I struck the wall with all my power and I broke through it completely. It broke so completely, that I was somewhat alarmed when the partial ceiling above us shook violently. We quickly ran through the hole in the wall and raced towards the fort wall. As expected, rubble soon came hurtling towards us but we evaded. Then, mounds of rubble quickly shifted from outside the fort wall to block off our escape. Without missing a beat, we made a sharp turn and made a bee-line towards the tower. No rubble came shooting at us directly from behind and the few shots coming at us from the front were easy to evade. When we were within ten yards of the tower I drastically slowed down and Tasha continued racing into the tower. Right as she entered, the rubble outside stopped and I knew that we had them cornered. I turned my eyes up to the top of the tower, getting ready for the possibility of them escaping by jumping out.

The tower was about sixty feet high so I did not think it would take very long for Tasha to reach the top. After just a minute or so, I thought I could faintly hear sounds coming from inside the tower. The noises continued for about another thirty seconds, but after that, the tower started to shake. I looked up and down the tower in alarm, wondering where another attack could suddenly come from. Then, with an ear-splitting sound of stones grinding and smashing into each other, the entire tower collapsed on itself. My jaw dropped as I stared at the crumbling tower with a look of horror. The scene was so shocking that I did not even move out of the way as a few of the bricks showered down on me, a couple of them hitting me square in the chest and another on my shoulder. I stumbled slightly but my feet remained planted on the ground. Large clouds of dust billowed out as the stones fell on top of each other and when the dust had completely settled, I slowly forced my way forward.

I tried calling out, but my voice would not come through. As I got closer, I noticed that my hands were shaking, and I quickly tossed my sword to the side as it was quickly becoming impossible to maintain my grip. I reached the edge of the massive mound of rubble and I placed one hand on it. I gazed out across the ruins and tried calling out again, but still, my voice seemed stuck in my throat. I climbed on top of the rubble and shakily tried to rummage through the stones, but it was proving extremely difficult. It was not that the power of the bolts had left me, I still faintly sensed the currents surging throughout my body, but my body was just incapable of effectively putting that to good use. I clumsily crawled over the mound and grasped at loose stones, but it was nearly impossible to pick them up. I saw drops of water fall onto the stones beneath me and could now more clearly notice my clammy hands, sweating forehead, and haggard breathing as my heartbeat continued to climb, but I didn’t have the mind to do anything about that. I started shoving the stones aside a bit at a time with sweeping motions of my arms, as if I didn’t even have hands. Despite my efforts in forcing my unstable body to continue, I could only sweep about a dozen stones off the mound before I just lay flat on top of rubble, my will to move having drained away. I closed my eyes and I felt the tears begin to form. I bit down on my lip to stop myself from openly sobbing, but I still cried. Even now, I still could not bring my voice out.

As I continued to lie atop the rubble, I felt my body start to slip off the mound ever so slightly. Whatever, I initially thought, my mind flooded with too many other thoughts and emotions. However, when I felt a couple of the stones jerk off the mound, I opened my eyes. It was hard to see clearly, but ahead of me, part of the mound was shaking. Gradually, I tried to concentrate on it more, making sure it wasn’t just some trick from the water in my eyes, and the strength very quickly returned to my body. I pushed myself back up and unsteadily made my way over there, blocking out everything else other than the shaking movements of the stones. When I reached the spot, I immediately began digging through the mound. What was I thinking? So what if it’s a sixty-foot fall from instead a tower that practically imploded? My daughter is a Battle-Hardened who weathered a blizzard and knocked out a wolf when she was only five! Psh! What’s a ton of rubble gonna do? My digging got faster and after only about twenty seconds, I cleared away at least three feet of stones, and through a small gap in the stones, I thought I saw clothing.

I dug my hands around the gap, and aggressively scooped out the stones. When I had cleared away a gap about half a foot wide though, the stones suddenly shot themselves right at me, many of them hitting me in the chest and arms and one that just grazed my right ear. I was knocked onto my back, and I let out a cough as I massaged my chest. I peered over my body, back still on the mound of rubble, and saw a hand claw its way out of the hole I dug. Soon after that, the rest of the body came out. It was an old man with long, scraggly gray hair. He wore a leather tunic on top of gray robes. In almost an instant, my body chilled and then my blood boiled. I immediately sprang back up and tackled the man. We crashed into the mound of rubble and our bodies almost slid off the edge.

“You! You were the one in the tower!” My voice had suddenly returned to me. The man looked back at me with panicked eyes as I put both of my hands around his neck. Before I could start strangling the man, several stones came and pelted me, one of them hitting me hard in the back of my left hand. My grip with that hand loosened, but I ignored the blood and the pain and simply used my right arm to beat the man in the face. My first blow was slightly interrupted by another stone that struck me in my right shoulder. This led to a clumsy punch that didn’t even hit the man square in the face. My next two punches to his face were intermittent with more stones striking at me, one of them cutting my cheek. I suppose the man’s accuracy would have been better if I was not straddling and beating him.

