Born in Blood

Liam hushed his footsteps and instantly hid behind a village hut, peeking his head from the side to get a clearer view.

Ahead, an eccentric pair of bandits — donning thick leather tunics and masked with a western-style bandana — dragged bloodied corpses to a blazing bonfire.

Inwardly, Liam had already made up a nickname for the two: Fatty and Skinny.

"Hahaha! I'm gonna be rich after this!" Fatty guffawed, his belly shaking up and down as he laughed.

In his hands were a handful of glimmering gold coins.

"You idiot! Keep your voice down." Skinny reprimanded, but even he couldn't hide the happiness in his voice.

"We still have to gather the remaining bodies and burn them. Boss is gonna get mad if we're late. Don't laze around!"

With that, the pair spent the next half hour dragging and dropping the bodies into the fire.

Skinny heaved a sigh, sweat trickling down his face from the fire's heat.

"I'll go gather the corpses near the entrance, you take care of the ones here."

With that, the two were separated.

"Laze around my foot! Do the rest yourself."

Fatty instantly sat down on the dirt right behind a dark alley to relax, taking out a dry piece of bread from his pocket to eat.

Before the bread reached his lips, an agonizing sharp pain assaulted his chest.

Creaking his neck to look below, the sharp tip of a sword jut out from his solar plexus.

"Huh?"

Liam felt a tactile response when piercing his blade through the Fatty's chest, as though the katana cut through the muscle, lungs, then bone all at once.

Liam reversed the grip on his wakizashi.

Before the bandit could understand what happened, Liam swiped his neck, severing it with one slash.

Thud.

His headless body fell to the ground, while he was yanked into the dark alley. Fatty's hand was still gripped to the piece of bread, drenched in his blood.

A look of shock and confusion sat on the severed head's face while it fell and rolled on the dirt.

Liam expected guilt. Any normal human being would when taking another life, but, to his surprise, there was nothing.

Liam put a hand on his heart. Even his pulse was steady and calm, indifferent to what had just occurred.

Perhaps it was Liam's first upbringing that prepared him well for this moment, or his greed and ambition for power that caused a gear in his brain to shift.

'Well, it is what it is. Can't change who I am now.' He thought with a wry scoff, before inspecting Fatty's body and retrieving the stolen gold.

Before long, Skinny returned with two male corpses on his shoulders.

"Oi! Where'd you go, you fat pig!" He screamed, his venomous eyes scouring the surroundings with no trace of his partner.

Spotting a dark alley with a crimson trail of blood, Skinny grew serious.

He dropped the two bodies to his sides and unsheathed a silver saber, silently approaching the dark crevice.

"Piggy? Don't tell me you're taking another one of your untimely dumps?!" He shouted, anger mixed with fear in his voice.

His distraught and fearful eyes fell on Fatty's headless body, when suddenly, a shadow flickered on the ground.

The bandit hurriedly shifted his neck towards the sky, only to be on the wrong end of two silver blades, promptly piercing through his eye sockets.

Liam yanked out his katana and wakizashi from Skinny's face, before flicking the blood off them.

'I should start moving.'

With that, Liam left the alley and started to make his way further towards the center, but not before throwing the bandits' bodies in the blaze.

Shifting his gaze towards the sky, he noticed more beacons of dark smoke. However, the largest trail of smog was in the dead center of the village.

'I know where to go.'

It didn't take long for Liam to reach that spot. He kept low-key all throughout, simultaneously taking out a few lone bandits on the way.

Eventually, he came across the largest beacon.

Liam's cold eyes swept the field, calmly assessing the situation.

Seven enemies in total. Five of them wielded swords, while one carried a large mace, and another a spear. They were on guard, their eyes scouring the surroundings for any movement.

The swordsmen came in various heights, but all were similar in terms of build. Nearly all carried an aura of experience around with them. Meanwhile, the ones with the mace and spear were like giants from Liam's perspective.

'So these are the strongest among them. How come the others haven't arrived yet?'

Taking them down silently was a difficult option, since, not only was it more difficult to divide them, but because there were nearly no opportunities to do so.

'Hmm… I could probably take one or two down with the element of surprise, but the rest, I'll have to fight directly."

The 'warehouse' the bandits were protecting was the width of two school buses, making Liam think it was most likely the townhall of the village. It was situated in the center, a short distance away from all the surrounding huts.

'Why are they guarding that spot, though? The 'boss' has to be inside.'

Liam turned stern. The guarding bandits were already strong, but the leader had to be much stronger.

'I still have the advantage.'

Dashing from house to house and hiding away from the bandits' line of sight, Liam made his way to the back of the warehouse.

No guards were stationed in the back, but the right, left, and main entrance of the warehouse were covered.

Liam grabbed a random stone from the ground, before throwing it a short distance away.

Tap.

"What was that?" A horse-faced bandit voiced, a frown on his face. "Survivors?"

Tap.

He nudged one of his mates, a short muscular man, and silently signaled him to join him. Both had their swords unsheathed, slowly closing into the source of the noise.

As the horse-faced bandit reached the corner, Liam's ring and index finger greeted his eye sockets.

"Aah!"

A loud shriek resounded through the air, alerting all the bandits nearby.

As the bandit stumbled backwards clutching his face, a red line appeared on his midsection, which spurted blood and viscera.

The bandit had been cut in half, dying a second later.

The muscular looter had a shocked expression, before he quickly recomposed himself and dashed in with his sword, swinging it directly at Liam's neck.