Pov Donovan (25 years old): black hair, right eye blind, short black hair, 180 cm tall, 95 kg. Other details will be released in the next chapter.
That was probably a memory of the past, yet it felt so real.
The village was burning by flames that could even hurt the Great Mother. Such blazes had to be the work of a very skilled hunter.
She was clearly terrified of whoever had decided to attack our small village and set it on fire. She resisted the urge to flee, but she was clearly unwilling to fight the attacker. The adults who noticed that were all panicking, while I, a lowly Umab, decided to stand up against the threat.
Everyone was panicking. The cowards were aiding the women and the children escaped first as an excuse to not fight. The brave ones were running towards their homes, taking their weapons to fend off the intruders.
"How dare they attack the Great Sage village!" I said, gritting my teeth and unsheathing my blade.
I was of lowly origins, but I still had the pride of a warrior chosen by the Great Mother. As everyone else was fleeing, I ran towards the source of the flames.
While I was running, I decided to jump on a merchant's carriage and then jumped on top of the closest building to get a better view. The flames were coming from the great sage's residence. I saw only one hunter in full body armor.
The armor had a rather futuristic design as it looked mechanical, but it was clearly powered by magic as it was constantly absorbing the aura around it. It had a couple of really long blades at the sides of the arms, and it had many spikes all over the armor. It covered every inch of his body, making it look as if he was covered in scales.
The reason I knew the armor belonged to a hunter was that it was made out of rare parts of extremely rare animals only found during the hunting season. Each and every part of that armor, with all of its attachments.
That means he's around the level of Suyoo, a veteran swordsman, if not higher.
'For what reason would a lowly hunter dare challenge the Great Sage while also attacking the village? Was it overconfidence or did some information leak to the outside.'
NO!
Don't think! Now it's not the time. I must act quickly to save as many lives as possible.
I then started hopping from rooftop to rooftop, while also checking on the people escaping. I noticed many other warriors had decided to jump on top of rooftops to let the civilians run through the streets.
Then the flames started moving around as if they had life, expanding themselves, destroying everything in their path and reducing nearby buildings of stone to nothing but dust.
"The Ruisha are all ready! Stand down!" Shouted one of the Suyoo that was much closer to the hunter.
Ruisha are spiritual archers that somehow managed to imbue the spiritual arts into their bows and into their arrows.
They intended to bind the hunter from all sides with some high-tier technique.We needed to stand back to not fall victim to their technique, and once the man was completely immobilized, we would've swooped in and, with our numbers, we would've been able to overwhelm the invader.
From each Ruisha's arrow, a dragon holding some special chains in its mouth appeared and charged directly at the lone man. He, in response, stood still and took the hit. The dragons quickly coiled every inch of their bodies around him and chained him to the ground.
'No reaction?'
"Now!" shouted the same suyoo as before.
All the swordsmen then used all their strength to make one giant leap towards the enemy, with the sword held with both hands, ready to cut down our foe. Then the fire moved. Once again, the fire moved as if it had a will of its own and created a wall in front of us. The bravest of warriors charged through the wall while the weaker warriors stopped to check first. I was part of the first group.
As we got closer and closer, I saw the man was holding the corpse of the Great Sage in his right hand. The Sage was still holding his swords even after his head and legs were cut off from his body. He also had his right hand, his dominant hand, severely injured.
'How dare he!' I remember thinking.
The Great Sage was once the strongest warrior; he is not anymore. He was withered down by his old age and by a mysterious illness. Recently, he was desperate to find a successor in order to pass down all the techniques he developed in his life and pass down the secret techniques of the village.
Once we struck his armor, we realized it was empty. We were puzzled for a moment. I instinctively turned back to check on our Ruisha, and they were all lying dead on the ground with a hole in their chest.
"SHIT!"
It was at that moment that we heard the roar of the Great Mother.
'Mum!'
Everything was happening so fast that I felt I had barely had the time to think anymore.
Instinctively, I started running towards her position. To them, I was just a meat shield, so if I had to die, I would've preferred to die protecting my own mother rather than those arrogant soldiers.
Even if that would've doomed us all.
I witnessed the flames come to life. They began gathering in the middle of the main streets and formed an orb. As soon as I got close enough, a whip-like extension appeared and attacked me with a large lateral swing.
The words of my master echoed in my brain.
"The part that you need to be wary of in a whip is the tip, as it moves at a faster rate."
I infused the blade with energy and crouched down as fast as I could to avoid the whip.
The technique I used to get closer was part of a series of attacks called Mystic Flying Blade. It uses spiritual energy to boost the sword to keep up with the movement of the sword master;it was a technique made to be able to clash with the hunter's aura. The swordsman would use his sword to fly towards the hunter by repeatedly attacking his aura projectiles. Since there weren't any projectiles, I decided to plant the sword on the ground and use it instead.
I had to move in a zigzag pattern to avoid getting struck, and in a matter of moments I had reduced the distance from ten meters to just one. I was ready to strike the orb and destroy it for good when suddenly, from the sky, a man dropped, using his feet to deviate the sword.
He was wearing the empty armor we had struck earlier. He was a rather tall and muscular man. It was incomplete as some parts were still flying towards him. It was an armament that could somehow fly back to its owner on its own.
