Escape(3)

"Try your best to incapacitate as many slaves as you can! If we lose more than 10 Lord Foere will kill us all!" yelled one of the guards who was about to pull out a sword when suddenly...

*PIERCE*

A sizzling metal rod was driven into his skull, killing him instantly. On top of the dead guard's body was a demon boy who looked no older than 3 years old, dual-wielding two metal rods that had an intense crimson hue all the while burning everything in it's surroundings.

The guards knew it wasn't time to question if what they were seeing was reality and immediately began rushing toward the boy.

Ares, too, immediately rushed at the guard closest to him and deflected the guard's sword that was about to reach him with the metal rod in his left hand. Due to this unexpected display of strength from Ares, the guard was caught off all the while his right side completely unguarded. When the guard realized what had happened, he caught the metal rod that was coming to his open side. However, due to the unexpected pain from the heat, the guard's hand instinctively left the metal rod.

This gave Ares the opening he was looking for and was about to pierce the guard's lungs but then another guard came behind him. This didn't surprise Ares but unlike the guard's expectations, Ares completely ignored his presence and pierced the man in front of him.

"Die, slave!" the guard filled with rage due to lack of acknowledgment for his presence, tried to strike behind Ares with his sword in a diagonal posture and was about to cut right through Ares's back, however...

*Pierce*

Ares's tail stabbed right through the guard's hand making him lose all the momentum he had built up till then. Before the guard could process his hand being pierced, Ares's reptile-like tail grabbed the guard's sword from his loose hand and used it to stab right through the man's skull.

*Pierce*

"Everybody keep all his limbs and tail occupied!" saying that 4 new guards from both the front and back of Ares began attacking him.

"Tch."

Ares originally made a calculated risk that since most of the guards were both young and human they would most likely know little about the demon anatomy and have little experience fighting demons. This risk turned out to be correct, but even with this little edge while fighting, Ares had practically no battle experience compared to these guards who trained at least months to even a couple of years in the art of combat. The only reason Ares has been able to keep up so far is due to [Wither], and knowing that he would be soon overwhelmed, Ares took a deep breath and covered himself in cobalt-like energy just as the guards lunged at him.

During the short respite of unlocking the cells, Ares also explored Vensee's ability, [Embers], and learned both the similarities and differences between his and Vensee's fire. The aspects that he found were similar were that fire didn't hurt the user in any way and the fact that the said fire could be passed down to other objects or things as long as there was the 'connection'. The only 'connection' Ares has found so far is those with physical touch but he felt that there are methods he hasn't found yet that could build this 'connection'. Aside from theorizing, Ares also found significance in his flames such as the length of time, which could only be used by Vensee for 10 minutes, whereas Ares's could last nearly an hour while the ability still being in its early stages. There was also the fact that his fire felt far hotter than Vensee's flames were but he wasn't able to test out his observations, what he was able to test out however was...

Suddenly Ares's whole body went up in flames which seemed to affect everything but his desired 'targets' such as his weapons and prisoner rags.

Without wasting any more time, Ares met the 2 guards in front of him head-on. The two guards were only stunned for a second as they were shocked by the unnatural phenomenon in front of them, which in turn gave Ares the time to touch their shoulder. Before the guards could fight back, they were immediately consumed by blue raging flames all the while their entire body was used as a source of fuel for the fire to continue burning.

"HELP! AGGHH!!"

"AAAHH!!"

The guards behind Ares recovered from their initial sock and lunged at him with swords in hand but were quickly deflected by Ares's burning tail.

*Clang* *Clang*

After the deflection, the guards didn't look too surprised as they hadn't properly covered their swords with Aura. What they were aiming for was to turn the quick exchange fights into long-term battles as they knew the boy would run out of stamina sooner or later what they didn't consider however was...

*FOOSH* *FOOSH*

Both of their blades caught in fire, which quickly spread to their hands which held the sword to eventually their whole body. They were given no time to scream or react, just a quick and merciless death.

Soon afterward, Ares turned off [Embers] which was due to him only being able to control the flames for 20 seconds when fully around his body. Ares didn't know why, but his abilities always had a set time for usage and the longer he used the abilities, the more he felt himself being exhausted.

'Questions, questions, and more questions. Well, it isn't time to use that so I guess it's just pure battle with no special abilities besides [Wither] huh.' thinking this, Ares shot a brief glance to the side and saw over a hundred slaves facing off around 5 guards. He quickly turned back to the 9 guards left with him who quickly surrounded him while thinking of new strategies and plans on how to deal with Ares.

'A little more than expected... but instead of being scared, I can feel something weird...' Ares began picking up a falchion sword from one of the fallen guards

'A sensation which gives me thirst... a thirst for battle...? a thirst for war...? a thirst for something which feels both nigh and distant at the same time' Smirking at those thoughts, he looked at each guard surrounding him and soon uttered a declaration.

"All of you, come."

'Whatever it is, perhaps it may show the way both towards my Path and the key to understanding myself.'