The Mercenary troops got dragged in, inside the bandit stronghold along with the Baron family, who kept on shivering throughout their entire journey.
As a small noble family living in the outer regions of the Helos Kingdom, they have lived a sheltered life, without offending or grabbing anyone's attention.
Whether it's nobles or commoners, they always preferred to stay humble, not willing to attract enmity from anyone, although they were not rich like other nobles, to own a Knight's troops of their own,but they never really felt the need for it, and given any chance they felt the need for an escort, they would hire Mercenaries, who seem more than adapt enough of dealing with any precarious situation on they generally face.
But now all of a sudden they encountered a Bandit faction led by a 'Martial Grandmaster'.
"Sir Martin, Please do something, they might just kill us all." Baron Cecil pleaded with the leader of the mercenary.
But after not receiving any response, he became dispirited, as he glanced at his childrens who haven't spoken a single word, from all the shock that they just went through.
"Sir please let us go, No, just let my wife and children go, I promise you I'll pay you a hefty amount, even if I have to sell everything I own." Baron pleaded to one of those bandits, who has been dragging him along.
"tsk, tsk your wife and children are the reason, why we have dragged you all the way back in here, and as for money, those things have no value in place like this." The bandit answered.
"Y..Y..You animal" Baron Cecil growled.
The bandit immediately sneered as he said
"Let's me see you maintain that growl, when everyone here takes turns on your wife."
Hearing such retorts, Baroness Cecil immediately clenched her fists tightly, as blood seem to seep through from the palms of her hands.
She even contemplated on killing herself, right here and now, but immediately decided against it, worrying she might shift such fate to her own daughter, if she took such actions.
Baron Cecil started fuming, as he started breathing heavily, as both his eyes turned bloodshot red out of pure hatred and anger.
The target of his hatred was not just those bandits, but even himself, who seemed to have failed to protect his own wife and children.
The group soon entered, what appeared to the main base camp of these bandits.
As they went deep inside the cave, they witnessed about a dozen of death bodies of naked women, lying in the corner of the room. It was pretty obvious what happened to those poor innocent women.
"Senior, Senior, Who are those ?, and What exactly happened to them ?" Nrak asked while pointing at those dead bodies.
"Tsk, Nowadays women have gone too soft, they couldn't even handle a round from a group of real men. that's why we went out to get a fresh batch."
"So there are no survivors."
"They're all dead but don't worry Nark, I'll let you have a taste from this batch, you know I seem to like you quite a bit." The ruffled haired bandit leader grinned as such disgusting words left from his mouth, as he seemed pretty satisfied of those honey coated words that came from Nark's mouth.
"Tsk, Darn it, so all this act was pretty much a waste of time."
"Huh ! Nark , are you alright..."
"Karn"
"Huh !"
"My name is Karn, not Nark."
~ SWOOooosssssssh ~
plop ~ gush ~ plop
A slicing sound just passed through the entire bandit cave, before a head rolled on the ground leaving a body behind which constantly gushed blood out from the area that's missing its head.
The bandit cave went through a complete eriee of silence, as the rest didn't even have enough time to gather their thoughts, about what just happened.
"Ahhh"
"No"
"Help..."
It took another sets of screams along with dozens of heads flying and rolling on the ground, before the people realised what just happened.
The person who has been asslicking the ruffled haired bandit and was brandished as traitor by the rest of his mercenary group, just decapitated a '2nd Circle' Bandit leader in an instant, before going on a bloody rampage.
The bandits soon regrouped, and started attacking him together, but the outcome remained the same.
Plop~Swish~~Plop~~Plop~Swish
with every single swing their opponent made, a head of a bandit rolled on the ground, It wasn't that they didn't realise they weren't his match, but their opponent just doesn't even seem to be willing to spare them even a second, not allowing them to even take a step back for retreat, or letting them think of their next couse of action.
On the contrary the speed of his sword gradually increased by time, as he seemed to be in a hurry to deal with them once and for all.
37,36,35....23,22,21...15,14,13,12.....7,6,5
In just a span of a minute a group that used consist of 50 strong-men dwindled leaving only one behind.
The last remaining bandit immediately threw out his weapon and raised his hand high up in air meaning to surrender, but the sword showed no intention to stop and grant him even an ounce of mercy, as a black sword appeared right above his head before cleaving him into two, like a thin sheet of paper.
~Gasp~
The Mercenaries and the entire Cecil's family are probably never going to forget this scene that procured in front of them for the rest of their life.
They didn't know what the hell was happening, they were attacked by bandits, got betrayed by one of their members, got dragged into their stronghold and now the one that they thought betrayed them just dealt with the entire group of bandits alone,in just a span of a minute, as he if he was swatting some kind of annoying flies.
"Nark" Martin exclaimed, as he was still quite shocked about the whole ordeal that happened in front of him.
" Karn, My real name is Karn." Karn said as he gradually gave out his real identity to the group that he spent the past three months of his life.
Karn walked in, and gradually swung his sword snapping the ropes, used to tie Martin and rest the group.
"Sorry about that, I had check if there were any survivors still alive in here." Karn mentioned while making an embarrassed gesture.
This expression perplexed, the entire group even more, as that doesn't look like an expression of an individual who just cold bloodedly slaughtered an entire hoarde of bandits.Not that they are complaining about it, Cause if they had even ten percent of ability that this person had, they might have given those bandits an even more gruesome and painful death.
While Martin had an even greater reaction, as he grabbed Karn by both his shoulders and hugged him tightly.
Martin seriously thought this was gonna be the last day of his life, and soon his entire 40 years of life flashed in front of his eyes, as he thought of what's gonna happen to his wife and daughter who have been diligently waiting for him, and regrets for not choosing a safer means of occupation, when he had the chance, but their was nothing he could do but swallow those regrets, before this individual appeared and grabbed their life straight from the hands of hades.
"Nrak, No..Karn, three months ago, taking you in was the greatest decision I ever made." Martin said while still wailing on Karn's arms.
Three months ago, when Karn just entered the Helos Kingdom, he kept looking for some Adventurers or Mercenaries, as a companion, as he was completely lost in this unfamiliar land.
But no one seemed willing to let a complete foreigner, with just an 'Iron Rank Adventurer's Badge,into their group.
But it was Martin and his group who extended their hand for help, and it appears this one small act of kindness returned to them in thousandfolds.
"Nrak...Ahh! Sorry, Karn I apologise for all those things that I said earlier." One of the mercenary members who called him a traitor reached out him to apologise.
"There's nothing to apologise, I intended for you to give those reactions, and....." Karn immediately stopped speaking while looking at a certain direction.
Karn immediately took a stance facing towards a certain direction, as he saw a certain red hooded individual walking towards them.
"My, My look what you've done to my people." A red hooded individual said while glancing towards those headless bandit corpses lying cold on the floor.
"Everyone, was killed with just one clean sword strike, decapitating them, without giving them much chance to fight back." the red hooded individual kept speaking as he leisurely strolled around the entire area, before stopping towards a certain corpse that belonged to that '2nd Circle' Magic Swordsman "Seeing how even Fern, wasn't able to resist,as he died with a single sword strike to his neck, I conclude the opponent is atleast a '3rd Circle' Entity, well then please tell me who is responsible for committing such travesty right in my place." As those word's left from the mouth of this red hooded individual, a sudden surge of Qi started leaking from his body, as he glared at the group infront of him with eyes filled with killing intent.