-Wednesday Afternoon, 2nd Of the 1st Month, Year 910-
Today is my third day traveling with the Old Man. Normally we travel during the day, sometimes taking breaks to let the horse rest. The Old Man doesn't like to travel at night, so we usually stop at the closest village, and stay at an Inn overnight. Then leave in the morning after eating breakfast. I offered to pay for my stuff, but he wouldn't let me, he kept telling me to save my money for the Entrance Exam fee.
I spent most of my time cultivating, trying to get a little stronger before the Entrance Exam starts. Sometimes I talked to the Old Man about different things. Most of the time it was about the city, he would tell me about different things I could see and buy there. Although I've never heard about most of the things he talked about, I was happy to learn more about the world outside of the mountain. As we talked I started to feel more relaxed around him.
Today we were traveling a little slower than usual, he said that there was a lot of traffic going to and from the city because of the entrance exam and festival that just ended. I asked him about the festival and he told me that in all the cities they usually hold a three-day festival to celebrate the start of a new year. I was a little sad that I wasn't able to see it this year, but the Old man said that it's held once every year so I would be able to see it next year if I passed the Exam.
Like that we continued our trip, sometimes we would pass other carriages carrying other travelers or goods. He said that the trip would be peaceful so long as bandits don’t appear. He told me that bandits were no good criminals, the type of people that would do anything for profit. If I ever encounter a bandit he said that I would have to be really careful because they are usually very cunning. I really hoped that we wouldn’t run into any, but I had a strong feeling that we wouldn’t be so lucky.
- ●●
‘It’s getting worse,’ As we were traveling down a forest trail, my bad feeling was getting worse and worse. After a few minutes, the Old Man motions for me to be quiet and stops the carriage in the middle of the path.
‘What’s going on?’ Feeling anxious I grab the hilt of my sword.
“Boy, it seems like we have trouble,” The Old Man frowns, looking at the right side of the trail.
‘Is someone there?’ I turn my eyes to the right side of the forest, but I can’t see anything, ‘There’s nothing ther-’
My eyes widen and I tighten my grip on my sword looking at the man walking out from the forest. Right after he steps out, one by one people start coming out from both sides of the trail.
‘1..2..3..4..5..6...7..8, counting the guy who came out first, that’s 9. I don’t know if I can fight that many people,’ I grit my teeth staring at the people blocking our way.
Some of them had armor and weapons, but most of them only had worn out swords and spears. The guy who came out first had armor and an axe. He looked older than the rest of them, I think he’s around David’s age.
“Oh, nevermind Kid, I said it was trouble, but it’s just a bunch of weak bandits,” The Old Man laughs with a challenging expression on his face.
Hearing what the Old man said the Oldest Bandit smirks and draws his axe, “Old Man, we’re more than enough to rob an old person and a child.”
“If that’s what you believe to be so young man,” The Old Man shakes his head.
The bandits draw their weapons and start to approach us. I draw my sword and start circulating my Qi, getting ready to counter the bandits. Watching the bandits get closer and closer my hands start trembling and sweat starts dripping from my forehead. I tighten my grip on the sword, and breathe in deeply like Dad taught me to, ‘There’s nothing to be scared of, compared to Dad they’re not strong at all! I can do this!’
“Attack!” The oldest bandit orders and they rush at us.
I step in front of the Old Man, deflecting the spear thrust at him. Taking advantage of the opening, I take another step forward and kick at his stomach. He tries to draw his spear back to block, but he’s too late. My kick hit him straight in the stomach, causing him to stumble back a few steps.
“Hu-” before I could catch my breath, another bandit’s sword comes at me from above. I crouch down and block his strike holding my sword’s hilt with both hands.
“Haah,” I put strength into my legs and jump up, sending his sword upwards. Using the opening, I kick at his waist, but another bandit blocks my kick with his own. I stumble to the side, and the bandits force their way between me and the Old Man.
I jump back, dodging the spear thrust at me making some space between me and them.
‘One on one, I’m better than them, but there’s so many of them that I can’t get a good hit in!’ I grit my teeth and take a step forward.
“This brat has some skills!” The bandit who thrust his spear at me shouts, drawing more bandits towards me.
‘I can’t protect the Old Man like this,’ I look over and his direction watching three bandits surround him.
“Old Man! You need to get out of here!” I shout at the Old Man, deflecting the sword coming at me, ‘I need to get away from these guys so I can help him!’
Again I jump back dodging the spear thrust from the front. I focus my Qi in my right leg causing it to give off a blue aura. I kick out in a sweeping motion shouting out in my mind, ‘Dragon Sweep!’
Crack! Slam! Swish! Tear!
The force of my attack lifts his legs off the ground and sends his body to the floor. Using the momentum from my kick, I roll to the side, barely dodging the sword coming down at me.
