Mash stared into the other man’s face, right up until something slammed into his domain. Mash was caught off guard, but so was the commander. The man stepped back, and Mash glanced around trying to figure out what had happened.

[The man has a similar domain. It clashed with yours.]

He nodded as he came to the same conclusion. The gesture was wasted on the audience, but Jorg had noticed it and stared at Mash more carefully. Then the man shook his own head and forced himself forward. The two domains clashed again, and Mash was able to get a better feel for it. It felt like Jorg was manipulating his own domain. Trying to worm its way past Mash’s. Mash took the opportunity to observe what Jorg was doing and noticed that the man’s domain was weaker.

When he noticed that, Mash changed what he had been trying to do. Rather than just push Jorg back, Mash did what he was best at. He made his domain consume the other man’s. Not with a skill or anything, he just tried overpowering it. Mash stepped forward while he did it, and the commander’s domain broke. It crumbled into nothingness as the man was surrounded by Mash’s domain. The man stumbled forward, but to his credit, he managed to say upright. Lisa and the two soldiers didn’t know about the unseen battle, but one of the soldiers tensed. His hand quickly raised to the shaft of a great axe that he had strapped to his back. Jorg waved him down while rubbing a hand through his hair. He was the only dwarf that Mash had seen with short hair, and it looked more like brown fur than hair.

“That was humbling. I’m Jorg who are you? And why are you lighting up like a Christmas tree to my class?”

Mash smiled toothily and replied with his chest puffed in a winning posture.

“I’m Mash, and I have no idea. What class do you have?”

“Beastmaster. And before you say something stupid, I don’t enslave anything. Beast or otherwise.”

Jorg met Mash’s eyes defiantly. He clearly wasn’t satisfied with the result, and it came through in the rough way he responded. The two soldiers and Lisa noticed it too.

“I feel like I am missing something, but I must add that Mash was the one to kill the king and free us. He also destroyed all of the crystals instead of claiming them.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Mash felt genuinely offended by the association. Even if it gave him all the power in the world, he wouldn’t do it.

“I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”

She looked like she genuinely meant that, and he nodded agreeably. Lisa had basically been completely open and direct after being freed, and he wondered how much she had needed to hide as a slave. How long did she have to act?

Jorg to the whole thing in stride and clapped Mash on the back. His predatory look vanished, and he smiled like he was looking at a long-lost friend. One of the soldiers next to him spoke before he could though.

“I. No, first I.”

He seemed to struggle with what to say. Finally, he settled on a simpler response.

“Thank you. Even now, I can’t really believe it. I don't think I can ever feel like it’s real. It's why we are even bothering going back to the city. We want to see the king’s body. That and free everyone else.”

Mash didn’t know how to react to that. Mainly because the soldier wouldn’t be able to see the king’s body. Lisa responded for him though.

“He killed the king, but kind of destroyed the body too. The earl too. As for the rest, he and his friends are handling it.”

Jorg looked the most surprised by the news. He took another close look at Mash, this time his gaze was searching for something. Mash raised an eyebrow, and the man responded.

“I just didn’t expect you to be the type to have so much prepared. You look more like some of my soldiers. The type who would just kill the king and expect everything to work out.”

That wasn’t fair. There had been a plan. It had gone off track, but they had made one. Mash felt like this was going better than expected, and he began to tell Jorg the rest of it. Sharing what Irkish had told him, along with how they would get everyone out. The discussion took a few minutes, but the commander didn’t ask any questions. He made a few comments to make the transfer easier, but he didn’t disagree with anything at all. In fact, Jorg nodded to almost everything and only asked a question at the end.

“What about the slavers and slaveholders?”

He didn’t sound angry or bloodthirsty. It just seemed like any other question, and Mash replied just as nonchalantly.

“My kingdom will deal with them, along with everything else.”

“That’s not enough. I need you to promise me that all of them will die.”

The fact that he delivered those words with his tone shifting at all was frightening. And he asked for something that Mash couldn’t do.

“I think I could promise that for the slavers…”

Mash didn’t need to say anything else. Jorg’s head shook slightly.

“Not good enough. Do you really think the rest of the army, or I would settle for anything less? Would you?”

Those questions stung because he knew the truth of it. He wouldn’t settle. Even if he wouldn’t he still needed to ask them to. To stop them if it came to it. Not because he believed he had the right, but because it was the decision that he felt most okay about. If he had learned anything, that was the most important thing to him right now. And he would continue to do so moving forward. Whatever the consequences of his decisions would be, if he could live with them and feel proud of those decisions regardless, then what else could he expect? The resolve that came from that firmed Mash’s stance, and he locked eyes with Jorg then.

