First Day

The Path of

Vengeance

Chapter 1: My History.

I had been betrayed. That was what I thought. The city was behind me, no longer in my grasp. Why? Why had the one I trusted betrayed me? I thought about the wounds in my chest. It hurt. He inflicted this wound on me. He is the one that wanted to kill me. He wanted power.

Well, there's no use pondering over it. I can only travel. Though it is a slight bit disappointing; the first city I had captured was taken from me. It's only a setback. My goal now was to go and recover at a town in Greenhall, a country around a week from where I was.

Wait… Let me introduce you to me first: my name is James Moor. I am just a fighter. My goal is to take over a country and kill my father. I am currently riding away from the city of Livingborrow after I was betrayed. I have several wounds on my chest inflicted by those

cowards who ambushed me. This isn't my first setback… is what I thought. I should pass through many setbacks after this.

Despite knowing this, why does it still hurt? I know that I will stumble upon many more difficulties but why does this hurt so much? Is it because I was betrayed by my dear

friend? Impossible. I thought that I had lost any sort of emotions when my father cast

me away. Maybe I was wrong. Again, it doesn't matter. Thinking so much doesn't help.

Anyway, I am a wandering warrior. I was betrayed (as I had mentioned just too many

times) and I had lost the first city that I had captured. Yes, I had captured a city along

with my ragtag bunch of friends… who were all dead now. Life works in funny ways; all 20

of my friends -save the traitor- were dead.

Livingborrow is a part of a country called Kingston and is on the border of Kingston and

Greenhall, and it was a great step towards achieving my dream. Thought that I had

reached close for two years. Then I was betrayed. I am getting very repetitive here.

Anyway, the city was taken and many people died. My chest had several deep cuts that I

had lightly bandaged and I was riding my horse; Wind-walker. The landscape around me

was barren- a result of the many wars over this space- although there was a hint of a

forest slightly forward. My goal was slightly deeper into that forest where there was a

crater of sorts and a small town called Greenridge- a small town on the road to Edmont.

At this moment, I am riding towards this town.

The first day riding away was mostly spent hiding and trying to avoid their scouts. No

easy task, I mean it was one of me trying to run away from about 20 scouts. Besides that,

each scout was much more agile than me in my injured state and hiding my horse is a real

pain. The only hope that I had is that they would stop searching for me after some time.

Some hope. I also presumed that they would be searching the road so the only thing I

could do was travelling through the barren wastelands… which was really painful. Each

step, bump or jolt really hurt. My wounds had not even come close to healing, I mean I

received them really recently and I had not received proper medical attention. All the

attention I had received was my inexperienced, useless bandaging. Maybe I should have

paid more attention to our group's healer.

You know, I had just realised that the death of my friends really hurt. It hurt a lot more

than I thought it would hurt. I mean maybe you would think that I would care a bit more

considering that they are my companions whom I had travelled with for more than an

year and whom I had taken over a city with not to mention the same people who helped

me maintain the city for more than 2 years. Losing them, even for my emotionless self

was hard.

The truth is that I had run away from my family (in name) and I was picked up by a group

of bandits. Powerful bandits. Basically, they trained me for around 4 years before I left (I

was about 16 that time) and I was pretty strong.

After that, I joined the army at Edmont and trained harder to gain experience. In the two

years that I fought in that army, I was promoted to the royal guard, a position that less

than 1 in 1000 soldiers of the army was qualified for.

Then, I left the army when I was 18 when I thought that I was strong enough.

As soon as I left the army, my travels begun. I travelled through the countryside looking

for people to join me in my suicide mission to capture a city. While doing that, I also

helped many towns in the countryside (for rewards of course) and I built up a name for

myself as the Wandering Saviour. Some name that is, if only they knew my reasons.

Anyway, in that year, I found the 20 members who had joined my group. Some of them

had been saved by me and wanted to repay their debts, others wanted the money I

promised to anyone who helped me, but the last reason… was revenge. Only one person in

my group wanted revenge: my right hand man. My trusted friend. That was the main

reason why I didn't expect his betrayal. I mean, he lost his family to Kingston, so why did

he betray me… why did he betray us? I can't imagine him going to the other side for any

reason.

Again, there's no use pondering over it.

After completing my mission of gathering people (and money), we travelled around and

trained. While doing that, I got together with my group and I got memories of my

voyages with the bandit group. Truth be told, those two times were the closest times I

had gotten to any sort of family. My ragtag bunch of idiots on a suicide journey had

formed.

And so it began: the long awaited war. We began by infiltrating the city (it may be

cowardly but what can you expect from one that has been trained by bandits, some of the

most elite warriors and assassins there are). After infiltrating the city, we began by eating

lunch. Yes, I'm not joking, that was the first thing that we did.

Okay, enough jokes. We spent the first few months establishing an information network.

What we learned was that there was a weak spot in the castle (every city had a central

castle) where there was a leader that was weaker than the rest. The truth was that

despite the fact that Livingborrow is a border city, it is much weaker than the other cities

and even the general in charge of it was much weaker than the rest (all countries are ruled

by power, so each country has a hierarchal system based on the amount of power that a

person has. This naturally means that the king of a country is the strongest person in

that country. Below the king are his marshals, then the high commanders, and then the

commander then then the generals who are in charge of leading the respective cities. As

you can see from this, generals are real low on the pecking order, and I still had a long way

to go to become a king.)

