The air around the dirt road felt increasingly heavy and suffocating.
Calian stared straight at the mob of armed men in front of him. His pair of purple eyes, which usually always radiated calmness like a lake in winter, now sharpened. Beneath the calmness of his face lay a burning anger that could barely be contained.
Their action of just unleashing dozens of duplicated arrows with the intent to kill Wolvin was an absolute violation he could not forgive.
"What... what did you do, brat?!" shouted Silgard, his voice cracking slightly, unable to believe what he had just witnessed. His common sense still rejected the fact that his subordinates' dozens of lethal projectiles had been neutralized in an instant.
"What did I do?" Calian repeated in a voice that sounded extremely flat, yet every syllable trembled with restrained anger. "I simply prevented your dirty hands from killing my beloved spouse."
Silgard's brow furrowed sharply. He looked at Calian, then at the black-haired beastfolk youth standing not far behind him. His shock gradually turned into a mocking smirk.
"Your spouse?" replied the man, snorting dismissively. "Is that Night Wolf youth your spouse?"
"Yes, he is my spouse!" Calian answered without the slightest hesitation, his voice echoing firmly amidst the silence. "And I will never forgive anyone who tries to hurt, let alone intends to take the life of the most precious person in my life!"
Hearing such a protective declaration, the silence broke. Silgard suddenly burst into laughter, his laugh sounding rough and hoarse. Shortly after, the laughter was followed by his comrades who also smirked degradingly.
"Are you and him in a same-sex marriage?" said Silgard in a loud voice laden with provocation. He looked at Calian with a gaze of disgust. "Are you so pathetic that you do not have any female friends to sleep with? Or... do you indeed have a deviant taste and are only interested in mating with an animal like that Night Wolf? Hahaha!"
The insult hung in the air, but Calian did not react to the sickening laughter at all. He just stood frozen, letting them laugh at him.
"I do not mind if you insult me, and I will accept it in silence." Calian said quietly, yet his voice somehow managed to stop their laughter. He slowly began to take one step forward. "But, I will never offer forgiveness to anyone who dares to insult my spouse. By insulting the beastfolk race that is fully protected by imperial law, you have committed a severe crime."
Silgard spat on the ground, unintimidated by the warning about the law.
"Beastfolk are fundamentally just animals!" shouted Silgard, his tone growing louder and full of deep-rooted racial hatred. "They are more suited to be chained, kept as pets, or sold as slaves in the black market!"
Right after that highly degrading sentence left the former commander's mouth, the air around Calian seemed to freeze. The youth's previously calm facial expression was now completely enveloped in a dense killing intent.
In the back row, Wolvin, who was the target of the insult, did not look angry at all. The Night Wolf youth instead folded his arms across his chest and could only shake his head in pity.
He is truly foolish. Wolvin thought while sighing in resignation, looking at the mob of enemies as if looking at a row of walking corpses. When my husband has put on a facial expression like that... he will definitely eradicate all of you immediately. You will not even realize how you died.
Feeling displeased by the sharp glare of the purple-haired youth, Silgard immediately chanted his spell and aimed one of his hands forward.
"Die in my cage!"
The ground's surface around where Calian stood instantly trembled violently. In less than a second, thick, pitch-black iron bars burst out from within the ground, shooting upwards to form an absolute cage that would imprison the youth.
The appearance of the iron bars was so fast it left almost no room to evade. However, to someone who mastered the concept of time, physical speed was meaningless.
Just as the iron bars had shot up to the height of his neck and were about to close at the roof, Calian's purple eyes stared sharply, full of tranquility.
'Stasis'...
That single trigger word was spoken in his heart. Instantaneously, time stopped turning.
The colors around him faded to gray. The rumbling sound of the earth vanished into absolute silence. The dust flying in the air froze in place.
Everyone, from the bandit group, the Black Axe party members, Eralio along with his workers, to Wolvin, stood rigidly without being able to move a single muscle. Time had come to a total halt.
Amidst that silent world, only Calian could move. He glanced at the black iron pillar that had stopped growing just a few inches in front of his face. With highly efficient movements, the youth climbed it, using one of the tips of the frozen iron bars as a foothold, then leaped over the top boundary of the incompletely closed cage.