“S-stop!” the man cried out. Oh really? You really freaking think I’m just gonna stop? I punched him a fourth time, this time breaking his nose. Ironically, if I was in a more focused state of mind, I probably could have dealt a lot more damage to him already. After I punched him a fifth time, I felt the mound start to shake. The man coughed out some blood, and then both of our bodies were suddenly shot up a few feet into the air as dozens of stones beneath us lifted us up. In my surprise, the man pushed me away and we fell back onto rubble, now about fifteen feet away from each other. The man quickly got onto all fours and started to quickly crawl away. I prepared to chase after him, but I felt the stones beneath me shake. Still got energy for another attack? Well, I’m going to make sure you don’t have enough energy for anything when I’m through with you.

I planned to make my charge right after he made his next attack, but it didn’t come. He just continued to crawl away, yet the stones immediately beneath me shook again. I stared at the stones with a bit of confusion, and just faintly, I could hear a muffled sound coming from below. Suddenly losing my sense of danger, I pressed my ear hard against the ground, and I thought I could hear the sound again. My anger was instantly pushed aside with hope as I desperately began digging through the rubble again, oblivious to the retreating man.

I ignored the pain in my left hand and dug out the stones as quickly as I could. After a foot of digging, I could now almost hear her voice clearly. Another two feet, and I could just barely see leather armour through a gap. I pulled the stones away and before I completely cleared it, Tasha swatted away the rest. Her whole body was dusty and her face had minor cuts, but other than that, she looked fine. I pulled her up towards me and embraced her. I can’t remember the last time we had ever hugged like this, and Tasha was also probably surprised. She took a moment before wrapping her arms around me as well. I heard Tasha try to voice something, but it was suddenly cut short. Perhaps she was unsure of what to say. Anything would have been fine.

After one of the longest hugs ever, I finally dropped my arms away from her and she followed suit. She took a closer look at me and I could tell she was worried about my various injuries. She also pointed at my face, but quickly put her hand away. I reached for my own face, feeling my wet cheeks. We began climbing out of the hole just as the mound shook. Off to the opposite edge of the mound, I saw the old man. I quickly pulled Tasha out of the hole with me just as stones fired off inside like a dart trap. My anger returned, but I was much composed now. I calmly dashed over to him and feinted a turn before kicking off into the air. The man was either too unprepared or too tired to properly evade or defend, but I punched him while I was still in mid-air. The blow knocked him out and he flew several feet back. I shook my fist a bit to get the blood off before casually strolling over to his unconscious body. Just before I could stand over him, Tasha suddenly came in between us.

“Wait! Don’t kill him!” she cried out to me. I put on a perplexed expression. “I- I know he’s done some horrible things, but we can’t just go around killing everyone!” Her arms were spread out to her sides to stop me from going around her, which I found rather amusing. I smiled at her, and put a hand on her head.

“Relax. I won’t kill him.” Not anymore. I let my anger consume me, and although I said I would be willing to kill, it wasn’t necessary. “Thank you, though, Tasha.” Tasha was eventually satisfied, and put her arms back down. I forced off the power of the Thousand Bolts and my heart rate slowly went back to normal. My sweat-drenched body still felt rather hot though. I went to retrieve my sword and Tasha rummaged through the rubble to find hers, which thankfully did not take very long. After that, I bandaged up my left hand. Then, I tied up the man’s hands and feet with some rope and waited for him to wake up, which also did not take very long. I told Tasha to keep a close watch on our surroundings in case he tries something again.

“Well, I’ll be. Not dead yet,” the man remarked with a hoarse voice, while lying on his back. I felt like bluffing the man with some death threats, but Tasha would just get upset with me.

“Isn’t that a pleasant surprise for you?” I asked, crouching down next to him. The man just looked at me, devoid of emotion. “So, I don’t think we would be fooling anyone if you told me that you only just started doing this kind of stuff. You’ve killed before, haven’t you?” He still said nothing, but I just knew what the truth was. “Perhaps there is something you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know who you think I am, but you have the wrong man.” What a vague, yet seemingly incriminating thing to say.

“Well, do you happen to know what kind of man we are looking for then? Or, where that man might be?” I asked, playing along.

“I see a lot of people.”

“Right,” I said, nodding, not really thinking much about his statement. But then, I remembered that I was looking for some people. “Well, you get a pretty good look out from that tower, mind telling me about the kind of other people you see.” He gave no response. “Alright, let me be more specific here. Did you happen to see a group of merchants with a wagon come by in the past few days?” He looked from side to side.

“I might have.”

“Can you describe them?”

“Can you?” After checking to see that Tasha was still on lookout and not watching me specifically, I brought my sword close to his neck.

“I’m the one asking questions here.” He did not seem to take my threat very seriously so I brought the blade closer. I saw a bead of sweat trickle off his forehead.

