42 No Will To Fight

The afternoon had now bled into dusk, and very little light made its way through the canopies above. Thirteen, Ten and Nine were moving silently through the underbrush, a clear target in their minds, the position of their prey known as they closed in.

The three were gradually moving in different directions, Ten and Nine splitting off to the left and right of Thirteen respectively. Thirteen had opted not to conjure a weapon just yet, instead simply grasping a dagger. He didn't know the fighting style of Lukas Junill, and if the man underestimated the equipment present on Thirteen, he could summon a blade mid fight to devastating effect.

In his lifesight, Thirteen could see his target. A very tall man was currently surrounded by yet another two dead crater monkeys.

'That makes 14.' He thought.

'I really hope that's the end of them, or this is going to become a serious problem for every settlement nearby.'

In his vision, Lukas Junill was a few hundred meters away and had a few minor wounds. His stamina was depleted somewhat, but as an augmentor that didn't mean much. This was a newer use Thirteen had acquired for his lifesight; The ability to determine injuries and any lack of stamina.

Thirteen stopped advancing after a while, he was close enough. Now he had only to wait for Ten to make the first move. She was no longer inhibited by the dark as she had been years ago, having long completed the Fundamental realm, she was now cultivating the Spiritual Awakening realm of Qi cultivation that allowed her to awaken spiritual senses and more.

A minute of silence passed, as Thirteen watched Lukas Junill cut up and tear open the bodies of Crater Monkeys. Despite having done similar things plenty of times, Thirteen couldn't help but regard the sight as demonic.

There was no sound to issue the start. Thirteen watched his prey intently, until finally, Ten disappeared in a blur.

——

Lukas Junill was once more carving his way into a few dead monkeys, his eyes empty as he zoned out. He felt so very tired already. He done this so many times that he didn't even pay attention to his actions. His left hand grasping and moving things as his right hand broke bones and tore out obstacles. He followed the same path he had plotted out through monkey corpses so many times, making his way to the Liquor Sack.

As his mind wandered and his hands roamed by themselves, he suddenly stopped with a jolt. Like cold ice running down his spine as his hairs stood on end.

In one swift motion, Lukas withdrew his bloody, wretched smelling hands and spun around, one hand flinging the blood at the eyes of the attacker that appeared behind him, while the other came around as a powerful hook, on a collision course with the two small hands plunging a dagger toward his neck.

The frame of his attacker blurred with a short, strangely girly sound as they vanished from his sight.

Before he had time to recognize where they had gone, he heard the whistling of air and quickly got to his feet, stepping just out of range of an arrow that blew past his cheek.

"Ugh!" He exhaled, as a small stabbing pain registered on his chest. A second arrow, the real attack, had hit him squarely, and yet, Lukas simply grabbed it by the shaft and pulled, revealing that not even the entire arrow head had pierced his hard chest.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" He shouted at the woods around him.

Another figure, not the archer Lukas confirmed, shot toward him from yet another direction, a dagger also in his hands. Lukas hated daggers. To him, their only place was as the mortal blade on the battlefield, for taking the lives of knights on the ground. To wield a dagger alone proved—in Lukas' eyes—that you were no warrior, that you cared only for murder.

Nevertheless, Lukas readied himself with his own dismantling knife, ready to trade blows with this honorless assassin.

The attacker reached him far, far swifter than Lukas could have expected, the dagger piercing forward and up, the attacker being shorter than Lukas himself.

Lukas raised his left hand upwards, holding his knife horizontally as he tried to sweep up and deflect his opponent's dagger. He wasn't experienced in knife fights, but he had the strength and durability to afford any and all mistakes, he thought.

The attacker employed incredible grace as he loosened his grip on the dagger, allowing it to rotate into a reverse grip as he raised his hand above Lukas' guarding blade, and pierced downwards, driving the dagger into lukas' hand with much more strength he had expected.