Calian landed smoothly on the ground, completely out of the [Prison Cage] area.
He then walked with calm steps, approaching Silgard who was still frozen with his hand stretched forward, as if boasting about his delayed spell. The man's facial expression still retained a smile of victory that now looked extremely foolish.
Once the distance was only a span left, Calian slowly drew the longsword from the scabbard at his waist. The sound of metal scraping clinked softly in that silent world. He raised his sword, pressing the extremely sharp tip of the blade right above Silgard's left chest, exactly where the man's heart was located.
With a cold gaze devoid of mercy, Calian canceled his Stasis.
Like a tape being played again, color and sound exploded back into the real world.
"You will not be able to escape fro—"
Silgard was about to continue his mocking sentence, believing that his spell had successfully trapped his prey.
However, when the flow of time returned to normal...
Zrash!
Before Silgard could blink, a strong thrust from Calian's hand drove the steel sword piercing through the leather armor, tearing the flesh, until it embedded deeply and shattered his heart.
The man jerked violently. His eyes bulged almost out of their sockets. He looked down with the remnants of his rapidly fading consciousness, staring at a sword that had suddenly pierced his chest. Fresh blood instantly spurted out from the stab wound, staining his clothes.
Everyone on the battlefield gasped in horror. They were so shocked they could not breathe. In their eyes, the purple-haired youth was still inside the iron cage one millisecond ago. And in the next millisecond, he was already standing outside the cage, with his sword piercing the bandit leader's chest.
In their eyes, his movements were truly incredibly fast and undetectable.
"I have warned you. I will never let anyone who has insulted my spouse continue to breathe in this world." Calian said coldly, his voice as cold as ice right in the ear of the dying Silgard. "And after you, your comrades who laughed earlier will soon follow."
Mercilessly, the youth pulled his sword out with one rough yank. Splatters of blood painted the ground's surface.
Thud!
Silgard's body instantly lost its strength and slumped onto the dirty ground. The former Molcan Kingdom commander died instantly, his eyes wide open carrying absolute confusion to the end of his life.
Calian flicked the blood off his sword blade, then turned his gaze toward Holvis Gultern. The man standing next to Silgard's corpse looked deathly pale, his body trembling violently, still in shock over his comrade's death that had occurred supernaturally.
"Young man, be careful!"
Eralio's panicked shout suddenly rang out from the direction of the carriage. The middle-aged man yelled with a tense face. "The man next to the corpse is named Holvis Gultern! He is a fallen former noble from the Molcan Kingdom, as well as the possessor of the [Unconditional Luck] blessing! Do not give him a chance, he will always find absolute luck if you fight him for long!"
Hearing his name called and the secret of his power exposed, Holvis snapped out of his shock. Panic ruled his common sense. Realizing that he could not possibly win against the purple-haired monster in front of him, he looked for a weakness in the opposing camp.
"Damn it! Kill that old, loud-mouthed fat man! Shoot him now!" Holvis shouted hysterically, giving a random order to his subordinates who were still holding weapons, intending to create a diversion so he could escape using his luck.
However, before any of Holvis's comrades could move their bows or swing their swords...
'Stasis'.
The flow of time froze once again.
In absolute silence, Calian moved like an untouchable angel of death. He stepped casually past the frozen Holvis.
With highly efficient and highly precise sword movements, Calian slit the throat and pierced the vital organs of every armed man who had previously joined in laughing degradingly at Wolvin. He moved from one target to another calmly, dealing death in its most silent form.
After ensuring all threats had been neutralized, he walked back and stood right in front of Holvis, then canceled his spell.
Time began to tick again.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Heavy thudding sounds echoed consecutively like a choir of death. Without any screams or resistance, the dozen armed men who were Holvis's comrades slumped to the ground in unison. They all died in a gruesome state, blood pooling from their necks and chests, staining the dirt road a deep red.
Holvis stood alone, surrounded by the corpses of his comrades who had been killed in the blink of an eye by a terrifying and undetectable attack that no amount of luck could ward off.