Despite the general being weak, he was still much stronger all normal people and he was

leagues ahead of any and all royal guards. It would take around 5 lieutenants just to kill

him. So …how… you may be asking… how do I intend to kill him. Well, the answer is simple:

don't. There's no point in killing him if you can make him join you. Smart, I know, right.

Either way, I had a second plan that I hoped that I didn't have to use…

Anyway, we began and formed a headquarters of sorts for the information network. It

was a restaurant. Yes, for around 4 months, I began working in a restaurant. Sometimes I

wonder what I'm doing with life. After those 4 months, the plan began. I took out a

lieutenant serving under the general and joined his army.

The fight against the lieutenant was long and arduous, and I did not get out of it

without scars. This fight was also a test for my strength; I had realised just how weak I

was if just fighting a lieutenant takes that much out of me. I stood no chance against a

general, even if he was the weakest general. That's why the first plan needed to work out. I

couldn't kill him even if I had two more years to train. But now the skills I had learnt as a

bandit must work, I must become… a sweet talker.

So, I started my plan, I began coming closer to the general and weaving a network within

the army. My life… needless to say, I had been training all that time as well, and I could

confidently say that I had become much stronger than that lieutenant I "took out".

I began getting as many people on my side as possible, by trust, money, or… by other

means… But there's no use dwelling on that. As soon as I had gotten more than 75% of the

army on my side, I began attempting to befriend the general. My work was slow, as the

general was a seasoned warrior (as all must be in order to become a general) and he could

see through all sorts of mind games.

I had to try all sorts of things to get the general to trust me, and it took 6 months. Yes, it

took 6 months and you know what pained me, I was not even done with half the work I

needed to do. I still had to convince him to make me the general. After one more month, I

took the chance. I had 3 possible options: to make him a companion, to make him an

underling, or, to kill him. I would rather go with option 2. These options could only be

achieved through 2 means: he trusts me enough or I can sweet talk him into giving me

leadership, or I can bribe him by offering him more. As expected, bribing him would take a

small fortune for generals are paid so much. I can only sweet talk him.

And so, I grasped my chance one day when we were alone and began trying to get his

trust. In the end, after listening to me for the majority of my speech, he just said, "I will

give you a condition; prove yourself in a duel. You have two months to prepare. If you do

that, I will join your army under you and I will give you this entire city."

That was the condition I needed to achieve to reach closer to my goal.

The hellish training period began. I trained my body, technique and my spirit. I trained

for 20 hours every day and I got 4 hours of sleep. The strain on my body was crazy, but it

worked. At the end of the 2 months, I could beat all the lieutenants with ease (the

lieutenants were the ones that had agreed to help me from the army).

The duel began…

It was difficult. Much more difficult than anything I had gone up against before. He could

receive every single attack I aimed at him. He attacked with deadly precision. One thing

was for sure, I could not defeat him unscathed. I had no advantages against him, except…

it was very risky against him. I could only out speed him, but that was very risky. That

option would leave me vulnerable. I had to do it.

I did it, I tried to out speed him, but even that wasn't enough; with my speed, I could

dodge and block all his attacks as well as trying to get close enough to attack him, but

that was about it. He could still block all my attacks. I tried hitting him with an

unrelenting barrage of attacks, but that didn't work.

So this was the power of the weakest general, This really put into context how weak I was.

"In the face of power, all must despair," that was the phrase that I lived by, but now it was

being applied to me. I could do nothing against him. He was unscathed. I only had one

option now, feinting to get behind him and attacking him from there. I did just that, I

went underneath hime and tried to impale his back… it failed. He released his full strength.

The air around me grew hot as he released his trump card: flame-worth strike- a low level

form of fire magic that coated the blade of a sword in fire. The thing is, even though it is a

"low-level" fire spell, he has refined it to a point where he could cause flames so intense

that they could melt through metals. I jumped backwards and narrowly avoided the spell.

Then… I mustered all the speed I could. I dashed forward. I avoided his blade. I brought

my blade to his neck. I won.

It was amazing and incredibly lucky. Even now, I know that I can't beat him without luck.

Anyway, back to the story, I defeated him, so he made me the general of the city and he

helped me train. In the time that he helped me train, I grew much stronger than before. I

became much stronger than a lieutenant but I was trill so much weaker than the general.

From all the sparring matches we had, I couldn't defeat him even once after the original

duel.

For a year, there was peace. The only disputes that had to be solved were minor, the only

fights were fist fights. Then, it happened; the betrayal. It happened very quickly. One

moment I was walking past my right hand man and the next I found a knife in my

abdomen. That was the single time I felt the most pain.

After that, things happened in a blur: I commanded the warriors who were still loyal to

me in an effort to retain the city. It turned out that the warriors I had were inferior to the

warriors that the enemy had and so fighting broke out within the city; it was a civil war.

At this time, the general was on a trip to report to his higher ups in Kingston. By myself, I

managed to wipe out a considerable percentage of the enemy's force, but not nearly

enough.

After a month of constant war, everyone was tired; all of my longtime companions were

dead. The general was dead. I was almost dead. Only a ghost of my army remained, and

even that was either being consumed by the enemy or dying.

I made a final stand. The only thing I could do. I fought them by myself… It failed. I lost. I

was the only one left.

It was over. I had no choice but to run away. It may be cowardly, but what could I have

done?

And so that leads us to now. As I pitifully run away from the city and from my old friends.