The men facing Noone watched as he crushed through the chest of their partner. From the other side of the fire, shocked yelling could be heard. People began to file into the cave, shouting at each other to bring water to douse the flames. After seeing their comrades melted in the flame, no one wanted to try dashing through the strange magic.
The bandit closest to Noone shouted in horror as he watched his friend crushed beneath Noone's axe. Noone managed to pry his war-axe out of the bandit's corpse just in time for the other man to scramble to his feet.
Seeing Noone facing away from him, he wasted no time dashing towards Noone, dagger in hand and ready to pierce into Noone's back.
Noone watched this happen within his divine sense and gave no reaction until the moment before the dagger would pierce through him.
Noone's foot dug into the compacted earth and his entire body shifted a couple feet to the right almost instantaneously.
The man who had lunged at Noone with all his might barely had time to register the miss before Noone's axe chopped down - embedding itself into the bandit's back and sending the man crashing into the ground from the sheer force of impact. His spine was completely shattered.
Two.
Wasting no time, he swiftly moved to the next person, easily capturing every action within his divine sense.
By this point, the men realized what was occurring. Noone was not here as an envoy. They were going to be killed unless they fought back. The fire kept the rest of their accomplices from interfering.
"He must be alone!" One of the men shouted, muscles tense with fear. If Noone had any kind of help, he wouldn't need to isolate them like this.
Noone smirked but said nothing. He moved quickly swinging his axe at the head of the nearest opponent. Much to Noone's surprise, the man barely managed to raise his buckler in time to block Noone's blow, however he wasn't in the right position to deflect the attack and could only take the full force of it into his arm.
Noone did not let up despite his attack being blocked, instead putting all of his weight behind the blow. Like chopping into a log, there was a sharp crack followed by a scream of pain. Noone's strike had managed enough force to shatter the bone where the shield was attached to the man's arm.
The bandit recoiled away, in his eyes there was fear and pain unbecoming of such a gruff looking figure. Before he could get out of reach though, Noone used his axe - which had embedded itself in the man's shield - to pull the man by his shattered arm back into reach, before shoving him in the way of a sword swing of another bandit.
The sword bit straight into the man's torso, causing a life-ending wound. Noone kicked the corpse of the man into the bandit with a sword, buying himself a little space.
Three.
"They're weak." Noone thought. "As long as I don't get surrounded."
In truth though, they were not terribly weak, each one being a level one or two fighter or ranger variant. It was just Noone… was too strong. His physical body was a gift of heritage and honed through years of physical labor. His muscles burned with training ingrained into him by Tobias. And his divine sense gave him an unparalleled advantage against anyone who couldn't match him physically.
Using his divine sense Noone was able to keep track of the position and movements of everyone in a six-meter radius. As long as he wasn't overwhelmed physically, or outperformed in terms of skill, then he had no problem handling such a group.
The only exception was if he was surrounded. Then he might have to sustain some damage in order break through. No matter how much he could see, it didn't matter if he was attacked faster than he could react to it.
This was why he wasted no time attacking the group despite them being shocked by the events unfolding.
"You fucker!" The man whose sword had sliced through his comrade when Noone used him as a shield shouted so violently that spittle flew from between rotted teeth. He was momentarily stunned by what had just happened. One second, he was preparing to cut right into Noone's blind-spot but… all of a sudden Noone had used his friend's body as a shield and he didn't have any time to stop his attack. The timing had been too… perfect.
The image of the fear in his friend's eyes dying to his own strike… if he ever lived through this day, he knew it would haunt him.
The man screamed and rushed Noone, his muscles bulged and with a speed Noone wasn't able to block and his he slashed directly at Noone's neck.
Noone had no choice but to dodge out of range from such a frantic tactic. Instead of returning the attack though, Noone locked his divine sense onto a nearby man who was still in shock.
Noone figured it would be easier to deal with the obviously skilled sword wielding bandit last, when he wouldn't have to worry about being ganged up on. As it stood now, if he wanted to kill the sword bandit who seemed to have at least some reasonable experience, it would take too much of his attention. It was better to pick off the rest first.
The young bandit who had become the center of Noone's attention put up futile resistance before having his side pierced by Noone's axe.
Four.
