A loud squeak echoed throughout the cave as the large wooden door opened, its lock had been easily broken through by Shu He, the room inside was dark and unlit as a rat squealed from the light piercing through the door and scurried out underneath his feet.
In there were 4 men, their bodies covered with bruises from abuse as they hung by their arms, chained to roof, they were still alive having only been a day, but they didn't look great.
The moment Shu He began walking inside one of them lifted his head slightly, his eyes filled with smouldering anger and indignation as he tried to glance the figure of whoever entered.
'He's still awake? I guess the flowers dust didn't get past those doors…' He glanced in the corner of the room, there was a ventilation shaft that went to the outside, so there was plenty of fresh air filtering in the room'.
"You rats… not got anything better to do with your lives?" He struggled to speak as he coughed heavily, flecks of blood spat out his mouth.
*Swish*
The sound of a blade moving through the air was followed by a set of loud clangs as the man fell to the floor, failing to brace himself because he didn't expect to be set free, his face hit the floor yet he didn't complain, rather he was completely stunned due to the turn of events.
A few more sets of clangs sounded as the other men were freed, all of them falling flat on the floor.
The first man steadily pulled himself up through his aching bruises and cuts and stared wide eyed at Shu He, finally seeing how he was dressed very different from his captives.
"Who are you?" He asked quietly, thinking this was happening under the noses of the bandits.
Shu He glanced at him as he walked towards the entrance once more "Just a simple traveller, if you can move hurry up and come, I need you to guide the others out".
"..!" The man's eyes became filled with surprise before turning in to determination.
This was their chance! It didn't matter who this man was, if they could escape it didn't matter!
"Right!" He followed Shu He, as he did he quickly saw a few bodies strewn about, gashes and wounds that was clearly fatal littering their bodies.
'Did this man do this alone?' He held his mouth, not wanting to pry lest he cause them to lose their chance of escape.
Very quickly, the other three men that had been released followed silently, they had heard what was said so they didn't need to add anything more to the conversation, they only cared about saving their fellow villagers and getting out of here.
'It's good they aren't in a worse state, they can help the others get out, I wonder if they purposely didn't harm their legs so they could still walk fine?' Shu He pondered as he reached another room, breaking the lock as he kicked the door in exposing the insides to the torchlight.
Unlike the men, the women were only shackled by an ankle chain, there were 12 in total, 2 children under the age of 10, 1 in their teens, 6 between 20 to 40 and the other 3 were older than that.
Shu He still found himself frowning as he entered the room, the scent of debauchery and suffering lathed on some of them were signs that they had been victims of the overbearing lust of the bandits.
He had already killed most of the ones that did it, but he wished he could do it again seeing this.
"Shang'er, Lin'er!" The first man rushed in, dashing towards a pair, the teenage girl and her mother as he looked both of them over "Lin'er! What did they do to you…" He hugged her tightly, she weakly responded, tears beginning to drip from her eyes.
"Daddy…" She murmured.
"Dear! How are you…?!" The wife, 'Shang'er' finally responded after working through her shock.
"We need to go" He said, picking up his daughter, the chain clattering.
*Swish*
With a cut, it was broken, and Shu He got to work on the rest, freeing them.
"We don't have time looking for the one with they keys, so this will have to do" He said "You four, follow these directions…" Shu He explained the way to the second entrance "You can escape there".
"But if we go alone…" One of the men started to speak.
"Mister" Suddenly, the young teenage girl, 'Lin'er' began to speak.
Shu He found it slightly off being referred to like that, since he was a similar age to her, but he turned and met her stare.
"What is it?" He asked, feeling a strange sense of dissonance as he stared at her pure, yet tainted eyes.
"Did you defeat the bad guys?" A simple question, almost innocent.
Yet Shu He's golden eyes shook, his façade almost breaking in that moment before he turned his face away, biting his lip to regain his concentration.
"Yeah, I did" He said, his voice shaking slightly.
"You got rid of them all?!" One of the other men asked.
Shu He breathed out, his focused cold gaze returning "Just the ones inside, I'll deal with the rest once you lot have escaped."
