They walked in silence again. Or at least, Kael did.
Dane made sound effects.
"Fwssshh. Boom. Kraaak!" He mimed throwing imaginary fireballs as they walked. "That's what I would have done. If Sir Wigglepaws had lunged."
Kael sighed. "I should've buried you with him."
They crested a small ridge where the river curved sharply. On the other side, the woods thinned into a meadow lined with old, cracked stones that might once have been part of a cobblestone road. In the middle of that path sat a gleaming white carriage—gold-trimmed, ornate, and clearly out of place in the wilderness.
Kael squinted. "Huh."
Dane leaned forward. "That's either a noblewoman or a traveling opera troupe. Either way, I call dibs on dramatic posing."
As they watched, the forest exploded into motion. Dozens—at least fifteen bandits—rushed from the trees, weapons drawn, swarming the carriage from all directions. The guards, clad in white-and-blue armor, held their line, longswords gleaming under the sun. At the front of the carriage, a burly knight let out a battle cry and cleaved a bandit in two.
From within the ornate carriage, the air shimmered faintly—barely noticeable unless one looked closely. Inside, veiled behind enchanted glass, a noblewoman sat still as stone, hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes closed in deep concentration. She didn't shout. She didn't panic.
She whispered.
Her lips moved in a rhythm that matched the pulses of faint blue light running across her skin—veins of magic threading outward from her heart like glowing rivers. With each breath, a silent surge of mana coiled through the air and flared invisibly beneath the carriage wheels.
Outside, a knight staggered back from a mace strike—only for a burst of unseen force to erupt beneath him, pushing him upright and shielding his chest with a faint, flickering barrier. Another bandit lunged at a wounded soldier, blade raised high—then suddenly froze mid-motion as his legs locked in place, muscles refusing to obey.
The noblewoman's eyes flickered open, glowing briefly with a deep azure hue.
She raised her hand. Her fingers didn't twitch, but a single word left her mouth, silent and sharp as a knife's edge.
"Break."
The frozen bandit's sword shattered like glass, shards flying in every direction. He screamed and fell back, blood leaking from invisible lacerations across his arms.
On the bandit side, not all was brute force. Three cloaked figures stood at the rear of the assault, hands glowing with unstable magic. One hurled a bolt of red lightning that cracked through the trees and smashed into a guard's shield, throwing the man back with a shout.
The second mage whispered a spell into the wind—sickly green smoke poured from his sleeves, coiling like snakes through the grass toward the knights. Wherever it touched, armor rusted and flaked, weapons dulled, and men stumbled with nausea.
The third stood taller than the others, his face hidden behind a deer skull mask. He raised his staff, and the earth trembled. A geyser of jagged obsidian erupted from the ground beneath the carriage, aiming to pierce straight through its underbelly.
It didn't reach.
A flash of gold—an invisible dome snapped into existence just before the impact, absorbing the force with a dull hum. The spell rebounded in reverse, sending shockwaves into the dirt that made the nearest bandits stumble and fall.
Kael squinted at the chaos.
"Alright," he muttered, adjusting the grip on his maul, "that's not a normal noble. That's a mage with a title."
Dane's eyes danced with excitement. "And that—" he pointed toward the skull-masked mage, "—is a jerk with flair. I'm gonna pants him."
Kael grinned. "I'll handle the big one. You go set his robe on fire."
"I thought you'd never ask."
Kael charged.
He hit the front lines like a thunderclap, spinning his maul in wide, devastating arcs. A fireball streaked past his ear—he ducked, let it slam into a tree—and countered by hurling a throwing axe through the caster's face. Another mage tried to conjure roots to tangle his legs, but Kael stomped, hard, shattering the spell circle beneath his feet with raw physical force
Dane moved with a blur of motion, launching forward like a missile.
"KYOKUSHIN KARATE!!!" he howled, voice crackling with glee.
His fist collided with the mage's chest—not a punch, a spike of kinetic death. Bone crunched. The force rippled through the man's ribcage like a hammer through rotted wood. The mage's body folded around the strike, eyes bulging as blood exploded from his mouth.
But Dane didn't stop.
