Chapter 2

"Let's see what the world looks like shall we?" Noctis said curiosity abound in his voice, Sofy too coming close to get a better look, the knights standing guard all perking their ears and sharpening their eyes to get a better look.

Within the map lay a messy legend at the top right of the paper, the X is where the village is, and the red circles are the other villages, names are underneath each dot, the map although badly made and of poor quality still gave a good indication of what direction these places were, several markers such as especially large tree's and strangely shaped rocks as markers to show if you are close.

This village had no one, as it was newly made and no one had given it one, only standing for a decade.

The nearest village being a village of around the same size as this one, about sixty people in all, them being murderers the lot of them making them stronger than this village if not for the gems which were now in his possession.

"We strike here tomorrow, for now we sleep and fortify this position as a temporary base." Saying so Noctis rolled up the map and placed it on the inside of his shirt.

"And you five will clean this warehouse up, put everything in order and groups, make it clean." Saying so he left to the nicest house in the village that being the barbarians village.

"So we will attack that village at dawn but what will we do with them? Will we simply take them all as soldiers or kill them for power?" Once they arrived within the barbarians house Sofy spoke out curiously about his intentions.

"We will take those who we can as mindless soldiers for the knights, and have the knights execute any who resist for their growth, you and I will take the strongest in the village, and you will absorb their soul since you are so close to breaking through." Saying so he threw himself onto the massive bed in the barbarians hut.

Surprisingly the bed was clean and very comfortable, the bed being massive was also a big plus allowing for a lot of room while sleeping, never in his whole life had he even imagined to be able to sleep in such a nice bed.

Meanwhile Sofy stood shyly off to the side of the bed looking at Noctis enjoying the feeling of the bed, her face beet red, after all she too is just sixteen year old and being inside a bedroom with a man was just a bit too much for her still immature heart.

"This bed is so comfortable! Try it!" Rolling all around the bed Noctis completely threw his tough exterior away rolling around like a child.

A smile finally appearing on her beet red face she too jumped onto the bed indulging in how soft it was.

After rolling around for a long while, Noctis fell asleep, he had not slept for three days, and in these three days he had killed and plundered and had a near death experience and in fact died once.

Tired beyond imagination he dropped like a stone, going into a deep sleep.

Seeing this Sofy too laid down and tried going to sleep, unconsciously getting closer to him till she had wrapped her arms around him, only then being able to sleep soundly, but unknown to her a small smile had appeared on Noctis' lips.

Both of them slept till night fall, waking up only once night fell.

Noctis was the 'first' to wake up, seeing her arms wrapped around him he decided to postpone getting up and simply enjoyed the feeling of being held, such a feeling being so far from him in all his years of life.

Yet unknown to him Sofy had woken up several hours before unable to keep sleeping, but instead woke up, yet stayed hugging him, enjoying the feeling, a small smile appearing on her face when she realized he had woken up as well, but decided to lie back down with her.

Only after realizing that he had been fooled when her heartbeat quickened did he 'wake up.'

"We should get going to that village, the night is young but the village is far." Saying so he sat up, Sofy's too getting up, though both of their feelings seemed to resonate then, a feeling of loss.

Heading outside all of the knights were all ready and waiting, standing in front of the hut, swords and spears upon their backs, "We greet Master and Lady, horses were found in the nearby woods, we captured twenty eight of them." The first part was spoken by all but the second part was spoken by the same man who had spoke before about their names, Marcus.

"Then we ride to the village now." Saying so Noctis stretched out his soul power as much as possible discovering the horses a little ways away, this ability to perceive things had been obtained when he broke through, but unraveled during his sleep, however the ability was much too taxing only being to keep it up for three seconds before becoming exhausted and at less than fifty percent power.

Walking towards the horses almost all of them became silent and submissive under the naturally leaking pressure that only animals could perceive, all but one, clearly much more powerful than the others, a black stallion sneered when feeling the pressure not backing down.

Looking towards it Noctis eyes flashed with determination and resolve, "You will be my horse." Saying so he moved towards the horse, but before he could take more than three steps it charged at full speed ramming into him.

Had he not broken through before the power of this charge would have seriously injured him but now it could only make his breathing a little more labored, taking the charge head on he ducked down, leaning forward and went under its head and slammed into its chest with force, bringing it to a complete stop, unable to move forward at all.

Even when it's eyes turned red and it went berserk it still could not budge at all, simply forced to stay till finally it gave in.

Its eyes watery, it's pride hurt, "You are a strong horse, you nearly took me down with that first charge, but I got lucky, so won't you be my steed?" Saying so Noctis reached out with an apple in his hand.

