Johan frowned.

“This place’s off-limits.” Two normal-looking men that wore strikingly formal guard attires barred his way.

They stood in front of a wrecked building that nobody could reasonably guess what purpose it served before descending to ruin. Sharp shadows were cast from its partially crumbled tall walls.

The two men reached for the long daggers hanging from their belts.

Whoosh

They couldn’t respond to Johan’s speed as he passed between them. He spread his hand backwards into two well-calculated chops. Luckily, he hit the correct spot to make them faint - he hadn’t practiced rendering people unconscious that much.

Thumb-thumb

The two men made dull sounds when they fell on the cobblestone-covered street.

Johan’s black cloak kept fluttering from the previous momentum when he strode through the opening in the half-ruined wall the two men had been guarding.

He found himself into an open space whose roof had long since caved into a rumble-filled ground. However, Johan’s attention focused on the cages.

There were a dozen of them, arrayed at regular intervals of each other. Their rusty thick bars and wooden roofs and floors had left just enough room for an adult to crouch and three people to comfortably share.

Inside each cage were locked four to five people. Or, rather, Johan recognized them as people, but had some trouble registering what he saw; children that were all bones inside their rags and adults with despair in their eyes. Most women’s clothing were torn to near shambles. On the majority, they were natives of the black lands, but some had lighter skin color, like Johan.

A dozen or so men in cloaks were patrolling around the cages, occasionally jeering at a prisoner in glee. From the way they carried themselves Johan could tell that -with the exception of one or two- they shouldn’t even be formally trained in combat.

“No food for you” one of the cloaked men was yelling at a woman inside a cage. She shivered uncontrollably under his gaze. “How dare you resist last night?” He used a wooden spear he was carrying to forcefully hit her stomach behind the bar. She involuntarily shrieked once in pain, but otherwise remained silent.

“Hey, let me in the fun next time.” another gleefully called at him, as he cruelly pinched the cheeks of a small child that weakly whimpered. “This one’s useless. Let’s get rid of her - she won’t fetch much and we can’t cut on our share, right?” He lazily moved towards a spear propped on one of the few wooden crates riddles through the rubble.

“Well said.” several voices agreed with him.

As he moved, Johan gained a clearer look of the child. With a sickening sensation, he realized the child’s skin almost perfectly outlined her bones, save of her stomach that had become bloated from lack of food. Her nails had been bitten short.

Johan finally understood the reality of it; both Markus and the fat man before had only been humans that exploited other humans – even if they couldn’t necessarily reign all their subordinates in, most of their slaves didn’t suffer excessively. And certainly not so cruelly. When Johan released them, some of the fat man’s slaves had even been cared for better than their guards – probably since they were meant as servants for wealthy people.

But this- Johan’s thoughts paused, trying to organize themselves. There isn’t even a shred of humanity left.

Of course, he had heard of miserable slaving stories before. But being aware and seeing for himself was completely different.

Various thoughts passed through the back of Johan’s mind, but he couldn’t focus on them much. Instead, a slight haze of red covered his sight, as blood rushed to his head. Some people are beyond salvation. he thought in disgust.

As he did, his killing intent indiscriminately erupted in full force.

During his brief moment of surveillance, nobody had been alerted to his presence. But now, all eyes instinctually turned towards him. Silence descended on the opening as every person involuntarily froze in place. It was a response beyond anyone’s control – their bodies simply knew that staying still was the wisest course of action against this kind of killing intent.

Without uttering a word, Johan moved closer from the opening in the wall to the middle of the roofless ruin. All the while, no-one dared move in front of the massive threat against their life.

“Who are you?” one of the largest cloaked people finally asked from between the nearest cage and a crate.

“The guards said master Skullsong said we can’t do business today.” one of the scrawnier ones in the far end of the opening carefully filled in. “Come again tomorrow, dear customer. If you got a message for the boss back home, just leave it with us.”

Johan completely ignored them and placed his right hand on the hilt of the black katana. Using his belt as an axis, he slightly tilted the sheath forward.

“If there’s any objection to these people dying, I’ll hear them in the next ten breaths.” he calmly addressed the people in the cages. Most of them lifelessly stared back in non-comprehension.

“One” Johan started counting.

“This guy’s bad news. Let’s attack together!” one of the cloaked people shouted.

“Two”

“Chaarge!” the muscles of the large man that spoke in the beginning bulged and tore his cloak. A ripped figure was revealed – clearly a well-trained warrior, even if martial aura had not yet bloomed within him. He grabbed a mace from his belt and jumped over the crate standing between him and Johan. As he did, he swung the mace downwards.

“Three”

Johan extended his left hand and covered it with an idea of martial aura. He also shifted his weight to better distribute force and he caught the blow falling towards his head. The hammer made a dull sound when it collided with his flesh, but it stopped on its tracks.