He grabbed the man's robes with his free hand, dragged him forward, and headbutted him twice—skull meeting skull with a sickening crack-crack. The mage collapsed, limp—but Dane didn't let him fall.
"You're not done," he whispered, smiling.
He twisted the mage's arms behind his back in a flash of brutal technique, dislocated both shoulders with two sharp jerks, then shoved him forward onto his knees. With a flick of his wrist, Dane pulled a vial from his belt—a thin glass tube filled with swirling orange liquid.
He uncorked it with his teeth.
"Open wide," he grinned, and poured it down the mage's throat.
The man screamed instantly.
The potion ignited as it hit his insides—designed for alchemical flamethrowers, not human consumption. Flames burst from the mage's mouth and eyes. His veins lit up like molten wires beneath his skin. He convulsed violently, flesh blistering, melting.
Dane kicked the burning body over, already turning to the next.
A second mage spotted him, panicked. She raised her hands to cast, but Dane was already there, sliding under her spell like a dancer on fire.
He came up inside her reach and struck her throat with a palm-heel so fast it looked like a flash of light.
She gagged.
Then he twisted behind her and yanked the necklace talisman from her collarbone—shattering her spellwork—and jammed it into her mouth. Her muffled protests turned to sobs as he shoved a blast rune into her gut and backed away.
"Boom," he whispered, and snapped his fingers.
The rune detonated from within.
Her body folded around the explosion, limbs flailing as the blast turned her insides out. Flaming gore sprayed across the grass. Dane laughed, arms outstretched as if basking in the heat.
"I should do birthday parties," he muttered.
Meanwhile, Kael fought like a god of war—unstoppable and direct—but it was Dane who made the battlefield terrifying.
He flowed from mage to mage, wild and unstoppable, blending martial arts with explosive alchemy. A leg sweep knocked a caster into a tree, where Dane drove his knee into the man's jaw hard enough to snap the neck. He cracked another's spine with a suplex, then coated his boots in fire gel and curb-stomped the final mage's face until it stopped being a face.
Smoke rose around him. The air stank of charred blood and burning robes.
Bandits who saw him coming dropped their weapons and ran.
Kael, now dueling the skull-masked mage, caught glimpses of Dane between swings.
"Show-off," Kael grunted, parrying a fire whip and answering with a crushing hammer blow that shattered the enemy's staff.
One final bandit, desperate and dumb, charged Dane with a scream.
Dane caught the man's wrist, twisted it, and snapped it backwards like breaking twigs. The man shrieked.
Dane caught the man's wrist, twisted—and with a sickening pop-crack, snapped it backward like a bundle of brittle twigs. The bandit screamed, staggering.
Dane leaned in close, eyes alight with unholy glee.
"I told you," he whispered, "I was gonna pants someone."
His fingers reached for the man's trousers—but they didn't stop at fabric.
They dug deeper. Flesh tore as Dane gripped both cloth and skin, and ripped downward in one violent motion. Blood sprayed. Skin peeled like parchment. The bandit shrieked in pure agony, voice cracking.
"See?" Dane cooed. "Now that's commitment."
The man collapsed to his knees, howling, trying to crawl away—but Dane was already on him. He grabbed the bandit's jaw, pried it open, and shoved his entire fist into the man's mouth. Teeth cracked. Gums split. The scream turned into a choking gargle.
Then Dane stood.
With the bandit lifted by the mouth, his head bent back unnaturally around Dane's forearm like a hooked fish. The man's boots scraped helplessly across the ground.
"Good talk," Dane said cheerfully.
And then he slammed the man headfirst into the dirt.
The impact cracked the ground. The skull crunched like a dropped melon. Blood exploded outward in a muddy ring as the spine folded with a nauseating twist beneath the weight.
Dane released the corpse, flexing his hand with a wet pop as he pulled it free.
Behind him, a few surviving bandits—those who hadn't already fled—threw down their weapons and ran, tripping over bodies and screaming in terror.
Dane watched them go, grinning.
"Cowards," he muttered. "I was just getting warmed up."
Kael, standing over the defeated skull-masked mage, just shook his head. "You're not right in the head."
