Sigh, how could a human give the order to ma.s.sacre others so easily…the whole point of me staying behind was to prevent this worst case scenario from happening and yet I seemed to have helped it along instead…

Fear and panic was thick in the air as the bandits ran amok amongst the defenseless villagers. The old were cut down and the children were trampled while the women could only watch helplessly, crying out in anguish as the bandits had their way with them…this was the tragic fate of the weak. If nothing was done soon, there would be no more villagers to save.

NO! There must be something I can do, anything! I must stop this madness right now, but…how?

By now, the situation had spiraled out of control, even if Dohby or Dawson were to give the order to stop, it would probably be too late to prevent the impending disaster. The only option now was to kill off these two heads and shock the bandits into submission.

If their leaders were to die, the bandit horde would naturally fall apart and flee. Of course, this was the best case scenario; it was entirely possible that they could, in the midst of their bloodl.u.s.t, continue killing even if their leaders died.

In the end, it all depended on luck…luck huh…I wonder if my luck could be considered bad or good?

Putting aside the outcome, do I even have the means to kill their lead-…wait…I still have Shadowfang!

Even without the Inverse Cut, Shadowfang was still an epic weapon that I could wield. Being such a powerful weapon, there"s no way it was just an unstoppably sharp blade, there must be even more secrets hidden within it waiting for me to unlock. Even though there"s no time to unlock its potential, I could still use its sharpness to pull a sneak attack on Dohby.

Just one chop, that"s all it took and he"ll be in halves just like those two bald brothers; one chop and their bodies were bifurcated, defensive enchanted gear and all.

Before that however, there was still one more trump card I could employ.

The enchanted straight blade had a three-star fire spell engraved onto it which Ancarin identified as being an offensive spell. Although she wasn"t entirely sure what it did exactly, judging from its engravings, it was probably an immensely powerful fire arrow type of spell.

However, wasn"t fire arrow a one-star spell? With enough mana, a powerful mage could boost its power to two or three-star but shouldn"t a high-grade blade like this at least have a three-star spell engraved on it? …did someone make a mistake somewhere?

Whatever…with Moranthal keeping Dohby busy, now"s the best time to use it…I just hope it works out.

With that, I channelled all of my mana into the blade and prayed that this unknown engraving could create a miracle.

In order to prevent any chance of friendly fire, I made sure to remind Moranthal with a quick yell: “Moranthal!!”

As the channelling dragged on, a circular magical array formed of flames appeared half a meter in front of me. From within it rushed forth a flame arrow that sped right towards Dohby.

Just one…? As that question flashed through my head, the flames coagulated once more into a flame arrow and fired off followed by a third, a fourth…soon, an unending volley of flame arrows could be seen slicing an incandescent line across the air as they flew towards their target…how was this a magical spell? It"s practically a machine gun!

The ten over flame arrows flew in a straight line towards Dohby at a speed faster than the wind.

Having been warned beforehand, Moranthal expended all his efforts into stalling Dohby until the instant my spell was finished channelling, at which point he immediately leaped to side. A giant sword sliced through where he was just seconds ago at which point the first flame arrow reached the bandit.

Feeling the scorching heat up close, Dohby knew there wasn"t enough time to dodge. He swiftly raised his greatsword in front of him as a pseudo shield, while he focused all of his Fighter"s Aura into defense.

*bang*

As the flame arrows battered the metallic obstacle, they exploded in a raging display of fiery wrath that rapidly engulfed the man.

Despite that fearsome display, I knew that he was still alive even without any visual confirmation. His soul was still there, it had merely been weakened, so it probably meant that he only sustained some minor injuries.

I promptly sheathed the straight blade and charged at the bandit. As my feet drove into the ground, I reached for Shadowfang just in time to see the burly silhouette reveal itself amidst the dispersing smoke. It wasn"t exactly a clear target but it was more than enough for me to confirm that it was Dohby.

I lowered my back, gripped down tightly on the hilt and with the aid of my running momentum, swung it over my back in a—diagonal iaijutsu slash!

While it wasn"t exactly a traditional iaijutsu slash, this was still a slash by an epic grade blade. If he dared to block it, all that awaited him was death!

“Hahaha, bring it on!” As expected, he knew of my presence before I even reached. Standing there without even bothering to put up a defensive posture, he activated his Fighter"s Aura and nonchalantly put up his greatsword in an arrogant display of overconfidence. “A two-star demoness like you actually dares to fight me head on, hah, you"re either r.e.t.a.r.ded or overly confident…you…”

It goes without saying what the outcome of the clash was. With his br.i.m.m.i.n.g confidence, it never once crossed his mind that I was a threat at all….yet I was. His greatsword was merely a low-grade enchanted weapon and simply wasn"t a match for my Shadowfang.

As Shadowfang parted the metal like b.u.t.ter, it swiftly descended onto his Fighter"s Aura and sliced it apart just as easily. With nothing left to block it, it cleanly cut the bandit in two, from his left shoulder down towards his abdomen.

