Orven cast a sideways glance at the man behind him and then gave a slight nod. The collective breath of everyone present grew stagnant for a few heart-hammering seconds as one of the Enforcers arrived in front of Marke with a sudden creak of his armour, a gauntleted fist smashing into the young man’s face hard enough for the metal to shred his skin in excess. Marke fell to the ground with a groan of pain, his face shedding a grotesque fountain of blood as he cried out in anguish.

Several men rushed to his side, but the man that had struck him threw out an armoured arm and barked, “Anyone who helps this man will suffer in the same way.”

Benn’s mind froze as he connected eyes with Marke, a long-time friend and an amiable face within the community. They were going to kill Marke in front of all of them as a show of power, and there was nothing that they could do. Not without taking the risk of drawing the count’s wrath upon their tiny village.

The bloodthirsty soldier stepped over Marke’s squirming body and made to strike him again, at the exact moment that every villager in the room came to a subconscious consensus.

The Enforcer stopped as Benn stepped forward after glancing over at Nolan and his companions. “I’m sorry for getting you mixed up in our problems but I can’t—we can’t take this anymore!” Another dozen life signals appeared on the periphery of his spiritual sense, two idling within the centre of each of the nearby streets. The positioning seemed suspicious as if they had been placed in a perfect net around the Barley Brew.

Orven smiled. “Do you have something to say, Mr. Head of Talen Village?”

As soon as he sensed these additional soldiers—each at the peak of Profound Entry—he knew that the people of Talen village were doomed to suffer through a terrible purge. They would prove an example to the other communities within the valley of what happened when the people attempted to go against the count and his men.

Not yet. Not until I see my wife and daughter!

Unleashing all of the anger that he had come to harbour in recent weeks, he summoned a steel sword that had been passed down in his family for several generations and dashed toward Orven with a sort of courage known only to a man whose family had been stolen from him. Knives, axes, daggers and swords appeared in the hands of everyone gathered as the walls on the western side of the building where the front entrance was located suddenly came down with a crash. Dozens of soldiers had charged into the walls with their large black kite shields, which they raised once again in preparation for another charge.

Staring at Benn with an eager smile Orven avoided his abrupt attack by retreating backward with a quick dash. Despite his excitement, his face twisted into a momentary mask of shock as he collided directly with Ian, who had been returning to his seat with a calm stride as he watched the madness unfold around him. Startled when nearly lost his footing, Orven drew the sword at his hip and slashed out at the young man with a snarl. “Get the hell out of my way!”

Benn paused mid-dash as he watched Ian sidestep the slash and grab Orven’s wrist in one fluid movement. He threw his weight against the man’s arm and broke it inward with a terrible crack that seemed to echo throughout his suit of armour like a scream within an empty hallway. Orven tried to jump away but Ian tugged him forward by the wrist that he still held, spun on the spot and then swung him at two Enforcers that had just killed a young pair of villagers, the three of them crashing to into a table and breaking it down the middle.

A small fire of hope flared up within Benn’s stomach as the fighting stilled for a few moments, every eye within the room finding its way to Ian’s nonchalant figure. Since the count’s men had the same cultivation as Benn, he was positive that they hadn’t been able to sense Ian’s aura and thus assumed that there were only three green-robed strangers present. In an abrupt moment of impulse Orven had unsuspectingly attacked the mysterious youth and opened up the possibility that these four from the supposed Earth Sect might step in to assist the villagers during their dire crisis. The other three were of no consequence, but Ian’s help could turn the tides of this horrifying situation.

“What’s all this now?” Ian called out to Orven, who was in the midst of struggling up from the pile of broken furniture alongside his two subordinates. “I hit the buckets for two minutes and a battle breaks out?”

The enemy leader glared at Ian with bubbling hatred as his eyes tracked over his companions with a glint of suspicion. “There shouldn’t be anyone in this county at your level of strength. Who are you, and where are you from?” His tone was more cautious than before, his change in attitude further accentuated by the hand signal that he flashed to his men. In just a few moments the combatants had separated into two opposing groups with the mob of villagers spread throughout most of the room. They specifically congregated around the bar, the smaller troop of soldiers standing at attention by the rubble that used to be the western wall.

A few muffled sobs filled the otherwise silent room, until the young expert that had captured everyone’s attention smirked down his nose at his questioner.

“My name’s Ian and I’m from the Three-River Valley.”

“The Three Rivers? Then you’re of the Varai clan?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Is there any other clan in all of the Dragon’s Tail with both eyes and hair the colour of gold?” When Ian responded with a calm stare, he raised his voice. “What business does someone from the Three Rivers have here?”

“Now what makes you think you can ask me of my business? Actually, take your men and leave. You’re disturbing my meal.”

