“Should we leave, or stay and see what they want?” Charlotte was finding herself a little curious as to what Charles and Kira had been dealing with lately.

“It’s up to you, but I doubt they want anything good. Someone would have come out to talk to us already if that was the case.” Charles said, sitting up and turning to look at the trees.

“I think I want to see a little of what you’ve been going through lately.” She sat up beside him and looked at a different section of trees. “Are you all going to come on out?”

The sound of crunching snow filled the air as a group of over thirty people walked out from among the trees. They were armed with weapons taken from various monsters and thick branches they had fashioned into crude clubs. Their faces were relatively clean, but the smell of blood and body odor clung to them in an unwashed miasma.

Even if Charles and Charlotte hadn’t heard them coming, they certainly would have been able to smell them once they got close enough.

Charles stared at each of them, using ‘Analyze’ to inspect their levels. The ability told him their skills as well now. It was one of those hidden truths the message had mentioned when it evolved. Frankly, the skills a person chose to prioritize sometimes said more about them than anything else.

Regardless, the people around them were no threat to either him or his sister. Their levels were barely in the teens and their skills were nothing special. Even the one who he was guessing was the boss was barely stronger than the rest.

Charles relaxed a fraction and shook his head. Even if these people were up to no good, they weren’t a threat. “What did you all want? I doubt a group this large would simply surround us if you wanted to have a picnic.”

The one he had pegged as the boss stepped forward and licked his lips in a decidedly non-sexual manner. “We saw something fall from the sky earlier. That was you two, right?”

Charles tilted his head in confusion. This was not how he had been expecting the script to go.

“We are,” Charlotte replied when she realized her brother wasn’t going to.

The man fell to his knees, an action that was quickly followed by the rest of the large smelly group. “Please, you must have some degree of strength or ability if you fly among the heavens during these times. Please, I beg you, we need your help. Our little village was taken over by a warlord when we were out hunting yesterday.

“He started off by killing fifteen of our people. They didn’t discriminate either from what we saw. Neither gender or age mattered, all were were killed equally, at least in the beginning. We found the bodies on stakes outside the homes when we returned. Everyone left was imprisoned in a barn, like common cattle. Our hunting group lost ten people before we had to flee when we came back and found them.”

The man had his face on the ground while he pleaded with them, his shoulders shaking with rage and tears. “Please, I’m begging you, rescue them before the warlord and his people do anything more. My wife, and daughter, my sister, our families. They’re all back their, if they’re even still alive.”

Charles sighed; it was different from what he had been expecting. Yet at the same time, it was a story he was familiar with. It was a common one that he and Kira had been faced with time and again, unfortunately. There were too many people who went crazy with power and believed they could do anything.

Which in this new virtually lawless world, they could. Only another person with superior strength stood a chance of stopping them.

It was running into people like these that had worn him down. Instead of humanity banding together, they were fighting together and just making things worse. It was time to do something about it. The same as he and Kira had been every other time they came across this sort of problem. By eliminating the people involved.

He’d had enough, plain and simple.

Charles wearily stood up and nodded. “Fine, show us where to go and we’ll head there first so we don’t waste more time.”

The kneeling boss hesitantly looked up, as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “Really? You’re going to help us? Just like that?”

Charlotte pulled the man to his feet. “We said we would. Now hurry up. Tell us where we need to go.”

The rest of his hunting party perked up and quickly stood. “Our village is that way!” They shouted together, pointing towards the northwest.

The siblings formed their wings and jumped into the air with a mighty flap. If the group was telling the truth, then there was no sense in delaying. The sooner they could help those people, the better.

They sped over the snowy and tree-filled terrain, noting the tracks of the hunting group. They shifted slightly to the left to better follow the direction those had come from and kept going. At their current speed, the trip took less than ten minutes to make.

Curls of wispy smoke drifted up out of chimneys in the little subdivision turned village they found. A rudimentary wall of upright logs had been built around everything. Inside, along the main path, they could see the staked bodies they had been told about.

Charlotte inhaled sharply at the sight and covered her mouth. “Why are the bodies missing pieces?”

“Cannibalism has become pretty common among some of these people. They think it’s another way to display their power.”

“That’s disgusting.” Came the whispered, nearly sick reply.

“Yeah, and it’s not even among the top ten worst or disgusting things Kira and I have seen. Not anymore.” Came the near emotionless reply back.

Charles flew down a blade made of flame forming from his left hand. The ravaged mana channels in his right arm made that hand useless until they healed, which at the minimum wouldn’t be until the next day. Unless there was an emergency he wouldn’t use that hand for his spells with these animals.

The attack he had learned from touching Beth’s core cut through each of the stakes with ease and set the bodies ablaze. He could at least give them some dignity in death.

“Check the barn. Make sure everyone there is safe.” He shouted up to his sister before stomping toward the first house with smoke coming from its chimney.

Charles could feel his emotional control slipping as he drew closer to the door. His hand hesitated on the door, unwilling to turn it and reveal whatever he might find inside. The choice was taken from him, as someone who had heard his shout yanked it open instead.

A glance inside was enough to tell him that there was no one from the village inside. It was actually their main complaint, judging by the conversation that cut off a few seconds after the door opened.

He sent a bolt of lightning through the man in front of him, powerful enough to tear through his body. He didn’t stop with only the one attack and soon had left nothing but smoking remains behind. Man or woman, he paid no mind to gender as he eliminated them. Differences like that were trifling when they committed such atrocities.

He went to the next house, and then on to the next one. His control slipped a little more each time as the light faded from his eyes.

This had been one place too many for him to handle. It was the tipping point. He wasn’t strong enough, mentally or emotionally. Which was strange for someone who barely even thought about people outside of his circle normally.

A glazed look took over as he went on autopilot, going from house to house, eliminating everyone who had caused this. He barely took a split-second longer than normal to wipe out the so-called warlord who had started this mess. In the end, he had been nothing special.

Barely even a distraction.

Charles took to the air and with detached interest vaguely looked around. The glow of his eyes grew brighter as his unconscious mind that had taken control willed his divine abilities to the fore.

The fluctuations of mana that he normally found nauseating now gave him a guide of sorts to follow. From above, it was easy to see where everything was going. The wind-attuned mana was most abundant, along with cold and ice from the snow.

However, those weren’t what drew his attention and spurred him on. No, it was the dense mana he saw higher up in the atmosphere. For what he wanted to do, he was going to need all the easily available mana possible.

He flew higher than ever before, his lungs straining against the thin air. Then, holding his breath, he flew a little higher.

Turning his back to the space that was so close, he could feel the emptiness of heat at his back.

It was time to put an end to this. To everything that had been causing him so much grief lately.

Charles pushed his glowing eyes to the max of what they were capable of. Inside, he could feel his divinity responding to his call, just like Alli had been training him to feel it. If not like this, and for what he was about to do.

With his mind in its current state, he didn’t even have the ability to doubt or properly consider his actions.

Within seconds, his eyes began to ache and bleed, unable to handle the mounting pressure or power he was putting on them.

He needed to hurry.

Next, he used his ‘Analyze’ ability on every human not currently protected inside a city. His left eye burst in an explosion of jellied mist. He didn’t have much time left before the rest of his body would begin feeling the strain as well.

The unconscious mind showed where it was superior as it took over and began sorting through the mere seven-hundred million people still alive in an instant. Using his magic in a way the conscious Charles would have never thought possible, it created two simple lists. Those who had to die for their crimes and those who didn’t. Everything they had done in the last few months was revealed to his ability.

This was the list of naughty and nice. And you didn’t want to be on the bad list.