"Abeloth—up. Fly into the clouds and remain there until I call for you," Ali commanded with clear authority.
The towering fire dragon let out a deafening ROAR, the sheer force of it echoing across the valley like thunder bouncing between cliffs. With one massive beat of his wings, the dragon launched skyward, flames curling around his scaled limbs as he vanished into the stormy clouds above.
Ali remained standing on the smooth, scaled back of Eldora, his wind dragon, who was now soaring swiftly between the two towering mountains. The air whipped past them as her enormous feathered wings sliced through the night, catching the magical wind that propelled her forward with unnatural grace and speed. Her movement was impossibly smooth, each beat of her wings synchronised perfectly with the flow of air currents she herself commanded.
Beyond the mountains, the land opened up into a vast and continuous valley, blanketed in quiet shadows under the moonlight. A steep hill rose from the centre of the land like a barrier between Ali and what lay beyond.
"Stop down there," Ali ordered, his sharp black eyes narrowing as they locked onto something atop the hill. His voice was calm.
She tucked her wings in and dove, cutting through the sky like a spear. Ali stood effortlessly upright during the entire descent, perfectly balanced atop her back, not swaying even an inch—his presence unshakable.
Twenty meters above the ground, Ali leapt off her back with grace, flipping once mid-air before landing silently midway up the slope. Eldora, without waiting, ascended back into the skies, her shimmering form vanishing among the clouds where Abeloth was already circling high above.
Ali climbed the rest of the hill with long, deliberate strides. But nothing could prepare him for the scene that awaited him at the summit.
"Just go, darling… COUGH—UGH—Just go…"
Ali stopped at the sound of a man's voice, strangled and wheezing. But that wasn't all. His keen senses picked up an eerie rhythm in the air—the unmistakable swing of taut ropes and the grim choking of men suspended midair.
'What the hell is this…? I can hear the ropes creaking. People choking… they're hanging,' Ali thought as he crested the hill.
"NO! I won't—I'm not leaving you, I'm not…!"
A woman's voice now. Hysterical. Desperate.
STEP. STEP. STEP. STEP.
Ali reached the peak of the hill, and the sight that met him stopped him in his tracks.
Fifteen wooden poles had been dug deep into the earth, each one strung with a thick rope from which a man hung, their feet dangling a metre and a half up the ground. But none of them were dead.
Each man had a woman beneath him—wives, lovers, maybe daughters—straining with all their strength to hold up their partners by the legs, keeping them from fully hanging. Their arms were locked around their loved ones' legs, trembling violently with exhaustion. If even one of them let go, the rope would tighten—and a life would be lost. The strain on their bodies must have been unbearable. Some had been crying for so long that their voices had turned to hoarse whispers. Others sobbed quietly into their husbands' clothes, refusing to loosen their grip.
When the women heard Ali's approach, many turned with terror in their eyes, expecting a knight had come back to finish them off.
But instead, they saw a stranger. A man alone, dressed in black, the face of the most handsome man they'd ever seen in their lives. The moonlight cast long shadows across his sharp frame. His silence was unnerving. His presence—unnatural.
The women held their husbands tighter, unsure if this man was here to help or hurt.
Ali surveyed the horrific scene. 'This is a new torture method'… he thought. 'This isn't just cruelty. It's Psychological torture. If they let go, they're killing the people they love. And this could go on for days.'
He slowly raised one hand—palm open—and with a swift sideways motion, he cut across the air.
SWIPE.
In an instant, all fifteen ropes were severed cleanly—sliced through with invisible precision. The men fell into their partners' arms with gasps of shock and relief. The sudden weight knocked many of them over, and they collapsed to the ground together in crumpled, trembling heaps.
But they were alive.
"Darling! Darling…!"
Sobs echoed in the dark as the survivors embraced. Tears streamed down dirt-streaked faces. Calloused hands clutched at bloodied cheeks. A few of the men reached for the rope remnants around their throats, yanking them off as if to erase the horror. The women cradled their husbands, whispering their names like sacred prayers.
One man, fitter than the rest, pulled himself up. His side was bleeding from a rough gash, but he ignored it. His jaw was clenched in fury. His eyes—full of disbelief and rage. He helped his wife sit up behind him with her trembling legs, shielding her as best he could.
"Drew, I'm with you," said another older man, a farmer by the look of him, stepping up beside the first.
Drew was one of the village's former guards—luckier than the rest only because he hadn't been on patrol the night the knights attacked.
He turned to face the stranger.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice rough, his wife still trembling behind him.
Ali didn't answer right away.
Instead, his attention shifted to his right, where he calmly raised his hand—and caught something small and metallic falling from the sky.
A cloaked drone had silently descended and delivered its payload directly into his palm.
Ali didn't react to the villagers' gasps. He turned his focus fully to the device. The screen lit up, revealing a video feed captured from the air.
It was live.
A high-angle view of the village below played on the screen, showing the bandits outside the Village Hall. Ali's expression didn't change as he watched several of them argue—clearly tense. They were guarding the building where women had been dragged off earlier. Several of the captives were being shoved or yelled at by the guards.
