Thwack!

Everyone heard the sound in the distance. It was dark and Feira most likely couldn't see much of what had happened, but she would know.

Aiden intentionally didn't look at her. He had given his all into that singular shot. As for her bet? He hadn't been hesitant to take it because he knew Zen well enough. Feira giving him a chance to only lay out his terms and conditions was a rookie move. He knew how to place an offer that Zen would find himself unable to refuse. He knew his friend that well.

[You have learnt foundational skill Precise shot (Mastery 02.01%)]

He turned and revealed the notification to everyone. Feira's eyes widened in surprise. She limited the expression to her eyes in a good show of control.

Aiden held out his hand and Valdan placed the second arrow in it. He drew the arrow all the way to his cheek, aimed, and released it.

Thwack!

[You have learnt foundational skill Steady Aim (Mastery 02.01%)].

He revealed the same and Ted burst into laughter. "You've got to be kidding me."

Feira muttered something under her breath that Aiden did not catch. Zen looked overly impressed.

Valdan handed a third arrow to Aiden.

"Money shot," Ted announced. "For seven gold coins. Win or lose."

Aiden nocked, drew and released.

Thwack!

[You have learnt foundational skill Steady Breath (Mastery 02.01%)].

Ted guffawed in absolute entertainment when Aiden revealed the third notification. He laughed so hard that he had to lean on Valdan.

"That's just trippy," he said, still laughing.

Aiden turned to Feira who looked as if her head was going to explode and, in an uncharacteristic display of expression even for him, smirked.

"Welcome to the team."

…

The battle was long since over. It had been short and quick, as expected. The town hadn't put up much of a fight. Their soldiers had fought and died. Anyone with half a skill capable of fighting back had fought and died.

It had been an easy conquest, like fighting children.

Still, Oyedi's soldiers were not without loss. According to the report he had gotten, the group he had sent in had lost almost twenty men.

There was also a report of at least one dead man outside the city walls. It meant that a few indigenes of the town had escaped. Now, his war was something of a race against time. He had intended on sacking the town, taking it for everything it had, and ending every life within it. Success meant that there would be no one to reveal much about his soldiers.

Everything does not always go according to plan, he thought to himself.

It had been more than a day since the battle. He had sat down in his tent waiting for the news of victory. It had been expected. Then it had come. Ebube had not come with it.

Oyedi waited patiently. Ebube would return with the woman of his choice. Or not. There was always the possibility that she had refused to come with him. Perhaps that would've been enough to put an expression on the boy's face, to break his heart.

Heartbreak was a possible reason for the delay. In the end, however, Oyedi had been forced to rise from his tent and come into the town.

Walking its quiet streets, he took in the chaos. He had soldiers cleaning the place, gathering the corpses, burning them.

Shamans cast cleaning runes and their shamanic enchantments. The town was being put together very quickly.

Something worried Oyedi as he walked, though. There were rumors of some kind of intruder arriving in the town, a person who had seemingly walked out of the shadows and had been simply unstoppable.

The rumor moved through the ranks, walking with fear by its side. Some people claimed that it could've been the Immortal. However, when asked about what happened to the person, no one could give an answer. At least not a certain answer.

Two people spoke of how he had gone running off into the distance, but nobody was sure where exactly the person had gone.

"My king."

Oyedi paused his stroll. A soldier stood in front of him in apt salutation. He returned the woman's salutation.

The expression on the woman's face told him that there was bad news to be given. Oyedi steeled his expression. The first thing he had done when he entered the town was to send men out. If Ebube was in the town, they were to bring him to him.

It seemed that they would not be bringing Ebube to him.

"Show me," he commanded, expression rigid.

The soldier saluted once more and turned away. She held her spear in her hand, and another was strapped to her back. A dual wielder.

She walked in professional silence, and Oyedi strolled behind her, still taking in the town. He had walked its reaches with Ebube not that many days ago. The small market where they had watched children play with reckless abandon was scorched now, blackened. It was nothing but a mess of ruins. Stalls had fallen to fire. Wares were desiccated and ruined.

So was the way of war.

The lady led him farther in and Oyedi began picking out enough landmarks. He knew where they were heading, he knew where she was taking him.

