Twig eyed his self made pond suspiciously. The description mentioned that the water spirit would turn normal water in a weak healing potion, but Twig would still let his little minion try first. “Daz! Stop running and come over!” The boy was on his last leg, really. Hardly able to move anymore he slurred over as quickly with all the strength he could muster. “Haaah. Master… Please, can I rest? I just can’t run anymore…”

Twig shrugged. On the horizon it was already dawning. His disciple had been cultivating and training all night. “Yes. Drink from this pond though, before you go sleep.” Daz made a sour face, but did not dare speak out against his master in fear of more running practice. “Yes, master…” Proceeding Twigs minion took away a skeletons water cup and filled it to the brim with the red healing potion.

After drinking Twig could feel the kid getting stronger. No, not quite that. He was recovering his strength rather than gaining more. “Master, this is really quite refreshing. My muscles stopped aching. I’m still very tired though…” Twig nodded and sent Daz off to sleep. Mira followed the boy and Twig was left alone in the garden, only surrounded by his monsters. Kind of peaceful.

Sadly this rare moment of quiet lasted only a few seconds. The other girl, Marcella had apparently woken up. Ignoring her, Twig took the cup and filled it up with the potion himself. “Morning. You all stayed up all night?” Twig glared over her annoying question and the fact that she also did not refer to him as master. He downed his cup and immediately a window popped up.

[Enchantment: Benevolent Enslaver] has been weakened.

[Effect: Soulbound] cannot be weakened.

When the red liquid filled his body with energy it also shaved away at something. It healed Twig. Apparently there was a enchantment and a effect cast on his body. A fact that he had not even been aware of. As Twig was not yet sure what exactly was going on he repeated the process and drank another cup of potion. He ignored the girl, that was still pestering him with questions, this was more important.

[Enchantment: Benevolent Enslaver] has been weakened significantly.

[Effect: Soulbound] cannot be weakened.

Again Twig felt something falling off of him. It was a odd feeling, like a part of himself died or was revealed? Repeating it again, he took a larger bucket. Greedily he drank as much as he could

[Enchantment: Benevolent Enslaver] has been weakened further.

[Effect: Soulbound] cannot be weakened.

[Enchantment: Benevolent Enslaver] was dispelled.

[Effect: Soulbound] cannot be weakened.

But no matter how much he drank, the effect did neither disappear, nor weaken. Aside from that he now knew what the enchantment had been. His master, this bastard, had put this spell on him! Twig no longer felt this unreasonable gratitude and thankfulness. Or love? It was hard to say what the feeling had been but now he was free of it. Maybe it was time to finally make a move against his master, that clearly created and enslaved him for the sole purpose of war?

Finally Twig gave in to the questions the girl continued to ask. “If you are not respectful, you won’t get an answer, girl.” Marcella shrugged. “Then be like that. I’m going to eat something.” As she left Twig was reaching out to his hobgoblin minions. They had traveled far, in all directions of the surrounding swamplands. Aside from the obvious swamps and small roads that led through them, the area was covered in woods with large trees. A perfect hunting ground for hobgoblins.

While most of the areas surrounding the small village were wild, deserted places a few of his monsters found villages. Twig made all his hobgoblins head towards the nearest villages and search for clues as to where is master was. It was time to fight back, and end this master-slave relationship. In total they found 4 villages. Two were rather small, hardly fifty people living there.

It was easy for the respective hobgoblins to climb the wall and enter the village in the early morning hours. A couple of guards in each village, all more asleep than anything else. Quickly the settlements turned out to not host his master and Twig recalled them from their scouting tour. Another “village” was a couple of watchtowers put together upon a large hill. They were heavily guarded and cleary did not host any guests either, so Twig did not bother investigating that.

The last one was a small city in the middle of a huge swamp, only two roads and a couple of trees towered over the watery field of traps. A swamp like this was dangerous, one false step and it was hard to get out again. Not to mention predators, that preyed upon such animals or humans. Aside from their natural fortification the city had put up walls of stone, barely one and a half meter high, where it continued to rise as a wooden wall up to three meters.

Twig took personal control of the three hobgoblins that had first discovered the city. Normally enemies would never dare go all the way towards the gate, when wanting to infiltrate a town. But the objective of his minions was not survival or stealth. It was to confirm the whereabouts of his master! As they were running down the road it did not take a long time until crossbow bolts flew at them. Luckily the shooters were not accurate enough to hit the zig zag running hobgoblins. Too quickly they changed directions. When they arrived at the wall next to the gate finally a bolt pierced a hobgoblin through the chest.