He looked back down the hill toward the group, now huddled in silence, watching him with eyes full of exhaustion and hope.
Ali tossed the phone back into the air with a flick of his wrist. It shimmered briefly before vanishing into thin air like it had never existed. He turned and looked up at the villagers gathered at the top of the hill.
"I am the Lord of the land to the south of you. I purchased it from Lord Stork, and your people begged me—begged me—to come and save you," Ali said with deliberate calmness. Then, before anyone could react, he vanished. A heartbeat later, he reappeared directly in front of Drew.
Startled, Drew stumbled backward and collapsed to the ground in shock. The man who stood above him seemed more spectre than man, his sudden disappearance and reappearance impossible to follow.
"That's more like it…" Ali murmured, a smirk curling across his face as he looked down at the trembling guard. Drew, though full of frustration and suspicion, found himself paralysed by the lord's presence.
Ali turned to address the others. "All of you stay here with the women and watch the show. When I'm done, you may return to the village. Do not try to be a hero…" His voice was commanding, resonating with the kind of weight that left no room for argument.
He stepped forward, but stopped suddenly when he caught sight of a young woman on the ground. It wasn't her pretty face that caught his attention—it was something else.
Drew noticed the young lord's eyes pause on his wife and instantly felt panic surge in his chest. Stories of corrupt nobles taking advantage of the powerless and stealing their wives echoed in his mind. He feared the worst and instinctively threw himself in front of his wife, shielding her from Ali's gaze.
Ali's next words were strange and unexpected.
"Show me the soles of your feet," he said, his voice steady but unreadable.
The young woman blinked, confused by the request, but complied. She slowly lifted one foot and tilted it toward him. Burn marks. Brutal, blistered, and red. Her skin had been charred, the wounds still raw and weeping. Drew's eyes widened in horror.
"What… how—when did this happen?" he muttered, his hands trembling as he gently took hold of her foot. Veins bulged in fury across his forehead.
The other men turned to look at their partners, who began showing their feet one by one, each pair marked by similar burns.
"The mage… he did this to us before he hanged all of you," Drew's wife said, her voice cracking under the weight of what she had endured. "He… he was laughing while he did it…"
Tears welled in her eyes, and she covered her face, ashamed and broken. These women had stood for hours on burned feet, refusing to let go of the very men now clutching them in gratitude. Their silence had hidden their pain. Until now.
'A real sick fuck right there,' Ali thought as he narrowed his eyes. 'Not like I'm one to judge…'
Without another word, he turned and launched himself from the top of the hill.
The village below was little more than a graveyard of ash and blood. Nearly forty men in tattered, mismatched armour roamed the blood-slicked streets, their weapons stolen from the corpses of the fallen guards. They were unwashed, reeking of sweat, alcohol, and rot—vultures picking at the bones of the innocent.
Their eyes were empty of conscience. Their laughs were shrill and animalistic. They stalked between the broken homes and smouldering rooftops like predators.
A particularly thin bandit—his greasy black hair stuck to his forehead and his face twisted in an excited grin—dragged a girl no older than sixteen across the street by her tangled hair. She stumbled behind him, sobbing softly, her eyes wide with terror.
"This is the last one," the bandit said gleefully. "Found this bitch hiding under a bed—hahaha!"
"Throw her in there…" the captain barked, leaning lazily against the entrance of the village hall.
The captain was monstrous in every sense of the word. Towering at nearly seven feet tall, he was grotesquely overweight with a bloated gut pressing against a blood-streaked tunic. His bald head was marked by a long, jagged scar that ran from his right brow down to his jaw, and his thick arms were covered in layers of hardened muscle and old battle wounds. A massive, notched great-sword rested beside him, the edge stained dark with dried blood.
"Captain… c'mon, can I have some fun with her? We still got time before we take 'em back to the base, please…" The thin bandit rubbed his hands together eagerly. The girl shrank away, trembling. She didn't dare imagine what he meant. She didn't want to.
The captain slowly stood upright. A sick smile spread across his fat, cracked lips.
"You want to have fun?" he asked, stepping closer to the eager outlaw. "You wanna fuck her?"
The thin bandit's eyes lit up. "Y-Yes," he stuttered, barely able to contain his excitement. His tongue licked his dry lips like a dog tasting meat.
SLAP.
The sound echoed through the ruined village like a cannon shot.
The thin bandit's body launched through the air and crashed into the side of a crumbling home. The wall shattered with a thunderous crack, debris exploding in all directions.
His head, however, was nowhere to be found. It had been obliterated by the captain's open palm—reduced to a stain of red mist. His corpse slumped lifelessly among the rubble.
The captain turned on his heel, bellowing at the rest of the bandits, "ANYMORE OF YOU FUCKING BITCHES WHINING?"
No one spoke.
No one moved.
The remaining bandits looked anywhere but at their captain. Fear radiated from them like heat.
"The women are not to be fucking touched!" he roared again, his voice thick with spit and anger. "The boss wants them unharmed in any way, you cunts!"
As he spat the last word, a line of saliva dribbled from his jowls, thick and vile.
