“Problems that were caused by people were little different to weeds. You have to cleanly remove them all the way to the roots, otherwise they would just sprout again, and again.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

“Finally getting off your stinky bums, huh?” mocked Aideen as the remaining six bandits approached her. She had recombined her staff into its long form, and flicked out the blades on one end of the weapon, using it the way she would a polearm. “Had enough fun watching your men die first? Or is that just a show for you?”

“Eh, they’re just good for nothings who only know how to eat and shit and fuck anyway,” shrugged the filthy-looking bandit as he brandished a two-handed axe. Unlike the one that the previous bandit held, which was pretty much an axe for chopping wood, the one held by the filthy man was a proper battlefield weapon, with a spike as a counterbalance and a shaft of solid steel.

“More share for us, and with some mighty fine looking treat like you… I’d rather have more turns than not,” said the scarred one who carried himself with the air of a soldier. He and the other three who looked like they had military training had arrayed themselves in a line, their spears pointed straight at her while their shields were held before them protectively. “Don’t you overdo shit and make her useless, big lug.”

“Oh, c’mon now, that only happened because those wenches were too small!” complained the big ugly one as he stepped forward as well. The filthy man was to her left, the four soldier-types to her front, the ugly on to her right. He swung around a large cudgel menacingly in an attempt to intimidate her, to no effect as Aideen just scoffed at it. “Either way, I call first dibs. Been weeks since I had a good, proper fuck.”

Aideen just remained silent at the jibes the bandits leveled her way. Instead, her mind calculated the possible scenarios in the fight she faced. Unlike the previous ragtag bunch, these six clearly knew what they were doing, and seemed used to fighting together to boot. In the end, she opted for a riskier show of shock and awe after she considered what she wanted to do after the fight.

She lowered her weapon and leapt straight for the ugly bandit as she brought it around in a vicious swing. The bandit blocked her blow with his cudgel, which was a wooden one easily as thick around as a human thigh for the most part, with many nails crudely studded all over its top half. Neither the rusty nails nor the wood stood a chance against the gossamer-thin blade of adamant that sprouted from her weapon’s tip though.

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Several of the nails were sliced through, while the wood split as she struck it, the dagger-axe blade functioning almost like a pickaxe as it splintered the cudgel. The ugly man gave a surprised grunt as Aideen struck with far more strength than he had expected, and was thrown aback for a moment.

A moment was all she needed to yank her weapon away and swing it around in a circle as she struck the ugly bandit’s left knee from the outside. The blow likely cracked the bones of the joint, but Aideen was not lenient enough to leave it at that as she fiercely pulled her weapon back.

As a result, the dagger-axe blade struck the joint from behind, and easily sliced through the cloth, flesh, and cartilage all in one go. The ugly bandit screamed in pain as he collapsed with his left knee half-severed even while Aideen turned around and swatted away the spears from the four former soldiers with a wide swing of her weapon.

Aideen had no time to continue her assault on them, however, as the filthy one had bellowed as he brought down his axe in a powerful blow that she blocked with the shaft of her weapon. At the same time, the former soldiers stabbed at her once more with their spears as they saw her weapon tangled with the axe-wielder’s.

She shifted her weight to her left leg as she pivoted and pushed the filthy - and decidedly smelly, now that he was close enough she couldn’t help but notice his stench - bandit away as she slipped between the spears thrust at her. Then she twisted her weapon sideways to throw the bandit off-balance and her right leg lifted up as she kicked him in the temple.

While the bandit was momentarily dazed, Aideen swung her weapon back and knocked him out with its shaft, as she used the other end to push away another spear thrust at her. The remaining four looked at her warily, but still seemed intent to fight so she obliged them.

Aideen pushed her way closer to the four, her weapon deflecting the thrusts they made with their spear as she moved closer, before she saw a chance and parried hard to unbalance two of them at once. As she continued to lean into the motion, she brought her weapon around in a full circle swing and struck the rightmost former soldier hard.

The man blocked her strike with his shield - a wooden slab reinforced with metal on it edges - only to find that the shield shattered under her blow, the dagger-axe end of her weapon piercing through the man’s arm and into his torso before she yanked it out violently and enlarged the wound, causing chunks of the man’s intestines to slide out from the gaping opening she tore.

She whirled around and brought her weapon to another full circle even while she avoided two spears thrust at her by a hair’s breadth and struck the hip of the leftmost man, which sent him to the ground with a scream of pain as he clutched his shattered bones. The last two looked at her, then to each other, and nodded to each other.

Apparently they came to very different decisions however, as one of them was left baffled when he stepped forward and attacked only to find that his compatriot had turned tail and ran. Aideen gave him no time to register that surprise as her weapon took him on the throat and nearly decapitated his head entirely.

Then Aideen picked up the fallen man’s spear, turned it around and balanced it on her right hand, and hurled it like a javelin at the runaway. The spear took him from behind around the stomach, and the bandit dropped as he clutched the bloody spearhead that protruded from his torso while he screamed like a pig being butchered.