Ignoring their fallen comrade one goblin jumped on the other and leapt up over the wall. A guard thrusted his spear towards it, but the small leg wound did not stop the hobgoblin from advancing. The jump into the city was barely two meters and although the impact on the ground was heavy the controlled monster did not stop it’s advance for a second. Meanwhile his other companion had also climbed the wall and was fighting fiercely against the guards to advance into the city too. He would not be so lucky.

Aside from several heavy cuts on its body a full three crossbow bolts hit the goblins back when he jumped. Twig ignored the two unlucky corpses and pushed the third hobgoblin to push through the city. A few dozen meters through two story houses the hobgoblin spotted the Antalia Kingdoms banner. Could this be his master? Sadly the goblin was not able to investigate further as he was spotted by guards and killed minutes later.

Twig returned his consciousness back towards the garden and commanded all his other hobgoblins to advance towards the city. Once they would arrive Twig would launch a serious stealth attack. Close to eighty hobgoblin assassins was not something that a city could possibly stop, right? The sun now was slowly rising and the garden Twig sat in started to glow in colors. His experiments and training had destroyed the ambiente quite a bit, but it was still very beautiful.

“Hey there, ‘master’.” The girls voice clearly indicated disrespect, but Twig ignored it. Maybe she could help him. “Hello. Marcella, was it?” - “Yeah.” - “Do you know by any chance what a soulbinding is?” The girl frowned. “No, I am not a sorcerer. They usually use stuff like that.” - “What are you then?” - “I am a pyromancer”, she exclaimed proudly. That reminded Twig of his fire elementals. “Can you get Mira? Maybe she knows?” - “Pff. Go get her yourself. She is sleeping. Last time she bound me with vines. Took two hours to get all the shitty little twigs out of my hair…”

Twig shrugged and sent two of his skeletons. “What can you do?” Marcella grinned. “I can burn down stuff.” She raised her hand, suddenly enveloped in flames. Interesting. Twig was about to open his monster book to inspect the fire elementals, when Mira stormed out of the house. A mad look on her face. “Twig, why the fuck did you wake me up!!??” On the way over she crushed six skeletons, but when she was about to send a spell his way, she calmed herself down.

“I mean… Can I help you with anything, great summoner Twig?” Grinning a sharp smile with many teeth Twig answered. “Yes. Do you know what a soulbinding is?” Dumbfounded she sat down on a resting golems torso. “Uhm. Yeah. But why would u want to know that? If you want to soulbind one of your creatures, don’t do it!” - “Why? Explain, please.” Twig also reached for his bucket of healing potion and poured her a cup. “This should help.” Like a good cup of coffee the liquid quickly made Mira much more awake.

“Well, a soulbinding is a forbidden spell. It was outlawed forty years ago. Basically a strong magical person can tie their soul to another weaker being. No matter how much the weaker being grows it will never be able to destroy the soulbinding, that can only be done by the person that created the spell. That is because each spell is, like a soul, unique.” - “Alright. And what does it do?” Twig did really not care if something was forbidden, but he was already suspecting that Teiming had put a soulbinding on him when he was born.

Another thing that bound him to this damn necromancer. “Well, the spell basically shares the life force of both parties and divides them equally. Let’s say one of the two dies, then both die. If one would bind himself to an ant, and the ant got eaten, then the user would also die. But the ant could also grow to be forty years old. It’s forbidden because a lot of talented sorcerers bound a lot of young babies to themselves and locked them all up for life. Well not exactly because of that, but because the building burned down with them inside and the kingdom lost a large amount of magic talent that day as they all died from the soul binding…”

Twig placed his face into his four hands. This was the worst possible thing! It meant that his master was the only one that could free himself from that spell and he himself was not able to do anything against it! And once his master died he would also die! “Why did you ask?” Twig groaned: “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He walked off and sat down on the other side of the garden, surrounding himself with his minions.

The only way he would ever get out of his slave like status, was to lock his master up so he did not die or force him to undo the spell. But since Twig most likely did not age very much, he basically granted the prince a very long life. Who would do that then? No, the only solution would be capturing and locking the prince up. But he was royal family of the biggest kingdom out there… Twig had no idea how he could be able to get himself out of that soulbinding…

Then something even more concerning happened.