A Fight For a Life, The Importance of Power

'It seems that this camp is way bigger than we thought' I looked at the bandit camp in front of me with a little surprise.

"This could even pass for a small village" Aster said also with a little shock.

"The amount of patrols here are very abnormal." I whispered while scouting around for any bandit scouts.

"There seems to be more than 100 of them in there. Plus we are in the middle of a very dangerous forest." Aster said in a low voice. We then didn't engage in any conversation again after that as we scouting around in silence. We were scouting on any weak spots around the camp to breach. Meanwhile, Edelweiss is scouting to find their commander and the little girl Nozomi is scouting for their supplies. That little girl... there seems to be something odd with her, especially her race.

"What do you think about her" I asked Aster.

"She's cute and all. But she seems to hide something dangerous. But I don't think she's dangerous. Even for me it's hard to see through her." She answered without much care. I'll trust her judgement. After all she could saw one's true colour because of her unique magic. At least, we're gonna believe in her judgement.

"But something about her race made me a little worried." Aster added.

"What about it?" I asked her about it.

"Think about it.. she's a white fox demi-human and not a normal one at that. I could feel an overwhelming amount of energy coming from her when I looked at her with my magic. It's like her soul has an endless amount of power" She explained now with a little concern and curiousity in her tone.

"Indeed it's not normal" I agreed with her.

"We should be-" Before I could even continue to speak a sudden sharp burning sensation is felt on my shoulder.

"Agh!" I grunted. Aster widened her eyes at this as she immediately raised her vigilant to the maximum.

"It seems we're discovered isn't it?" I asked her. She moved in closer to me and looked at the wound.

"It's not that bad. Let me heal it quickly" She said hurrying over. Even though she's gonna heal me it's not gonna be enough.

"There's not enough time! Get into position, stealth mission cancelled. Use that!" I said to Aster, she nodded and does her work. I pulled out the arrow that is sticked to my shoulder. I took out the band aid from my bag and started to wrap the wound. I looked over to my back and saw a lot of company coming. There are around 15 people.

"They're coming!" I shouted at Aster as she puts down a spell trap. I got up and readied myself. Aster picked up her wand and got into position. As they came into our views, I could feel sweat dripping from my forehead. But other than that I also saw something weird. I saw a group of demi-humans running away from the people that shot the arrow. I widened my eyes when I see her running at our direction. She noticed us and screamed for help.

"HELP ME PLEASE!" She screamed. When she screamed at us I was beyond mad. Of course I'm gonna save her but she just gave out our locations to them. The bandits immediately noticed us and chased after her even harder.

"Tch, get ready Aster. Heal her injury we can't afford to fight all of them." I said to Aster feeling quite annoyed while sighing.

"Aye aye, boss." She answered.

'This is gonna be a long tiring one' I thought while pinching my forehead in annoyance.

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I could hear quite some people running at the same time. I climbed to the top of a tall tree and looked around and saw around 10-15 people chasing a group of people like me. They all have different animal features. There are 5 people in the group. There are 2 wolf one, one hawk, and two goats one. Then I looked to the direction they're running to and saw both Klein and Aster there. I widened my eyes seeing this but before I could go there a hand suddenly pat me on my shoulder. I was so focused on them I forgot about my surroundings. I looked to the owner of the hand and it's actually Edelweiss.

"What's happening?" He asked. He must have also heard the scream and is looking around for the source and stumbled across me.

"There's a group of the bandits chasing after some people with animal features." I said to him while keeping an eye to the chase. They're still pretty far from Klein's and Aster's position but I couldn't be too late. Edelweiss nodded and I added.

"The bad part is the chase is going to Klein's and Aster's direction" He widened his eyes but soo after became calm once again. He shuts his eyes and let out a sigh. He then opened his eyes again and looked at me.

"Let's go" He said and he suddenly disappeared. I only looked at his back when he disappeared and appeared on different tree branches everytime with sparkling eyes.

"Whoa! Need to learn that" and with that I also started to move by jumping from trees to trees trying to catch up Edelweiss.

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I finally could catch up to him as he was so fast. It's kinda ridiculuos to be honest.

'Is this what usually what anime characters see when someone moves so fast they only appeared as a blink?' I thought while still following Edelweiss. Even though we're moving quite fast, I don't feel any fatigue at all it's like my energy is constantly replenished.

I could her the sound of fighting and screaming on our front. There will be deaths, it's something unavoidable. Until right now, I never thought of it. How would I feel when I kill someone?