It wasn't long before they came upon the house. Oyedi stood in front of it. The building was nothing but a wreckage. Too many parts of it were broken. Walls were gone—nothing but crumbled debris on the ground. He stood outside, amidst the bodies of his soldiers.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

A thoughtful frown crossed his lips. On his way here, he had seen only a handful of bodies belonging to his men. Five, maybe. Eight at the most.

Here, they littered the grounds in droves. These men and women had stood their ground here, facing off against a powerful enemy… or powerful enemies.

He turned in place, surveying the grounds.

"Only ours?" he asked his guide.

She turned to face him at attention and nodded. "Yes, sire."

Oyedi nodded. He did not see Ebube.

"How many dead?" he asked.

The lady looked around. "Twelve, sire."

He nodded. It was in the life of soldiers to die in battle. These men and women had died doing what they were supposed to do. He would not mock their sacrifice with sadness, regret or pity. Instead, their deaths would be celebrated.

"Is he among them?" he asked, even though he knew the answer.

The woman shook her head, then stood to the side. The action seemed to say that they were inside the building.

"A few shamans are keeping the building intact," she explained. "He is inside."

Oyedi nodded, walking past her.

He arrived at the house and its lacking walls but walked through the open space where there had most likely once been a door.

The carnage presented itself to him then.

The living room was turned upside down. What had possibly once been a humble and orderly space now lay in ruins. Wooden stools and chairs had been knocked over, legs snapped clean through. Pieces strewn across the floor. The table, large enough to probably seat four people comfortably, heavy and worn from years of use, had been shoved sideways. Its surface was scratched. Its rounded corners cracked and broken. There was a specific spot Oyedi figured someone's head had gone through. There was just a pattern about it.

On the walls, a small shelf hung crooked, with several of its contents knocked to the floor. A cracked cup, a carved wooden figure, a spoon or two. Those who had lived here had lived simple lives. Oyedi turned, intentionally ignoring the corpses. There were gouges in the ground, like claw marks.

Sword marks too.

Now, he turned and looked at the corpses. The first one he looked upon was Ebube. There were cuts and bruises all over his body, minor injuries by Oyedi's estimate. But the boy had died with a frozen expression. Oyedi moved over to him and squatted. He looked into the boy's open eyes.

He had died in pain. It was clear from the look in his eyes.

Pain and fear.

Oyedi had hoped to one day see a real expression on the boy's face. He had not expected it to be so soon. He had not expected it to be an expression so bad from an emotion so strong it remained on him even in death. His entire body had folded in on itself and his hands weren't far from his head.

Pain and fear, he thought. What kind of enemy did he face?

Placing his hand on Ebube's face, he closed the boy's eyes with two fingers. "Death is not the end," he muttered. "Merely the beginning of a new journey."

Getting up, he moved on to the others.

"Bring me a [Time Walker]," he said, dismissing the soldier with him.

"Yes, sire."

Her footsteps announced her departure.

The remaining corpses belonged to the steel-boned. One lay face down in a puddle of his own blood. The blood was dry now, caked, and some of it had already seeped into the ground.

Oyedi kept a frown from his face. This corpse, like Ebube's, had cuts and injuries, but they were deeper, some even fatal. What grated at Oyedi, however, was the cause of death.

A stab wound to the back of the neck.

"He didn't get to look in his killer's eyes when he died," Oyedi muttered, shaking his head.

He got up from the man and moved on to the next. It was an unrecognizable corpse. A corpse on its knees, black as coal. This man had somehow been burned alive. But there was something off about it. Something different about a man who had been burned alive.

Oyedi touched its jaw. It was sealed tight. He put a little extra effort into his grip and the jaw cracked open. Flakes of ash and burnt skin fell to the ground.

A contemplative sound rumbled in Oyedi's throat as he touched the man's tongue. It was roasted. He could tell the difference between something boiled to burning or something that had simply been roasted. He had seen more than enough people burn for different reasons.

Burnt from inside and out, he noted as he got up. He turned his head, looked at the last corpse. It was a body filled with blisters. Poison, most likely.

"Just what was this city hiding?" he wondered out loud. "What was this family hiding?"

Two steel-boned had deemed the opponent deadly enough for them to use their manifesting skills, yet they had died so… Oyedi didn't want to use the word 'pathetic.' They had given it their all and died in battle. Even if outclassed or outnumbered or outleveled, death on the battlefield was not pathetic.