“There is no way around this is there? Nothing else?”

Jorg smiled sadly as one of his hands entered a pouch at his side. It was an older type of storage space.

“Each of us has our own list of monsters, just like I bet you did. You cleared yours, and we will clear ours. Although, I need to thank you too. The names you erased were on all of our lists too.”

Mash saw the determination set in the man’s eyes as he pulled out a war hammer from the bag.

“I am level 130 and am specialized in dealing with armies. Bring up your argument with the king. I’m just doing what I think will let me move forward.”

The hair on his body grew thicker and turned into thick fur. Mash decided to mix his cat and wolf forms. The dragon and wyvern forms were too deadly, and he didn’t want to kill them. Although that would be another challenge in itself. At high levels, it became a lot harder to fight someone without killing them. He couldn’t do it though. Even if it meant letting them do what they want. Even if he had to fight at less than half strength. Killing them would haunt him more than failing.

He had let his control of the temperature drop and cold air rushed in. The general began growing. His muscles bulged, and the hammer that had been meant to be used with two hands was now comfortably held in one. The commander’s face became more feral, his teeth grew larger, and fur crawled over his face. Was his class similar to Mash’s? There were so many things Mash wanted to ask now, but it was too late for questions. It seemed like that was becoming a trend. He didn’t like it.

“I bit advice from someone old. At our level, we fight for blood. We have healers to save most anyways. And even if we aren’t trying to kill one another, we are simply too strong for anything less.”

His voice was actually less deep despite his size. Mash had been expecting the opposite in truth, but now he sounded more like a normal man than a graveling beast. Although the things he said would’ve better fit his old voice. Mash nodded and replied.

“I will still try.”

Mash lunged with the statement. The commander was dense, and it felt more like kicking the very ground. Mash was the highest leveled person here, and even without his dragon form, his kick sent the general soaring. The man had grown to be around twice as big as Mash, but the kick still took him off of his feet. The snow billowed out as he crashed into the army behind him. Even before the kick came out, He started shouting at Lisa.

“Get out of here!”

The two soldiers who had followed the commander didn’t even glance back. They knew better than to worry for their superior. And the commander had landed squarely in the middle of his army, meaning that he was probably getting healer already. The thought came unaided to him, as he began processing how to fight an army.

One of the soldiers swiped at Mash with an axe. As the commander had said, the man didn’t hesitate to swipe at Mash’s neck. The soldier’s weapon shone at the last moment, but that was enough for Mash to react. The combination of the two forms made his reactions nearly instant, and he turned his body to avoid the blow. The two soldiers were in his domain too, so Mash could see when they used a skill. The axe that had been coming from the side warped. And now the soldier was swinging the weapon down in an overhead swing.

On instinct, he turned his body, and the weapon slid across the side of his arm. It cut some fur but didn’t touch him otherwise. And Mash was falling back into a rhythm. He used the moment of the dodge to twist his body toward the ground. He pushed off it with one hand and swung back around. An open palm struck the soldier in the chest as his swing carried the axe into the ground. His hands slipped from the axe as he was launched directly into the sky.

Mash kicked at the last soldier who had tried getting around Mash. A barrier appeared around him blocking the kick. Pain spread through the leg. It felt like something had stabbed the bottom of his foot, but he saw that there was no blood. His mind made a connection a second later. The barrier reflected some of the damage. Grimacing at the pain, Mash kicked off the barrier, giving himself some distance to work with.

He thought about turning into a giant of some kind, but that would be too indiscriminate. The same was true of any powerful lightning. Both would kill. The army’s levels were too variable for him to do anything widespread. Plus, they would have healers for the strongest Mash realized he didn’t have that much experience in fighting an army without killing them. Now that it was happening, he realized he didn’t have any experience when it came to fighting an army that had classes and skills. He was strong against armies of monsters, not this. Mash needed another option.

[Mash, more people are coming for you. The neighboring kingdoms have sent a few high-leveled people to capture or kill you.]

He froze for a half second as the message shook him from the fight.

[What? Why? How?]

Mash replied with a stream of questions, which Priscilla could actually preempt and respond to. Her replies came as soon as the questions ended.

[Your announcement had been heard by any number of spies. And the north as a whole has determined your actions to be invasive. As a representative of another kingdom, attempting to kidnap an entire city, regardless of the reason has marked you as a threat.]

Priscilla repeated the message. Red had been the one to get it. Apparently, Kerik was awake, and he had been informed through some intracity communication system. Mash groaned as he looked at the army.