First Battle [3]

The one-eyed burly barbarian who stood multiple heads taller than most men was Yasha.

Simply put, he was a human who lived a life more akin to an animal.

He had minimal regard for the norms of society and eventually, succumbed to his inner desires.

For the heinous crimes he committed which included murder, torture, and rape, Yasha should've been executed but instead, he was kept alive.

Due to the number of men needed for the ongoing war against the empire, rather than losing a useful man, the higher-ups decided it was more beneficial to send the madman to the frontlines instead.

They called it a "punishment" and "repentance" for his sins but in reality, it was more like a reward.

For the crazy bastard who'd been craving blood all his life, if he was so tempted to murder people — it might as well be those imperial bastards.

'Where did that little fucker go?' Yasha wondered as he scanned his surroundings for the child whom he had kicked in the chest mere moments ago.

The child couldn't have gotten far. 

A bulge started to grow in Yasha's pants as he began to envision the euphoric sensation that spitting that child soldier into two parts would give him.

He could already taste the blood that was going to spill everywhere.

Slice.

Before he could turn his vision and desire into reality, a sudden loss of sensation in his right knee surprised him and brought him back to reality.

It didn't feel like the usual loss of sensation in his limbs from overexerting himself. That was more numbness.

This sensation was completely different.

Then the same thing happened to his other knee.

Unable to support his own body, Yasha fell down to his knees.

What happened?

The barbarian had been so occupied with his perverted thoughts that he hadn't noticed the small and nimble Sunyoung, who had hidden himself, approaching him from the back with quiet footsteps.

He had picked up a dagger from the floor which had been dropped by someone and used it to sever the ligaments and tendons of the back of Yasha's knees. 

Sunyoung didn't stop there. The man kneeling in front of him may be on the floor but he was still strong enough to fight back.

Stab. Stab. Slice. Slice. Stab.

Bloody, unable to move his body whatsoever, Yasha who was lying flat on the floor looked up at Sunyoung.

Unable to speak properly as blood was gushing out from his throat, he wanted to beg for mercy when his very own axe, picked up by Sunyoung, came from the sky like a diving eagle.

'...Fuck.'

He wasn't as strong or as proficient with wielding the large two-handed axe like Yasha so the killing blow he delivered was slightly crude.

"Haa... haa..." Sunyoung panted as he dropped the axe to the ground. He was able to lift it and swing it but it was still too heavy for him to use as a primary weapon.

Using his forearm to wipe the sweat off his face, he picked up the dagger he had dropped and moved it to his offhand.

With his dominant hand, he picked up a spear after searching for a few seconds for a suitable weapon.

'You were right, Zero. It's less nauseating the second time around,' he acknowledged while making his way to another enemy.

The third barbarian to fall victim to him was a blonde-haired woman who had just finished a battle with an imperial soldier.

Missing an arm, the barbarian was going to bleed to death so in a twisted way, Sunyoung had done her a favor by putting her out of her misery.

Sunyoung continued forward despite breathing heavily.

At first, it didn't feel like much since he had been training his body and stamina for years but the longer he was on the battlefield swinging his weapons, dodging and blocking attacks, the heavier his legs felt.

At the moment, it felt like he was dragging around iron balls the size of his head.

Taking a short breather, he saw in his peripheral view a barbarian wielding two battle axes. One was golden and the other was black.

He was engaged in a battle with two soldiers simultaneously and in three swift movements, he blocked the attack of the first, killed the second, then turned his attention back to the first and stuck an axe in the center of their skull.

Gulp.

[That barbarian has the power level equivalent to a team leader.]

Zero had deduced the strength of the barbarian in that short span and had informed Sunyoung who felt like his body was being held back.

Instinctually, his body was trying to stay alive by keeping him away from the barbarian who had moved on to his next target.

'A team leader...' Sunyoung muttered inwardly. 

A team leader in the imperial army was the first major promotion a foot soldier such as himself could be given.

There were other minor steps such as becoming a vice team leader but those were more just regular titles that represented competence rather than strength.

The way the imperial army worked was that promotion and ranks were based on strength.

In a world where power reigned supreme, you needed to be strong enough to handle large numbers of egotistical men and women.

A team leader was someone typically assigned 2-4 people to lead excluding themselves. That number also represented the number of typical regular foot soldiers they could take on simultaneously and come out victorious.

