Cole sniffed as he looked up at the village. The sentries on the walls were as busty as you would expect sentries of a bandit outpost to be at 2 am in the morning. In summary that meant that they were all fast asleep. In fact it had not been really easy finding this place, one had to go through multiple valleys within the forest and then navigate through a canyon with flesh eating vines.
Either way Cole had not lost any of his 30 man squad, though he had come quite close a couple of times. But still they prevailed, and the fact that it was so hard finding this place let Cole know that whoever these bandits answered too, he or she was not a simple person. But there were no bandits here, and even worse the people responsible for looking after said outpost were all asleep at different parts of the outpost.
Cole waited, watching quietly as one of his team, an aspirant. A female with bright green eyes and absolutely no hair anywhere in her body. Not that Cole knew about any other parts of her body, but the place that was exposed. Her face, head, arms and legs were completely bare and smooth, like a screen that could be reflected off of.
She picked her way forwards, slowly and quietly. Picking her way across the distance until she was close enough to the outpost that she was touching its walls. Then she sat down, placed her back to it then crossed her legs in a meditative position. Then to all who were paying attention, she seemed to sink into the wall, the moment she did so there was a sort of rippled that went across the entire world as for a moment the wall seemed to deform to show a massive figure of her smiling face.
Cole would be among the first of many to admit that. Seeing such a sight was creepy. The surface of the wall wasn't transformed into anything tensile or magically reshaped so her face could show. No she pushed every brick, and all she did silently moving each individual blocks in the walls. But with that it meant that Cole now had control over the walls of the outpost. Effectively putting everyone else under his mercy, turning the place into a prison and not the fortress it was meant to be.
Cole watched as the rest of his team came out of the forest, but no one left the tree lines, letting the trees itself act as cover for them. Cole could feel it alive, the full moon high in the sky and bright with its glare as Chaos danced with Order to create balance. The predators prowl the night as the prey hunker down to sleep and hope they survive till the dawn….Cole wave his hand forward as his team began to advance, with one of them, A denizen wearing a wooden black Oni mask spread his hands.
From his finger tips birds, snakes, lizards and insects of all sorts, all of them made of pitch black flames with eerie red eyes. The cacophony of creatures scattered, spreading out as hundreds of holes opened up in the wall to let them through. [Nightmare Flame Animus Craft] Cole was sure as hell there was no skill like that in any other person's hands.
Flames that grew hotter and more dangerous the deeper your fears. And it will burn as long as you have fears, if you eliminate one fear it would latch on to another, eliminate that and there would be another. For to live is to be with fear, for no one lives without it or without worry and the nightmare flames devours all. It wasn't too long from then that screams filled the air and the smell of smoke followed.
Black flames swallowed the buildings as Cole and the rest of his team stepped into the outpost. This was why Cole like this particular Denizen and this skill of his. It was discreet, here, late at night, smoke filling the air, the bright glow a normal fire would have caused was absent. So this carnage would not be found by anyone until morning….coinciding precisely with the return of the bandit group whose families were currently being roasted and terrified to death.
Cole gave the next set of orders as the rest of the team spread, all of them tracking down the remnants and putting and end to them, whilst gathering all of the valuables they could find in the houses. But there was no way this would be that easy, after all there were still people untouched by the flames, and there was still a sizable force of reserve bandits left here.
Just as Cole had that thought there was a loud crash. And as if that was the signal they were waiting for, fights broke out in multiple parts of the outposts as the bandits left behind all attacked. It was a bit surprising to Cole though, the people left behind were a lot more than he thought, they at least outnumber his men two to one, and that meant this bandit force was a lot larger than he had initially estimated.
But then it did not matter much to him, they would all still be dying regardless. Cole watched as his soldiers driven mostly out of fear of him and a rather lucrative bonus in all their pockets from the kingdom fell on the bandits. There was coordination in the way they moved, each and every single one of them being very familiar with each other abilities…..the bandits would not stand a chance, not against a force like this.
Cole turned around satisfied with what he was seeing. Without a doubt the first mission would be a success, this should at least give the kingdom an idea of what he was capable of. But then again this was small and not even a challenge…testing the waters, Cole needed a challenge…..perhaps it might be wise to pick his targets.
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