“Run away Little Su and take your mother with you!”
A bald man shouted while holding a large saber in one of his hands. There was an arrow sticking out of his shoulder yet he was standing tall.
“No, father!”
He was standing in front of two women, one looked to be his wife while the other one was much younger, probably his daughter. He was staring at a group of people in shabby clothes. They had weapons in their hands and were slowly surrounding this family of three from all sides.
“Not so fast old man, those two are precious goods, we can’t have them running off! Get them, boys!”
“Yes, senior brother!”
It looked like a group of small-time ruffians, there were five of them with the largest man being the leader. Due to the woman’s hesitation, their escape route was cut off and it looked like it would be over for this small family of three.
“Don’t blame us, blame yourself for coming to this place, fool!”
One of the men laughed while swinging his sword at the father. The man managed to receive the strike and even push the attack back. To his dismay, he wasn’t able to react to the second bandit who managed to stab his unkempt blade into the father’s side, blood was seen instantly.
“No! Father!”
“Honey!”
The two females screamed out as they saw the father fall to one of his knees. He used the saber as a crutch to support himself but his vision started getting blurry.
“Leave my wife and daughter alone, you bastards!”
Two of the bandits quickly grabbed the unprepared girls and held them by their hands. They had to watch their family member getting his weapon taken away with a well-placed kick. It looked like it was over and that the criminals were on top.
“Hah, serves you right. Only an idiot takes their family through these lands, what were you trying to achieve, idiot?”
The bandit leader chucked menacingly while his men started pulling the two women away. The father tried to get up but another bandit instantly kicked him in the stomach.
“Let me go you bastard!”
The daughter cried out while biting the man on the hand that was holding her. This caused him to lose his grip, the girl tried using this chance to pull away but got held back by her hair.
“Damn slut!”
The angered man yanked her back and delivered a hard slap to her face. This caused her to groan out in pain while falling down to the ground.
“Hey be careful, don’t damage her face, we won’t be able to sell her like this.”
The leader barked out at the other man that shrunk back.
“You can have some fun with that old hag, this one belongs to me.”
The boss smirked while looking at the younger girl. He could see shock and indignation in her eyes. He was the type of man that loved to see the fear in his victim’s eyes. He licked his lips while moving closer.
The only person that could do anything was getting stomped by his junior brothers, he on the other hand was planning to enjoy this young girl to the fullest.
“Don’t worry, this senior brother is really gentle. I’ll teach you how a real man does things!”
He laughed while doing an obscene hip thrust, the young girl could only look with shock as the ugly bandit got closer. Her mother flailed around but she was far too weak to do anything, the father was already close to dying.
In her heart, she prayed for a miracle. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, her whole family wanted to leave this godforsaken land. They were so close, only a few more days and they would have been on the border at the promised land.
This land was supposed to be ruled by a just leader. Someone that actually cared about his subjects. There was enough food for everyone, the streets were clean and his forces patrolled the areas which kept bandits like these away.
In the time of her despair, something happened, there was a rumble. The earth started shaking as if a large earthquake was upon them. The bandit leader almost fell over as even he was affected by the earth’s movement.
“What is that? an earthquake?… no… something is coming…”
The man looked to the side and could see the ground rising up about fifty meters from where he was standing. It burst open quite fast and he could see a man rising out from it. The man flew up into the air but there was not a speck of dirt on his dark robe.
The bandit leader dropped whatever he was doing as he knew that someone like this was far above him. The way that he was staying in the sky without a worry in the world showed that he was a master at the core formation level. This was someone that he could not offend.
………………………………………………….
This man was Zhang Dong, he had just reached the border that his sect and the Limitless Sword Society shared with one another. He had submerged himself underground and used his system map to evade detection. He didn’t really have to do this but he wanted to be sure that no stray sentries detected his presence.
After traveling several kilometers from the initial entry point he finally decided to go outside. Traveling underground was a lot slower than flying through the air even though it was safer. When he got outside he saw quite the scene, a standard robbery with attempted murder and rape.
“Is this some kind of new world record?”
He thought back to his old days when he used to fly around without any worry. He always came across people getting mugged and robbed whenever he went. He attributed it to the world just being really bloody where only the strongest survived. This was also the reason why he created his version of the police force so that he could let them handle it.
So here he was, just starting his week-long adventure and already witnessing a crime in progress. He looked down with narrowed eyes at the bandits that had clearly noticed him. He saw them on his system map, but they were at the lower end of Qi condensation so he deemed them harmless.
