Defending the Caravan

Caxon darted his eyes around the forest as though he couldn't sense where the men were going to come from.

Suddenly multiple arrows flew towards the group. Knowing that they had to protect the scholars the adventures were not able to dodge the arrows and instead had to block them which was much more difficult.

He made sure to keep his strength and speed at reasonable level and was still able to block the arrows fairly easily.

Fifteen bandits then ran out of the woods 5 rank 10 hollow cores attacked Talon 5 more attackers between rank 5 and 7 ran towards Trinadal the last 5 consisted of three rank 4's and two rank 5's who rushed towards Caxon.

He had to be careful with this battle, he had already come up with how much mana and strength he was going to use to imitate a rank 5 but he hadn't determined a good level of sword skills to show. He was pretty sure he shouldn't show everything he had but how much would be a good level.

While he was deciding one of the rank 5's rushed ahead of the others and was the first bandit to make it to him. As he watched this he was thankful, since the attacker was simply charging forward with no plan, he wouldn't have to use any serious effort and his cover would be intact. He smiled as he looked at the man holding his sword above his head in an obvious attack while outrunning his allies taking the superior numbers that were his only advantage.

Without removing his eyes from the other 4 attackers Caxon sidestepped and beheaded the first attacker.

The bandits momentarily paused as they hadn't expected one of the strongest among them would be cut down so easily. Now the four stopped and formed a large arc around him, luckily due to the other fights, the knocked down tree, and Caxon backing up to the cart, they couldn't completely surround him.

Now he would have to make a choice, how much of his abilities would he show. Even if he maintained his strength as a rank 5 with his elemental knowledge and sword skills, he was 100% confident he could cut down these bandits no problem.

But he also knew that being able to control 4 elements at such a young age was even more impressive than his monstrous mana core growth. He had also seen some of the bandit's sword skills and they were entirely lacking compared to what he had learned so far, but was that because they were unskilled or because he was too advanced.

Caxon could still feel the eyes of Alarat who was sitting in the cart directly behind him as if the 'scholar' was taking note of everything he did.

He decided that if he was going to be seen as anything out of the ordinary, he should only be able to do one thing really well. Since he had already used his sword to block the arrows he decided he would not use mana at all and would reveal as much of his sword skill as necessary to survive this encounter.

Having decided his plan he fully focused on the bandits in front of him. The semi-circle the bandits had made didn't allow him any space to escape and the bandits were too close for him to effectively isolate one of them for a one-on-one fight.

He simply shook his head as he didn't want the bandits to charge first since then he would have to fight them on their terms.

Caxon quickly took a knife from his belt and threw it with all his strength at the remaining rank 5 on the right side of the bandits, while he did this, he dashed to the left as quickly as he could.

The bandits reacted quickly and began to close in on him, the rank 5 was only delayed briefly but that was good enough since every second counted. Caxon saw the bandit he had charged try to strike him but luckily, he was fast enough to dodge.

He closed the distance as he dodged the blow, he then drove his sword into the bandit's heart killing him. He did not stop his momentum as he turned the now dead bandit towards the closest bandit and kicked the body into him knocking the bandit to the ground.

As he kicked the body, he ran past the bandit on the ground towards the third rank 4. Although he tried to kill him quickly this time they were more defensive after seeing how he had handled the other bandits. Still he sent a strike towards them but the bandit was narrowly able to block it while backing up a few steps.

Caxon was about to push towards the now out of position bandit but the rank 5 quickly approached him. So he was forced to block against the bandit as he slowly backed up.

As he was facing the rank 5, the third rank 4 who blocked him earlier had recovered and approached him from behind. Caxon took a leap back without turning away from the rank 5 as he killed the bandit who thought they were sneaking up behind him.

He took the bloody sword out of the chest of the bandit behind him as he pointed it at the rank 5 in front once again. Seeing this and having already exchanged blows with Caxon the rank 5 knew that he wouldn't be able to defeat Caxon if he was by himself.

Thinking of this they looked at the last rank 4 who had been knocked over by the dead body currently standing after pushing the dead body off of him.

Looking away from Caxon was an obvious mistake but the bandit had created space away from his opponent so he thought he would be safe.

Caxon was not fast enough to make it to his opponent without them readying themselves even if they were looking away. Instead of running he held his sword like a spear and launched it at the rank 5.

Obviously, the bandit did not expect him to throw away his only weapon and he was not quick enough to escape the silver flash as the sword accurately hit his neck dropping him to the floor where he would soon bleed out.

The last attacker seeing how he no longer had a weapon knew that they needed to charge now.

Although he did not have a weapon he was still plenty fast enough to dodge the sword that approached him. As he dodged, Caxon side stepped behind the bandit as he put the bandit in a chock hold. As the bandit struggled to breath, they raised their sword to stab him much in the way Caxon stabbed the bandit from behind only moments ago.

SNAP

Caxon did not hesitate to snap the neck of the bandit who was about to stab him.

After the last bandit died he looked around to see that the other adventures had also defeated all but one of their opponents so he laid against the cart to catch his breath.

Although Caxon was holding back a lot this in itself was hard and being in such an intense combat made it harder to maintain perfect mimicry. After this fight he knew, he would have to train harder in keeping his mana core suppressed no matter what stress he was under.

Caxon ended his momentary rest and stood after all the bandits were defeated. He then saw Alarat frowning while looking at the road before he turned to Caxon and smiled.

"It seems you are a very skilled young man we will definitely talk more about your future in just one second as it seems I have something to take care of first."

After saying this Alarat lost his smile as he looked at the road once more. Caxon followed his eyes and say three men walking from down the road towards them all with big smiles on their face and weapons already drawn.

As he focused on these men Caxon was shocked before he got much more serious.

'Amon if they attack, I will run and you must hold off any followers as long as possible.'

He prepared his backup plan as he looked at the three men whose mana core, he could not sense.

"Why are three silver cores here?"

Talon voiced the question on everyone's mind as he fell to his knees and dropped his weapon.