Devourer Class

Galahad and James had taken shifts on driving the carriages. The harnesses and carriage gear was enchanted by magicians to alleviate the stress of weight on horses, using a magic array similar to the one on the cane Pavell loaned to Galahad. The horses could manage the whole trip and only need to stop for water and food.

James's meeting with the loaner his father borrowed from was not till six days from now. The two agreed they'd stop after the second night to rest and additionally to shorten the trip to about three days. They would arrived late in the day and very tired, but James wanted to get away from the edge of the woods as soon as possible.

At least they hoped to get there as soon as possible. Too bad every road trip has a few bumps in the road.

A little boy no older than ten, wearing rugged farm clothes was running up the trail, towards the carriages with his arms flailing up in the air. Once he had Jame's attention, the horses were reeled back to a complete stop.

The boy's shouting could finally be heard, "help, help us please!" He shouted at them.

Galahad made not indication he was awake and stayed closed-eyed and cross-legged.

"Calm down, what's wrong?"

"Please help!" The boy kept shouting, he appeared to be a state of absolute hysteria.

"It's okay, it's okay. My name is James and this is Galahad. We can help. Who are you?"

"I am Arma and-and I need your help. There's a dangerous monster in the forest and my father is helpless over that hill there. The wagon was tipped over when the horses were scared by a monster howling. Can you please help us?"

James began to stammer his words at the thought of going to a spot that a monster had just disturbed. Luckily he didn't need to as Galahad spoke without indicating he was awake.

"I'll go help, I was hired to work as your muscle, it's only fitting I go in your steed. Can you show me where it happened Arma?" He opened his eyes and turned to look at the boy.

Galahad opened his eyes and saw no name above the boy's head. Galahad took him for his word and called him Arma.

The little boy nodded and practically dragged Galahad over the hills away from the forest. James then sat alone on the driver's bench, feeling a very stressed and had the sudden urge to piss.

As Galahad followed Arma over the hill, he saw something did actually pop up above the boys head. It just wasn't very helpful.

[ ??? ] lvl. ???

Class: ???

'Huh guess I can't read any information if there's no resonance towers around to give it to me. Not really that important right now though.'

After the trail disappeared behind, Arma turned to get real close and whispered to Galahad.

"We gotta be real careful, there might be monsters near the carriage." The boy then crouched down and continued to lead.

The terrain quickly seemed to transform into a large dirt basin with a few trees scattered about, and a cliffside right in front of them. They seemed to have approached a dead-end, trapping them as well.

"Indeed, there are many monsters around here. There is one right behind that rock in fact, and that tree, and even two behind that shrub." Galahad aimlessly pointed off every hiding spot that contained a bandit.

"It would appear we have been surrounded Arma, by your monstrous friends. Was I wrong to assume that?"

A rather stocky bandit shoved Arma off with curses flying at the young boy. "You miserable brat, he figured us out because of your poor work."

"Go back and tell the boss we've started with your stupid little buddy." He demanded before shoving Arma off into a direction away from the cliff.

As much as Galahad wanted to say to them that their cover was not good enough against his keen eye, he really only noticed because their unregistered markers l popped up as [ ??? ] from behind their cover, all thanks to their Karmic Plates.

Galahad would have been shocked to see the unregistered name markers and everything, but the boy talking about a monster howling in the forest made him very suspicious from the beginning.

He spent a large amount of time in the forests near Teramore; no monster or mystical creature was ever dumb enough to howl so loud, it would give off its location to everything else. Letting everyone in the forest know where they were was practically asking to be attacked.

'Apharine said on more than one occasion, a younger monster or predator yelling in the forest was permanently silenced by the three kings just for being disruptive.

You guys need to come up with a better story, although that kid did sell the fake urgency really well. Like they always say "train 'em when they're young."'

A group of eight bandits surrounded Galahad in a semicircle, leaving the cliff behind him to do the rest of the trapping. Three were females and the others were male.

The male who yelled at Arma took a step forward and began speaking with Galahad in a somewhat more polite tone.

"It's not often someone spots our traps before we emerge, I'll give you credit for that. Unfortunately that's not the type of credit we're interested in. Hand over whatever valuables you happen to be carrying please." The man extended his hand in emphasis for Galahad to start gifting him all of his belongings.