Is it Joy? Anger? Regret? I don't know. I also wondered what are they gonna think about me. What are my old family gonna think about me if they saw me killing people? Are they gonna be scared of me? Those are things I've been thinking this whole run. But ultimately I decided on one solution.

"A life where one fear how others think about you will be a dull life." I muttered. That's right, I will do the things I see right and do whatever I want. It may sounds cliche but for me it's a blessing. In my last life I was fated to die, so in this life I won't let fate controls me anymore. I'm gonna write my own stories and one day maybe, just maybe I'll be able to help others write their own stories. But for now let's focus on whats in front of me.

The battle is almost starting. Klein and the bandits that is chasing the demi-humans are right now in a staring contest. The bandits seemed quite weak to me, but their number is something to not underestimate. Edelweiss is also silently watching them. He slowly draws his bow but with no arrow.

"[Wind Arrow]" He calmly said as a gust of wind manifested itself as a arrow ready to be shot. He took a deep breath then shot the arrow. The arrow flew high to the sky until it's not visible. Strangely enough the arrow is completely silent and is even shot without making any sounds. Not long after, the arrow became visible once again but the acceleration of the arrow is so fast that when it hits one of the bandits... they got completely split in the middle effectively killing them immediately. I widened my eyes at the scene but surprisingly I didn't actually felt much about their death other than pity. Even when the smell of death is lingering in the air, I only felt pity to the bandit who died like that.

All the bandits are in a daze looking at the horrific scene in front of them until Klein decided to break the silence by killing another one of the bandits.

"Gah!" He swings his sword beheading the poor bandit. After that immediately all hell broke loose. All of the bandits immediately attacked Klein and his group. With some of them separating from the group to surround them. It seems that they are quite experienced on their job seems surprising because usually bandits in anime can't even do their jobs properly. But this they seem quite balanced. They even have archers which is very surprising because usually they just go charging straighforward.

Edelweiss seemed to not worry much about Klein but decided to focus on the ones trying to get behind them. Edelweiss looked at me with a sharp gaze and said.

"Help them." Before disappearing from my sight but I could still sense him. I sighed and looked towards Klein's group.

"Good grief, how should I do this. Never fought before, never killed anyone before." I said while sighing.

"Sigh. Well let's try not to kill them but if necessary I will try to eliminate them without much pain." I sighed and got ready to fight. I could sense the bandit's that are separated got killed one by one by Edelweiss.

'They seemed very usual in doing this, aren't they?' I thought while chuckling a little with nervousness. After all, I'm just a normal boy with a chronic disease not long before and now the world wants me to kill people. Isn't it normal that I would contemplate my decision. But it seems that 'The World' felt my nervousness. Because I could feel how they are trying to calm me down.

"Well, lets just follow my heart" I said finally making my resolve. If it meant I need to kill to save them I will. I then remembered about when using the weird 'energy' that I assume was magic. I then use my imagination to shape them. Two sharp icicles made of ice appeared besides me. I took a deep breath and subconsciously said.

"[Icicle Shot]" I waved my right hand forward and the two icicles flew at a very high speed. Each of the Icicles impaled one enemy before disappearing into thin air. Now the bandits know my position and I could see 2 of them aiming their bow at me. They fired two arrows at me but for some reason they are very slow and I dodged them with ease. One of the archers seemed to be in a daze so I took the opportunity.

"[Icicle Shot]" In an instant another Icicle flew in high speed effectively impaling one of the archers. The other archer looked at his dead companion in horror. Klein also effectively killed another with a stab to the heart. Meanwhile Aster is healing the people with animal features which I will call 'demi-humans' from now on. There are only 4 of them left here meanwhile we could hear occasional screams coming from our surroundings which are Edelweiss killing the others.

The one archer shot another arrow upwards but this time its not a normal arrow. The arrow suddenly multiplied into dozens more making it look like a rain of arrows. I widens my eyes seeing this and immediately think of a way to block all of the arrows. But I could feel something is wrong but even then I don't have time. I reflexively casted another magic.

"[Ice Wall]!" Out of no where a wall of Ice appeared above me blocking all of the arrows from hitting me. But when I was distracted I could smell smoke coming from them. When I looked back at them I see smoke covering the battlefield. The thick smoke is blocking our vision making it harder to see. But with my hearing I could hear them running in different directions. 1 of them is charging me, 1 other is charging to Klein and the other 2 ran in the opposite direction.

"[Shred through my enemies, Wind Blades]!" I heard him casting. Right after that an almost invisible highly pressured and condesed wind flew towards me. I luckily dodge it in time but there are more of them as I can vaguely hear the sound of the high speed wind. With that in mind, I made sure to dodge all of the wind blades as the missed one completely destroyed the small trees behind me.