'These fucking rats wasting my time…' the captain thought as he glared at his men. 'Since when did we start cleaning up after lords, anyway? We're bandits, for fuck's sake—not their fucking dogs. We should be robbing the wealthy bastards, not playing clean-up in their stupid war.'
Grumbling, he grabbed the girl by the head—ignoring her screams—and kicked open the doors to the village hall. He threw her inside like a sack of grain. Her sobs echoed against the wooden walls.
The doors slammed shut.
Inside the dimly lit village hall, the women huddled together, clutching one another for comfort, when the heavy wooden door suddenly burst open. They flinched in unison, terror gripping their hearts, expecting another horror—but what they saw made their stomachs drop.
The bandit captain hurled a young teenage girl through the open doorway like a sack of grain. She hit the floor hard, her frail body skidding across the rough wooden planks before coming to a stop at the feet of the others. The captain then slammed the door shut with a grunt of satisfaction.
"What are you doing here? What are you doing here?" cried out a distraught, middle-aged woman as she rushed over to the teen now sprawled on the floor. Her hands trembled as she helped the girl up and wrapped her arms around her.
"Why didn't you run with the others? Why, baby, why?" she sobbed, her voice cracking from a mix of fear and heartbreak. This was her daughter. She had hoped—prayed—that the girl had made it out safely with the others. But now, mother and daughter were trapped in this nightmare together.
"I'm sorry, Mother… I was scared. I was scared," the girl whimpered through sobs, burying her face in her mother's shoulder. Her small hands clung tightly to her mother's clothing as tears soaked into the fabric.
Outside, the chaos continued. "Captain, when are we leaving? That should be all of them—and we've got all their coins and valuables packed up too. The carriages are ready to roll!" a bandit shouted, standing near a convoy of seven overloaded carriages. The wagons were stuffed with what little remained of the villagers' possessions, most of which had already been picked over by knights and looters alike.
"Gather up!!!" the captain's booming voice rang out as he stepped into the center of the village, his bloodstained sword resting across his broad shoulder. One by one, the remaining bandits assembled in the square, forming a ragged, ill-disciplined circle around their leader—none of them aware of the shadow watching them from above.
Perched silently on the rooftop of the city hall, Ali stood like a phantom dressed in black. With practiced precision leaping silently from the rooftop.
Like a blur, he landed directly among a cluster of fifteen unsuspecting bandits.
Time seemed to freeze.
The bandits barely had a chance to register the presence of the masked intruder when Ali struck. His body flowed like liquid death—arms like coiled steel, black veins pulsing with force. His hands moved with the precision of a master executioner.
STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB. STAB.
Each motion was deadly. Ali drove his fingers through their throats and jugulars, ripping through flesh and windpipe with a single brutal strike. Necks split open like ripe fruit under the pressure. Heads toppled clean from shoulders, blood spraying in dark, arterial bursts. In three seconds flat, all fifteen bandits were dead—decapitated, their bodies collapsing like discarded puppets.
"Intruder!" the captain shouted, his voice echoing into the streets, heard even within the hall where the captives trembled. The men chained on the street leading out to the village centre looked toward the square and saw the lifeless bodies of the captain's men lying in a bloody heap.
"Where is HE?" the captain roared, wild-eyed and frantic now. The ten remaining bandits near him trembled. Two of them lost control of their bladders, the acrid scent of urine filling the air.
AHHH—
UGH—
The death cries of more comrades came from all directions. The bandits turned their heads in every direction but could see no enemy. At the edge of the village, by the wagons, the captain caught a glimpse—six more bodies lay beheaded near the carriages.
Then, like a ghost emerging from the shadows, Ali appeared once more—just a few feet in front of him.
"Right here," Ali said with ice in his tone, walking toward the captain with deliberate, terrifying calm.
"Twelve seconds to kill thirty-seven of you… Not bad," he muttered to himself, calculating the slaughter like an artist reviewing his brushstrokes.
Then, Ali raised his arm and clenched his hand into a tight fist.
POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP.
All ten heads exploded in perfect unison. The gruesome sound of skulls bursting echoed through the village square like thunder. Blood, tissue, and shards of bone painted the air and fell like rain, coating the captain's body in a grotesque wash of crimson.
HEH. HEH. HEH. HEH.
The captain's breath grew ragged. He trembled, panic setting in as he wiped blood from his eyes with a trembling hand. The massive sword slipped from his grip and clattered to the ground with a dull clang. He stumbled back instinctively, eyes wide in disbelief.
"Really? That's it? You can't do the glowing sword thing?" Ali asked, tilting his head slightly, voice dripping with mockery.
The captain turned tail and bolted, his boots slipping on the blood-drenched ground. He burst through the double doors of the village hall in desperation—only to slip once more, this time falling face-first into the room.
Inside, the women shrieked in terror, backing away as the monstrous bulk of their tormentor slid across the floor and crashed to a stop.
He was covered head to toe in blood, his grotesque form twitching with fear….
——————-
Now that's a big one, biggest chapter so far
Please donate some of your power stones, it would help my ff massively.
If you want to support my work and get Five chapters ahead of webnovel : patreon.com/Rondo312