A look of burning passion entered the horses eyes as it stood up suddenly like a doll brought back to life, looking straight into Noctis' eyes it snorted and ate the apple, lowering its head.

Taking this chance Noctis branded the horse as one of his subordinates, leaving it with its intelligence, a kind of brother hood flashing into existence between them, no words needed their eyes conveying it all.

Getting onto his back he looked around only to realize everyone else had long since mounted their own steeds.

Coming close atop her beautiful white steed Sofy spoke, "You two will have more than enough time to indulge in your brotherhood later, now we must move to attack before the night ends." giggling throughout her sentence she moved her horse, Farsi, behind them.

"Then you will be my comrade, from now till eternity, so your name will the Exitum, now we march!" Saying so Noctis put power into his voice at the end, giving off the aura of a general heading to a great battle field.

The twenty five knight stood in a formation with five knights in each row and five columns, getting into this formation behind Noctis and Sofy they marched.

On horse back it took a half an hour to arrive at the village, looking at this village it's quality was on a whole different level than before, starting with the fact that guards were posted at the gate of the village, though nothing compared to a city gate, it was still much more than what the other village had.

"Halt! Who goes there?" Seeing the torches in the distance coming closer the guard who spotted it first shouted out very clearly emitting hostile intent, however before he could say anything more a dagger appeared in his heart, his companion noticing the abnormality looked over just in time to see death swing its dagger, slitting his throat.

"Clear!" Sofy said softy, with this the gate opened and the entire troop entered the village undetected, none of the villagers waking up.

"Capture all of the people of the village inside your selves, absorb enough of their souls that they are still alive but weak and bring them back here once you are full." Noctis whispered to everyone with a cold glint in his eyes dispersing into the different houses and capturing peoples souls.

It did not take long for the village to be captured within their bodies, weak and afraid, only the village chief remained, him being weaker than the previous chief, easily getting killed off by Noctis and Sofy's combination, Sofy getting the last strike.

Pain shot through her whole body, but it was much lesser than what Noctis felt, much more manageable and over faster, advancing directly to the Low Intermediate Blue Realm.

As for the nights, after absorbing so much soul power each and every one of them had stepped in the Advanced Intermediate Blue Realm.

Walking into the village center everyone gathered, "Let all of the souls out." Saying so all of the knights and Noctis as well as Sofy let the souls gathered within themselves out.

All of these people were now recovering their strength very slowly, at this point in time with just their twenty eight group they could slaughter the one hundred plus people here in this square with minimal effort.

"All of you lost, so you should all understand what comes next, but know that should your merits earn it I will give you back your intelligence." Speaking so he drew his sword for the first time since he broke through, he had not drawn his sword before on the village chief because he did not want to accidentally kill him and steal Sofy's chance at a breakthrough.

His sword was an exquisite looking blade, completely silver, looking like it had taken a piece of the moon into its self, the aura it was off was a sharp one that felt like it could cut even the hardest of armors.

"Check that out later." He thought, knowing he had to brand everyone first before trying anything. "Help me out, please." Saying so to Sofy he moved forward and started branding them, the branding itself was not too difficult, the only reason it was so labors before was because he was leaving them with intelligence, that causing the consumption to be much higher.

It would take a long time for all of the people to be converted into soldier souls, each of them being adults at the Low to Intermediate Realm, it would make for a strong force in this area.

"We take everything from the previous village and move it here, The knights will spear head the operation, Sofy and I will stay at the village and keep it safe." Saying so he sheathed his sword after finishing with all of the conversions.

"Yes, Lord!" And like that they got all of the new soldiers into marching formation, spears in the front, swords in the middle and two handlers on the flanks with archers in the back, they themselves at the front of the formation.

"Then let's go to loot around the village!" Sofy said already moving for the nearest house, but Noctis did not move rather looking around for something like a warehouse.

It did not take long to find an abnormally big building near the center of the village, looking to be the size of four normal houses combined, two floors in height, this being where the chief had come out of.

Entering alone all the entered Noctis' sight was a few trinkets here and there, "Impossible, a village this size would have more loot." Not satisfied he kept searching and searching, looking for anything suspicious.

It didn't take long to find a weirdly placed shelf, it had nothing on it and although this place was near empty, all of the shelves had at least one thing placed upon them, but this one was not only empty but also looked to well taken care of unlike the other dusty shelves.

Touching around for a while he found an abnormality, the dust on the ground was shifted by something sliding over it, "Then lets slide this big bastard!" With a shout to encourage himself he started pushing hard against the shelf, slowing moving it away, the shelf being abnormally heavier than anything he had ever touched.

A tonne of effort and shouting later he had managed to move the bloody big old shelf, revealing a passage way behind, "Then let's go shall we?"