I successfully dodged all of the wind blades without taking a hit but when I was just about to take a breathe. The bandit suddenly popped out of the smoke while thrusting his sword in high speed. I don't have enough time to cast of my magic as he's too close.

'What can I do? What can I do?' I tried thinking all of the possible thing I could do in a split second. But just right when the sword is right about to hit me the blade suddenly stopped mid air. I widens my eyes and immediately took distance by jumping backwards while simultaneously casting a spell.

"[Ice Arrow]" But it missed him a little and the ice arrow hit him on the knee. While he was falling due to the pain on his knee I could see what stopped the sword from piercing me. It was the grass. The grass are sternly holding the sword in place to try to stopped it. I wondered how and looked to my feet and saw a green 'energy' leaking out from my feet and remembered its effect. The I wondered what other things I could do with it but then I shook my head.

'There are more important things to do now' I thought rushing to the source of the metal clanking sound.

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*clank* *clank* *clank*

"Huft, this is gonna be hard." I looked to my left and right. In each if the opposite direction there's a bandit with very high synergy towards the other. As I was about to take a breather they immediately rushed in again from both sides.

"[Mirage]" As he casted his spell, a dozen of clones burst out of him then moved to surround me.

"[Earth Trap]" The other one casted. I tried to dodge his spell but I still got caught. A very strong binding spell [Earth Trap] is a very hard to use spell because of its low accuracy. But both of them are not normal bandits after all.

As I was trying to free myself a kunai is suddenly thrown at me with high speed from one of the clones. Then another one is thrown I blocked it with my daggers. Then I suddenly felt something was different. I analysed my surroundings in high speed and noticed the change.

'The temperature is dropping!' I thought. This is bad because the colder it is the harder it is to focus and move. Then a mist suddenly enveloped the whole area. But it's not any normal mist, its a cold mist. This made the temperature dropped even more than before and making it hard to see.

I felt my danger sense going off from behind me. I immediately hold my dagger to the back of my head and heard a clanking sound from my dagger blocking a kunai. But before I could do anything else more and more kunai was thrown. It turns from a random slow throwing to a random barrage of kunai. Every now and then I can't block all of the kunai and got hit in multiple different places. I also started move slower because of the cold mist and I cant even use my magic because I can't lose amy focus. But I just kept defending because I know they are just toying with me.

"My right" I mumbled while moving my daggers to the right to block the incoming kunai. But then I heard something from behind me.

"Got ya!" I quickly looked behind me but when I turned there's no one there.

"Where are you looking at?" He said as he stabbed his kunai to my shoulder. Normally this wouldn't cause much trouble but when the kunai stabbed me I suddenly felt very sluggish. Not long after, I quickly became unconscious and the cold mist finally started to dissipate. The last thing I heard were.

"Lets bring him back shall we?"

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"Shit, this smoke is really messing us up!" I shouted as I blocked another arrow.

"I can't do anything about it either. We could only find a chance" Aster said as she is healing all the runaway demi-humans.

"[The primordial of shadow and darkness-]" We hear him starting to chant a spell.

"[Lend me your gracious power-]" I widens my eyes and the spell he was chanting. Aster seemed to also noticed it.

"Shit! Don't let him finish that spell!" I shouted at Aster.

"I also knew that, damnit!" She screamed in frustration. The demi-humans seemed to be quite confused as to what we are panicking for.

"[Shook the ground, Rumble]!" I clapped my palms together then hit the ground with my palms. In an instant the ground around us started to shake. This was an attempt to make him lose his focus.

"[Reign over the world and-]" But even then he still continued. I clicked my tongue very annoyed.

"Tch, Lets just go Aster we need to stop him at any cost." I said at Aster while rushing in at him. He doesnt even look any surprised by our reaction.

"[Earth Trap]" I chanted trying to bind him down. But he as expected dodge it by jumping backwards.

"[Clad my weapon with the power of Earth, Element Enchancement]" I casted enchancing my sword and shield with my earth mana. I rushed in and swings my sword at him. He casually dodged all of it.

"[Fire Blast]" I heard Aster casted her spell from behind him. A giant fireball is launching towards him. He of course dodged it but I blocked his escape by secretly casted an earth wall behind him. But rather than panicking he has a smirk on his face.

"[Clad the world in despair, Domain of Darkness]" He finished chanting his spell. Me and Aster widens our eyes. Under him his shadow suddenly expands widely covering the whole area creating a cube of darkness with us inside it.

"Sigh. What a luck" I sighed annoyed.

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