Despite taking a while to explain, the start of the fight to now had been going on for no more than a minute. There were still seven people left, and Noone realized he was going to have to go faster or else he would be giving them too much time to organize themselves.
Noone quickly dodged a swift sword strike to his back before digging his axes into another person. Instead of freeing his weapons from the bandit's body right away, Noone used them as leverage to throw the bandit at the sword-wielder, again buying him a bit more space.
Five.
The bandit with the sword was growing increasingly shocked and scared. Every time he closed in on the gray being, he would just dodge out of the way at the last second. Even if he was directly behind, it was as if the grey being knew where he was at all times.
Six.
"Turn around and fight me!" The sword wielding man yelled upon seeing Noone kill the man he had just been drinking so happily with only a few moments before.
Noone glanced back at the man with a cool expression before turning his gaze on another nearby bandit, ignoring him. The sword wielding man's heart went cold when he saw Noone's expression. "That's not the expression of someone in the midst of battle." His thoughts raced fueled by adrenaline and fear.
"Seven and eight." Noone thought, stealing the spear from a man whose skull he had just crushed and launching it at a bandit furthest from him. That particular bandit had been doing nothing but look for an opportunity to justify fleeing, this is something Noone did not want to happen.
Noone quickly ducked his head, rolling to the side as fast as he could. A sword narrowly passed over his scalp. "Maybe I should have launched the spear against this fellow." Noone thought, exasperated.
"Circle up!" one of the three remaining bandits yelled, by this point two minutes had passed. The sword wielding man grit his teeth and stopped his pursuit – his eyes burned with fire and hate.
For the first time since the start of the fight, there was finally a lull where Noone could catch his breath. He wasn't particularly exasperated, but it was still a small moment of respite.
The three men glanced at Noone, each other, and the fire holding off the full scale of their encampment within the caves. At this point they just needed to wait Noone out and keep him there. If they split Noone's attention between the three of them, no matter how strong he was, they could definitely outpace him they thought.
Noone immediately realized what they were trying to do after a moment passed with none of them moving.
"It's time's like this I wish I had some sort of magic." Noone groaned internally. He quietly wondered how well he would have done in this fight if he hadn't been training with Sarah and especially Tobias over the past months. In his heart Noone was supremely grateful for Tobias's instructions.
"I'm sorry for this." Noone spoke. All three men flinched when they heard Noone's voice. This was the first time they had heard him speak since his appearance. The men all looked at each other, unsure what to say.
Finally, the one with the sword which had been giving Noone trouble this whole time couldn't hold back his anger.
"You come into our camp! You kill our people! Just wait till Captain Jess gets her hands on you! We will skin you alive!" He yelled.
Noone smiled wryly but said nothing. "It seems even bandits have a sense of unity." Noone contemplated whether or not it was reasonable for bandits, of all people, to say such things. Eventually he just shook his head and sighed. "Not now, Noone." He admonished himself.
Without any warning Noone compressed his divine sense into an arrow and sent it shooting through one of the men's minds – the most scared looking one. He screamed in pain and dropped his weapon and shield, clutching his skull as his eyes went bloodshot. His blood curdling scream even managed to pierce through the fire and reach the ears of the others within the cave.
They quietly watched what happened in mute horror.
Both the sword wielding man and the other bandit couldn't help but look over in shock at their comrade who collapsed to the ground, trembling.
Nine...
THUCK THUCK
"Ten and Eleven." He whispered to himself, deep in thought.
Before either one could bring their attention back to Noone - in the split second when their gaze had been drawn away by the sounds of their comrade being tortured by Noone's divine sense thrashing through his mind – Noone threw both of his axe's with such force that neither man had even seen them coming before both axes crushed straight through their skulls.
Their bodies fell lifelessly to the ground, their weapons clattering against the earth. Blood and brain matter matted the compacted soil, causing Noone's bare feet to sink into the red-tinted ground like the soft dirt after a spring rain.
Noone sighed and retrieve his axes wordlessly, he glanced back to make sure the fire was still holding.
By this point, only three minutes had passed. The liquid fire lasted for ten.
Noone stretched his limbs as he made eye contact with the bandits on the other side of the flame. Various looks were etched into each of their faces. However, one look was present above all else.
Hatred.
"You can try." Noone thought. "But I am afraid it's not going to happen."