Corvayne slipped into the village like a whisper, cloak picking up colors of dirt and stone and dry winter grass as he slid by the walls, any sound he made masked by soldiers laughing and a few remaining villagers screaming.

His anger was tempered by cold determination and a sense of familiarity in . It was a bright day, and the smoke from fires had only just begun to shift past the gleaming sun.

He saw two men dragging someone still struggling over to a shed, and he walked forward and struck twice, neither soldier noticing they were dead until they hit the ground. He did not look at the person they had been taking, not while there was work to do. He felt a sort of unity with the shadowy limbs that let him feel around corners, and now he could feel shadows oozing from him, making him feel like he was gliding through air rather than walking.

The next three men were covered in someone else's blood and throwing bottles at a body with a spear driven through it. Corvayne's enchanted cleaver took the first two in two quick chops, and the third's shout was cut off as a shadow hand lashed out, striking the man in the head and then retracting to leave the body to flop to the ground.

He paused, as he came to understand something. He definately had done this before. He had done this a lot. A thousand, thousand rough men dead at his hands. Perhaps what Undine had told him about a 'Wanderer' really was him sleepwalking through fighting bandits. Or an army, if need be.

The fourth group of four were not drunk nor distracted torturing a townsfolk, and thus at least one of them reached for his steel as Corvayne accelerated at them.

“We're under attack!” Screamed the one in the back before Corvayne used [Cross-Skill: Circle of Death] to dispatch three with his cleaver. The last one wasn't ready for his spear, despite having a blade, and Corvayne watched him fall and felt... very little aside a sort of momentum, a desire to keep going. A spear moves forward.

Five soldiers, armed but still pulling their pants on came around the corner of a stone building, and Corvayne used [Storm Thrust] to bowl them back, breaking limbs and killing the first one in the line. There were shouts of alarm, and he heard the twang of a bow, but he was fast and they were slow, and he flung a [Cross-Skill: Whirling Axe] at the bowman who was aiming out of a second floor window, blowing him and part of the roof apart. Three men with pole arms and two with spears tried to form a wall and Corvayne switched to his dagger and burned them before they had finished organizing, barely giving them time to scream before they collapsed into burning piles of char.

He stepped past a line of still villagers laid out on the ground, hardening himself as the remaining soldiers organized themselves at the other end of the village square. There was man on a horse with a helmet directing them to attack from two flanks. Two more archers shot poorly at him, and Corvayne simply met their line with [Cross-Skill: Reap], drawing a line of shadow across the ground that dragged most of them into the ground. A few stronger or more experienced veterans had stopped when he put the attack down and were running, so Corvayne threw a few more [Whirling-Axes] with his cleaver, taking a leg off one and hitting the other square in the back.

The captain's horse had startled and knocked the man off, his black furs ruffling and his oversized helmet making him look pathetic.

He held his hands up, begging “Wait!” and Corvayne considered that he could possibly get information, but then decided he'd rather ask a villager and dispatched the man on the ground. Maybe this was what they saw? That when he wished to, he could shrug it all off?

The last soldier he found had his blade on a peasant boy's neck, the child sobbing and the man yelling at Corvayne at the same time as the fires they had set were picking up momentum, and black smoke filled the village and Corvayne both wasn't paying attention to the man with the blade and knew exactly what he was saying, somewhere inside of him knowing a thousand different soldiers or bandits or criminals or even nobles who thought they could use a hostage to get away, and Corvayne pointed his finger at the man and activated [Cross-Skill: Drill shot].

There was the snap of something firing, and he felt his stamina drain, and the man went cross-eyed for a moment then slumped to the ground letting the boy run free.

Then it was all done, and he was standing in a village, covered in someone else's blood, hearing fire and the sobbing of what few townsfolk were left, while watching a hardened looking girl no older than 15 summers walk over to an injured soldier and start stabbing him and then he knew he was done for the day, perhaps a week, he needed to clean himself off and go throw up or take a few [Mend] from one of his friends and wash it away. Pretend for a few minutes he wasn't going to do this again at the next village.

At least, he was thinking that when he saw about ten villagers, all looking worse for the wear being that they had hidden in dirt, or been found and beaten, or worse. Ten people, all holding weapons and looking at him, and Corvayne sighed and turned.

“Gather food, water, and one of their weapons. We make for the bridge.”

He turned and saw Bell had been watching, pistol in one hand, blade in another, and a look of shock and awe on her face.

“We must destroy the bridge!” Bell urged him as she walked next to him. Corvayne was on his bike, giving the two youngest remaining villagers a ride behind him, carrying supplies for the rest as he drifted alongside and a little above the group, keeping his eyes peeled for the inevitable army.

“I'm going to get them across.”

“Put them DOWN, ride ahead, destroy the accursed thing, then come back and ferry us across the gap!”

He paused before he responded. “Good plan, but then everyone else on this side is stuck.”

“Them or your family?” Corvayne blinked, trying to parse that, and Bell gestured in the direction of the truck. “Your camp family! The one you were trying to bed me into!”

Corvayne was pretty sure that was a joke, or perhaps she was regressing a little seeing people being treated like... things.

