Small acts of kindness may seem inconsequential to you, but to the receiver of that kindness, you might have changed their entire world. Never underestimate your actions because it only takes a small stone to create an avalanche.

~Arianrhod, Goddess of Rebirth and Fate

Mana restricting chains, the type used by slavers, bound Ahote. While slavery was a frowned upon practice, some powerful organizations didn’t feel the laws of mortals bound them. Especially if a beautiful female cultivator was involved, which is probably what they were initially after. Aine was beautiful and the type that these organizations would target.

Seeing one of his friends chained and beaten to the point that his limbs were broken had truly angered Crow. However, what enraged him was that they were torturing Ahote’s beasts in front of him. It did enough psychological damage that Ahote’s ordinarily cheerful face looked dull and lifeless. Crow could see streaks of clean flesh where the tears cleansed away the blood and grime from his face.

“Cowards!” Crow shouted, stepping into the plaza. A Druid Circle naturally formed around him, something he hadn’t planned on using. His body instinctively craved more power, so it drew on everything it could. The stone roads and alleys burst apart as a thorn wall formed, blocking all exits. Wooden doors splintered as Thorn Mouthed Daffodils rushed out to claim nearby victims.

“Mercy, it wasn’t us!” a watcher screamed.

“It was YOU!” Crow roared. “You all watched as they tortured an innocent man to this point. All of you are guilty.”

Some villagers looked away in guilt while others stared on with disdain.

“Do you know who I am?” The handsome man who had just been torturing the beasts asked.

“Let me guess, a young master?” Crow’s cold voice oozed sarcasm. The man stopped moving and realized he might have pissed off the wrong people. His eyes nervously looked at the thorn wall that continued to grow and thicken, the barbs extending outward with razor-sharp edges of blood-red color.

As his wall expanded, it devoured the panicked crowd, at least those that tried to flee. Even Mr. Handsome’s guards were trying to fight against it now.

“My father—gak!” Mr. Handsome tried to talk, but first, he had to swallow the arrow that entered his throat. The guards were quick to respond, and a dozen of them surrounded him, trying to pour healing droughts down his throat.

Those still watching Crow saw him smirk before the arrow exploded, killing the young master and the surrounding guards. All that was left of the arrogant bastard was a pair of legs.

Suddenly, a middle-aged gentleman with refined features tore through the vines but didn’t make it through unscathed. Crow knew he was related to the boy he had just killed based on his looks.

“You killed him?”

“No,” Crow denied and pointed to someone in the crowd. “He did. We all saw it.”

“Don’t listen to him, Master Tranel,” the man panicked while everyone around him scattered, making it appear as if he was really guilty.

“You take me for a fool?”

“Was that a… Murmur?” Crow asked, knowing full well this guy was one of the people from Gearan Academy. He had the same aura as the torturer that Crow killed, so he was probably a student of that mysterious master.

The Murmur’s eyes narrowed, and he knew that Crow wasn’t guessing. Somehow the boy was able to identify him, which wasn’t good. It meant they had a mole in their ranks. If Crow knew what the middle-aged man was thinking, he’d probably burst out laughing.

“I’ll clarify it since you refused to teach that piece of trash proper etiquette. There are some things a man should and shouldn’t do. His dick led him astray because he was weak and lacked character. A villain’s downfall is almost always because they are unprincipled.”

“A hero’s downfall is because they can’t resist meddling.”

Crow chuckled. “It isn’t that I wanted to meddle, but the woman is my cousin. Idiocy is hereditary, so it was his fate to die young.”

“You talk too much,” the Murmur growled.

The crowd muttered, trying to avoid the two, but didn’t dare approach the edges of the plaza. A few brave souls tried to charge through the hole that was just made, but it closed up so quickly that everyone could still see their desiccated corpses.

“I am known as the Golden Mouth, a man with a legendary tongue. That aside, maybe if you had taught your boy to remain silent and learn, he’d still be alive. Sadly, hindsight is always the clearest.”