With that in mind he began moving carefully forward, using his knowledge from his brigand days to try and spot any traps that may be abound within the passage way but to no avail, the entire passage simply not having any traps, for god knows how long later he finally arrived at a door, a heavy duty door but not as heavy as the shelf.

A strong push later he had arrived inside of the chamber and was dazzled by the wealth hidden inside, piles of gold coins were scattered all along the inside of the chamber, several gems and jewels hidden inside of the piles of gold, chests along the walls of the chamber, filled with books and other precious things.

But what really caught his eye was a gem at the end of the hall covered in gold and barely visible, its color a moon like shine, every since he entered his sword had been humming and giving off the feeling of wanting the gem.

Suppressing his urge to shout in joy at the wealth hidden here he instead moved forward, drawing his sword in front of himself, and with a single swing cutting the gem in half, abnormally brittle the gem was, but in the next second the entire world was like one of pain and suffering, a kind of unimaginable pain that struck to the very bone.

His swords humming suddenly turned into screams, grating sounds coming from the sword, his inside feeling like it was being sliced by thousand of little cuts.

An eternity later he regained his ability to move, and his swords screams turned to hums of excitement.

"What is this!?!" Shouting so he dripped blood onto his sword, intending to see what this new feeling was.

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Name: Noctis Avram

Soul: Advanced Intermediate Blue Realm

Power: Brand(126), Sword Qi

-Able to force other souls into submission by absorbing them and branding them then releasing them, creating the perfect and obedient soldiers you take a small portion of the souls they absorb as well, also can leave their intelligence if the user wishes.

Sword Qi

- Refines the soul power of the user constantly tempering his or her soul, making it more tenacious and causing the soul power to increase in purity and power, expanding Soul lines on the body and making the movement of soul power more efficient, can also be injected into another's body to attack thereby shredding their insides as wild sword Qi.

Warning: If the attack is not strong enough the sword Qi can be absorbed by the opponent, thereby making them stronger giving them a small portion of sword Qi.

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The shock of the implications of this new power ran through him like a bolt of lightning, "If this is true, then I will be invincible within my realm so long as I can cut the opponent, as they wouldn't be able to absorb it because my Soul power will be too pure for most to handle now that it is being refined constantly."

While he was thinking through all of this he looked into his body and was shot with another surprise, but it was not nearly as much of a shock, his soul fire, the thing that is absorbed when you die had become much bigger and stronger, the quality of the fire changing into having a sort of white color at the bottom, though very shallow.

This being the first time in a long time since he looked at his own soul fire he also noticed that many much smaller fires were swirling around his own, like planets around the sun, a particularly larger one than the rest floating close to his own, without needing to wonder he instinctively understood that that was Sofy's soul fragment that was used for the brand.

"So... That means, when I brand someone and keep a piece of their soul, that soul is the connection that keeps them attached, and causes them to share sort of feeling for myself?" This in mind he began playing around with the different connections, moving a few around his soul fire to see what happens, eventually an idea popped into his head but was smothered for the time being.

"So are you finally done tampering with the connections between yourself and everyone else?" It was then when he finally opened up that a cherry red Sofy came into view, her face abnormally twisted in anger for some reason, though her beauty just made it look like a cute tantrum.

"How'd you know?" He asked, curiosity running about his voice like race horses in an open field.

"Hmph!" But the question just seemed to make her more red as she turned and left fuming.

"Hey! Wait up!" Getting up hastily he sheathed his sword and headed up the stairs after her but she was already far ahead.

A good while later he arrived at the top were the knights and Sofy were standing about, Sofy red still while all of the knights looked miserable, looking towards him with complicated gazes.

"Now tell me, why are all of you like?" At this Sofy suddenly moved forward and punched him in the gut.

"Idiot!" Running off she said so, confused and feeling wronged he looked towards his men who all put their heads down, all but one, Marcus.

"Sir, She...Um, when you were... uh,*Cough Cough* when you were playing with the connection she um, well she suddenly started letting out little moans, the same with all of the men, that's why they all look miserable, and also why the miss is so mad I would wager." Saying so Marcus lowered his head, though he did not look too miserable when talking about, though he was embarrassed while talking throughout.

"I...see, well, um, thank you for telling me." Saying so he started walking out and patted Marcus' shoulder on his way.

Spreading around his soul power he found her relatively quickly, inside the biggest house in the village besides the warehouse, lying in bed completely under the covers, her face still red and her ears threatening to blow smoke.

Within the single second second he had lost one fourth of his soul power even after the breakthrough, throwing that away from his mind he started walking over to the house, picking some flowers on his way over as a sort of apology.