The silence in the clearing stretched for several seconds.
Thiriel observed the five adventurers still standing. Their faces had changed. The arrogance of a moment ago had vanished, replaced by uncertainty and fear.
The man he had struck lay on the ground, coughing up blood, his arms wrapped around his shattered stomach. The other two who had fallen with him were trying to get up, dazed, not understanding what had happened.
Too slow, Thiriel evaluated. None of them saw the blow.
Voric was the first to recover.
"Don't just stand there!" he roared. "It's only one of him! Attack all at once!"
The five adventurers lunged toward Thiriel simultaneously, their weapons glinting under the filtered light of the forest. Swords, axes, a spear. Coordinated attacks from multiple angles, designed to overwhelm a solitary target.
It was a solid tactic.
Against a normal opponent, it would have worked.
But Thiriel was not normal.
He moved.
Not backward, as they expected. Forward. Directly into the narrowest space between two of the adventurers.
The first tried to adjust his slash, but it was too late. Thiriel was already inside his guard, too close for the sword to be useful. An upward elbow strike impacted his jaw with a crack that resonated among the trees.
The man collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
The second attacker tried to step back to gain distance. Thiriel didn't allow it. He caught the hilt of the sword with his left hand, pulled hard, and used the momentum to launch a side kick that connected with the adventurer's knee.
The sound of the break was deafening.
The man howled as he fell, clutching his shattered leg.
Two down, Thiriel counted. Four left.
The others had halted their advance. They looked at their fallen companions with growing horror. This was not going as they had planned. It was supposed to be six against one. It was supposed to be easy.
"What the hell...?" one of them whispered.
Voric grit his teeth.
"It's just a trick!" he shouted, more to convince himself than the others. "He can't take all of us!"
He lunged toward Thiriel with a roar, his sword describing a horizontal arc.
Thiriel didn't stay still.
He ducked under the cut, feeling the wind of the blade pass over his head, and responded with a punch to Voric's solar plexus. The impact was brutal. The air left the man's lungs, making him feel as if he were drowning.
But Thiriel wasn't finished.
Before Voric could fall, he grabbed him by the neck and threw him against another attacker coming from his flank. The two bodies collided and rolled across the ground.
Three against one now.
Two of the remaining adventurers exchanged glances. Thiriel saw the doubt in their eyes—the survival instinct fighting against wounded pride.
The third did not hesitate.
A thin man with rat-like eyes pulled something from his belt. It wasn't a sword. It was a dagger. Small. Discreet.
He moved with a speed that betrayed specialized training in assassination. Not the training of a common adventurer.
Assassin, Thiriel identified. Or at least, trained as one.
The blade aimed for his throat.
Thiriel saw it coming.
What happened next was pure instinct.
His left hand moved like a snake, intercepting the attacker's wrist. A twist. A pull. The dagger changed owners before the man could process what had happened.
And then Thiriel drove it in.
Not into the neck. Not into the heart. Into the shoulder.
The blade sank to the hilt, piercing through muscle and tendon with ease. The man screamed, a high-pitched, animal sound that startled the birds from the nearby trees.
But Thiriel wasn't finished.
With the dagger still embedded, he grabbed the man's arm with both hands.
And he broke it.
The crack was audible. The elbow bent in the opposite direction, the bones separating with a sound that made several of the adventurers retch.
Thiriel released the body and let it fall.
The man lay on the ground, sobbing, his shattered arm hanging at a grotesque angle, the dagger still protruding from his shoulder.
That is what happens when you try to kill, Thiriel thought coldly.
The two adventurers still standing backed away.
"I-I didn't want to..." one of them stammered, dropping his sword. "This was Voric's idea. I just..."
Thiriel walked toward him.
The man raised his hands in surrender.
"Please! I surrender! I don't want—!"
Thiriel's fist connected with his elbow.
The arm snapped with the same wet sound as the ones before. The man fell to his knees, screaming, clutching the broken limb against his chest.
"The moment you decided to attack me," Thiriel said with a flat voice, "was the moment you lost your chance to walk away."
The last adventurer standing tried to run.
He didn't get far.