“Four”

Before the man landed, Johan took a hold of the hammer, so that the other couldn’t pull it back. His killing intent thickened slightly, looking forward to the moment it would be left to its own device. The man tried to lift the hammer, but Johan’s grip was stronger. He used his toes to take a hold on the rubble he was standing on so that he wouldn’t be lifted up.

“Why’s nobody moving? Why won’t my body move?” another cloaked man shrieked. “Is this magic?”

“Five”

Since the large man couldn’t lift his hammer again, he started pushing downwards. However, Johan was unfazed and instead gathered martial aura on his abdomen. Two icicles that were projectiles by the scrawniest man smashed against it without effect.

“Six”

“Damn, I know. That’s killing intent” another cloaked man shouted rapidly. “But even the guard captains can at most use it momentarily. How?”

“Seven”

The one that was reaching for a spear eventually managed to resolve himself against the pressure. With a cry, he grabbed the spear and run across a couple of cages. He thrust it from Johan’s left side.

Still easily withstanding the downwards push of the muscled man’s hammer, Johan shifted the pressure to his right leg and used his left one to kick. The kick avoided the spear’s trajectory and the leather-covered soles of Johan’s feet hit the man squarely in the chest. The man let go of the weapon and his body crashed into a crate a couple of steps behind him. The impact broke the dark wood and a mass of preserved meat spilled over the man. From Johan’s standpoint the meet looked proper, as in chicken and not sandworm.

“Eight” Given the state of the starved child, Johan seriously resisted the urge to just massacre everyone before the count ended.

“Why are you here? Can’t we settle it with money? We got plenty! Also, you don’t want to anger the boss back home.” at last someone realized the reality of their predicament and tried to negotiate.

Johan ignored him.

“Nine”

Still contesting the puffing ripped man’s downwards push with his left hand, Johan grabbed his Katana’s hilt with the right hand. He used his thumb to push it a finger’s breadth out of its scabbard and slid his palm over its guard and onto the hilt. The sun glared angrily on small line of black metal. Johan made a check with his intuition in preparation of the first slash – he’d rather not get careless.

“Te-”

“Please don’t!” a man very quietly spoke from a cage. Everyone turned towards him. He was middle-aged with no distinguishing features. From the folds of skin that hung loosely over his body, he should have been quite wealthy once.

The man’s eyes reddened. “Don’t kill them!” he repeated. “Just incapacitate them – let us do the … honors. You can do that, right?” He stared at Johan with unblinking red eyes.

“Ok” Johan nodded, empathizing with him. I also want to take revenge with my own hands.

It wouldn’t require much more effort to capture the cloaked people anyway – it was purely a difference in strength and reflexes. It definitely had nothing to do with whether he had practiced rendering people unconscious before.

“It’s not like I’m facing the Mayers guy.” Johan mumbled to no-one in particular when he started moving.

Markus woke up feeling his ears burning.

“… someone talking about me?” he stupidly commented. He always had difficulty readjusting to reality after a long sleep.

“Brother! You’re awake!” a cheery girly voice shouted. “See, uncle? Pulling brother’s ears always works!”

Markus’s brain jolted awake and he abruptly fluttered his eyelids to clear his vision. His head hurt but he seemed to otherwise be fine.

He lay on a soft bed, amidst clean white sheets, embroidered with gold linings. From a wide window in front, ample sunlight poured into the white-walled room, illuminating its simple but well-designed interior; a silver cabinet next to the bed with a green lamp on top, a finely-drawn canvas on the wall and green-colored smartly-parting curtains. Not recognizing the place, Markus instead examined the ones sitting on two sturdy wooden chairs to the left of his bed.

“Brother!” Soft flowing black hair and a childish manner, a very young girl -not even of age- jumped up and down in excitement. Her dark green dress moved alongside her in a funny manner. “I trained like you told me last time and got reeaaally strong!”

Markus smiled at her cheerful demeanor – he hadn’t seen his sister in a while. He opened his mouth to reply, but then realized who was occupying the space next to her.

It was an obese man that looked like he was in his late thirties. There were many fat men in the world, but this one brought the definition of fatness to new extremes; he was wider than taller! In fact, judging from the way his mass was distributed into an almost round shape, he probably used magic to help support his weight.

“So, little Markus, how was the world?” Noticing the attention, the man produced a muffin out of thin air and jovially presented it to Markus, who slowly sat up.

However, Markus was in no mood to accept it.

The law-enforcing elder! His status was very high within the family and he normally was a busy person – not having a time to even think about unimportant matters, such as lowly disciples and whatnot.

Markus understood there could only be one reason the elder was next to him when he woke. However informal, this was an interrogation. Therefore, despite the pounding inside his head, he chose his next words very carefully.

