A few more fights passed. There weren’t that many youngters in their age group. The fights were more ordinary than what Kaden’s first fight had been. Kaden felt happy thinking he was clearly the smartest one’s this time. Even after seeing how useful his tactics had been, they were still not willing to even imitate his style.

“Dumbasses”, Kaden snorted to himself. “Its fine. I’ll get better score and thus better reward.”

Next round of fights were going and, for example, people like Sheli won their next match. Afterwards she gave Kaden a nasty look, but didn’t bother anything else. Kaden just smiled confidently in return.

There was a few more fights, but then came Kaden’s turn again.

“Numbers six and two!”, Referee shouted after pulling next two numbers. “Please step on to the arena!”

Kaden knew by now who the number two was. Jon. He knew he would have to fight him eventually and he had plans for it. He didn’t even pretend he would win. To show his potential, he only had to last for a while. It would be good show for the smith boy to endure against the groomed young potential hunter leader.

Kaden jumped on the arena and noticed Jon was already there looking like he was already gloating. What? Was there some suspense?

“Finally I get the chance to beat you up, Kaden!” Jon shouted and took a fighting pose. “I noticed you like fighting dirty so I’m prepared. None of that is going to work again.”

“Hehe, I heard you drank a bit too much yesterday”, Kaden pointed out mockingly. “Are you even in your best condition?”

Jon frowned. Despite Kaden’s mocking, he still didn’t connect his extended drinking to Kaden and thought Kaden was just trying to enrage him. Jon didn’t intend to wait any longer and started attacking.

Kaden moved backwards so that Jon would not even have a chance to reach him. At least thats the case unless Jon is willing to spend quite a bit of mana to move quicker. Jon was going to be the winner of their age group so, if Kaden managed to make Jon perform badly, his own performance would be better in comparison, yes?

This cat and mouse act continued and soon Jon was indeed getting enraged. He barely had any chance to do anything to Kaden who was just moving away from him. Mostly he was just wasting mana. Much more than he had intended to.

In the audience, people were having strange look once again.

“This kid...”. Even Stelan was finding Kaden’s fighting methods unusual. He looked quite amused. Then suddenly his smile disapeared and he looked out away from the arena. He stood up and frowned.

At this point rest of the people noticed something was going on. Noise was coming towards the tournament area. Heavy footsteps like a large group of people moving.

One of the Dashire’s hunters quickly made his way to Stelan and whispered to him in hurried manner. Stelan’s face darkened and he quickly gave some orders and the hunter nodded and left. Soon rest of the hunters scattered around the area stood up and moved out to meet whatever was causing the disruption.

“Hahaha, what is this? A circus?” Suddenly a voice could be heard. Somehow the voice was uniform everywhere and was clearly heard by everyone regardless of distance or how much other noise there was. “A couple of clowns bouncing around? Hehe.”

By now everyone noticed soldiers moving into view. Leading them there was a man with strange armor. It looked more like a machine than just armor. It also made him appear much larger. The armor covered everything except his head. The helmet was somehow split from middle and its parts were on the sides of his head, attached to some machinery. As for the armor itself, it had sings of battle on it, such as battle scratches and such, but was otherwise clean and well maintained.

These were imperial soldiers!

Alongside the leader of these imperial soldiers there was a robed young man. From his clothing he seemed to be member of the church, some kind of a monk. He was holding a box with resplendent ornaments on it.

As for the soldiers, they moved around to block exits and surround the area.

Kaden and Jon had already stopped the fight after noticing things were not good. While Jon was still standing on the arena unsure what to do, Kaden ran off towards the audience. As far as he knew, his best choice was to be with his parents.

Stelan slowly approached the leader of the imperial soldiers.

“I take it that you are the leader”, Stelan started once he got distance of a few meters. Next to him he had another hunter. “You wear an exo armor that are usually only given to imperial officers. It is requires some strength to move it so you should be at least at Formation stage.”

Formation stage! Stelan spoke with loud enough voice that all could be heard. Kaden knew Formation stage magic cultivation matched a high beast. Not only that, he was wearing a scary looking armor. This man was dangerous.

“Good eyes for a country bumpkin”, replied the officer. “I am Captain Juren of the imperial army. I have been tasked conscripting new soldiers from the local area.” Juren smiled and started speaking loudly. “Rejoice! You have been given chance to fight for your empire and your gods against the heretics invading our glorious empire. Your orders are now to gather all food and materials and move out within few hours!”

Silence.

“Captain Juren, with all due respect, people of Dashire are not soldiers”, Stelan started speaking. “Some of us might be hun-”

Suddenly a horrifying tearing sound could be heard. As if some kind of saws were grinding against each other.

The strike was extremely quick and sudden. Captain Juren’s armored fist glowed red with swirling mana as it struck upon village chief Stelan’s chest. Stelan, a Channel Opening stage hunter could not even react. He flew backwards in an arc and yet, as he was flying, a grinding sound continued as a glowing ball of reddish mana seemed to be stuck on his chest.

