51 - Slaughter

Stealthily running through the forest, Illyan was looking for his enemies.

Due to the shortage of the tribe's elites, they divided themselves and went in different directions. As one of the strongest, he went alone.

He was glad for that. Illyan wasn’t in a good mood now and felt that this was actually a good opportunity to let loose.

Still, he would rather watch the funeral to say his goodbyes than to fight some stupid idiots.

His eyes were like those of a hawk looking for his prey.

It didn’t take long before he found a group of five clansmen.

He didn’t recognize which clan they were from, but he was sure that they belonged to the alliance.

They wore masks made out of the front skull and had regular bone spears.

One of them had a wooden shield and an ax, showing his higher status.

Illyan didn’t take any of his equipment this time as he felt it was unnecessary.

He wanted to test his progress, so using the weapons he used the most while not hiding behind the shield was the best way in his mind.

The jagged blade and two battle axes were disadvantageous against a spear normally, but for him, that was a good challenge.

He was still in a bad position when against really good spearmen, but against normal ones, he could easily breach his disadvantage.

Slowing his breath, he prepared to lunge at his enemies from height when they passed under him.

Their voices were whispering something in their tribal language, making it impossible for him to understand. But just by their tone and nonverbal gesticulation, they did not come with good intentions.

‘Do they even have some good intentions? Their life seems to be just madness and their lord’s grace in my eyes…’

Just as he thought this, he jumped at them.

Before they could react, he already split the skull of the first one with an ax and swung his blade at the other closest enemy. That one managed to block him but his spear snapped, allowing the blade to continue unimpeded.

However, before it managed to draw blood, another spear was aiming at him from behind.

With a light crouch and movement of his head, he avoided the lethal strike while beheading the opponent in front of him. Because of his blade being jagged, it was not a clean cut, making the blood splatter everywhere.

That made the other three clansmen go into a frenzy as they started to shout.

“#&@&!”

“$#&@!

Illyan wasn’t stupid. He knew that they tried to call upon their comrades. However, he didn’t care. The more, the merrier.

Before he could make another move, the three clansmen surrounded him and tried to stab him.

Unfortunately for them, Illyan wasn’t an easy target. With the new upgrade of his eyes, he could easily see even the smallest twitch of their muscles.

Thanks to his anatomy knowledge, he could easily deduce in what way they will move, effectively predicting their movements before they even move.

If they were more covered, it would be impossible, but in this place where tribes and clans wear unsophisticated clothes, it was much easier for Illyan.

Of course, those in his blind spot had an advantage, but that was only objective. As someone who lived in blindness for years and didn’t stop training, he could easily hear the grunts of enemies and the wind flowing around the weapons.

Albeit not as good as his eyes, his hearing was on a different level compared to normal people.

So it wasn't a surprise when they couldn’t hit him even once, giving him another opportunity to strike.

Like a snake, the blade struck the enemy right in the chest mutilating the flesh around.

Then, he chopped with his ax at the other one with the intent to slash a deep wound.

The one with the highest statue used the shield and blocked the strike while counterattacking.

Illyan redirected the stab and kicked the shield, making the guy retreat.

As he saw the sturdy shield, he got an idea.

He opened his eyes wide and looked at the wind flowing around. He started practicing the martial arts that Kaoran gave him. Using his weapons to align with the wind, he danced around his enemies while incorporating the martial art into battle.

While it was a martial art, it wasn’t originally meant to be incorporated into a functional martial art. This one was created to help the untalented with Spiritual Arts. It didn’t even have a name.

Even in his arms, it was possible only thanks to The Way of The Body and Eyes of Truth yet it wasn’t really effective. In truth, it was far less efficient than just killing them. But he saw the potential in it.

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That’s why he decided to give it a name.

The Elemental Dance.

“Haah..” Once he charged enough energy, he made a horizontal swing with his ax at the opponent.

The man just calmly put his shield in front of himself, giving him a false sense of safety since any other strikes couldn’t do anything to him.

How wrong he was.

Crack

With just one swing, the shield shattered and his torso was bisected with his innards covering the snow around.

Both Illyan and the remaining enemy were extremely surprised at this and stopped for a moment.

However, Illyan collected himself soon and with a swift slash, he beheaded him too.

Breathing heavily, he leaned on the tree. The Elemental Dance was quite harsh to do during a fight and it took away a lot of his stamina.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to rest.

With the swing of his weapons, he deflected several arrows and rolled on the ground to escape the rest of them.

The reinforcement came for help. Albeit it was too late for the dead clansmen, it wasn’t their concern. They only cared about the enemy who attacked them.

With gleaming eyes, Illyan ran towards the trees and with a jump, he started to climb it, starting another round of slaughter.

……..

In this way, he slaughtered every clansman he saw that day. Sometimes he met another Bakur member and helped him out but else he was going on a killing spree alone.

Of course, it wasn’t only Blood Crow Alliance and there were other tribes and even the winter beasts coming over.

The other tribes quickly retreated when they saw Illyan covered with blood from top to bottom looking at them with bloodlust in his crimson-gold eyes.

However, the beasts were different. They were only a little smarter than normal animals and so they chose to engage with the humans.