“The world is a wide place. Knowledge can’t even begin to cover its profundity.”

“Eh, even brother had difficulties?” ignoring the mood, Markus’ little sister asked mid-celebration. The elder gently put one of his rather short hands on her head to turn her silent.

Something about the situation felt slightly strange. But not in a bad way and so Markus did not focus on it. More importantly, it felt as if a hammer was smoothing the insides of his skull. This was worse than getting hungover on old dwarven ale.

Meanwhile, the elder’s clean-shaved face broke into a smile.

“Yes, true, so very true. The world is … wide! Did you quote the Philosopher? He had a very deep perspective into things. Why, even in his monumental Cosmology, he took great pains not to speak in absolutes. Such a shame that intellect didn’t live longer…”

The elder put the whole muffin he was still holding into his mouth and started munching it. As he did, he produced another one with a wave of his hand.

“It is as you say, uncle.” Markus carefully agreed. He lifted his hands to massage his temples, but it did not help at all.

“And here -munch- we have an assertion of the fact; the arrogant young rascal -munch- running away from home came back magically deprived -gulp- from the jaws of death.”

The elder’s brown eyes seriously focused on Markus as he gulped down the muffin and produced a third one. Meanwhile, Markus realized that his headache was most likely a symptom from magic overuse and stopped his futile efforts.

“Brother didn’t run away, uncle! Brother only wanted to know history – isn’t this good?” Markus’ sister interrupted the man. Her green eyes slightly narrowed; concentrating on presenting her argument.

“Little princess, think about this -munch-munch.” the elder patiently turned to the little girl, ruffling her soft long hair with his short hand. “Would it be good if a newborn could perform high-level magic.”

“… Eeeh…. Probably not.”

“Why?” the elder inquired patiently.

She thought about it for a couple of breaths. “It could randomly hurt others?”

“Correct!” the elder agreed. He gulped down the second muffin and carefully examined the third one, as if deciding whether to make short work of it too.

“But brother is not a newborn! He knows what he’s doing!“ she protested.

“Yes, and that’s precisely why he should be punished.”

“Eeeeh!! Noo!” she stomped her little feet in defiance a couple of times, but in the end she dejectedly slumped on her chair.

Markus had to give it to the elder – he made perfect sense. Unfortunately, the outcome of such a line of thought was against him.

“Anyway” the elder turned to Markus again.

“I heard young Markus vanished to the Black Lands doing shady stuff after being naughty and grabbing forbidden things.”

Markus did not reply as the elder thought about it for a bit. Instead, he tried to put his thoughts in an order that prevented his head from hurting.

“The last two offences are nothing new; everyone in the family is guilty of such sins more or less. I won’t ask too much about them, since we already have rules for such occurrences – why, I believe caretaking an Enlightened One for a couple of years would suffice at worst.”

The elder gestured vaguely with the third muffin as he talked, spreading its sweet smell. Markus was somewhat relieved – what he had feared most was the book he had snitched being too important.

”But surely, there’s a good reason for dragging the family name on the ground? This is more serious” the elder pressed. Even if he had a relaxed personality, there were some matters that would simply be too grave an offence unless some good explanation was provided.

They were the reputable Mayers family after all! The actions of one member reflected the image of the rest. Who was to take responsibility if by some chance the reputation of the older grandmasters took a hit because the younglings couldn’t properly conduct themselves?

Markus suppressed a sigh. From the corner of his eye, he saw that even his sister’s lower lip was trembling for his well-being and he knew he couldn’t keep it to himself even if he wanted to. Besides the slave business, he had performed certain underground transactions to uncover intel and get useful material and he had used the family’s name for safety.

“Yes, uncle.” He replied in the end. “I found a shape of the Fragmented One.”

“Oho?” the elder paused mid-motion from putting the -surprisingly still uneaten- third muffin in his mouth. “You could surely meet such a thing without needing to go through all the trouble?”

“Uncle, it wasn’t any shape; it was the Shape that escaped.” Markus explained.

“What?” the elder dropped the muffin on his belly. It rolled on its circumference and softly fell on the wooden floor.

“Is this true, little Markus?” his brown eyes peered at him intently.

“Yes uncle, it was an old man, as the description said. It liked calling everyone names.”

Ignoring the dropped muffin, the elder rubbed his enormous belly in a circular motion.

“Little princess, leave us alone for a bit. I promise I won’t punish your brother.”

Markus’s sister, who had been listening with a puzzled expression, jumped down from the chair again in high spirits.

“Really? Uncle is the best!” she hugged the part of his belly she could reach and quickly ran out of the room. “Brother, later come play with me.” She paused on the doorway.

“Yeah…” Markus nodded at her.