Eldrid was in his way to hunt down Leonard Welser in Nine Life forest. When he was about 50 miles from the nearest outpost or armed colony, he saw a thick black smoke on the horizon.Eldrid used his spirit to enhance his leg muscles, he sprinted towards the smoke to prevent any potential disasters.
Instead of a forest fire he found a burnt village, hidden by a concealing array.
There were hundreds of corpses on the ground, all men, the bodies of elderly, adults and children were burnt, charred, or completely mutilated. Only a tenth of the corpses were women, most of which were elderly.
One women was still alive, barely. She grabbed Eldrid"s leg and stared into his eyes, while coughing blood.
"P-Please *cough* save my baby..." The women said before all strength in her was gone, the light in here eyes vanished, her arm falling limp, and pointing the way to the perpetrators.
Eldrid roared in anger, the fires of righteous anger began burning within him, his eyes turning a b.l.o.o.d.y orange, with fiery white and gold pupils.
Blazing golden white flames erupted around his body, making him look like the harbinger of justice"s anger.
[Righteous fires unlocked: An extremely powerful fire that won"t burn the righteous or truly repentant. ]
Eldrid ignored the notification in his state of fury, teleporting towards the horizon.
He reached a group of bandits, most of which are on horseback, with cages full of women and young girls on carts behind them.
However the higher ranking bandits were already "playing" with their captives.
Screaming, crying, and wailing could be heard from the cages and the victims being "played" with, while laughter could be heard from the bandits.
Eldrid teleported into the midst of the bandits, summoning his newly unlocked fire, engulfing the nearest bandits in the golden white flame, leaving only ashes that flew away in the wind.
Eldrid began teleporting behind the band"s individually.
The one bandit who appeared to be the leader was "playing" with a young girl of about 10.
Eldrid abhorred rapists, predators, and slave traders, and in front of him was a combination of the three.
Eldrid summoned his spirit and sliced the man"s flesh on his arms and legs to ribbons, leaving him in agony and rendering him unable to escape.
Eldrid repeated that on the bandits who "played" with children, while decapitating the others.
At this point the caravan was in chaos, half the bandits were running for their lives.
To those who ran he teleported to, one was covered in acid, another frozen, every element was used to kill the bandits.
The smell of rancid meat, rotting flesh, blood, and burnt meat spread throughout the caravan.
The women were praying that this person was their savior, they however noticed he made the predators feel a lot more pain than the rest which meant even if he wasn"t their savior he hated the abuse of young girls.
Eldrid had slaughtered around 280 bandits including 30 leaders and 250 escaping bandits.
Eldrid glared at the rest with red eyes which showed his fury.
Around 50 bandits kneeled on the ground, dropping their weapons.
The other two hundred charged Eldrid, only to be cut down in waves as Eldrid lashed out with waves of sword energy. The bandits fell like stalks of wheat under a sickle.
Once all of them had either died, surrendered, or been maimed and pa.s.sed out, Eldrid"s rage subsided and he found himself in a field of corpses.
The world seemed to have gone silent, everything was still, the blood pools reflected the afternoon sunshine, a lone figure soaked in blood standing in the center of it all, the corpses before him in waves.
He felt no remorse, he didn"t kill human, but demons and devils masquerading as humans.
Suddenly Eldrid remembered his original purpose for coming here was to save the women.
"Are any of you hurt?"
A woman who appeared to be the leader of the victims stood up in her cage.
"Nothing but some bruises and cuts."
"Good, I"m sorry I didn"t arrive sooner..." Eldrid trialed off, feels upset he couldn"t stop the bandits in the first place.
"Sir, you have done more than enough. If not for you we would have been made into s.e.x slaves or worse. Thank you for everything."
Other women began thanking Eldrid, which made him feel better.
Eldrid walked up to the first person he maimed, picking him up by the collar.
"Who are you working for?"
"I-I-I don"t know." The man stuttered in fear.
"Why don"t you?" Eldrid inquired feeling his desire to kill this man increasing.
"I-I struck a deal with a robed man. His features were covered, and his voice so soft it was unrecognizable. I was only told to bring 500 female slaves to him." The man confessed.
"How many have you captured so far?" Eldrid interrogated.
"This was the first village." The man said.
"Anything else?" Eldrid asked bot so politely.
"He said he would find me once I filled the quota." The man said.
Eldrid could feel the mana around moving, something was about to happen, it was likely the contractor was watching and listening through this bandit.
"I don"t know who you are. I don"t know what you want. I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you."
With that the bandit leader fell dead like a puppet with it"s strings cut.
Eldrid interrogated the other bandit leaders under the threat of a painful death, but they didn"t have anything useful, after which he beheaded them.
Eldrid then turned to the bandits who surrendered.
"My fire will judge you, they are the flames of righteous anger. The innocent and repentant will live, the guilty will die. I have no reason to lie to you."
A wave of righteous fire swept over them, 48 cried out in pain as they were consumed.
"You two have pa.s.sed, go live good lives to repent for your misdeeds."
The two turned and left.
"Now what to do with you all..." Eldrid said after turning to the women.