Thiriel reached him in three steps. A kick to the back of the knee brought him down. Before he could get up, Thiriel stepped on his ankle with force, breaking it instantly.
The scream.
The silence that followed.
Thiriel straightened up and observed the clearing.
Six adventurers. All on the ground. All with at least one broken limb. Some were still screaming. Others had lost consciousness from the pain. The smell of blood and fear permeated the air.
Voric tried to crawl toward his sword, his face contorted by pain and rage. Thiriel walked toward him and stepped on the blade before he could reach it.
The man looked up.
His eyes no longer showed arrogance. They no longer showed hostility.
Only terror.
"P-please..." he moaned. "No more..."
Thiriel observed him for a long moment.
In his previous life, he would have killed these men without hesitation. Enemies who tried to eliminate him deserved no mercy. It was the law of the battlefield, simple and brutal.
But this was not a battlefield.
And he was no longer an emperor.
"Listen carefully," Thiriel said, his voice low but clear. "Because I will only say it once."
He crouched down to Voric's level.
"What happened today does not repeat. You don't look for me. You don't look for anyone close to me. You don't talk about this with anyone else."
He paused.
"If you do, I will know. And next time, it won't just be broken bones."
Voric nodded frantically, tears mixing with the dirt on his face.
"Y-yes... whatever you say... please..."
Thiriel stood up.
He looked around the clearing one last time. The six men lay where they had fallen, some moaning, others simply trembling. The fear was palpable, so dense he could almost taste it.
This should be enough, he thought. If they are smart, they will learn their lesson.
He turned around and began to walk back toward the main path.
Behind him, the moans and sobs continued. No one spoke. They only watched him walk away with eyes that would never forget what they had witnessed.
The way back to Oakhaven was quiet.
Thiriel walked unhurriedly, his mind processing the day's events. The fight had been... instructive. Not because of the difficulty, which had been minimal, but because of what it had taught him about his own progress.
Six Silver Rank adventurers, he reflected. And none could touch me.
Two months ago, that same fight would have been a challenge. He would have had to use the Magic Warrior Aura to its maximum. He would have taken hits.
Today, he hadn't needed any of that.
Just his natural speed. His enhanced strength. His decades of experience finally showed a glimpse of his past, thanks to his physical training.
The training is working, he concluded. But it's still not enough.
The Alpha wolf had pushed him to the limit. Vexar, even wounded, had been capable of doing real damage. And if the organization behind the mage decided to seek him out...
He needed to be stronger.
Much stronger.
The walls of Oakhaven appeared on the horizon as the sun began to set. Thiriel passed through the gates without the guards paying him any attention and headed directly to the Guild.
The interior was moderately full. Adventurers drinking, eating, exchanging stories. No one paid him any special attention when he approached the counter.
The usual clerk, the woman with glasses and a bored expression, looked up when he placed the wolf materials on the counter.
"Mission completed," Thiriel said. "Common wolf pack eliminated."
She examined the fangs and pelts with an expert eye.
"Everything is in order." She pushed some coins toward him. "Take your reward."
Thiriel stowed them in his spatial bag.
"Thank you."
He turned to leave, but the clerk's voice stopped him.
"By the way," she said without looking up from her records. "Voric's group left a few hours ago. They said they were going to hunt in the same area as you."
Thiriel looked at her over his shoulder.
"Oh, really?"
"Yes." She finally looked up, and there was something in her eyes that could have been a warning or curiosity. "Be careful. That group has a bad reputation."
"I'll keep it in mind."
He left the Guild without adding anything else.
The inn awaited him across the square. When he entered, the innkeeper gave him a nodding greeting from behind the counter. Thiriel nodded and headed up the stairs to his room.
Caethiriel was sitting by the window, reading by the light of the sunset. She looked up when he entered.
"Welcome back, brother." Her eyes scanned him quickly. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything is fine," he confirmed.
She studied him for a moment longer, as if looking for something he wasn't saying. Finally, she nodded.
"Dinner will be ready soon. Arielle said she would come later."
"Good."
Thiriel sat on the edge of his bed and began to take off his boots.
The day had been long.
And tomorrow would be another day of training, of missions, of growth.
Because the path to power had no shortcuts.
Only work, discipline, and time.