Dane wiped blood from his cheek and flicked it casually onto the grass. "Nope. And neither is his."
He pointed to the headless, twitching corpse.
Dane stretched, joints popping one by one with a crack-crack-crack like a series of snapping branches. He rolled his neck, exhaled, and ran a bloodied hand through his hair, smearing red streaks across his scalp like war paint.
"Still not satisfied," he muttered, almost disappointed. "This was just the appetizer."
Kael raised an eyebrow, already wiping gore from his maul. "You're still not satisfied?"
Dane cracked a wicked grin, eyes still locked on the tree line where a handful of surviving bandits had vanished.
"Which is why I'll handle the leftovers."
He pointed lazily toward the direction of the fleeing enemies, then turned his gaze to Kael—wild, restless, and hungry for more.
"You talk to the shiny boys and the noble lady with the glowing fingers. Capiche?"
Kael stared at him for a long second, then gave a tired sigh. "Sure. Go be a lunatic."
Dane was already jogging backwards, arms outstretched like wings. "A deadly lunatic!"
Then he turned, crouched low—and launched into the woods like a predator set loose.
In the forest…
The trees closed in around him, but Dane was faster. He moved like a bloodhound with a scent—ducking under branches, vaulting over roots, tracking every snapped twig and bloody footprint. The screams had long stopped, but fear left its own trail, and Dane was fluent in its language.
He caught up to the first bandit just as the man was trying to scramble up a rocky incline.
Dane didn't slow.
He slammed into him from behind, sending the bandit sprawling forward with a scream. Before the man could get up, Dane grabbed his ankle and swung him like a hammer into a tree.
Crunch.
The body fell limp.
Dane stepped over it and kept running.
Another man had paused to catch his breath, hands on knees.
Dane came out of the shadows like a ghost—and breathed fire.
No spell. No magic scroll.
Just a bottle of flammable liquor in his sleeve and a match clenched between his teeth.
He spat the flame, and a gout of burning liquid engulfed the bandit in a searing column of fire. The man shrieked and ran blindly into a tree, where he finally collapsed, twitching.
"Better," Dane muttered, licking his lips. "But not great."
He spotted the last one—a woman in cracked leather armor, bolting toward a ravine.
She was fast.
But not Dane fast.
He caught her by the hair and yanked her back so hard her legs left the ground. She hit the dirt with a grunt, trying to roll and reach for a dagger.
Dane kicked her wrist, shattering it on impact, then knelt on her chest.
"You're the last one," he said softly. "Lucky you."
The bandit spat in his face.
Dane smiled.
"Wrong move."
He grabbed the dagger she'd tried to use and jammed it through her hand, pinning it to the ground.
Then he leaned close, whispering as her screams echoed into the trees.
"You and I are going to have a little talk."
Back at the clearing…
Kael emerged from the treeline, boots dragging through churned-up dirt, hauling the battered skull-masked mage behind him like a sack of bloodied grain. The prisoner groaned, barely conscious, trailing a thick smear of red across the earth.
The guards spotted him instantly. Formation tightened. Shields rose, spears angled. Eyes locked on him with cold, calculating tension.
One stepped forward from their ranks—a woman clad in weather-worn steel etched with sunburst emblems. Her armor bore the scars of real war, not parade duty. A long braid of raven-black hair swung behind her like a coiled whip, and her expression was forged iron—calm, sharp, unflinching.
Her sword was already half-drawn.
She positioned herself between Kael and the rest, the blade tilted, gleaming in the sun. Not striking. Not yet. But close enough to promise a quick death if needed.
"State your name, warrior," she ordered. Her voice was clear and clipped—discipline in every syllable.
Kael stopped a few paces away. With a grunt, he dropped the mage to the dirt. The cultist let out a muffled wheeze, face scraping against a root. Kael raised both hands, palms open.
"Kael," he replied. "No last name. No crest. Just Kael."
He nodded toward the woods behind him. "My companion's still busy—chasing down the survivors."
The knight's eyes narrowed slightly. "And the filth you're dragging behind you?"
