Rider
patreon
Ride to the border.
🕑 Added 2022-09-17 12:00:06 +0000 UTCAt around noon the next day, he received a notification from the system.
<The Wrath Kingdom is aware of the escape and is now collecting intelligence on the person or group responsible.>
‘Alright. Keep me posted about any movement they make. It took them a lot longer than I expected.’
The journey to the border would take an entire month of nonstop riding. Since the Vasquez family couldn’t ride continuously, Seth knew it could even take a whole two months.
They kept riding until the evening when Seth stopped so that they can take a break. As the others started taking the horses to drink from a nearby river, the family head approached Seth as he was making some tents.
Bowing slightly, he said: “Sir Ascended, I never got the chance to thank you for helping us. This favor, I will repay it in the future.”
Seth nodded toward him and said: “Your daughter is one of my students. I couldn’t let her family die like this.”
The man hesitated and asked: “How is Pearl? How was her journey to the Oath Kingdom?”
Seth sighed and created a small table and two chairs. Motioning for the man to take a seat, Seth made two cups and filled them with ale from his storage space. The man gulped after seeing Seth’s serious look and sat down at the table.
“After you assured her escape out of the city, the servants took her all the way to the border.”
“There, they used themselves as a distraction to assure Pearl’s passage through the Wrath kingdom’s troops that had just started a skirmish. When they reached the side of Oath, there were only your daughter and butler left alive.”
Seth sighed and took a sip of the drink before saying: “The Oath soldiers killed the butler and took Pearl as a hostage so that they could… well, you know how it is with the soldiers at war.”
The man’s hand shook on his cup, but said nothing and waited for Seth to continue. In his mind, he was already cursing the knight he made a deal with and all his ancestors.
“Luckily, to say so, the commander of the knights had made deals with different slavers in the capital before and saw her as a bag of money instead of a bag of flesh. Knowing a virgin young slave from the Wrath kingdom would sell well, he stopped the knights and soldiers before anything happened and sold her to a slave trader from the city.”
“That slave trader was providing slaves to a brothel in the capital.”
Pearl’s father squeezed the cup in his hand once again, this time breaking it completely.
“They are all honorless bastards. Wrath and Oath the same…”
“Don’t get agitated. I found her before anything could happen and saw she had the potential to ascend. I bought her from the brothel and she’s been living as one of my students in the capital ever since.”
The man heaved a sigh of relief, but Seth could see the deep anger in his eyes. Hesitating slightly, he asked: “So, she’s still…”
“A virgin? Yes. She’s also a second shell ascended by now, only a single rank beneath me. She has to hide away from the eyes of the kingdom, but she’s living with my parents and is otherwise fine.”
Pearl’s father didn’t know that much about ascended, but tears still started appearing in his eyes after finding out she was fine. Looking at Seth for a while, saying nothing, she clenched his fists and made a decision. A decision that would change his entire life.
“Does my lord has a sword?”
Seth nodded and took out a simple sword from his storage space before placing it on the table. He could have made one himself, but it would have been too ugly for such an occasion.
Pearl’s father picked up the sword with tears threatening to fall down his cheeks before pushing the chair back and dropping on one knee in front of Seth. Seth knew what was coming, so he stood up as well. It was exactly what he wanted.
“On bended knee, I, Sal Valdez of the Valdez Family, swear on my soul and the soul of my ancestors that, as long as my lord wants it, my will is yours to command and my life yours to take. I give this oath in blood so that the gods may bear witness to the truth in my words and forgive my transgression.” As his words ended, the man cut his hand on the sword’s blade and let it slowly flow to the ground.
‘Valdez family of the Wrath Kingdom. They are undoubtedly just like you said, system. Good job.’
‘In the past, you all died betrayed by the people who you served your entire lives, generation after generation. This time you met me.’
Bending down slightly, Seth grabbed the sword by the blade as it was custom and pulled it out of the ground while accepting the oath.
“Seth, ruler of the throne of destruction, had heard your oath and accepted it. I take the crime of relinquishing the former oath in my name and void it null. Rise now so that you may never kneel again. The first of my order, Sal Valdez.”
Sal did his best to stop himself from crying as he heard Seth’s words and stood up. He swore an oath before, to the Wrath kingdom, and now he had broken it. Seth taking the broken pact upon himself was a favor he didn’t need to take and meant that whatever punishment the gods prepared for Valdez would fall upon him.
Of course, Seth couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the god the Wrath Kingdom believed in. He knew well that no god ever cared, so it was a good chance to score even more points with the man.
