12 Withered Heart
Zephyr dodged the bandit's steel sword and grabbed it with his naked hand. Increasing his grip, he effortlessly threw the bandit together with his sword into the sky.
Arlo had given him a simple mission while he was away in the nearby town. Apparently, he had ordered a Bronze-Rank Mission for Zephyr, a nine star one. The Bandit Cave he was about to enter, had several Mages and cultivators leading to this danger level.
A Magic Circle appeared in front of a group of mages, judging by the type of chant and magic circle, Zephyr managed to find out that they were going to use a Rank 2 Mana Spell.
A short knife appeared from Zephyr's sleeve and he caught it with his palm, then throwing it at the main mage. The focus of the group was thrown into disarray.
"Who the fuck is this brat…"
One of the bandit leaders frowned. A bit of fear started to emerge from the depths of his eyes. In his several decades of being a criminal, he had never seen something like this. He didn't really have much time to think about it though, as a blade pierced his forehead, rendering him fully dead.
The remaining bandits shivered and retreated in fear. The boy before them was no kid, he was the devil itself.
"I guess it is time I end this." Zephyr muttered to himself before unleashing a wave of raw Qi, knocking out all but one bandit, by 'knocking out' it meant killing.
"Where is Earl Richard's Treasure Chest?" Zephyr asked with a calm tone.
"Wha- why would you ask about it?!" The bandit chief gulped, his hands shivering. Any thought of fighting back was quickly erased.
Zephyr's hand struck first, pulling the bandit chief's tongue out of his mouth, almost separating it from his body. "I asked you a question, not for you to send one back to me, but for you to fucking answer it."
Noticing the fearful look the bandit chief was sending him, his lips formed a smile and he released the tongue. "Speak, your mongrel. I don't have time to waste on you."
"It's…"
~~
It didn't really take long for Zephyr to complete his first mission as part of Red Dawn. The emblem of the Withered Heart was given to him even before he meet a single member of the team of six; well now that number was seven.
He didn't take a long time to find Arlo as well, he found the young man easily devouring plates of food after plates of food. Zephyr just hoped Arlo had enough money to pay for the balance afterwards.
The two left the village pretty quickly, Zephyr got paid for completing the mission and Arlo did the transaction for him. He was given plenty of money, enough to last for several months if he lived the easy way.
Turns out that Arlo was a master of Mana Manipulation, a Mana Master. People of his type didn't really rely on Spells most of the time, instead relying on pure Mana movement. They were flexible and powerful.
When Zephyr had fought him, he was only using about 40% to 50% of his full strength. The lack of actual Mana Manipulation had handed him the win however.
Personally, Zephyr was going to enter a serious-mode. The next few years were going to be harsh on his personality. It was divided between chosing this or staying with some dumb people for several years however.
The choice for him was too obvious. Although Zephyr was slightly aligned to the light-side, he wouldn't hesitate to kill either. Killing was not something he was unfamiliar with.
~~
"Sir, like you told me, I ordered my lackeys to invite him to the organization. As expected, he did indeed join our cause. I also made him join the Withered Heart Team, what else do you want me to do sir?"
Darkness painted the room's space. There were no windows to let light enter and explore it, this was done for many reasons.
"Good, no further actions are required… In fact, there is one. Remember Project Sunshine?" A rough voice resonated in the room, unlike the previous shadow-like tone of the other person.
"The Project which focused on giving us more and more youth prodigies we could grow into monsters… It was a fearsome project indeed."
" I want the last remaining member of that project to join a Silver Rank Team as well, not the same one as that boy, a healthy rivalry will benefit us."
"Understood."
~~
Zephyr was exasperated to a certain degree. Their original destination was to leave the kingdom, which they had done, but entering this new kingdom was becoming more and more weird.
The local border guards had found them sneaking due to Arlo being a lazy person, and chased them for several dozens of meters.
They had reported the appearance of them to the local cities, thus giving them time to get ready incase the two ever stepped in said cities.
Zephyr had grown both in terms of physical appearance and 'maturity' in the eyes of Arlo. Although the latter was acting silly, in fact this was just a way of him trying to find where Zephyr's mental limits lied.
Although the journey they had done was not even equal to a month, they had taken alternative roads several times due to being followed by the local guards.
Despite being only seven and some months old, Zephyr's body suggested otherwise. To most people he looked like the average ten year old kid. Mostly due to the fact he was strict to himself and trained beyond a normal human's capabilities.
His facial features were getting more and more defined, the one thing which definitely scared him the most was the oddly perverted stares he occasionally received. He was familiar to those, he usually just spread out some Qi to keep them away… but it did not always work.
He was brought out of his thoughts by none other than Arlo who was growing impatient on having to wait for Zephyr to finish with his business.
~~
"They are both late."
A voice sounded off. It wasn't hard to notice for a fact, that the person speaking was very annoyed.
"We'll just have to wait for them, Arlo isn't the type to make people wait, so most likely a mishap happened during their journey. Maybe the Kingdom's forces intercepted them. After all Arlo is a criminal."
"Let's hope so. If it was just merely… their own fault, I'll tell boss all about it, then he can deal with their reward reduction all alone."
They were part of the Withered Heart Team, unlike May and Mars who were cousins, the two were completely unrelated to each other when it came to blood relations.
Meres, part Dark Elf part Light Elf. Due to not being accepted by either kingdom, he was forced to live in what everyone called the Underground Abyss. What made him special from the rest of the elves was the fact that his skin was neither black or dark brown and neither was it white, it was light brown. He had blonde hair, something Dark Elves lacked as well.
In fact even most humans who had grown to not differ humans from other races, found it amazing at how such a specimen could exist. Not like Meres could give a fuck about them either way.
The Underground Abyss was not a place anyone would want to visit… for many reasons.
The person next to him was a Demi-human or a Demi-Beast, whatever your preferences might be, usually he called himself a Beastman however. One could easily differ him from humans due to the fact a furry tail was sticking out of his butt and he had a pair of wolf ear.
The Demi-Human's name was Sion.
Both of them did not look that old in terms of appearance, somewhere in their mid to early twenties.
Sion sighed,"Here they are, they'll be here in less than fifteen minutes if they continue at their pace. Get ready Meres."
"Finally, I was growing more and more impatient."
"They stopped….At a tavern, this is of concern, Meres we will have to go towards them it seems." Sion spoke with a hint of bewilderment visible in face.
"Odd indeed, but let's wait a bit. Perhaps Arlo has a visit of importance to someone inside that tavern."
~~
Zephyr looked around carefully, his task given to him by Arlo was to guard the door of this Tavern, who despite barely holding any person inside seemed to hold immense importance to the older man.
Using Qi to enhance his senses and body muscles, it was not really that hard for him to notice the slightest of movements. It did not come as a shock, to him when he noticed two figures calmly approaching him.
"I apologize but due to orders from a acquaintance I cannot allow you to pass through me." He slightly opened his eyes and lowered his head. Meres and Sion blinked and looked at each other.