Kael nudged the mage's side with his boot. "Still alive—barely. Wore a skull mask, threw around some nasty spells. Thought you'd want a souvenir."
He pulled the broken mask from his belt and tossed it at her feet. It landed with a hollow clack, split clean down the middle.
A low murmur stirred among the guards.
The knight didn't flinch. "A Pale Flame cultist…"
Kael cocked an eyebrow. "So they're not just lunatics with fashion sense."
She shot a glance over her shoulder. "Bind him with null-sigils. Runed manacles. I don't want his tongue conjuring anything on the way back."
Two soldiers broke formation and moved in, shackling the twitching mage. The enchanted bindings glowed faintly as they latched with a final click. The prisoner's lips twitched—half a syllable of arcane nonsense—but the magic fizzled out with a sharp spark and a strangled grunt.
The knight never lowered her blade.
"You're not from around here," she said, voice still guarded. "That much is obvious."
"Not trying to be," Kael replied, offering a dry smile. "Just passing through. Looking for a fishing outpost. Or a tavern. Or… anywhere with a roof that doesn't come with arrows."
Her expression didn't soften, but her grip on the sword eased—fractionally. Enough to show she was listening, not just surviving the conversation.
Kael took a breath and glanced around. His eyes swept over the battered clearing—blood-slick grass, broken weapons, wounded knights. Some lay slumped against trees, clutching wounds, others stood breathing hard, their armor dented and smeared with gore.
His gaze finally landed on the carriage—still intact, though the wood was scorched and a wheel was half-buried in dirt from the earlier skirmish.
"Are you alright?" Kael asked, turning his attention back to the knight. There was a rare note of concern in his voice, quiet but sincere.
The knight blinked, as if surprised by the question.
"We've had worse," she said after a pause. "Though the mages caught us off guard. We lost two men before we could form a line."
Her eyes flicked to the remains of the cultists—some charred, others crumpled like discarded paper. Then back to Kael.
"If you hadn't stepped in…"
"We did," Kael interrupted gently. "Let's leave it at that."
Another crack echoed from the forest—closer this time. Trees shook. A bird burst skyward in panic.
Kael sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "And there's Dane."
As if summoned by the name, a figure emerged from the treeline—shirt torn, knuckles bloodied, and a gleeful grin stretching across his face like a lunatic's painting. Slung over one shoulder were one female unconscious bandit, limbs flopping like ragdolls.
"Look what I found!" Dane called cheerfully. "More toys!"
Kael's eyes lit up, his grin spreading ear to ear. "Oh, hell yeah! You got the runners? I knew you'd flush 'em out like rats."
Dane marched forward, dropped the bandits like sacks of meat, and rolled his shoulders with a loud pop. "Hope someone saved me a drink. I nearly broke my wrist suplexing that last idiot into a tree stump."
The knight blinked. Then looked at Kael.
"This is Dane?"
Kael beamed with pride, like a brother introducing a particularly unhinged cousin. "Damn right. Dane the Bane. Don't let the face fool you—he's a sweetheart once the screaming stops."
Dane grinned wider. "You must be the lady in charge. Love the braid. Very stab-me-and-lead-an-army vibes."
The knight raised one brow, unimpressed. "You talk a lot for someone who looks like they chew rocks for fun."
"I do," Dane said proudly, slapping his stomach. "Calcium."
Kael barked a laugh. "Told you! He's an acquired taste. Mostly blood and spite."
The knight exhaled slowly, as if trying to process the chaos with discipline alone. Finally, she sheathed her blade.
"I am Knight-Captain Serah Valen of the Solar Vanguard," she said, standing tall. "And I suppose I owe you both thanks—madman or not."
Kael gave a lopsided grin. "Anytime, Captain Fancy-Armor. We live for this kinda party."
Dane saluted with a flourish. "Captain Sunbeam, it's been a blast."
Kael leaned toward Dane and whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear, "You think she'll let us keep one of the cultists? Just one? You know—for emotional support."
Dane cracked his knuckles. "Only if I get to name him."
Kael's grin widened. "Deal."
Knight-Captain Serah muttered under her breath, "Gods help me…"