It was finally the day when Andrew was going to be travelling to the capital. Understanding how long the journey was supposed to be, he and Marian got off early in preparation to set off early in the morning. They load all their luggage on the cart tied to two horses and were much at ease seeing how things seems and how refreshing the day was currently.

Riding the horses, they stopped by the house of Cornelius, in which Eve and Ceros could be seen all prepared and Cornelius could be seen in front of his house with a customary smile on his face as if welcoming Andrew.

He seems to be friendly with Andrew as if what has happened in the past between them hadn’t occurred between them at all. He passed on the necessary documents which Andrew would be needing on getting to the capital.

Everything seems fully prepared for him. Andrew just glances through the paper with a serious expression as if understanding what was being said, being able to speak doesn’t necessarily mean he was also able to read it, but he understood all that was in it.

Then he plastered a smile on his face and he shook hands with Cornelius. Ceros and Eve had their separate horse which they rode, and out of the three horses which Andrew had initially collected from Oscar, only two were currently with him. He sold the last one to Cornelius as having more horses that he couldn’t ride all the time was a burden and more paperwork to be done since he now understood that having horses without the right license was a crime in this kingdom he was currently in. Although it was the weakest out of the horses, Cornelius still bought it for a nice sum of money. Currently, Andrew has a huge amount of money almost totalling one million gold coins exempting the materials which he hasn’t yet sold.

Seeing that they were all prepared and ready to go, without further ado and unnecessary words, they set off towards the capital.

At this same moment, the leader of the smiling whisperers got out of the cave with his crew right behind him. They got on their horses and starts heading off in the direction pointed out by the two lone survivors of yesterday’s slaughter.

The two survivors were pale and their eyes were bloodshot with dark circles. They hadn’t been able to sleep out of fear of being suddenly pounced on and killed.

They clattered their teeth all through the night and any slight movements of their guests would get their hearts beating fast. The direction they pointed towards happens to be in the direction of the village and the crew of Andrew was just leaving the village. With the path being taken by both groups of people, they were bound to cross paths in this journey.

Two people, one a young boy of fourteen years who has the skin of a fair maiden and the other a grown young man who was in his late forties although he had the look of a man in his early thirties, the former of whom was a skilled warrior and seemed to be nothing short of a genius and the other a ruthless bandit who has ended thousands of lives with a huge bounty stationed for his head. They were bound by destiny to meet no matter what happens and they didn’t even expect that they would come face to face with each other.

It didn’t take long before both carriages were just a few meters from each other. From a while back, both the leader and his strongest commander detected that a carriage was headed their way and they communicated with their eyes that if they found the carriage worthy, they would loot it on their way.

They were a few meters from each other before Andrew noticed the horses which were kicking off the dust from a distance and couldn’t help but frown at this sight. He wonders who this new entry was since they proudly rode on horses with pride from even a distance away as if they were unafraid of the laws being posed by the kingdom. Ceros follows Andrew’s line of sight and also notices the sight of these horses. Andrew thought of avoiding this group of people and taking another path, he couldn’t help shake off the feeling that these sets of approaching people spelt trouble, and fully understanding that his instincts has never wronged him, he wanted to avoid them.

He voiced his thoughts with Ceros who agreed immediately. About switching to a different route, a voice sounds out, “Friends from afar, I did advice not to make any drastic movements”. The voice came from the leader of the bandits. Andrew's eyes couldn’t help forming slits, after all, they were still a distance from each other and shouldn’t have been able to sense their movements, but after little thought, he just pushed it to the back of his head and thought of the matter as being a coincidence.

Since they have already been found out, trying to escape would prove to be futile since the other side had more forces than they did. More than ten times than they were, so it would be easy to pursue and catch up to them. Waiting for their arrival might just mean being looted, but running might mean risking all their lives.

Having no other choice, they just choose to wait for the newcomers with Andrew and Ceros stepping out of the carts, leaving the ladies behind. Before long, the crew of bandits was in front of Andrew and Ceros. Ceros was shivering inside while his axe was being gripped firmly in his hands, Andrew also grips his cutlass tightly which was sheathed at his waist but doesn’t unsheathe it just yet, hoping the situation they currently were in wouldn’t erupt into fighting, cause their situation wasn’t good.

Although if he tries his absolute best, he was sure he could escape but the other people would most definitely die. When the group of bandits came before Andrew and Ceros with their ferocious aura which was clearly showing they reeked of blood and wanted to kill, Andrew’s eyes scans through their group, understanding that this group of people were nothing but ordinary and his eyes rest on two seemingly familiar faces.