Galahad didn't move and inch, he didn't even seemed phased by the scene changing into a highway robbery. His motivation was clearly lacking to hand everything over. The leader's posture seemed to drop along with his false smile.

"Look, if you hand everything over now, we will let you go and everyone will be on their merry way. If not, then meaningless blood will spill."

That last part seemed to cue the other seven into drawing out their swords, knives, and other assorted weapons.

'How cute, did they rehearse this before I showed up? They must have.' Galahad thought as he suppressed a chuckle.

Galahad unsheathed his dinged up shortsword in return. He proceeded to give a grin to the bandits, indicating no need for false negotiations, he knew they would have attacked either way. Bandits can't leave themselves open to witnesses that could

Identify their faces in the court of law.

Galahad didn't move when the frontal assault began. The bandits charged until the front assault was right on top of him. He adjusted his footing to a more comfortable form for his interception, and then he activate Fury and Fyre.

Red sparks exploded from Galahad's unwrapped hand, not really shocking the bandits, they only watched the display while still getting ready swing at him.

The bandits assumed that Galahad was a magician, and a heavily injured one based on the looks of his face, neck, and bandaged arm.

They needed to make sure it was quiet so James didn't hear any commotion, otherwise spooking him will lead to the carts speeding off and outrunning them on the trail, making the convoy a lost attempt.

The bandits leading the attack firmly swept his longer sword at Galahad, expecting to feel his heavier weapon to blast through Galahad's defense and then hit soft flesh and cartilage. All he felt was air instead.

Galahad had leaned back to watch the blade swipe at the spot his throat was just a moment before. He left three inches of space between himself and the sword, just to see how close he could wait to move.

Before the bandit could fully perceive the miss, Galahad's bandaged arm shot up and grabbed him by the throat. The longer sword fell out of his hand mid swing, then he retreated his arms back to claw at his throat for air. Galahad had raised the man a few inches off the ground, looking like he was hardly straining at the weight of the full-sized male.

The bandit companions slowed down, but didn't drop their weapons. Their leader may have been their superior for the ambush, but sometimes role are meant to be changed. Being a part of a bandit camp was all about rising to power and gaining more, it was a lot easier when the reckless superiors died in the occasional start to an assault.

Galahad's body was now completely erupted in red flames, cracks ripping apart his skin to reveal glowing orange beneath.

When Galahad touched the man, his unregistered name marker [ ??? ] turned to a full name: Gigan a Battle class swordsman.

Galahad didn't even bother to read his whole name. The man had too little time left for Galahad to bother learning it.

'Interesting. So if I touch them, I guess my skill can register the plate bound to their souls. So much to learn, so little time.' Galahad thought as he squeezed more life out of the man's throat.

He intended to blind the front row of bandits with their leader's body and used it as an opportunity for spacing. He jumped backwards and pulled something out of his jacket. The group of bandits recognized that Galahad was looking for a chance to retreat and dove over their unconscious leader to prevent that.

The group wouldn't let let Galahad escape, but they were wise enough to not aimlessly attack now. It was clear now that Galahad was holding another weapon on his person. The size of a weapon in the world of Endora will never amount to how deadly it can be.

He flung a bunch of tiny objects at the bandits, they immediately backed off in caution. A defensive flinch in the case that Galahad might have thrown magic consumables at them. They had suffered a loss like that not too long ago, when an armored soldier threw a bag of fire puffer dust and lit up half a dozen bandits in flames. They refused to make the same mistake twice.

They only retreated two or three steps back when they all realized Galahad had merely thrown a quite a bit of mana orbs at them, some were even a decent enough size to spot in the wild tall grass. They thought maybe he caved in and tried to bribe his way out, but that was never going to fly with highway robbers.

'Poor attempt of a diversion, he's not that clever of a little brat.' Thought Ashatey, the bandit groups second in command. Technically she became first a moment ago. After she secretly stabbed their leader's side after she slammed him into the ground. The other six bandits were too busy staring at Galahad, she figured she could blame the soon to be dead adventurer in front of them.

The soon-to-be-dead adventurer was currently smiling at them as they slowly drew closer, they watched his movements to see if he'll strike, but nothing came at them. He kept retreating until his back hit the cliff blocking him from behind.

He just seemed to be drawing them closer and nothing else. None of this was making any sense, why did he seem so happy to be dying at that moment. Suddenly Ashatey felt like a weight was dropped into her stomach, she stopped pressing forward and only watched the rest of the group carry on.