Not even soul weapons were capable of that.
I grabbed my sword with both hands and I tried to slash his neck. He slightly moved his left arm, and a mechanism inside the armor made a blade slide in from the side of his arm, piercing my right wrist.
I still remember the pain as if it happened yesterday.
I was way slower than the man in front of me. The other warriors had probably yet to notice his presence. That question haunted me for the rest of my life.
WHY?
I was going to die alone without even knowing why. We were at peace with the hunters. Why would this man attack us?
From that position, he managed to almost cut open my right arm and take one of my eyes with a single swing of his blade, and as he raised the blade to deliver the final blow, I woke up with cold sweat all over my body, with a heavy breath, and with a terrible headache . The scar on my right eye and right arm was still burning with pain as I was still trying to catch my breath.
I was no longer that young, inexperienced boy from a small village of spiritualist warriors. Now I am barely a warrior. The wound that went from the wrist to the shoulder was just half of the problem. That man made sure to burn every book that even talked about our spiritual arts and killed every teacher, leaving only inexperienced warriors and children alive. The rest of them were killed that night.
I found myself stranded, alone, with nothing to show for it.
I remember him shouting that he would've hunted every swordsman in existence before some other hunters came in to stop that man.
All that was left of my village for me was just a rusty, dull katana. Everything else had been reduced to charcoal by that man.
The Empire covered the whole incident, blaming it on a dragon that had long disappeared from the records, and every Umad that tried to spread the truth was silently taken out. Since we refused to learn the arts of the God of the Hunt, he never really cared about our fate.
In one day, almost every village that specialized in spiritual arts has been annihilated and forgotten about. The only exception was the Omori village, but that was because they don't use swords, they use spears. They were the only ones that were spared by that hunter.
The warrior probably belonged to one of his many orders of warriors, most likely the Golden Order or the Varym Order. Revenge or justice at that point were off the table.
"Did you have a bad dream?" Asked me the lady of the house, confused and worried.
I was her kid's sword teacher.
She was sleeping naked beside me. She then took my left arm and hugged it tightly while also kissing it.
I remember thinking, "I'm truly a scumbag" as I patted her head and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
'To betray the trust of the man that gave me a roof over my head and a job...'
"It's nothing, just... It's nothing serious; don't worry. " I said while gently moving her hair to the side.
She then started kissing my arm once more, slowly going higher and higher while also placing her hand on my chest.
The sun had just begun to rise. This was probably the time farmers would start waking up.
"What's wrong, Donovan?" She whispered in my ears in a seductive tone.
She then began nibbling my ear while giggling and slowly lowering the hand she had put on my chest.
"My lady, I don't think-"
"Shhh! Don't worry, I'll take care of everything." She said, while getting on top of me.
She used both her hands to make me face her. She smiled and then wrapped her arms around my neck.
She was grinding her body on mine. That's what she usually did to tease me or get me in the mood, but this time, this time I was simply... I wasn't interested.
"My lady-"
"For how long are you going to resist?"
She started giving me hickies all over my neck while meowing like a kitten.
"Your husband could hear us." I said.
"That loser? He gets off seeing his wife sleeping next to other men! " For a moment, I managed to shut her down. She seemed irritated as soon as I mentioned her husband.
"You on the other hand… I feel like you would be the perfect husband for me. Don't worry about a mistake I made in my youth. "
'She is talking about her husband, right?'
My efforts in the end only managed to slow her down a little, not even by a lot, as she was right back trying to seduce me. This time she put my hands on top of her breasts, expecting me to fondle them.
My arms felt too heavy at that moment, so I simply let them rest instead of resisting or going along with her whims.
"What about your son?" I said while she had started kissing my chest, going lower and lower, licking my abs.
I think she slipped something in my food last night because I could barely raise my arms without feeling exhausted.
"Oh, don't mind him. He just had a bad breakup. He won't spy on us this time. "
'This time?'
"How is our friend here still sleeping?" She said, while peking my dick.
"I'm not in the mood, I'm sorry."
"Well, then I'll have to put it in the mood."
I wasn't feeling it. Even after she started sucking it, I still couldn't feel a thing. All I really wanted to do was to hide in a corner and wait for the day.
I never knew why, but I never got over that tragedy. There wasn't a night where I didn't have a nightmare about them. I cursed my weakness multiple times and I tried to... No, I never really tried to improve my art. I just made a bunch of excuses for myself and decided that was it.
"What are you thinking about?" asked the lady.
"I think... I just need a breath of fresh air, we'll continue later." I said while I was trying to get up.
It took a bit of struggle, but in the end I managed to get up. My legs were trembling and they felt wobbly, but with enough concentration I managed to walk to the closet to get some shorts to wear.
I felt nauseous. I was thirty. Even when the lady of the house hugged me from the back, I still managed to walk away and lock myself in the bathroom. I noticed while exiting her bedroom that the husband was peeping on us with his dick in his hand, breathing heavily while crying at the same time.
"What a pathetic man." I remember saying I didn't want to say it out loud, but somehow I did.
The lady then burst out laughing, and that's how I managed to escape her grasp.