“Well…I might have seen some people with a wagon.”

“I need definite answers here. Did you see those people? When did you see them?” I pressed the blade just a bit closer.

“I- It was two, um three nights ago. No, two nights! Um, yeah! It was really dark though!” I quickly withdrew my sword, figuring that Tasha would probably turn around after hearing the hurried speech.

“Well, where were they headed?”

“W-where else? They came by the fort so they’re obviously going to the Bronze Colony.” His story made sense. I couldn’t be sure if he was lying, but it did not seem like it. We had enough information, so I guess all that was left to do was bring him with us to the Bronze Territory and see if there are any authorities there to take him off our hands. I got back up and turned my head to Tasha. Tasha was still diligently keeping her watch on the surroundings. I guess she does trust me to keep to my word.

Suddenly, the old man rolled over to the side, and a spiked pillar of stone came shooting out of the ground, aimed at Tasha. The earth where it came out of was already cracked open, something he must have done while hiding it behind his back. In order to stop it in time, I managed to force two bolts through my right arm as I blocked the stone spike with my sword. Had I been even a split second later, it could have impaled her back. My anger returned as I turned to face the old man, who had now hopped onto his feet.

“Don’t you even think about it!” I forced a bolt through my leg to kick off and intercept him, but a thick curtain of earth came out of the cracked ground. I kicked off towards the obscuring wave of dirt and stone and slashed through it when I had already passed halfway through it. I felt my sword slice through something, and after getting to the other side of the wave of earth, I saw the old man in the middle of falling to the ground, blood spilling out of his neck. He crashed onto the ground and I spit the dirt out of my mouth. I casually went up to his body and one look at the deep slash in his neck and his glassy eyes told me everything I needed to know. Tasha came up to me and then gasped.

“Y- you killed him.”

“Yeah,” I said simply. Tasha furrowed her eyebrows and smacked me in the chest. It wasn’t a very hard hit, but my strength had drained away after using my powers again so I fell onto my butt. “You promised me that you wouldn’t kill him!” Although my strength had mostly left me, my anger was yet to fade away. I could have told her it was just an accident, and that I couldn’t see through the wave of earth. A minute of reasoning probably would have been enough to settle the matter. But no, I didn’t want to do that. He didn’t deserve that kind of defense.

“He tried to kill you, Tasha. Me too. Not just now. This whole time we were in this fort! He’s a murderer who has already killed other people the same way!”

“It’s still wrong, dad! You’ve told me that when people do bad things, a good person should not do those same kinds of things in return.” I might have said something like that during one of my morality lessons. Well, let’s continue with those lessons today, then.

“Tasha, there are always going to be a lot of different situations in the world. That means right and wrong can vary a lot depending on the place and time.” Even I thought I was just about to spout some nonsense, but I held onto the hope it was going to get good somewhere. “Murder is one of the worst things you can do. It is so bad that you cannot possibly blame others when you are killed instead.” Tasha looked at me incredulously. “Besides, don’t you remember Jack Free?” I knew now that I was making an even greater mistake now. “We wanted to get revenge on him for Bradley. You even took up his sword.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him!”

“Could have fooled me.” Oh shit, did I just say that out loud? “Well, even if you weren’t, he’s dead now because I did kill him.” This is turning out to be one of my worst transitions ever. “I mean, I wasn’t wrong when I killed Jack Free, right? I saved you.” Did I just try to guilt trip my daughter? Well, it seems to be working, going by Tasha’s confused expression.

“I mean…in the end…I guess I did want him dead…” Tasha said, losing confidence in her argument. This was exactly what I wanted, but it made me feel horrible at the same time. I struggled back onto my feet and put my arms on her shoulders.

“And there was nothing wrong with that. Jack Free killed many innocent people and at the time there was no other way to stop him other than killing him. This was the right decision.” Yes, of course it was the right decision. Why was I struggling so much with this earlier. It’s so obvious now. “And this man…he was no different. Indiscriminately, he would attack his victims with the intent to kill. Who knows how many countless others he killed before we stopped him? Saying we went too far with someone as far-gone as him is a meaningless argument.” I smiled at Tasha and she looked at me uneasily. I ignored it and grabbed her hand to pull her along to leave the fort. She looked back to the man I just killed but did not resist.

After an hour of brisk walking, we reached the outskirts of farmland as the sun was setting. I stopped a farmer who was cleaning up for the night to ask him if we were in the Bronze Territory yet. He looked at me a bit funny, but eventually just told us to keep going forward. We did, and we reached the town gates after a little over two hours. Most of the buildings were made of wood but had stone foundations. The pathways of the town were mostly just dirt. I asked around for a place to stay and I was directed to an inn. Along the way, I noticed a number of guards wearing leather armour patrolling the streets. We rented a room at the inn and slept for the night. There was only one bed so I slept in the corner of the room. Even up until then, Tasha did not speak another word to me.