The other members of the Valdez family also came back as the ceremony was ending and were left stunned when they saw their family head swearing an oath to another person.
Seeing that they all looked like they wanted to say something, Seth cut them short by releasing the hold on the sword and saying: “You all go to sleep. After six hours, we’ll resume the journey. The more time we stay here, the more dangerous it gets.”
“My lord.” Replied Sal and took his family inside the large tent Seth had made.
Climbing on top of a tree, Seth didn’t need to sleep, so he started speaking with the system.
‘How are things?’
<They are messages to all the forts in the surrounding areas to start a search, with the most focus on the ones between their capital and the border with the Oath Kingdom. They knew Pearl ran to the Oath kingdom and they suspect she had something to do with this escape. >
‘Troublesome. Calculate my path and make sure you avoid as many patrols as you can. If there is no way forward without getting spotted, tell me early so I can take care of them before we engage. Can’t risk a stray attack wasting all my efforts.’
<Affirmative. Reminding host that once patrols are declared missing, your location would be more or less spotted. >
‘Well, it’s been a while since my last massacre.’ Replied Seth with a smile before downing an energy vial and cultivating.
Sal explained to his family what happened since they were much more respectful towards Seth once they woke up.
Seth didn’t care that much about the others since he mostly wanted Sal for his tactical mind and combat experience. He had no experience in directing troops or fighting wars and, while he could use the system as he always did, he still felt more assured to have someone else to rely on.
Seth nodded and listened to the others’ introductions before wiping all the evidence of their camping there.
To make sure he covered as much ground as possible, he started using his lust energy on the horses to increase their stamina. It turned a little awkward when the others noticed that all the horses were running on five legs, but Seth just acted like he had noticed nothing strange.
For the first three weeks, the system helped them avoid all the patrols on the way, but the closer they got to the border, the more forts and also more patrols started appearing.
In the fourth week, a notification Seth had expected for quite a while finally appeared in his vision.
<50 men patrol straight ahead, traveling towards the battlefield. Avoiding them would make host encounter other larger squad. No ascended present.>
Seth nodded and rode next to Sal. Passing him the rein to his horse, Seth said: “There is a patrol up ahead. I’ll go deal with them. You take care of my horse and keep riding forward.”
“My lord, we can fight…” before he could finish his words, he saw Seth looking at him with a raised eyebrow and stopped.
Seeing he got the message, Seth jumped off the horse before following with a series of successive blinks forward.
Twenty blinks later, he appeared in the center of the 50-man patrol. The patrol stopped and turned towards the sudden intruder, arms at the ready.
Seth smirked and slowly his body started getting covered in a thin film of destruction energy, wiping his clothes off in the process.
The soldiers were startled and one of them yelled: “Ascended. Attack in numbers of two and waste his energy.”
Seth created two destruction swords, not caring about their maneuvers. That was the usual strategy when dealing with an ascended. Sending bodies as a sacrifice to exhaust their energy, but hoping to exhaust a third shell ascended with 50 people was a dream. The one who gave the order also appeared to know their chances were low as he started to move back slowly.
With the two swords of destruction in hand, Seth rushed straight toward the two knights charging at him. Ignoring their swords aiming at his body, he used both of his swords to cut their bodies in half before charging to the next closest soldier. The film of destruction energy disintegrated the swords that hit his body, causing him no harm.
“Disperse and retreat.” Yelled the one who gave the order and turned around, galloping away. He didn’t know what shell Seth was at, but he knew his small squad had no hope of ever winning this fight.
“Come on, I thought we were going to have more fun together…” muttered Seth under his breath before throwing the two swords toward the soldiers in front of him and teleporting into the leader’s path.
“You’re no fun.”, said Seth with a devilish grin before throwing a small bullet made of destruction energy through the man’s head.
Seeing the other soldiers also dispersing, he sighed and sent a bullet for each of them in their direction. The soldiers wanted to avoid them, but no matter how they changed direction, the bullet appeared to have a mind of its own and all of them ended up falling to the ground with a hole in their chests.
“I really hoped they would at least struggle a little. It’s been a while since I had a proper fight…” muttered Seth before canceling his energy and he waited for the others to arrive. He didn’t care about wiping the evidence of the fight and just created a new set of clothes for himself.
When the Valdez family finally arrived, they were stunned to see all the bodies littering the ground and Seth sitting in the middle of the carnage, with not even a drop of blood on his body. Seth teleported on top of his horse and charged forward again without saying a single word.
Sal followed him as he muttered under his breath: “Ascended are truly terrifying.”