“I don’t know how things work in the Three-River Valley, but you’re a long way from home, boy. This is a territory of the Red Mountain King. Count Algrave rules this land, and I serve him directly, so if I tell you to do something, you do it, and if I tell you to say something, you better damn well say it.”

The serious-faced crowd appeared as confused as Benn. The Red Mountain King? He had never heard of the name.

“Or what, you’ll kill me?” Ian laughed.

Orven gasped in pain as rage and shame heated his face, the shorter man stumbling over to his men with hurried steps. “Just wait and see what I do to you.” He turned around with a snarl and made to exit the building, but stopped in his tracks on the third step.

Having punched straight through his black chest plate, a peculiar blade protruded from Orven’s back that was slicked over with a warm coating of blood. Standing before him was a figure in a piney robe, though remarkably enough it was not Ian but the boy named Nolan.

“You’ll definitely run off to get more people.” He planted his boot upon Orven’s chest and pushed his limp body off of his weapon. “You would have anyway.”

Am I seeing things correctly? That boy’s only at the fourth level of the Profound Entry stage!

“Back to the city!” one of the Enforcers yelled.

The soldiers fled the Barley Brew and began to sprint down the main road of Talen Village in a surprisingly neat manner.

“Benn, was it?” said Ian, who approached his keen-eyed friend. “Look out for my friends by the bar.”

Another body fell to the ground a few paces away from the broken walls, one of the two Enforcers that Orven had crashed into after Ian’s throw. This man hadn’t been as quick as the other man that had crashed into the table, who barely escaped the strike of a bone-white sword.

“Remember,” Nolan called to the astounded congregation. “It was the Earth Sect that helped you out today. We’ll do this for you, so spread word about us and talk us up as much as you can!”

He and Ian disappeared from the building in the blink of an eye. The room was immediately seized by a heavy silence, thick pillars of golden sunshine pouring through the open wall.

A creak of the old wooden floor preceded a loud cry of anguish and then everybody quickly gathered around the two people that had been slain by Orven and his subordinates.

Teary-eyed and overcome by terrible sobs that spoke of unparalleled sadness, two young women clutched at the clothes of one of the corpses. Benn recognized them as the man’s sister alongside his lover.

The second body belonged to a young farmer who wasn’t liked all that much by those that lived around him due to the likeliness of their belongings to disappear when they weren’t around their homesteads. Although none of his family members were around to grieve his passing, many people mourned him all the same. Both of these men had died fighting shoulder to shoulder with those around them, a death that warranted respect from their compatriots.

“What do we do now?” Pete grated over the crowd. “They’ll be comin’ for us in a few hours, and it won’t just be us they’ll punish for this!”

People began to panic, though only a few. Most of those present remained steadfast and true to their convictions as they contemplated the coming hours from their own perspectives.

Benn stared at the two corpses with vivid clarity as frustration and anticipation battled for dominance within his mind. Thinking of the trusted villagers that he had sent out earlier that day, he couldn’t help but suspect that all of his desperate schemes were falling apart one by one, and that he was helpless to stop it. Where are they? They were supposed to meet him at his house three hours ago.

“Benn!”

He belatedly noticed the new life signal and tore his tormented gaze away from the dead men, both at least ten years younger than him. Standing at the new threshold along the building’s western side was a stout man of heavy proportion, his chest heaving as he swallowed down one shaky breath after another.

“Jecks, what in the world took you so long?” It was as if the heavens themselves had heard his frantic thoughts and sent an immediate response.

The man in question leapt over the rubble that was once a large wall and hurried over to face him.

“I—I’m sorry for the wait, I had a bit of trouble in the eastern fields.”

“Catch your breath, man.”

“S—sorry, I ran s—so much.”

After waiting a minute Benn asked, “Do you know anything of the others?”

Jecks’s chin folded many times over as he responded with a vigorous series of nods. “We met on the outskirts of Scane just like you said to. They decided to head into its outer districts to try their luck with the city folk, since they’ve had it the worst of the count’s evils and all. I rushed back to give you the good news.”

“I told you not to enter the city. You were supposed to come back together!” Benn stomped his right foot directly through the floorboards. “No matter, what’s done is done. You just said something about good news. Why don’t you tell me more about that?”

“We mustered about as much as we could hope for. Nearly every village head has agreed to your terms, along with half of the town leaders. They’ll all meet up at the places you told me to tell them of within three hours.”

Benn almost couldn’t believe it. “Did you hear that?” he said to the room at large. “We aren’t alone in this. It’s not just us that’ve had enough of Algrave and his tyranny. This is our home, not his, and we’re going to make sure that’s known to him. Us, along with all of the people of Malben!”