Of course, they were soon killed. But this time, Illyan didn’t just leave and instead covered the beast’s bodies so the tribe could retrieve them later for meat.

Soon, he noticed a commotion close to him so he went to investigate.

There, he saw a group of 30 people with the same skull masks surrounding five Bakur members. One of them was Degres.

But he didn’t give off the aura of fear. Instead, mirth was on his face as he laughed at the man in front of him.

When Illyan saw him, he firstly stiffened but immediately after he realized it wasn’t the man he thought it was.

It was a shaman of one of their clans. However, it wasn’t one of Thearas Clan that threw him on the fire.

“Hahahah, do you think you can fight us with just this little advantage?!” Degres continued taunting the shaman, whose face was red in anger.

“Bastard, you think your tribe is something superior to our glamorous alliance of lords? You can believe in this little fairy tale before I will use your heart as a sacrifice,” the shaman spoke with a great accent and malicious expression.

When Illyan realized this, he wondered if the shamans of their clan also had the same inheritances as the Bakur Tribe. After all, they had the Blood Feeding Technique or whatever it was called…

If he could make the shaman translate it…

Illyan didn’t waste his time and sneaked slowly closer.

But he didn't attack. He waited for the conflict to begin. That’s when they would lose their attention and only see what was in front of them.

Fortunately, the fight started a few seconds later with Degres attacking first, killing one of the enemies with one slash.

The chaos began.

Meanwhile, Illyan sneaked to the farthest one and with one smooth slash, he slit his neck.

He managed to do so one more time before someone noticed him.

“@#{&!”

Knowing it was useless to hide now, he quickly attacked other unaware enemies that were closest to him and killed them with swift attacks.

“Oh, Illyan! Haha, good job!” Degres, who saw this, started to laugh raucously as he used the opportunity that Illyan gave him to take down another two.

Before he was just bluffing. After all, fighting against 30 with just five was almost impossible, even with his great power. He was just delaying so the reinforcement came.

While Illyan was just one, he was someone who could replace any reinforcement that could come. He was quick, smart, and couldn't die from simple attacks. He was like a grim reaper that made everyone helpless.

It would be different if it was the day before as he was still blind, but this day he could finally take down the cloth on his eyes. Illyan told him that he finally recovered completely this morning. At least one positive thing happened this day…

But thanks to this, he could fight freely with a smile on his face.

The other four tribe members also didn’t shilly-shally and started to mow the enemies.

“Don’t kill the shaman! I have something to talk about with him!” When Illyan said this, he ignored them and started to clash with other clansmen around him.

The shaman, who heard this, was visibly angered as he felt humiliated by a child.

“Kill him!” And so, without hesitation, he commanded his clansmen to attack Illyan in his language.

Illyan didn’t understand, but he guessed what it meant when he saw them all looking at him like that.

But he didn’t care. He simply blocked, parried, counterattacked, slashed, stabbed, and chopped. He didn’t care about who it was or what their stories were.

He just wanted to kill them. When there was no feasible way to avoid the injury, he simply went for the enemy's head without dodging. In this way, he was like a mad dog without caring for his wounds.

His enemies were the same. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t born with supernatural regeneration. Thus they were falling like fruits from the tree.

Soon, only the kneeling shaman was bound by two of the tribe members.

Three were wounded, but nobody died, which could be called a miracle as they were simply too outnumbered.

However, Illyan’s intervention disrupted the entire dynamics of the fight.

“What do you want, you scum?!” The shaman, who was pitifully kneeling before the tribe members, stared at Illyan, who said he wanted him to be alive.

“I want to make a transaction.” Illyan answered calmly after calming down from all of that slaughter.

“Hah.” But the shaman just scoffed at this.

“I will let you live if you tell me about the Blood Feeding Technique. You know what I am talking about, right?”

“You really think I will betray my lord just for my life?”

Illyan’s eyes narrowed at this. He didn’t expect that he would agree easily. But he knew how to make someone speak.

“It is not just your life. You will not live in misery, that is. There are things worse than death.”

“I see, torture… Hahahahah, fuck off, bitch!! My lord will have revenge!!” Saying that, the shaman bit off his tongue, spitting it at Illyan.

Surprised, he dodged the tongue belatedly realizing that it was the shaman’s tongue.

Seeing all the blood that was spitted out, he knew it was too late.

A crooked smile appeared on the shaman's face that made Illyan feel rage bubbling out in his heart.

And so, he kicked the man where it hurt the most, as he didn’t want to see him leave the world with a smile on his crooked face.

Crack

“Aaaagh!”

One last wail was heard before the shaman bled to death from the wound where his tongue was.

But Illyan still had to kick the body several times before he felt better.

He didn’t expect that someone would actually kill themselves while still having a chance of survival. It felt like an insult to him who lived in pain for so long without even considering such.

But it wasn’t like that this would make him so angry. It was mainly the combination of several factors that made him explode like this.

“Illyan… Shit happens. We can’t do anything with it. They were always like this. I think that this was the last group here. Let’s go back and waste ourselves this evening.” Degres came and patted him on his back and stopped him from kicking the bloodied corpse. Illyan looked dazedly at him as he nodded.

He was too tired mentally to care.