The Murmur’s eyes hardened and looked toward Ahote. While the young master’s guards took the brunt of the blast, the Beastlord was affected too. Secretly, Crow had also shielded others by weaving a vine wall before exploding the arrow. It wasn’t much but prevented anything that might have been fatal.

“You came for him?”

“I came for the fucker that wanted to rape my cousin. Heh, you should have seen the look on his face when he tried to talk with an arrow in his mouth.”

“You trying to piss me off, kid?”

“Angry, sad, happy… what the fuck do I care? I don’t care what most people do or say because I live by a code. A primordial goddess helped put it in perspective for me. She said I live by the law of reciprocity. I’m too lazy to explain it further. If you get it, you get.”

“Why haven’t you killed me?”

“I’m not sure I can,” Crow chuckled, and the Murmur’s face changed slightly, shocked by the honesty. “Besides, other than being a shitty father, you’ve done nothing to deserve my wrath.”

And… I need to stall for time. Already vines were layering themselves under his skin, acting as another layer of armor. It might not save his life, but it couldn’t hurt either. He was already doing these things but hadn’t expected the kid’s father to appear so quickly.

It was also true that he wasn’t sure he could kill this man. The Murmur’s power was at least a realm higher than his own. Not his current Shield level, which was a Wood-3 Shield, but his actual power. Crow wasn’t sure how much his Source had consolidated, but he was pretty sure an accurate assessment was closer to a Stone-5 Shield. By a realm higher, he was guessing this man in front of him was at least a Sapphire-1.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be bothered by the short gap in power, even if it was a realm higher. He was confident in escaping if it went sideways. Two factors were against him. First, he had to rescue Ahote, which he was already planning with Lily. The second was that he hadn’t used his other abilities in years and wasn’t confident in them.

Truthfully, after everything he went through in Wistman’s Woods, all his skills needed a complete revamp. So many new ideas and thoughts made it hard for him to focus on how to use them properly. He needed time to consolidate all his gains from that event and rethink his cultivation methods.

All of this left him at a disadvantage, but he was so used to using Blood Thorns that it was almost second nature. Even now, the thorn wall was churning. The vines hardened as they grew, making them more indomitable, and they even started forming a dome over the plaza to prevent flying.

“Good technique,” the man nodded, cautiously eyeing the vines. Crow only stared, and the Druid Circle around him pulsed, creating anomalies in his spell. Strange flowers and other flora appeared randomly, but it was more vibrant and colorful than the nasty jungle around them.

Crow realized he wasn’t the only one stalling but didn’t understand the other’s motive. Splitting his attention, he made the vines flail. Flailing didn’t do anything, but he needed the distraction.

*Lily, now.*

Ahote struggled against his chains, trying to reach his animal companions, but it was futile. His jaw was broken, rendering him unable to speak, and the only sounds that came out were heart-rending mewls. With his mouth half open, he felt a pill pushed between his lips.

As it melted in his mouth, he felt the fiery burn of his body starting the mending process. The spirituality level of a pill allowed it to find the most threatening injuries first, healing those before doing anything else. The only thing it couldn’t do was reset his femur since it was snapped and stuck out of the side of his leg. He’d need someone strong to set it.

Finally, his eyes regained some clarity, and the first thing he did was check on his beasts. Even without seeing them, he could feel their vitality spiking, so he knew Crow managed to heal them too. Some of them might still die or be crippled forever, but they were no longer in danger of dying. Ahote knew this was a life debt he would probably never be able to repay, not that Crow would ever ask him to.

Ahote felt something poking him in the chest, and he tilted his head down to see Lily had appeared. Because of his beasts and his body position, no one could see her. She mouthed ‘sorry’ to him, and he involuntarily flinched when he saw her bring out a vial of green caustic fluid. She mimed that he needed to remain silent and not scream before pouring it on the locks of the shackles. It was so corrosive that it went right through the metal, and some of it landed on his flesh. The burning became intense as his skin bubbled and boiled before sloughing off. Lily helped remove the contaminated meat so the liquid didn’t keep harming him.