Pain shot through Lukas' left hand as he saw the dagger pierce cleanly through the meaty base of the thumb. His eyes found those of his opponent, and shock overcame him.

"A Child?" he muttered out loud. The boy couldn't be more than ten years old, with black hair and stark blue eyes. Those eyes, however, completely still in the face of combat, woke Lukas from his brief reverie.

'This could be dangerous.'

——

The opening assault had gone perfectly and horribly. The initial sequence was exactly as planned. Lukas was turned around and caught off guard by Ten's first attack, that exposed him to Nine's two arrows, the second of which stabbed the heart perfectly.

At least, it should have. But it could barely pierce the man's flesh!

Thirteen followed up, avoiding the man's deflection and managing to pierce through the his hand, but once again Thirteen was shocked at the toughness of his foe's flesh. He had to employ a great deal of strength just to pierce through.

Thirteen didn't stop, he pulled on the dagger's hilt to yank the man's arm away to little effect, and tried to rotate the arm, such that the elbow faced the ground as he delivered a left uppercut, hoping to strike the elbow with great force and disable the arm.

But he had underestimated his foe. Lukas had broken out of his shocked state very quickly, and with a deep, gravelly roar, he yanked his stabbed arm away, pulling Thirteen around slightly, ruining the uppercut aimed to disable the arm, and swiftly bringing his own right fist—as large as a gorilla's—to strike at Thirteen's body.

Thirteen braced himself perfectly, employing his awakened Control attribute to position his body perfectly. It looked like he had braced for a full impact, but in truth, that was a misdirection as his body was ready for one twist that would leave the blow glancing off the side of his chest.

Thirteen mistook the cracking of bones for the rumbling of thunder, as incredible pain shot through his side, only that perfect deflection keeping him alive.

Flying tens of meters away, his entire body flailed and rotated in the air before hitting the base of a tree like a cannonball, Thirteen let out a sharp scream of pain. He felt his ribs, arm and probably more broken, his mind reduced to a dazed mess.

"Get lost brats! You'll only make this whole thing worse!" Lukas yelled, as Ten was already appearing behind him and Nine was dashing into the melee.

"Fuck" Thirteen groaned quietly, chanelling excessive amounts of lifeforce into his regenerative abilities, speeding it up as much as possible. With his current cultivation, he could reattach limbs and regenerate small amounts of flesh with just his Life Tome Cultivation. When his healing attribute was thrown into the mix, Thirteen really could survive blows like this so long as there was no immediate follow up.

Coughing blood, and bearing the horrible pain of his ribs being readjusted and merging together, Thirteen watched Lukas fend off the attacks of his friends. Every member of his group of three had awakened the Agility attribute, something everyone in their generation wanted. Thirteen had thought this would spell trouble for their target, but the man powered on, gradually gaining control of the fight.

Having seen the force of his blows, the others played it much more carefully, focusing on defense, but were being pushed back because of it. Neither of them had the healing capabilities of Thirteen, and a punch like that might very well spell death.

Having healed enough, Thirteen reentered the fray, eagre to ensure a swift end to this battle.

——

'I can't land a proper blow on any of these brats! Am I holding back too much? Should I just let loose?' Lukas thought.

He had felt the bones shattering under his fist when he struck that first boy, and immediately thought back to the young man in the bar he had killed. He didn't want to hurt these kids, he just wanted them to fuck off.

He had realised that they were all as young as the one he had sent flying. One was even a girl for crying out loud! When she stabbed at him again with her dagger, he employed the unique qi that rested in every part of his body, vibrating it in just such a way that it would phase into existence, increasing his mass as the other half of his cultivation enhanced his strength to match.

In one swift maneuver, he spun to face the girl, grasping the blade of her dagger with his right hand, and bending his knees to deliver a push to her chest with his left hand.

The air resistance on his fist was incredible, such was the might of the punch that it produced sound at every moment. But alas the young girl released her dagger, blurring as she vanished from his sight.