Blood splattered everywhere until Stelan finally slammed against a wall of a nearby building. A blood stain was splashed on the wall as Stelan slumped on the ground, unmowing. There was a bloody see through hole on his chest about size of a palm. Not only that, the hole was growing as if something was devouring the edges. Stelan’s corpse seemed to be slowly turning into pile of ground meat.

What was that? Kaden could only witness Stelan flying. It was simply too fast. Could it have been a true magic technique?!

“YOU DARE GO AGAINST MY ORDERS!” Captain Juren was shouting in rage. He was livid. Like he had gone insane. His fists were glowing again with that reddish light. This time Kaden could see it clearly. It looked like something was wildly spinning around withing those fists. It was surely some kind of horrifying magic technique or possibly even a spell!

“Please calm yourself, captain”, the monk intervened before Juren could do anything else. “I haven’t yet recited the holy orders from the Sanctus!”

Juren took a deep breath and ceaced his magic. “Yes, of course… of course... BUT if these people are traitors to not only empire, but also to the true gods, I will erradicate such heretics immediately! Erase them all!”

People were frozen in horror. Some of the hunters were holding back Stelan’s wife and stop her from launching a futile attack against Juren.

This was bad. Really bad. No… hopeless!

Everyone could see that. Perhaps if the entire village had prepared for it a long time and everyone coordinated perfectly, they might have been able to kill a single Juren, but he was not alone. There were soldiers and no one could tell how strong the monk was who seemingly could speak to Captain Juren and have him stop in his tracks.

Even slightest sign of resistance would end up in one sided butchery.

The monk finally stepped forwards and carefully opened the box. He acted as, if the box was the most precious thing in the world. He opened it with care. Recited a few prayers and made many hand signs. Then and only then, he finally took out even more ornamental scroll from it.

The monk face upwards towards the sky and lifted the scroll up.

“Holy scroll!” The priest Peil said within the crowd. His voice was filled with shock.

“Blessed be thou who hear the holy orders from Sanctus!” Shouted the monk with reverence in his voice.

“Hark, children of the true gods!” The monk began reciting the contents of the scroll. “You have been chosen! Thou shalt rise up, take arms and travel northwest! Rejoice! There thou shalt battle nonbelievers and heretics from the Saint Empire! Be not afraid! Shalt thou die in battle, thine soul shall ascend to the realm of the gods and live forever in the paradise! So sayeth the Sanctus, listener of the gods!”

A moment silence. The monk smiled as, if he had been somehow blessed after reading the scroll.

“Join me now in prayer!” The monk shouted.

Peil suddenly began whispering the hunters something and kneeled down with his hands making holy symbols.

Soon Kaden found out what was going on. Word quickly spread that, if they didn’t show piety and respect right now, they would be considered defying holy orders. The horrified villagers could do nothing but kneel down with their hands tied in prayer. Kaden did the same.

The monk smiled and made even more holy symbols and recited something as he carefully placed the scroll back inside the box.

“Haha, now do you see country bumpkins?” Juren shouted. “You have been blessed! You are not the only ones, but time is short and for us, you will be the last. Now that you know what must be done I will repeat the orders I said earlier. This will be the last chance you have! Collect all food and other neccessities and gather it up here. We will determine which ones of you are ablebodied and are able to fight. Once that is done, we will march north to meet with rest of the army. You have your orders! Any rebelious acts will be punished! Harshly!”

Around at this time, Stelan’s wife finally struggled free and she took the chance to strike with a spear. She leaped in air and struck forward. The spear strike was charged with mana and made a whistling noise. A brilliant beam of light was released from the thrust! This was Dashires legacy mana technique! The Force Thrust!

“I’ll die before I do anything you say!” She screamed in rage.

The beam of energy charged towards Juren. Yet, just before it was about to hit, Juren simply waved his hand a bit and with a clang it was stopped upon some kind of spherical barrier.

“Heretic!” Juren said calmly. “You can join the other one I purged earlier in hell.”

Juren raised his hand and pointed his palm towards Stelan’s wife. Kaden could only see some kind of ripple being released and it struck the enraged woman in midair. She turned into mush. The mass of flesh splattered on the ground before all the villagers.

“Could it be this village is a den of heretics?!” Juren started shouting. His face was slightly twisting as, if some kind of rage was boiling up inside him.

Before Juren could order up a slaughter of the entire village. A few hunters stepped forwards and actually kneeled in front of Juren.

“That was Stelan’s wife”, started one of the kneeling hunters. His voice was shaking, but he made his best to at least sound respectful. If he made a mistake, it could mean certain death of everyone. “She had been enraged due to her husband’s death. That was her personal act.”

“Husband and wife?” Juren suddenly calmed down. “I see. I see. Pair of heretics! I take it that the rest of you are loyal subjects of the empire and obey the holy orders?”

The hunter gritted his teeth. “Yes. Of course we will obey.”

Going against Juren was 100% chance death to everyone. Going along was probably certain death, but not 100%.

“Haha, then proceed according to my orders”, Juren replied and somehow the overflowing rage that had boiled inside him was simply gone, like nothing had ever happened.

Everyone could tell this Captain Juren was quite deranged.

What now? What would future hold for Kaden and rest of the people from Dashire?