They were clearly too weak to be members of the Limitless Sword Society. Thus he decided to come out here as he was losing too much time tunneling as it was.
He couldn’t let this go on for any longer. He could tell that one of the people that got attacked was critically injured. He started to descend towards the group of Qi Condensation cultivators, it was a rare occurrence for him to interact with weak people like them. He could already see the bandits shaking from feeling his suppressed aura.
“G-good day H-honorable Elder, can this lowly junior be of assistance?”
Zhang Dong saw the person with the highest cultivation level going straight down to his knees. He wanted to commend his quick wits, he instantly assumed the subservient position. He was only at the 5th level of Qi condensation but outranked everyone here besides him.
“Just be quiet.”
Zhang Dong didn’t really feel like he needed to talk to this man. He already came across many idiots like this. They used the small amount of power to walk all over weaker people but when someone slightly stronger appeared they fled or prostrated themselves instantly.
It was debatable why they ended up like this. Was it bad parenting, maybe lack of them? Did they see someone else living their life like this and just copied their ways?
Zhang Dong didn’t feel like people were born evil or that they weren’t redeemable. Correcting their behavior would be exceedingly difficult and there was a point of no return. He would never be merciful to people that killed without rhyme or reason.
He reached out his hand and pointed out with his finger. This digit started glowing with a golden hue. A tiny ray of light shot out from it and flew towards the collapsed man. The golden energy seeped into his body while making it glow radiantly.
Everyone here was staying quiet, they weren’t sure what this master was doing to this man. They knew one thing, that if he wanted he could slay them with a tiny fart. To their surprise, the man that was on death’s door started looking better. In a matter of moments, all of his wounds closed up and he opened up his eyes.
He was now healed. The man looked around confused as he had lost consciousness after getting severely beaten by the bandits. The last thing he remembered was trying to save his daughter and wife before the stomping began.
“W-what?”
“F-father!”
The daughter was the first one to react. She was still young and emotional, while the others were scared of moving while a core formation expert was around, she didn’t. She hugged her father while sobbing as he had almost passed away.
“Well then, I don’t have much time. Now Choose, a life of servitude or death? Ten seconds should be enough to make a decision.”
The moment Zhang Dong spoke out a massive amount of killing intent washed over all of the bandits. They were pushed into the ground and could only shake with fear. They knew that this man was serious, the reason he was doing this was unimportant as he was someone far above them.
In their minds, they could only blame themselves for being too weak to retaliate. There was not much remorse in their thinking as it didn’t even dawn on them that he was punishing them for the attempted murder and rape.
“I… I will swear allegiance to the venerable senior!
“M-me too.”
“Yes, we all swear to serve you!”
Not having much choice they all crumbled under pressure. The moment they agreed to the proposal they could feel something invading their very being. It was some kind of soul shackle being placed upon them and they had heard rumors about such things. If the man wished he could easily destroy their souls.
“Now you three on the other hand…”
Zhang Dong in his demon hunter persona looked at the family of three. It was strange that they were here, how did they end up in the middle of nowhere with bandits? The closest settlement was a few days away on foot for normal people and it seemed that is what they did.
“Honorable senior, please spare my family, I will also swear my life to you!”
“F-father!”
The man also went down to his knees and started begging him for his life. The wife was closely second as she also begged for their daughter’s life. It made it seem like he was some kind of evil cultivator trying to use them as some kind of test subjects or resources for pill making.
“Relax…”
He pointed his finger at the group of three. They could feel something being inserted into their dantian, it was some kind of strange energy but it didn’t feel malicious.
“I’m not going to harm you. I have given you control of these idiots here, you can do whatever you wish with them. If they try to hurt you, their very souls will rapture and break.”
He quickly explained that these five bandits would be bound to them. He on the other hand started floating up into the sky. He didn’t have time to escort these people, with these five bandits they should be fine in this low-level area.
“You there, give them an order.”
He pointed to the daughter that flinched a bit. She complied with the request telling the bandits to stand up on one leg.
“Uh?”
The men found themselves compelled to do it. If they tried resisting a sharp pain would wash over their bodies rendering them immobile.
“Well then, take care and try not to get in trouble…”
He finally took off while looking at his map. He had already placed waypoints on it after looking through the map of the empire. He would go through less populated spots evading large cities and heavily guarded locations. If he was lucky, he would arrive in the Divine Fist Sect territory within a week.
The family of three was left baffled by the occurrence. Even after the man left the bandits found themselves under their spell. It was now on them to decide if these criminals deserved to live or die.