“Your…weapon…” As those two words left his mouth, he finally breathed his last.

Due to that magical explosion, our fight had already drawn the attention of most of the combatants. All of whom were staring at me right now with eyes as wide as saucers and mouths wide open, especially Moranthal whose eyes almost popped out from shock.

“Mo…Lady Mo Ke?!” He stammered with an astonished look on his face as if he couldn"t believe what he had just saw. A three-star was sliced apart so easily?

“Behead him.” I said with a hint of disgust in my voice. While it was I who killed the man, I just couldn"t get used to the gore. As long as it was possible, I would rather not dirty my hands like that.

Moranthal stood there mutely not understanding my instructions. Thus I had no choice but give him a quick explanation. “What are you standing there for! Hurry up and cut off his head and make sure everyone sees it!”

“Oh oh, got it.” Having understood that, he swiftly beheaded the dead bandit with a slice of his short blade and raised it high into the air before yelling at the top of his lungs: “EVERYONE, STOP! DOHBY IS DEAD!”

As the booming voice washed over the battlefield, even the fierce fighting wasn"t enough to blot out the shock created by the words “Dohby is dead”.

*clang*

The remaining combatants immediately turned their attention to us, their faces froze in shock as they glanced at the hunter who continuously shouted “Dohby is dead”. As the words registered in their heads, the weapons in their hands unknowingly fell to the ground as their eyes remained rooted to the hunter and the b.l.o.o.d.y head in his hand.

Dohby was dead and his head had been taken. As the severed head surveyed the battlefield, it stared at it with a haunted look in its eyes; a million things it wanted to say were reflected from within them. Unfortunately, he was now a dead man.

Dawson had clearly heard the incessant yelling as well. With a forceful shove of his greatsword, he pushed away George and turned around to find the lonely head of Dohby hanging off Moranthal"s hand. The moment he saw that, a veritable maelstrom ran amok in his heart. He was very familiar with Dohby"s strength. With that low-grade greatsword in his hands, he was only slightly weaker than him in a head-on fight so how did he die in such a short time?

It simply wasn"t possible unless the enemy had an overwhelming advantage over him.

With that in mind, he turned towards me. Yet the moment he laid eyes on Shadowfang, his face underwent a myriad of changes.

This fellow actually recognized Shadowfang? There"s no way he didn"t recognize it given that reaction. But how did he recognize a weapon I brought out from the Prison of the Dead? That blade was given to me by the demonic werewolf Habano for saving her brother, and had been basically rotting in there all this while…so how did he recognize it? This doesn"t make any sense!

Yet, reality was as such whether I accepted it or not. His reaction upon seeing that blade however wasn"t to s.n.a.t.c.h it…but to run. Run, with everything at his disposal to shake off George.

With the death and flight of the bandit leaders, the minions of the Wolf"s Fang were swiftly routed. The tamed wolves were all trained by Dawson, and upon seeing their master flee, they naturally fled as well. Without the wolves, the bandits were clearly outmatched and started fleeing in all directions.

Thus, what was to be an even bloodier fight ended inexplicably with the death of Dohby thanks to his overconfidence and the unexpected flight of Dawson.

It was only when the last of the bandits disappeared from our sight did everyone, including me register the fact that the battle had ended. Even now, we all couldn"t believe what had just transpired. Yet, no matter how rapidly the situation changed, the living merely had to adjust to it in order to continue their lives, because the situation never changed itself for mankind.

Io, Eddison and George brought along a team of hunters and chased after the fleeing bandits while Moranthal stayed behind to clean up the battlefield. In truth, that just meant tallying up the casualties, processing the bandits who were unable to flee and gathering the bandit corpses.

There were no surprises here as they employed the tried and true method of throwing them both over the cliff. With their relations already strained before this ma.s.sacre, there was naturally no need for mercy.

As for the bandit captives who weren"t injured…everyone"s opinion was to process them along with the corpses.

With that settled, next came the casualty tally. The living were mostly injured with a varying range of severity. Thankfully, the death count wasn"t as horrific as I had first imagined. Even though the bandits and wolves attacked mercilessly, the hostages still had some hunters guarding them.

The combined death count of the hostages and the hunters came out to roughly 600 in the end; a lot less than the 800 I predicted.

Yet, 600 was still a staggering amount of deaths. One had to know that the combined population of those three villages was less than 3,000 which meant they had just lost 20% of their population in one go, and that"s not counting any further deaths among the injured.

The wolves were extremely vicious in their attacks and this resulted in a large portion of the villagers being severely injured despite not dying. Treating them was going to be a pain because of rabies…

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Even in such a backwater world, the fact that wolves could cause rabies was still common knowledge. As people who had been hunters for generations, there was no way they wouldn"t know of this either. Even after being trained, thus having this risk lowered, the chances of getting rabies from the wolves were still high…

Thanks to this ma.s.sive battle, I had gained countless souls yet I didn"t consume a single one of them and instead handed them all over to the Grimoire of the Dead…looks like I still minded my human ident.i.ty a lot after all.