“Ugh!” I grit my teeth staring at the blood dripping from the bandit’s sword.
I jump back dodging another sword coming at me from the side. I take a few steps back and point my sword at the bandit in front of me.
“Huuu, haaa, huuu, haaa,” I take deep breaths trying to endure the pain that I never felt before, ‘Even when I sparred with Dad, he never gave me any wounds.’
Cling!
“Ughhh!” I deflect the spearing thrust at me, enduring the spike of pain coming from my back.
The bandits surround me again, taking turns attacking me, ‘Even though I took one down, I'm still outnumbered.’
Crack Crack Crack
Hearing the cracking noise coming from where the Old Man is, I turn my head with the bandits, ‘Who is that!?’
A six-foot-tall buff monster was standing above the bandits staring at them with a smirk, where the Old Man should be. His muscles were bulging and his veins popped out making him look far stronger than anyone else I’ve ever seen.
In his right hand, he was holding a bandit, screaming, “Let me go! Let me go!” trying to pull his head from the Monster’s hand. The other two bandits already dropped their weapons, their whole bodies are shaking looking at him.
“Kid, we’ve wasted enough time on these lowlifes,” He spoke in a deeper tone than before staring at me.
‘Is that really the Old Man?’ I shake my head, ‘That’s not important right now! I need to defeat these bandits!’
I Enchant my sword and charge at another bandit. The bandit quickly turns towards me, barely getting in a stance to counter. Our swords clash, and I release a Qi wave breaking his sword in half. His eyes widen seeing his sword break, but I don’t give him a chance to recover and use Dragon Sweep breaking his legs like the other guy.
‘...Two left,’ I turn around and point my sword at the bandit with a rusty spear.
“Good job Kid!” The Old Man laughs with a deep voice and throws the bandit in his hand at one of the trembling bandits, sending them into the forest.
“Boss!” The other bandit calls out to the oldest one still standing in the back.
The oldest one rushes towards the Old man, his axe glowing with a light blue aura.
“Attack the old man with me! The brat can come after he’s down!” The bandits turn to the Old Man and rush at him.
‘Ah, I can’t let them go!’ I rush forward, and block the bandit with a spear from leaving, ‘I can’t stop the other one!’
“Go! I’ll take care of this brat!” The bandit with the spear tells the bandit with the sword who was about to turn around.
“Old Man!” I call out to him trying to warn him.
“I’ll be fine! These lowlifes are only bugs!” The Old Man confronts the three bandits with a confident expression.
“Brat, you’re going to wish you hadn’t done that!” The bandit with a spear uses Enchant but unlike mine, his aura was shakier.
“Agh!” I flinch feeling a leaf brush against my wound, ‘I need to hurry and take this guy down!’
I sidestep dodging the spear thrust at me, but the thrust suddenly turns into a swing. I jump back as fast as I can, but the spear cuts my side, “Agh!”
I Enchant my sword and slash at him, he steps to the side and thrust at me. I turn and deflect his spear.
Clang! Cling!
We exchange a couple strikes before taking a step back, ‘I’ll have to use that technique to create an opening.’
I jump back a few more steps and send out a Qi Wave. Just like that time with my Dad, I send out four Qi Waves back to back in a few seconds distracting the Bandit.
‘Now!’ As soon as he breaks the third Qi Wave I charge forward, reaching his side I use Enchant pouring a lot of Qi into my sword. I slash at him with all my strength breaking his spear and opening a large wound on his chest.
“I did it!” I smile and tighten my grip on my sword.
“Huh?” I widen my eyes watching the Old Man defeat the bandits.
He slammed his fist into the ground when the Bandits jumped at him. The moment his fist slammed into the ground a large and powerful wind exploded sending all the bandits flying.
“Amazing!” I didn’t know that the Old Man was so strong.
“Good Job Kid! You beat three of them!” The Old Man stands up and walks over to me, looking at the bandits on the ground he pats my shoulder.
‘It’s over…’ My body starts to fall to the ground as my vision fades away.
Author's Note: Pyris
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the Chapter! If you want you can leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the fight! Also thanks to whoever added the story to their reading list! If you like the story feel free to do that, and if you liked the chapter, favorite it to let me know!
So I have a couple announcements to make! I've gotten a better response to the story then I thought, not only here but on Webnovel too, so I'll be increasing the release rate to 2 chapters a week! Starting next week, I'll be releasing a chapter somewhere between 6-8 pm Eastern Standard Time on Sundays and Thursdays! Second, I read over the previous chapters and realized I made a mistake with the cultivation, so I went back yesterday and the day before to fix that! But you don't need to go back and read over it, I made a post on our site explaining what I changed.
Here's the link for that: https://deceitfixation.wixsite.com/mysite/post/aod-cultivation-explanation
Read it on our site: https://deceitfixation.wixsite.com/mysite