Ahote flexed to break them, not wanting that liquid to touch his flesh. Lily flicked his nose and shook her head no very vigorously. Using her hands, she indicated he had to wait. Pointing at Crow, he understood she only wanted him to act when told to do so.

Water misted his eyes in gratitude, but instead of comforting him, Lily taunted him by rubbing her little fists in her eyes and mouthing ‘wahhh.’

Ahote’s face froze, and he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry harder. Crow had tainted this little beauty, and the Beastlord could only sigh in resignation.

A commotion broke out among the crowd as Crow suddenly dashed among them. Even though he was angry at the sycophants and losers, he couldn’t blame the mother and her two children. When he sensed the danger, he rushed toward them and pushed them to the ground.

“Stay down and try to remain quiet,” he ordered them. His actions shielded them from the incoming arrows that tore through everyone.

Crow and the mother with her kids were unharmed, but he was already moving, so he didn’t notice the look of gratitude she gave him. Instead, his bow was also firing quickly.

On the other side of the thorn wall, archers were shooting the people like fish in a barrel. He returned the favor until suddenly, they all stopped firing. They quickly realized that every time they loosed an arrow, Crow found them. It didn’t even need to be mentioned that his archery skills were thousands of times better.

The Murmur thought Crow was firing blindly but noticed the incoming arrows were dwindling fast. Not only that, he had time to fire a few more arrows at him. The arrows looked lazy in the air like they were stray shots without any power. It wasn’t until they were hurtling toward his chest that he realized Crow’s arrows were never simple.

After the archers failed, magic came next. The difference was that none of them had refined their spells to the point they could send them through the narrow gaps between the vines. So each spell struck against the thorn wall. They were damaging it, but not faster than it could recover. They concluded that Crow was some sort of spell-casting prodigy.

Sadly, none of them realized the changes in the vines. Daffodils randomly appeared and beautified the scenery. They assumed it was a side effect of the spell, but they hadn’t seen what happened inside the plaza. It wasn’t until seventy percent of the mages were dead or dying that they realized the terror of the Thorn Mouthed Daffodils. Whether it was soldiers or mages, they were retching from the ghastly scene as the seemingly innocent daffodils devoured humans until only bones were left.

During all this, Crow hadn’t stopped his barrage. The Murmur’s movements were subtlely guided by him until the bastard was far enough away from Ahote to set his escape plan into motion.

*Lily, tell him to move once I throw the thorn barrier up.*

“Listen up, old man,” Crow shouted but kept up his suppression. “I know you are part of the Unhulde Sect, and you are a Murmur, a disciple from Rannsaiche. I killed a Kitten not long ago and tortured all kinds of information out of him. Your master is on borrowed time.”

Crow waved his hand, and his weapons disappeared. Between him and the Murmur, a thorn barrier appeared. It was the signal, and Ahote broke his chains and crawled to his beasts, bringing them back into stasis. For now, it was the safest place for them, and Ahote’s trust in Crow was such that he just laid there and waited.

The middle-aged man tried to rush forward but stopped short. These thorns weren’t like the others, and he felt an overwhelming sense of danger from them. All he could do was stagger back and watch helplessly as Crow transformed into some silvery bird. Its talon grabbed Ahote, and then it leaped into the air taking flight. He left a small opening in the thorny dome for him to escape, but it was so narrow that he had to get enough momentum to tuck his wings.

“You’ve made an enemy of the Unholde Sect!” The man shouted.

Crow snorted inwardly and thought that he was already at the top of their list. They still wanted the Python’s Tongue and knew he had it.

As he flew away, a small sack of gold dropped into an obscure alley. No one even noticed Crow’s little action. The boy who initially guided him was still there, watching everything with enormous glowing eyes. The small leather sack fell right before him, and golden coins spilled out. Crow didn’t know that this action created a karmic bond and fermented an unbreakable loyalty. The boy would one day grow to be a man, and his footsteps would be no smaller than Crow’s. It was just that he took a different path and became Crow’s ardent worshiper and eventually his blood-sworn brother.