"We… owe you a great gratitude!" The man replied, they then began helping the others to their feet and supporting the ones that struggled to walk, one of the elderly women could barely move so one of the men hoisted her on his back.
They then began walking out of the room, setting off for the exit.
"Benefactor… there were two more with us, do you know where they are?" One of them asked, hopeful.
Shu He gently shook his head "They're… it's too late".
The woman's face twisted slightly, tears dripping gently down her cheek as she ran off to catch up with the others.
A sister, a brother, a parent, a friend, a lover; He didn't know which one it was, but she had lost someone among the two missing, that was something Shu He couldn't prevent.
His grip tightened on his sword, its silver surface gleaming with cold light as Shu He set off in a different direction to the rest, he walked down the silent hallways that were littered with corpses as if they didn't exist.
Eventually he came to stand in front of a large tunnel that had a small dot of red light at the end, it was the other side of the entrance to the mines, and on the other side was the camp, the other half of the bandits as well.
It was almost time for the village's militia to arrive, if he left it as is right now they'd still suffer a lot of casualties, so he had two options.
One, he could go out there now and engage in an all-out brawl, he had a high chance of success, but there were always variables he might not be aware of.
The second…
He glanced at the side of the tunnel, poorly hidden there was a line of detonating cord linked to sticks of explosives going all the way to the entrance.
'I should wait a bit longer'.
He needed to give the prisoners a bit more time to escape.
"..!" He hid to the side, there was someone walking down the tunnel, likely someone switching guard shifts.
"Huh? Why's it so damn quiet?" The bulky man yelled, expecting a reply.
He turned the corner, his foot hitting something soft as he looked down.
"The hell is lying on the floor like thi… AHHHH" He screamed slightly but just before he could reach max pitch he found his head falling to the floor.
*Splat*
The blood from the sword flew on to the floor.
'They might have heard that…!'
Shu He positioned himself in front of the tunnel again, he could see that they were nearing the exit so it should be fine…
He filled his lungs with as much air as he could and spat out the words.
"WE'RE BEING INVADED FROM BEHIND! GET YOUR ASSES IN HERE!".
His words echoed down the tunnel and eventually hit the outside, instantly causing panic.
"What?! From behind?!"
"How?!"
"Did they figure out our escape route?!"
"Get moving! They can't have the prisoners!".
The camp out front began to move en masse, Shu He could see the shadows obscuring the red dot as they poured in the cave entrance, running like their behinds were on fire.
"There's one of them! Get em'!".
Shu He was stood slightly in the tunnel, he shook slightly and then faltered, pretending to trip up and fall before he began to scurry and run.
"Don't let the runt get away!" one of them yelled, very soon almost all of the bandits out front were inside the tunnel, traversing to the inside.
And so Shu He lit a small flame in his hands.
A simple technique, the one he had used to cauterise the bandit boss's arm; It was called <
And then, he flicked the flame until it encompassed the fuse, setting it alight.
"Huh?" The person at the front then watched Shu He disappear, like he had teleported and glanced at the sizzling fuse, his face turning white.
"SHIT, IT'S A TRAP, BACK, BACK UP I TELL YOU!" He yelled, yet the ones behind him didn't hear, their yelling and shouting drowning him out.
Shu He was dashing through the hideout as fast as he could, he didn't have much time, he quickly reached the exit tunnel when-
*DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
A sound he was very familiar with shook his body and the surroundings, a cloud of dust began biting at his heels as he stepped with as much force as he could, propelling himself through the tight cave walls until he penetrated the wall of light, exiting the cave!.
The rumbling continued for a minute as parts of the mountain began to cave in on itself, permanently burying whatever was beneath it, the explosives had been far more effective than he thought.
He really didn't know what they were thinking, having a trap like that set up.
Was it to cover their tracks after they left?
'Either way' He sighed slightly, walking out from behind the rock that obscured the exit and the cloud of dust that had been shot out of the cave.
The captives had escaped as they watched the mountainside crumble in fear, they rested in the shade of the trees, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying freedom once more.