ALLIANCE

Kibe and Marlin stand off in a forest, with each awaiting the other's movement. The trees sway with the wind and leaves flutter to the ground. The two rush each other but are stopped when an arrow flies by both faces. Kibe stands there on guard while Marlin searches for something.

"What the hell was that?!"

"Quiet, you idiot. Where did the guy who was laying on that tree go?"

"Huh? You mean the one that ran when you killed the other bandit?"

"You saw him run away and did nothing about it…?"

Kibe and Marlin state at each other and eventually, Marlin sighs and begins to walk in the direction that the bandit went. Kibe follows him. After walking through the forest, they both stumble across a bandit camp. This camp had walls, a gate and seemed to be more established than the one Kibe dealt with a couple days ago. There was no security outside but there was a notable presence enveloping the camp. Marlin begins to walk towards the camp but Kibe gets in his way.

"What are you doing? It's a large bandit camp and you don't look well-equipped for this."

"You don't even know me. How about you keep going on your journey? I do what I want."

"Your attitude is ass. Let's just get this over with!"

"Hm."

Marlin unsheathes Excalibur and cuts the gates down, revealing the entire bandit camp. It has buildings instead of tents and seems to be holding trading equipment and goods. Soon after, two men walk up, with one holding a longsword and the other wearing combat bracers.

"Surely you are going insane to walk into an occupied camp?"

Marlin looks at the two bandits and smiles.

"You guys seem to be enjoying yourselves with all this stolen equipment. What I'm about to do is simple cleansing of a good country."

Kibe looks at this masked man with regret in his eyes.

(This guy's nuts!)

The man wearing combat bracers begins to get into a fighting stance. Kibe observes that he seems to be exceptional at hand to hand combat seeing as he is basically unarmed and getting into the stance of a monk.

"We needed more slaves to sell anyways. I'll humor you with my name before you lose. I am called Yoma."

With that sentence, Yoma rushes Kibe, who is the slower of the two and palms him into a wall while his guard is lowered. He then turns on a pivot to uppercut Marlin but the latter blocks the attack using Excalibur. Marlin changes his blade to a rapier and strikes at Yoma three times, with each narrowly missing and while focused on Marlin who is currently masked, Kibe comes after him with a downwards slash but gets parried.

"I thought you two would be better than this. Naoki, I can handle this on my own."

"Alright boss!"

Naoki runs and goes to inform the boss.

"You will come to regret that. I do not like being taken lightly!"

Marlin's legs glow with chi and he rushes at Yoma with high speeds. His rapier changes and ignites with flames then he stabs at Yoma's arms with the intent to destroy them. Yoma channels chi into his arms and directs the tip of the weapon to an area where the damage is minimized. The attack makes a large gash on his arm but he jumps back in time so his wound does not get worse. Kibe, who was deemed by Yoma as the lesser evil, sneaks up on Yoma and punches him full force with his dragon claw, sending him flying into a wall. Without letting up, the two attack Yoma at the same time, with Marlin piercing at him with the rapier and Kibe imbuing his longsword with light, and slashing at him. Yoma, who is still recovering from the last attack, gathers chi into his hands.

"Demonic Palm: Reversal!"

Yoma's chi gets darker and he absorbs the chi from both attacks and harnesses it into his body. His aura begins to emanate in a purple hue and he gets back into a stance.

"Playtime's over. I have no time for this!"

Yoma channels the energy, swirling around him into his palms, increasing the destructive capabilities. Kibe jumps back seeing this and Marlin readies himself to dodge. Yoma rushes at Marlin, whose legs begin to glow so he can dodge better, and completely blindsides him with a punch to the torso. Reflexively, Marlin blocks the attack using his rapier, which lessens the damage. Even so, Marlin gets sent flying from the camp, into the forest. Seeing this, Kibe charges a beam into his mouth and launches it full blast at the camp, to which Yoma jumps in front to block it. After the beam is fully dispersed, Yoma opens his eyes to see that Kibe has disappeared.

Unknowing to him, Kibe escaped the area in search of the masked man who was sent flying prior. After some searching, he finds a path of trees that have been destroyed and the masked man laying in a crater, unconscious.

"What a hassle this has been. Now I have to get him out of here and take him somewhere else."

Kibe grabs hold of the Masked Man's arm and drags him out of the crater and into the forest where he finds a carriage. It seems to be the place where Marlin fought those two bandits earlier. He lays him in the carriage and sits beside him, cultivating. He takes the time to think about his life before the reincarnation.

It was 2021, where one man stood atop technology. His name is Allen Sanders otherwise known as "The God of Technology". He was a young inventor who was responsible for the world's evolution because of his many inventions, whether it be domestic or militaristic. He was also known to be slightly insane as he kept going on and on about a small black creature that was telling him to kill everyone. However, some thought that he had too much of a hold on society when he created something dubbed, the ultimate weapon. To cover up the mistakes of the Government, The Royal Family deployed soldiers to take down all who knew about the project and thus, Allen was killed by firing squad.

"That was a terrible time to remember all that. I blame the Universe!"

Some time passes and nightfall takes over. Marlin wakes up in an unfamiliar area and quickly grabs his face, hiding it. Kibe, seeing his panic, laughs at the sight of this.

"Relax haha! I thought you had your reasons for wearing your mask and I wasn't sure if you were ugly so I left the mask on. Besides, I don't care for the looks of men."

Hearing this, Marlin calms down and begins to get into a meditative position while holding excalibur.

"Thank you."

"No problem. What should I call you by the way?"

"You can call me M."

"Simple. So are we going back or what because they really hurt my feelings with that fight."

"Of course, except we do it in a manner that they can't handle. I have a plan."

" I didn't realize how much of a sadist you were! Regardless, you need to cultivate to gain some strength back. I'll leave you to it while I go survey."

"Alright."

Kibe leaves without another word, heading towards the camp.

…

At the same time, a boy with red hair is trying to break out of a chain that has been tied around his arm.

[END OF CHAPTER 8]