Ryan observed the full moon that shined over the camp while his soldiers positioned themselves. He was still amazed to see something so different from the dark fracture in the space that occupied much of the sky in his previous life. The darkness accompanied by countless stars and a beautiful round moon made him feel mencholic, something strange when he had only spent a little over a week in this new environment.
Something in him felt a little guilty about ruining such a beautiful night with a complete massacre. At least now the training had paid off - twelve toy soldiers moved like shadows among the underbrush, almost completely invisible in the middle of the night .
Before them stood four watchtowers that rose pathetically against the night sky, their wooden structures deteriorated by recent attacks from magical creatures. Ryan could see the silhouettes of the bandits, some nodding off to sleep while their reliefs were already sleeping below.
With just a thought, the soldiers deployed one of their new "toys": the wire traps. The most surprising thing was that the soldiers wrapped the thin reinforced wires with aura, installing them around the posts of the towers, just at neck height. The perfect trap for when the sleeping guards tried to leave from under the towers to make a shift change or investigate any abnormality.
...Abnormalities now caused by the new teams unlocked when, after much thought, Ryan decided to get more soldiers, going from a simple squadron to a ptoon.
Two teams of snipers were already in position, their small M110 SASS rifles shining faintly under the lunar light. The spotters not far from them were taking care of marking the location of each bandit in real-time, making small marks appear on their bodies that were only visible to the snipers and Ryan.
PAF! PAF! PAF! PAF!
Four simultaneous inaudible shots originated from the farthest trees from the camp. Four bodies soon colpsed on the wooden ptforms with a small hole in the center of their foreheads.
The sound of the bodies hitting the wood woke up the guards who slept below. Just as Ryan had anticipated, they got up armed and ran towards the hand dders only to meet with death when the aura-reinforced wires cleanly severed their necks.
Only the fourth one managed to scream before a burst of shots silenced him forever.
From there, Ryan moved quickly alongside his soldiers before the opposing side could respond unexpectedly. One by one, the bandits sleeping in their tents began to die quickly - some from the young man's knives, others from precise shots.
Everything was going according to pn until a bandit got up from the ground, hidden among the tents. The bottle of alcohol in his hand and the saliva falling from the corner of his lips gave Ryan an idea of why he had failed to detect him. An entire stealth operation ruined by a simple drunkard.
"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" The cry echoed throughout the camp before it could be silenced by a wave of shots.
The surviving bandits emerged disoriented from their tents, only to find themselves under crossfire. The snipers took down anyone who tried to organize while the rest of the toy soldiers carried out a systematic sughter.
Ryan himself participated in the carnage, his movements fluid as his aura empowered each blow given the immaturity of his body. His knives found throats and hearts with lethal precision, leaving behind a trail of bodies.
It was then that the door of the main house burst open. Cayden emerged to contempte the massacre - dozens of his men dead or dying under the light of the moon, and before him, a red-haired boy stained with blood holding two bloody knives.
________________________________________________
Cayden was standing at the gates of hell. The screams of his subordinates, the metallic smell in the air, and the fmes trying to lick his body, as if inviting him to join that pandemonium.
From among the bodies adorning the camp, the little noble he had kidnapped days ago walked towards him with a firm step, his eyes devoid of any emotion shining unnaturally in the dim light. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
"Who the hell are you?" Cayden clenched his fists, his voice hoarse from the smoke. "The little brat we captured couldn't possibly..."
"Sylvaryan." The boy stopped a few meters away, his impassive face reflecting the dancing fmes. "But my friends call me Ryan... and in your particur case, Ryan Valerius."
Cayden noticed the boy slowly backing away towards one of the decapitated bodies scattered on the ground. His instincts screamed danger, but his wounded pride clouded his judgment.
"Do you think you're very clever, don't you?" Cayden took a step forward, his hand brushing against the hilt of his poisoned dagger. "Do you think you can massacre my men and get away with it..."
The boy's foot connected with the severed head, sending it flying towards Cayden's face. Cayden's trained reflexes acted on instinct, his left arm deflecting the macabre projectile.
It was the explosion of the head that took him completely by surprise.
The bst shattered his left hand completely, fragments of bone and metal embedding themselves in his flesh. The protective enchantments on his armor absorbed part of the impact, but couldn't prevent the vials of poison on his chest from shattering, spilling their contents over him.
Cayden stumbled back, his mind struggling to process what had happened. The pulsating pain in his mutited limb mixed with the burning of the poison seeping through his clothes. His legs trembled, torn between the instinct to flee and the pride that kept him rooted to the spot.
The boy - no, Sylvaryan - remained motionless, observing the runes on his suit losing their glow with far more interest than looking at him. There was no sign of magic, no movement that betrayed how he had caused the explosion. The poison dripped uselessly down his torso, disabling one of his greatest advantages in combat.
"Enchanted armor? In that case, the damage isn't bad at all..." Cayden could only tremble nervously at the foreign words, as Ryan nodded to himself, as if satisfied with the explosion. Even with the pain of losing one of his hands, Cayden realized that the... the monster in front of him didn't see him as an opponent, but as a guinea pig.
"What... what kind of monst—" The words were cut off abruptly, with Cayden suddenly throwing his sword in the direction of the redhead before sprinting towards the nearest exit. His body was reinforced with mana, accelerating like a bird in a full dive.
Although the bandit wasn't going to waste time looking back, he could feel that Ryan's presence remained in the same pce. Would it be so easy to escape the boy who had massacred his subordinates? Was he alone?
"Aaaagghhhh" The answer came from his own throat while trying to scream as the corner of his lips was artificially stretched another 5 centimeters by invisible threads. Cayden was "frozen" in mid-air, while the threads began to become visible as blood started to drip from them. His legs and forearms had been penetrated until they stopped at his bones, probably covering himself in mana allowed him to survive for a little longer... In his final moments, between screams of pain and terror, Cayden would end up wishing he hadn't protected his body with magic.
"Do you know, Cayden? The one who said not to kill a rabbit with a cannon has never enjoyed the thrill of seeing something explode."
Cayden was trapped, looking at the ground in front of him as two small green creatures appeared before him. One of them carried a tube almost as long as "it" on its shoulder. It was impossible for someone from his world to understand what an FGM-148 Javelin was, or its reloading system. His life was extended by a few miserable seconds before he saw an object detach from the tube and make contact with his chest, offering him the eternal darkness of the void.
BOOM!
The enormous explosion would only leave behind "pieces" of something unrecognizable, Ryan finally moving as he cleaned his knives.
"I have to admit it's quite fun when you're not the one on the opposite side of these little guys..."
Nakusyer
