Legacy of the Dark Sage

"What?" The other two men exclaimed as soon as the lanky man 'exploded'.

Kyran ignored what was left of the lanky man's body as it fell on the ground. He immediately dashed forward and went after the man who threw the knives.

"Tsk!" The short-haired man gritted his teeth as he looked at his companion's dismembered body.

This development was not what they expected.

This forest was their territory, and they should be invincible. But today, their authority had been tried time and again.

The first time happened a few hours earlier. A caravan appeared, and they successfully ambushed the first few carriages. But one of its passengers was actually a High Master Mage with troublesome magic. That guy fought back and managed to let the other passengers escaped. Thus, he and his group had been looking for them for hours.

After a couple of hours of running around the forest, everything seemed to be under their control finally. They captured most of the passengers, and only a handful, including the High Master Mage, was left.

But then this guy in black appeared out of nowhere.

If not for their scattered invisible detection arrays, they would not have known about this guy's presence. He was too sneaky. So their boss had specifically selected the three of them to intercept this guy. They were to eliminate him at once. It did not matter if he was only passing by or here to save the passengers. All that matter to them was the possibility that this guy was a 'spy' from other groups. With the loot they got from the caravan, it was best to eliminate this guy as soon as possible and not let him report back what they got to his group.

They planned to sneak on him. And it was good so far. With their anti-detection spell, they could blend well into the surroundings and avoid this guy's detection. While following him, they realized that he was not using any detection spells. The three of them were convinced that this guy was a noob. And when he got near the location where they gathered their captives, and instead of investigating, he actually tried to leave. They were 90% convinced that this guy was a spy. The remaining 10% was that he was only passing by and did not want to get involved, so he avoided them.

Either way, the three of them were sure that they could kill him without him even knowing what had happened.

But who would have expected that even after sneaking up on this guy, instead of him getting killed, it was their side who suffered a blow?

This was unacceptable!

"Die you piece of shit!" The short-haired man shouted.

He jumped back and spread his arms. Eight small knives appeared on both his hands, pinned in between his fingers.  Then he threw the knives toward the guy in black.

Kyran saw the eight knives flew toward him. Avoiding these knives was easy for him. However, before he could, he saw the bald man also moved below.

A huge black and silver hammer appeared in the bald man's hand.

"Die!" The bald man shouted as he jumped and lifted his hammer high above his head.

The bald man aimed his hammer at Kyran's head.

After hearing the bald man's outcry, Kyran could not help but sweat a little. These guys loved to tell him to die. Was their vocabulary that limited?

Rousing his void magic, Kyran spun in midair and focused on the incoming hammer. He summoned his magic and formed gauntlets that covered his forearm before meeting the hammer's face with a two-hit combo.

CRACK!

"What-!" The bald man's eyes widened as he saw his hammer cracked after receiving the guy's punches.

Kyran was not done. As soon as the hammer's head cracked, he grabbed the hammer's shaft and hoisted himself up toward the left, and kicked at the incoming four knives.

"Ngrgh!" The bald man's grip on his hammer shifted from the added weight from the guy.

His hammer also groaned from the sudden shift and showed signs of breaking.

"This guy!" The short-haired man's eyes bulged as he saw an almost visible dark purple force shot out of the guy's leg and met his knives. The moment this force made contact with his knives, it disappeared without a trace.

After dealing with the knives to his left, Kyran spun and landed on all fours on the shaft of the bald man's huge hammer. He faced the bald man, but he ignored the bald man's glare and instead shot out another kick toward the knives coming at his left.

"Rawrgh!" The bald man tightened his grip on his hammer. His muscles bulged as he pulled his hammer upward to get rid of the guy.

Kyran tightened his grip on the hammer's shaft and used the bald man's move to hoist his body. He focused his Regis Body Tempering technique on his heels as he kicked both his feet off the shaft and lifted them. Using this momentum, he rolled on his back and aimed his heel on the bald man's head.

"Guh!" The bald man's head jerked forward as the guy's feet hit.

Everything happened too fast that he failed to avoid the guy's attack.

Kyran let go of the shaft as the bald man plummeted down the ground.

While he was still in midair, he noticed more knives coming at him in all directions. Given his position, he knew he could not avoid them in time, even if he managed to twist his body. So, he immediately combined both the Regis Body Tempering technique and Void magic. Instead of summoning his Void Scales, where a small sphere barrier rotated around him, he used the molding technique and let both his technique and magic form into a dark purple and silver armor that covered his outer body.

This armor, which Kyran called Void Armor, was one of the new Void forms he created during his training with Sigma. Although this armor was convenient to use, it continuously drained his reserved magic energy. Thus, he decided to use it in an emergency only, just like today.

Since he had to hide his identity, he could not show these guys his Void Scales.

Kyran did not want to reveal his Void Scales because when the Mercenary Hall reported the incident of his 'visit' to the 'requester' of his bounty, they also provided evidence of what ability he used. His Void Scales was one of the abilities they disclosed,, and quoting what Callan wrote to the report, "monstrous physical strength".

If there were more of these guys hiding nearby, waiting for a chance to strike or escape, at least if Kyran failed to intercept those who decided to escape, they would not have any information that the army might discover.

"What?" The short-haired man exclaimed when he saw the dark armor covered the mysterious guy's body.

When his knives hit the guy, there was a sizzling sound,, and all of it disappeared just like the previous ones.

This guy was too abnormal!

Before Kyran landed on another tree branch, he summoned two purple needles and threw one at the short-haired man, who seemed to be petrified on top of another tree branch, and the other one at the bald man below who was just about to get up on the ground.

The needles entered their heads.

BOOM!

Both their heads exploded. Blood, human flesh, and brain matter spilled out. Their bodies convulsed for a few seconds before it fell lifeless on the ground.

Kyran landed on all fours on the tree branch. He stood up and looked down at their bodies.

He felt a little nauseated looking at their corpses but he stilled his resolved and did not look away.

These three were Kyran's first intentional kills. If his situation was a little different, he would not go for a kill and would escape instead. But after sensing their killing intent, he no longer hesitated and killed them.

Kyran surveyed his surrounding. After confirming that there were no hidden danger, he undid his Void Armor and jumped down to check the bodies.

From what he observed, these guys were bandits and were likely operating around this area. They attacked the caravan earlier and plundered whatever was in it.

Kyran looked at the direction where he heard people talking. He wondered if there were more bandits there and these three were scouting the area to ensure there were no intruders. Or maybe the voices belonged to those people who escaped from the caravan and these three were pursuing them.

'Either way, its none of my business.' Kyran thought as he knelt down and checked the short-haired man's clothes.

He searched for any clue as to how they concealed themselves.

Unfortunately, Kyran only found a tattered pouch that he believed to be a low-grade space storage and some talismans.

'Maybe one of this talisman's effect is to hide a person's presence?' He wondered and put all of these in his space pouch.

After that, Kyran also checked the other two and similarly collected their items he believed were any worth.

He could destroy their bodies completely but rejected the idea. He went to the trouble of making their bodies 'explode' to make it appear that his ability was related to explosions. This was so if their people investigated, at least they would not link their deaths to 'the man with the One Million Bounty'. Besides, even if he removed all the evidence, there was no guarantee that they did not have anyone on their side who could 'see' what really happened in this place.

It was better to leave evidence to divert their attention.

Once Kyran was done, he took out a low-grade energy replenishin potion and drank it. Then he made one look around to ensure there were no other presence nearby before leaving.