He knew where she was, his instincts screamed it to him, so he gripped the blade of the dagger harder, it's steel barely piercing his skin, as he swung it to the right, the handle of the dagger bashing the small girl over the head as it cut her face.

He wanted to then reach for her with his left, but could see the two other boys—even the one whose ribs were broken—attacking in his peripheral, so he continued with the momentum, spinning right.

——

After Thirteen rejoined the fight, the first thing he witnessed was Ten being knocked back, her head bleeding profusely. His eyes went wide as he contained his outrage, forcing himself to remain calm and careful. One bad hit from this man spelt death. Ten was lucky, she had taken a rather light hit this time, but that didn't mean this man, his arms and hands dyed red, his chest and face splattered in the blood of beasts, would hold back. They couldn't hope for something so nonsensical.

The fight continued as he and Nine exchanged blows with the man. Well, if you can call it that. In truth, they were mostly evading, trying to find an opportunity to strike cleanly. Ten remained laying there until the battle came a bit closer to her, at which point she ambushed the man, allowing Thirteen to land a solid punch to the man's gut.

The battle continued with Ten rejoining the fray. Blows were exchanged, with the man's ridiculous defense proving an issue, when finally, an opportunity presented itself. Nine and Thirteen, each on the sides of the man as he defended against Ten, conjured their swords from nowhere, stabbing and slashing respectively.

Lukas reacted swiftly, he leaned to his right, grabbing Thirteen's sword mid swing and suffering only very shallow cuts, as he fainted a left forward kick at Ten to make her back off, only to transition into a side kick at the gut of Nine.

Lukas' outstretched leg hit Nine with a force greater than a charging bull, as the boy was sent flying backwards. At the same time, the experienced warrior pulled on thirteen's blade with his right hand to quickly regain his balance and posture, before turning to face him with his left side forward.

Still grasping Thirteen's longsword—Which now erupted with golden fire—in his right hand, Lukas made a palm with his left, striking the middle of the blade.

The weapon bent so much, the steel sprung back with great force, disarming both Thirteen and Lukas of the weapon.

Thirteen and Ten both put distance between them and Lukas, each eager to make sure Nine was okay.

——

Looking down at his charred hands, Lukas felt exhausted. Something about these brats wasn't right. Every time he exchanged blows with the black haired boy, he felt his energy leaving him, and a piercing chill emerge even in the depths of his body. Like all the heat his flesh had to offer was being sapped from him, leaving his body frigid and unresponsive.

Worse still, the young girl's palm strikes disrupted the qi in his body. He may have been an augmentor, but his cultivation art was a lower tier one, and the peculiar form of qi he used to strengthen his body was never fully incorporated into the flesh like with better arts. Every time she struck him, the fake mass in that place would falter, effectively reducing his enhanced defense wherever she struck.

Then there was the boy he had just sent flying. It was very, very hard to land a hit on the slimy brat. He was a bit too good at anticipating his actions.

Exhaling deeply, Lukas just wished to leave. He had held back where we could, avoiding killing any of them, but he had severely overestimated the skill gap between them. If he held back any more he would die without question, yet if he didn't, he may kill these young children. Worse still, if this fight was dragged out, all of them would die. He knew better than to linger after making so much noise in these woods.

"Look. Your friend is in critical condition. If you don't help him now, he will die within minutes. I'm leaving. Whether you choose to chase me or save him is up to you."

His words rang clear for the children as he saw them exchange worried glances.

'What a load of bull' Lukas thought to himself. 'What critical condition? I held back way too much for that. The kid's just unconscious and enduring serious pain.'

——

Thirteen clenched his teeth as he watched the man leave. He knew where his priorities lay, and Nine needed his—

"*cough* I'm fine. He's lying." Nine's groaning voice interrupted his thoughts from a distance away.

Lukas faltered for a moment, before dashing as quickly as he could into the woods.