[North of Albion Plane, Porfield Kingdom, Longlost Barony]
Oakhaven was in chaos. The usual peacefulness had been replaced by a mixture of screams, blood and iron.
The White Tiger Bandit Group moved through the village like a force of nature, a scythe cutting through weary wheat. Against such an armed force, this small settlement of farmers could do nothing but attempt at resisting.
Bandits were common in this region. And Oakhaven had prepared for bandit attacks. It had even formed its own militia. But the White Tiger Bandit Group was infamous.
From their hidden fortresses in the rugged mountains of the Longlost Barony, they had descended, a storm of steel and purpose. The village militia, a handful of farmers and a retired mercenary, never stood a chance.
Greem, a squad leader at sixteen, felt the disconnect like a physical thing.
The cold, analytical stream of data from his biochip overlaid the screaming reality, turning slaughter into a series of optimal calculations.
[Name: Greem | Age: 16 years old
Attributes:
Strength - 1.6 | Agility - 1.5 | Vitality - 1.5
Skills: White Tiger Sword Art (60), Banditry (55), Literacy (40), Horse Riding (35), Plundering (30)]
[Target Acquired: Human Male. Threat Assessment: Negligible. Analyzing...]
The first man to oppose him was a blacksmith, burly and brave, wielding a hammer still smudged with soot. He charged, his face a mask of desperate fury.
[Strength: 1.8 | Agility: 0.8 | Vitality: 1.2 | Skill: Blacksmithing (~30)]
[Beep! Optimal response: Sidestep and thrust. Avoid armor]
Greem flowed aside, the hammer whistling past. His sword, a standard-issue cross blade, snapped forward in a textbook White Tiger thrust, finding the soft hollow of the man's throat.
The blacksmith collapsed, his bravery meaningless against the precision of knight-level swordsmanship taught to bandits.
[Target eliminated.]
There was no honor in this, only efficiency. An old man thrust a pitchfork at him.
[Melee Threat: Low commitment. Minimal skill.]
Greem deflected it, stepped in, and slammed his pommel into the man's temple. The crunch was definitive. To be sure, Greem took out a dagger and stabbed him twice in the chest. Not even a knight would survive the stabs.
"Secure the granary! Leave nothing standing!"
Greem's voice was calm, cutting through the screams. Five men nodded, hardened by a life in the mountains, moved with brutal purpose, kicking in doors and silencing resistance with impersonal finality.
Jask, his second, wiped blood from his dagger after dragging a woman from her hiding spot.
"They fold quicker than the Silver Serpents did", he commented, almost bored. Their rival group had been eradicated just last week
Greem didn't answer. A former militiaman, slightly more skilled than the rest, tried to make a stand with a sword and a small round shield. Obviously, he seemed to be part of the most skilled men in Oakhaven. However, his trembling hands and quivering legs showed a lack of experience.
[Target Acquired: Human Male. Threat Assessment: Low. Analyzing...]
[Strength: 1.3 | Agility: 1.4 | Vitality: 1.4 | Skill: Basic Swordsmanship (30)]
The man feinted high. Greem's chip predicted the low lunge to his leg. He didn't retreat; he stomped down on the flat of the blade, pinning it. The man clearly did not expect that, losing his grip.
The militiaman's eyes shot wide with shock a moment before Greem's sword shattered his wrist. The blade did not have enough force to go through all the way and cut his arm, but the damage was there. A simple thrust finished the task.
[Eliminated. Minor stamina depletion.]
This wasn't a battle. This was a raid. Regular bandit groups did not attempt such actions. After all, the baron would put a bounty on your head if words of it got out. Adventurers and mercenaries alike would gladly take on the task to attack and kill you.
However, the White Tiger Bandit Group operated differently. With more than two hundred bandit warriors and four knights, even the Baron could not commit to eradicate them. They had grown too powerful already.
The village was a canvas of terror: thatched roofs blazing, the few who fought being systematically cut down. Empathy was absent from the bandits' eyes. They had forsaken emotions. For the newest recruit, it might haunt them for a day or two, but it would all go away.
Then the air changed.
A roar, deeper and more visceral than any human sound, echoed over the chaos. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated violence, and it came from the village square.
Greem turned to see the source.
It was Ragnar, the "Savage of the White Tigers," one of the group's three Bandit Officers. One of the White Tiger Knight. According to the rumours, he had awakened 'internal energy', a force that allowed him to go beyond the mortal limits of humans.
A mountain of a man, bare-chested despite the chill, his skin covered in woad tattoos and old scars. Instead of a helmet, he wore the skin of a bear head. Greem had talked to the man more than once, and it apparently belonged to his barbarian tribe before it was massacred by the Baron Longlost.
In his hands, he wielded a massive, single-bladed axe that looked like it could fell a tree in one swing.
And he was toying with the village's last hope—the retired sellsword captain, the one they called the "Red Ogre."
The sellsword, a competent veteran soldier, lunged with a desperate, skilled thrust.
Ragnar didn't parry. He moved with a speed that belied his size, his agility a terrifying 2.1 according to Greem's flickering data stream. He simply swayed aside, the sellsword's swordpoint missing by a hair's breadth.
[Target: Ragnar | Status: Analyzing...]
[Strength: 3.1 | Agility: 2.1 | Vitality: 2.8 | Skill: Barbaric Axe Mastery (90), Intimidation (80), ...]
[Threat Assessment: Danger. Knight-level entity]
Before the sellsword could recover, Ragnar's free hand shot out, not with a weapon, but with open fingers. He caught the sellsword by the face, his immense strength making the man's helmet crumple like parchment.
There was a sickening, wet crack.
*SPLASH*
The sellsword's feet lifted from the ground for a moment before Ragnar casually flung the corpse aside, as if discarding rubbish.
The few remaining militiamen who saw it lost all will to fight. Their champion had been ended not in a duel, but with the casual brutality one might use to kill a insect.
Ragnar's head turned, his wild eyes scanning the scene. They landed on Greem's squad. He pointed his gore-drenched axe toward the headman's large house at the top of the hill.
"Stop gawking, pup!" Ragnar's voice was a gravelly boom. "The treasury's still standing. Make yourself useful for once"
Jask paled, grabbing Greem's arm. "You heard the Officer. Let's move. Now."
Greem nodded. He turned his back on the square, on the broken body of the Red Ogre, and led his men up the hill.
The screams of Oakhaven were just background noise now.