That number didn't seem as impressive as compared to a squad leader such as the person who was in charge of Sunyoung's squad as they were capable of fighting/leading 5-12 warriors simultaneously but even so — the hurdle of a team leader was a large one for Sunyoung.

Even the burly barbarian, Yasha, who had overpowered all of his opponents prior to Sunyoung was still equivalent to a foot soldier, albeit a little stronger than most.

If a team leader had been the one fighting Yasha, the battle would've ended within seconds with the leader coming out on top with relative ease.

That goes to show how dangerous the dual axe-wielding barbarian, who was slaughtering the imperial soldiers as easily as swatting flies, was.

The wise decision that most children should make in this scenario was to run away and pick on fights with people his "size".

On the contrary, the decision Sunyoung made was to mimic what he had seen one of his fellow soldiers do a few seconds ago.

Raising his spear above his shoulders, he angled his body and followed a routine that he had learned on the spot to throw the spear into the air.

It was flying upwards and would start descending in the direction of the dangerous barbarian.

The dual-wielding barbarian Kuzma had been in the middle of a complicated battle with three men simultaneously. It was a little difficult since two of them were above-average warriors but Kuzma was still pushing them back and was slowly gaining an advantage.

A few more exchanges and he would've found an opening to finish one of them off, making the rest of the fight a far easier ordeal.

'There!' 

Just as he found an opening and was about to kill one of the men, he suddenly felt and heard something approaching him from behind.

Turning his head just ever so slightly so that he could still keep his attention on his opponents, he saw in the corner of his eye a spear that was flying towards him.

'Impeccable aim,' he noted as he blocked it with the flat side of his black axe. Then he saw who had been the one to throw the spear at him.

'A child...'

He took back what he stated about the throw.

It must've been either luck that the throw was this good.

There was no way a child that young and small would have been able to produce such a good spear throw.

Unless he was a genius.

But if he was a genius then instead of being on the battlefield, he should be trying to get accepted in a sect and train there instead.

It had to have been luck.

Just because Kuzma had been thinking didn't mean he got distracted. He quickly recovered from the loss of advantage the spear caused and was able to strike one of the three men on the temple with the wooden handle of his golden axe.

Stunned, the man wobbled backward and in that brief moment when the blades pointed at him had been reduced, Kuzma quickly dealt with the two men before cleaning up the third who had returned to the fight still a little dazed.

Pulling his axes out from two different skulls, he turned to where the child who had thrown the spear had been standing.

Expecting the child to have run away after throwing away his weapon, instead, Sunyoung was actually approaching him, having picked up a sword on the ground to replace the spear he had lost.

"That kid has guts," Kuzma stated to himself. He was amused, offended, and at the same time, saw the image of his little brother overlapping. 

He assumed that Sunyoung was parentless otherwise he wouldn't be fighting in a war.

"Since they're not here to teach you, I'll do it for them."

'He's not even capable of using ki and yet, I'm already feeling this nervous just getting closer to him,' Sunyoung thought to himself. He was slightly disappointed at how much he wanted to turn around and run away.

'Even though he's just a regular human like me, why does it feel like there's an aura wrapped around him?'

[What're you feeling from that man is essentially how you'd feel encountering a wild beast. It's the accumulation of his experience, killing intent honed in war, as well as his raw prowess. Even just standing still like that, you can already sense how much stronger they are compared to you akin to a tiger looking you in your eyes.]

'What are the chances that I make it out of this battle alive without any assistance from others?' he asked Zero.

[Around two percent or more accurately, 2.138%.]

Zero was just being truthful but that didn't mean the truth didn't hurt.

However, Sunyoung swallowed his broken pride and tried to be optimistic so he asked, 'Prior to today, what would've been the odds?'

[0.12%.]

'Then that's not bad. That means I've improved,' he nodded his head in satisfaction.

The number of people he fought today was far less than the number of times he sparred with his squad mates but practice was never as valuable as authentic experience.

He grew more in those few battles than he had in the multiple weeks of training.

Ting! Ting! Thud!

It only took seven short seconds for him to get disarmed and become at the mercy of his enemy.

"Foolish kid," the barbarian Kuzma said as he stuck both axes into Sunyoung's skull.

Pulling them out, he was about to move on to his next fight when he saw that the corpse of the child he had killed was no longer on the floor where it had collapsed.

Instead, it had vanished completely including the armor he had been wearing as if Kuzma had been fighting against a ghost. 

"..."