He turned his head at the sound of footsteps in time to catch the salutation of the soldier. Beside her was a man in a swathe of grey cloth. It was a single length of cloth, wrapped properly around him and fastened in a knot over one of his shoulders. He looked like he was in his thirties.

The man bowed at the waist.

"Have you reached the threshold?" Oyedi asked him.

The man managed a nod even while his head was bowed. "Yes, My king."

"Have you crossed it?"

"Yes, My King."

Oyedi nodded in appreciation. "Then you won't just be able to tell me what happened here. You will be able to show me."

"Yes, my king."

"Good."

Oyedi moved over to a broken chair. Its legs were still intact, but it had lost its backrest. It was a crude thing, a simple thing. It was made from nothing but wood and looked as if it had been designed with the expectations of being broken.

Oyedi picked it up and placed it against a wall. He sat down and leaned back regally. To the [Time Walker] he gestured to the room.

"Begin."

The [Time Walker] stood at the center of the room and held his hands out. Oyedi felt the ambient mana move slightly. A moment later, he watched his men fight against a single shadow. The room had been in order in the beginning. Then the man barged in. There had been chaos. Another man broke in through the wall. Another steel-boned rushed in.

Oyedi took it all in with a certain level of curious detachment.

He leaned in after a while, brows furrowed. A single enemy.

The second man that had been thrown into the building had left with the boy and girl. Then his men had faced off against the only man left.

He is skilled, Oyedi noticed, watching how he fought off three men, weaving and ducking and stunting all over the place. He gave as good as he got.

Oyedi nodded as the man sacrificed his hand to stop a spear to the face when he could neither evade or block.

Weaker men would've hesitated to make that sacrifice, and they would've died for it.

The battle lulled. The man held his hand out to the others, then the vision fluctuated. What had once been a blackened silhouette of their opponent became a wraith-like apparition.

Oyedi looked at the [Time Walker] and saw a sudden strain on his face. The man who had killed his men had done something strong, something powerful. Most likely a manifesting skill that affected the space around him and was quite strong.

Getting up from the chair, Oyedi walked up to the [Time Walker] and stood next to him.

"Has the task become difficult?" he asked.

The man hesitated before nodding. "Yes, My King."

"Impossible?"

"No, My King."

Oyedi nodded. "Then continue."

The [Time Walker] continued. Oyedi watched his men lose terribly. He watched their opponent ruin them, burn one alive, blight one, then inflict pains the likes of which caused Ebube's form in the vision to simply explode.

When the entire thing was over, he looked at the [Time Walker]. Can you track him? He wanted to ask. But he already knew the answer. Time walking was often about the now or the past.

But there were mythical [Time Walker]s. They existed, rarer than [Time Walker]s themselves. Onye na ga-niro, they were called amongst his people. People who walked ahead.

They were [Time Walker]s with the ability to move forward in time in their own different ways.

"My King."

Oyedi turned his head once more. A part of him was tired. A part of him wanted to rest. With the death of Ebube, he felt like claiming this town had already cost him too much.

"Yes?" he answered.

"We have an update on who we possibly caused this," a man with a spear strapped to his back said, saluting as he entered the house through its broken wall.

I guess there is good news.

"What is the update?"

At his question, Telma walked in. She was one of the only four bearing the class of [Battle Archer] among his ranks. She was a talk woman, muscular as a man. She had a bad habit of wearing skimpy clothes and shirking armor of any kind.

The first thing Oyedi noticed was the absence of her enchanted bow. The second thing was her almost hollow eyes. The third was an injury festering in her side. It was a large gash.

"Why is your wound not treated?" he asked. It was almost two days since the battle, and he knew the [Battle Archer] to be often stubborn.

"I have tried potions of every kind, my King," she said respectfully. "Now that the Shamans are here, I intend to submit myself to them."

Oyedi nodded. "I don't see your bow."

Pain crossed Telma's face, fresh and hot. "The man who did this to me took it."

"Interesting."

Oyedi turned and walked back to the seat he had been occupying. He adjusted upon it until he was comfortable. His next words were said with interest and seriousness.

"Tell me about this man."

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