Chapter 33 Red Fox Bandits

Waking up, instead of training like usual, Mo Xiaowen headed out of the hut and began patrolling the area around the village. While he'd rather train, he knew that now wasn't the right time nor place. Not to mention if he ate the Body Tearing Grass he'd create a loud disturbance and he didn't want to alarm the villagers.

Because of this he decided to use his time to watch out for any bandits. This also helped him get more used to the terrain of the forest, and identify a few landmarks just in case he needed them in future.

Fortunately or unfortunately, after patrolling for about 3 hours he failed to spot any bandits. 'I guess I'll just go back to the village...but first I should probably start my training here.' He thought to himself before finding a secluded area.

Consuming a Body Tearing Grass, the boy immediately bit down on a piece of cloth, muffled screaming sounding out soon after. Once he was done he trained the Internal Rupture Technique, before heading back to Ves Village.

Entering the hut, Old Ox was still fast asleep on his bed. 'I guess I'll just go over my items.' Mo Xiaowen thought to himself before rummaging through his large bag. He had brought a number of Body Tearing Grasses, Body Tempering Pills, food and water supplies with him.

"Better have and not need than need and not have", was the boy's thought process. On the other hand Old Ox had only brought one item with him, being his abnormally large battle axe. Even after all this time Mo Xiaowen could barely understand this friend of his.

'Sometimes he's really serious other times he's like a buffoon.' He noted before retrieving some jerky from his bag and closing it. Now it was just a waiting game, and wait they did.

---

A week later, Mo Xiaowen and Old Ox had just finished dinner along with the rest of the villagers and were heading to bed. "Sniff! Sniff! There's a weird smell." Old Ox remarked, before his eyes opened wide.

Without another word he rushed to their hut grabbed his axe, before rushing out and roaring "BANDITS ARE APPROACHING!"

This all happened so fast Mo Xiaowen could barely process it. 'Did he not sleep enough? What smell? Bandits where!?' His thoughts were in disarray, and so too were the villagers shocked.

But almost as if coordinating with Old Ox, less than a minute after his roar the weak wooden walls of the village were broken through and more than a hundred men, all garbed in red fur charged in.

"Red Fox Bandits!" One of the villagers muttered in fear. Without missing a beat, Old Ox rushed towards the densest group of bandits and swung his axe out. In an instant 3 bandits were cleaved in two, blood spurting everywhere.

The bandits were no fools, they could tell this giant of a man was strong. Arrows whizzed towards him, but before they could hit he dodged almost instinctively every time.

With the majority of their focus on Old Ox, some of the villagers managed to grab their weapons and charge into the fray. But this barely made a dent, the bandits vastly outnumbered the amount of capable villagers.

If it were not for Old Ox it was possible that the entirety of the villagers would have been slaughtered in a matter of minutes.

Witnessing all this Mo Xiaowen was thrown for a loop, he thought it'd be bad but not this bad. Bandits and villagers alike dying left and right. Eventually a few bandits broke through the blockade and began attacking the unarmed villagers.

'I-I can't just stand here!' With that thought, Mo Xiaowen shot forward. Just as a bandit was about to slash a man, he appeared and punched the bandits arm throwing the attack off its trajectory.

"AHHHHH!"

The bandit screamed in pain his arm mangled from the punch. Mo Xiaowen didn't expect the bandit to be so weak, and hesitated whether he should continue his attack, but in that split moment of hesitation the wounded bandit lunged at Mo Xiaowen dagger in hand.

"WOOSH! SPURT!"

Before the attack could even reach the boy, a blade of wind decapitated the bandit, his blood shooting out and spilling onto the boy. But Mo Xiaowen had no time to think, as another bandit launched towards him.

Without even thinking Mo Xiaowen attacked with the "Punch of the Mantis Shrimp" blasting the bandit away. The air from the punch alone could defeat and kill most bandits, he was no different.

Noticing the power displayed by Mo Xiaowen the bandits focused more and more attention on him. Sabers slashed towards him, arrows whizzed by, but he dealt with it all albeit somewhat shakily.

In truth the only thing that kept him going was the adrenaline otherwise he'd be frozen in place. The whole situation felt almost endless to Mo Xiaowen, but it only took around five minutes to conclude.

"RETREAT" And with that, the remaining 10s of bandits retreated, leaving their injured behind to die. Old Ox then began interrogating the injured bandits, and killed them after he found out what he wanted.

Simultaneously, as Mo Xiaowen processed what just happened he fell to his knees, and began to spill his dinner out onto the floor. Looking at the blood on his hands, and his clothes, and feeling the warm sensation on his face only worsened his reaction.

"Kid, its fine." Hearing a familiar voice, Mo Xiaowen turned around to see Old Ox with a stone cold expression. "I know its tough but you've got to get through this. We saved a lot of people today." Ge continued placing his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"But why.....we killed people this isn't right." Mo Xiaowen replied tears in his eyes.

"Mo Xiaowen, does anyone know what's truly right or wrong? As long as you know in your heart that what you did was right by your standards, then that's all that matter." Old Ox tried his best to console the boy.

A few hours later Mo Xiaowen calmed down and fell asleep. Old Ox then put him to bed before leaving Ves Village axe in hand.

"If you Red Fox Bandits see the sunrise tomorrow, then my name isn't Old Ox!"