The fire slowly inched towards Casey and images of his father took over his brain. They kept flashing in front of him.
It was his father taking a poking stick from the fireplace and piercing the boy with it after another one of the father's drunken adventures. He could feel the molten metal going through his skin slowly burning its way through and out the other side. It was the reason why he felt nothing in his left arm.
He then heard another shriek which woke him up from his trance. He quickly mustered up enough strength and pushed the wood off of him and what he saw shocked him to his very core.
The entire carriage was surrounded by blue flames which gave out a strange yet recognizable aura. It was mana.
Mana was a form of energy that would flow through one's body. You would have to use many different cultivation techniques to actually unlock mana and even using it was high-risk high reward as mana could also be seen as a person's life source and excessive use of mana will lead to a gruesome death. Though there were ways of avoiding that such as if you had a passive skill like healing which takes very small amounts of mana, you could keep mana potions on you to boost your mana and stop you from running out.
Mana fires had certain levels ranging from yellow to gold. There were legends of black flames and many claimed to have seen them but were denied as phony. Blue fires were the third level of mana fire and would not burn out easily and were used exclusively to cause harm and were the sigil of bandits who would use these to trap carriages and loot them.
Casey had expected this but not to this extreme, as he kept looking around he saw Blake hanging by a sword from a wooden post. The sword was going through his stomach and blood was gushing out.
Casey ran over to Blake to see if he could help but Blake said, "I've spent many years as a knight of the frontier, I was already a dead man inside and this is a death that suits me" he said as he took a gasp of air and continued saying, "But Grace and Cole don't deserve to die, do me a favor and please save them, it's a dying man's wish, they are just in that caravan clad in black" and as he completed his sentence his body went limp and he died.
Casey felt something in his heart, it was a pull of emotion but he burrowed that deep inside himself and took his father's gun, and snuck up to the caravan.
2 men were sitting on the ground, one was locking up Cole whilst the other was locking up Grace in a cage. He could see that even Cole was beaten again and again and Grace had also been hit by them.
Rage was the only emotion he had left and now Casey's body was being fueled by it.
He got his father's sniper and sat in a bush and aimed at the two people sitting together. He took in a deep breath and looked through the scope and *click* he pulled the trigger and a bullet going faster than the eye could see flew straight at the two sitting together.
It went clean through the side of the first bandit's head and came out and hit the second bandit straight in the middle of his forehead. He had gotten 2 out of the 4.
When they looked back they screamed in unison and looked to where the bullet had come from.
"Big mistake," said Casey as he pulled the trigger once again and shot the one who was trying to lock up Cole.
"Only one left", he thought. Then the bandit in a rush pulled out Grace from her cage by her hair and pointed his hand at her and exclaimed, "I will burn her to a crisp if you dare try to kill me" he then continued saying, "come out with your hands up and gun in hand".
That was the oldest trick in the book and Casey wasn't going to fall for that.
Then out of the corner of his eye, Casey saw Cole get out of his cage and saw that he was circling back behind the last bandit.
As soon as Cole was close enough Casey shot at the bandit and Cole quickly grabbed Grace and ran away as the bandit erupted into flames. Casey then went down to Cole and Grace with his sniper in hand.
Cole showed a lot of gratitude towards Casey for saving him and the King's daughter. He then looked at Grace who was sitting on the ground and crying tears of happiness. Casey went over to her and offered her his hand and pulled her up from the ground and she quickly went and hugged him and kept thanking him again and again.
Cole then called for reinforcements by using his fire magic as a flare.
Casey was proud of himself, he would be known as a hero and as someone who saved the next Queen.
This would also put him in an advantageous position in terms of status as at this moment he could easily become friends with the princess which would help him long term. He was also just happy for doing the right thing for once. It was the first time he felt the flavor of happiness and it was refreshing.
Cole went back to where their carriage was and saw that the fire was now gone as its user had died. He then saw Blake and his heart dropped. He was in tears but tried to hide it.
Cole then took off his body from the wood post and buried him in a hole in the ground. It was a symbol of honor to be buried where you fought valiantly.
A carriage then arrived on which Casey, Cole, Grace, and the merchant, who they found trapped in a cage as well, sat and left for Velvenfiel.