She heard a weird pop go off behind her, like someone smashed a glass with their boot. She turned to see a little wisp of blue smoke rose out of the grass and start honing in on the group, despite the wind's guidance. Ashatey stepped back even further, she was well aware of the dangers of unprocessed mana orbs or their broken vapor.

The grass died all around smoke as it was instantly killing the organic life it came anywhere near.

None of the subordinates cared enough to focus on the one pop noise go off, they didn't stop until ten more cracking noises went off in a rapid cl.u.s.ter. They turned to witness a wave of blue smoke coming at them as it killed the grass it hovered across.

The bandits believed themselves to be clever, thinking they cornered Galahad and didn't fall for his attempts to escape. None of them knew that Galahad didn't plan on running, he planned on eliminating all of them.

'They can blame the gods or Karma or whatever, but they led themselves right into this.' Galahad observed as the smoke slowly enveloped the bandits from behind.

One by one, the bandits started dropping and gasping. Some collapsed silently, others tried to hold their breath and escape, but none of matter. The blue smoke was extremely corrosive on impact, melting skin and boiling bodily fluid as it phased through them. Only a few gasps could be heard before Ashatey was left alone outside of the cloud, her suspicions of the trap was what kept her alive and infuriated.

"That goddamn f.u.c.ker!" Exclaimed Ashatey. She stomped her foot at the death of her entire squadron of bandits. "Dante's never gonna forgive me for letting the entire team die. Why did that f.u.c.k.i.n.g idiot have to go and try to be suicidal hero, damn it all."

"Who said anything about suicidal?" Galahad asked as he stepped out of the blue cloud completely unharmed. "I'm certainly no hero, so I am hope you're talking about someone else."

Ashatey looked up in horror, her voice seemed to be caught in her throat. Her complexion went pale as she saw Galahad emerge, smiling the same. It was one thing for him to somehow survive, but the smoke starting to follow him was pouring fear into her brain. She silently watched as the blue smoke poured itself into the openings of Galahad's raw facial wounds.

Thinking maybe she was hallucinating, Ashatey only managed to stutter out a single word. "H-h-how?"

"That's a long story that I won't bother you with, not when you won't be alive long enough to fully grasp my situation." Galahad revealed from behind his back that he had just picked up one of her fallen comrade's swords.

Galahad kept walking forward in a leisurely pace, meanwhile Ashatey was fumbling to take a fighting stance. Fear shivered through her body as Galahad approached, her bladder was on the brink of betraying her.

She attempted to swipe her smaller weapon at Galahad, but he easily dodged and lashed out against her arms. A gashed ran deeply across the back of her left hand and trailed down her forearm. Ashatey tripped over backwards and fell on her a.s.s.

She begged for Galahad to spare her, she promised to do whatever it took. She blabbered through tears about willing to do whatever it took to survive, even losing all sense of her dignity. Galahad seemed to patiently wait, his emotions suppressed too far down for Ashatey to understand. Tears kept flowing and her words eventually became gibberish.

Galahad waited patiently before finally saying his part.

"Why should I bother to spare you? You'll just come back to kill me, just like buddy over there tried. Oh, what was his name? . . . Gigan I believe." Galahad pretended to have tilted his head in thought, seeing how'd she reaction.

"H-how do y-you know his name?" Ashatey drew the knife from the back of her belt, the one she intended to stab him with the moment she got up. Now all her thoughts were fried, thinking the man before her was not a man at all. He was a Devil.

She kept the knife pointed at Galahad from the ground, scrambling her legs to put any more distance between them. Too bad Galahad was walking at her again, his stride never changing. Once he finally made a move at her, Ashatey's bladder finally betrayed her.

He bolted forward and used the palm of his hand to slam her head against the ground. Ashatey's ears were ringing from the painful headache she received.

"Oh I know a lot of things . . . Ashatey Vulcara."

She inhaled and was about to let out a scream, but Galahad kept to his statement brought his new sword straight down on her throat, severing her life by the neck.

Galahad stood up and watched the adding of +XP still rapidly flowing down the side of his view. Ignoring the massacre before him. Not long after, Galahad's body erupted into a blast of yellow sparks.

[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 9 ] +3 Attribute Points Earned

Mana orbs lvl. 9 or below can now be consumed.

Fury and Fyre Skill [ +0:03 seconds ]

Health Points +10