From what he could remember, they were from the set of people who had escaped on the day he had killed Oscar after having all that they possessed transferred to his house in the village.

Understanding that since these two were with this group, there would be nothing but endless trouble for him, he started thinking of ways to try to get out of this situation. As he was thinking, trying to trouble his brain to formulate any plan to get rid of these new troublemakers, a scream disrupts his thought, “The ruthless warlord”.

The scream came directly from Ceros who was by his side and was now gripping his axe more tightly as he started sweating buckets. His veins were pulsating as if he was facing an enemy he knew he couldn’t defeat but still had to fight. Andrew hasn’t first noticed the man whom Ceros's gaze was directed, maybe because he didn’t seem any special and had a lazing air about him but on hearing his scream and seeing how he has become totally serious, he scanned the man again with his eyes and his eyes squinted as he couldn’t sense any aura on this man.

This revelation makes Andrew’s heart starts beating fast, something like this hasn’t happened for a while since his breakthrough and his being able to sense the realm of others. He understood perfectly well that since he couldn’t sense the realm of this man out of everybody present, this was the most dangerous person out of this group and should be taken seriously.

As if noticing that Andrew’s eyes were scanning him, the leader’s eyes falls on Andrew, and just like Andrew he was shocked at how young this boy is and how he could not sense an aura from him which was strong but he didn’t feel any dangerous feeling from him though so he relaxed his mind, that didn’t stop him from being shocked at how this young boy did not have any aura around him.

Just the gaze from the leader gripped Andrew’s heart with fear, it was the gaze that a predator used on its prey before pouncing on him. Andrew felt profound danger from that gaze alone and knew that he wasn’t the match for the man and even running away from him was nothing but a pipe dream except if he could be somehow holed up by someone powerful while he ran off for a good distance but that didn’t seem plausible at this moment as no one in his group was even strong enough to hold him off for a minute. Even himself wasn’t sure he could last that long if he was to face him off even with all his skills to boot.

“You are not in the sensory realm, since you are this young. So how were you able to rein in your aura? Or are you one of those old monsters in the limitless realm? No way. If that was so, I would have been able to sense great danger from you but I feel like I could crush you extremely easily”, the man starts spurting out words at this moment, bringing up questions and without waiting for anyone to answer them, he would answer them himself.

He was as if he was in a bedevilled state but he was soliloquizing. He couldn’t be blamed for being amazed though, as the only reason someone could hide their aura was after getting into the sensory realm and at that to the level of which he wasn’t able to even detect even a bit of it.

Andrew has already learned the name of the realms from Cornelius, hence he understood the reason behind the man’s murmurings. But he didn’t reply and just keeps staring at the leader. It was at this point that one of his former acquaintances choose to speak, “That’s the boy who killed your brother and also collected all his loots”, his words tend to tear off any path that could lead to a peaceful resolution of both parties.

On hearing those words, the leader’s eyes squint as he stops his murmurings and stares dangerously at Andrew, which causes the hair on Andrew’s body to stand at an end. Andrew felt like this man could pounce on him any moment from now and on understanding that the likelihood of it occurring was greatly high, couldn’t hold it off anymore as he unsheathes his cutlass ready to fight. Although he knew that his actions and struggle would be futile, he still had to try at least to fight against the mountain towering in front of him. Ceros was also prepared to put his life on the line to protect his master’s daughter.

Andrew screams towards the carriage, “Immediately as the fight breaks out, ride off on the horse and flee as fast as you can. Don’t look back and don’t bother about us”. But at this moment, one of the commanders has moved at a quick and lightning pace and appears behind Andrew, when her face is revealed, it turns out to be Lucy, one of the twins who always seem unsociable and didn’t talk much.

She had a knife in her hands as she spoke with derision, “Do you think you would be able to buy even a bit of time for them?”, as she spoke, her knife was bit by bit edging towards the neck of Andrew in a quick pace.

Just a bit more and it would be piercing his neck, and it seems like Andrew hasn’t noticed the danger he was in as his eyes were still focused on the leader, and veins of steel have since popped out as if he was ready to fight to the death with him, but who knows if he would be alive to even fight the leader of the bandits.

(Author’s note - I would be taking a break next week. I have been working too much this period to pay my school fees and seems like the strike holding me up at home would soon be resolved. Please forgive me for not being able to post. And a fan told me to do some re-editing on the chapters, which has also taken a lot of time. Didn’t know how I was able to finish these three chapters. Although I am not through with the re-editing, I promise to be through with it soon and resume posting. Please, stay with me. Don’t forget to point out my errors though, I am a young writer who is trying to perfect his writing sense.)