash against the man’s nose. The blade went spinning from his hand toward the crowd. The man tried to throw a blow at Quan's head, but he ducked low. With a grunt, the boy thrust forward with his hands held like daggers and pierced the skin and flesh of the man. He wrapped each hand around a rib bone and, with a scream, ripped his hands out to the side, snapping two rib bones free as he pulled them out of the man's chest.

Quan turned as one man from the front got close. He used a rib like a dagger to block the bandit's blade. They exchanged a couple of quick strikes, each blocked by the other before the faster youth was able to spin around the man and plant one of his improvised weapons in the man's neck. However, the move left Quan with a cut up his left side.

With bloody hands, he took the short blade from the bandit's fallen body. He looked up to see the fourth bandit holding back, his sword in hand. Quan charged still without thought. He felt a stabbing pain as a bolt grazed his chest as the men near the front fired their crossbows.

The fourth bandit had a longer blade and better training than the boy in how to use it. However, he hadn’t been trained to fight a man who gave no thought to defence. He scored a cut on Quan’s left arm that was utterly ignored. When the boy failed to react to the cut as expected, the bandit’s defence ready for the sudden thrust and a blade reached into the man's stomach. Then Quan wrenched his sword to the side, cutting a wide opening his innards could drop out of.

Quan turned to see the last two men reloading their crossbows as they started to panic. He charged just as one man brought his weapon to bear. The youth twisted and stepped onto the wall for three quick steps before pushing off in a leap at the man. The bandits shot going wide as he tried to aim at the odd angle. He threw his short sword at the bandit, preparing to fire. It spun and slammed into his head, blunt end first.

With his wild leap, he collided with both men, and all three went down. After a brief moment of rapid turns and grapples in the floor of the temple, the trio grew silent.

Eventually, only Quan stood up slowly. A dagger in each hand, covered in blood as if he’d bathed in it. The exhausted boy limped forward as a bolt was lodged in his thigh. He walked towards the now silent congregation like some avatar of death. He paused to silently cut the bonds on one man before he stepped forward and fell to his knees exhausted, where he reached out to hold his father's hand.

~

Three men stood together in a temple. Master Tang Wu of the Wild Rose Sect looked at the bloody scene around him. His clean armour stood in contrast to the room. His hand rested on his sword hilt at his side. "What do you think, Lee?" He asked grimly.

Master Lee, the shortest of the three men, didn't answer. Instead, he turned to survey the room. They stood in a simple temple, a modest building for worship in the countryside. It was made from nearby woods and lacked any expensive embellishments. The altar lay on its side, what little valuables it may have held removed. Cushions used for kneeling in prayer and worship were kicked around the room, big enough for no more than 100 gathered together.

Then he turned his eyes to the bodies of the six bandits that lay on the temple floor. They wore simple clothes and had basic weapons on them. He spotted a few crossbows mixed in with the swords and daggers the men had wielded in life. The men's clothes looked in good shape, and none looked malnourished.

"Desperate men, do not attack a temple worth less than their weapons cost. Simple bandits would not hit a temple so close to the heart of the sect and the city. Even if they had lived to get away, they would never have escaped the hunt after." He finally said. "It is too bad we cannot question one. I suspect we would find they are paid actors."

"Actors sent to die," Master Wu agreed, "but we will find no proof, even had one lived to question." He paused, then asked, "and the one that did this?"

"A local boy," Master Chiro supplied. He was the largest of the men. Although not in armour like the other two, he was the largest, at 6'4 and 240lb of pure muscle. "Quan, son of a blacksmith, he saw his father hurt and apparently cut the bandits down."

Master Lee commented, "This is more than a boy should accomplish. Clearly, he has taught himself to cultivate to some degree."

"This work was without any skill. Pure brute force was used here." Master Wu added.

"I agree with both points. He has no combat training but clearly has learnt to use Ki to some extent." Master Chiro nodded.

"How old?" Master Lee asked.

"15"

"What a waste," Master Wu muttered, and after a moment, Lee shook his head in agreement.

"I will speak to his father. If he's been trained at the forge, he may be suited to following my path as a spiritual blacksmith.

Wu nodded and said, "and we shall look to increase our patrols of the area."