Bell looked at him defiantly. “If they find us, they find us. I say a few souls in exchange for the rest of the empire is a fair trade.”

Corvayne didn't feel like a pointless fight so he pointed back at the children and stated, “I'll take them over first. Head to the shadowy side of a stone pillar.”

She saluted him. Perhaps the imminent collapse of her empire had pushed her to act her age, whatever that was. He saluted her back before pushing the throttle forward and flying off to the ravine, ground a blur under him.

He told his two charges to hang on tight, and once they did he wrapped shadow limbs around them and hit the throttle hard. One of the kids, probably a little girl but possibly just boy who needed a haircut, screamed as they flew off the edge and kept going on air, engine revving under Corvayne as he guided them down to the cliff edge.

He slowed, stopped his bike, picked them up and set them down, then unbundled the supplies off the back as well. “If for some reason I don't come back, follow the stones, take the supplies, look for the black crystal tower.”

The kids looked worried, but Corvayne thought about what needed to be done, and steeled his heart and zipped back towards the bridge.

The wood structure he might be able to take out with [Sundering Strike]. Perhaps he could burn it down with his dagger too. He did have some grenades, but he probably could do better demolition with his cleaver than a hand grenade. Unless a cross skill worked with it?

He did a loop under then over it, and at the apex of his flight saw in the distance a group of twenty soldiers, wearing imperial red. Flying a little closer he could see they were moving towards the bridge at a run, with a wall of dust heading their way as a cavalry unit in black spurred their mounts at them. No way they made the bridge without help. A few of them were dropping their packs to try to run faster, only clinging to things that looked like giant white toilet pucks, but in a minute, and well before they were on the bridge, they were going to get run down.

Corvayne pulled out his grenade as he halted his ride fifty feet above the line both groups were making for the bridge and when the clump of horsemen were a hundred feet away from catching the slowest soldier, he pulled the pin and used [Expert Toss] to lob it in front of the oncoming horses. The little green orb went flying as he pitched it, and Corvayne nearly lost his balance off the hover-bike, getting an uncomfortable view of the ravine below him. He used his legs and shifted to [Strength] to right himself.

He saw the grenade bounce once as it hit the ground right near the first horseman's hooves, and for a moment Corvayne was worried it was a dud until there was a burst of dirt and Corvayne could see little dark bits of the first few riders go flying. The effect spoiled the charge, horses suddenly falling over or veering off in fear. Corvayne didn't expect that to totally stop them from hunting down the imperials, and he was moving as the back of the formation split around the front to finish the job. Corvayne had a different idea in mind, moving his dagger into his hand then bringing his ride around, getting close enough that riders were pointing at him before he let loose a jet of fire, searing the first horse and fully spooking the rest, shattering the formation. He pulled up as a more level headed horseman tried to stop his mount and pull out a crossbow.

Corvayne turned in a lazy arc and the bolt missed by twenty feet, showing a criminal lack of practice. In response, Corvayne twisted and used [Cross-Skill: Whirling-Axe] with his fire-breathing dagger, the would be sniper wise enough to hurl himself from the saddle rather than let the attack find his neck.

Some of the men on horseback were shouting, “High level! Fall back! High level!” while scattering. Two tried to run forward into the fleeing Imperials, and Corvayne saw at least a few armed men on foot mount a defense. They were run down, but it was enough to cause one horse to rear and the other to knock both one of the men and itself off the bridge to tumble to the ravine below.

He floated near the group and set the bike to fly backwards, using his rifle then to take pot shots at any riders still trying to take the bridge, then a few who were running away. He would have felt bad but, given what he had seen at the village it felt entirely justified. Screw em.

The men on the bridge started shouting and cheering and clapping, and Corvayne nodded then gestured for them to keep going. Once they were over the span, he inspected the structure and decided to try burning it, applying fire to the underside of the wood and at first utterly failing to damage the structure.

He then went over to the stone bridge and as the last soldier was stepping off, he floated to the arch and took out his cleaver, then aimed [Sundering Strike] at the keystone.

It shattered into a hundred pieces, and Corvayne could hear grinding and cracking. Good, but not enough for him. He floated to the other side and aimed another [Sundering Strike] at the other keystone, and then pressed down on the bridge with gravity.

The effect caused the entire bridge to snap and plummet into the ravine below, creating a gap of perhaps a hundred and fifty feet of air between anyone crossing the wooden bridge and meaning to go the rest of the way across. They might have a solution with mages in the mix, but Corvayne guessed it would be a nightmare to transport an army across now, especially since the high plains didn't have enough food for a large groups of men.

Barring them discovering a tower full of monster meat, which wasn't out of the question anymore.

The thought made Corvayne hurry back across the gap to find his wayward villagers hiding in the shadow of a rock further from the gap. The princess gestured him closer.

“I heard horses and sounds of battle and great retorts and see scattered remains on the field. Did you pack a rocket launcher, Corvayne?”

That snapped him out of the funk he had been in since the village. Why... why did she know what a rocket launcher was? She had a pistol before, didn't she?

Corvayne noted that, when they were alone, he'd have to get her to tell him which one of the geniuses at camp thought it was a good idea to introduce her to firearms.