A dark hooded figure pushed through the doors into the patchwork of wood and nails which deemed itself a tavern. A chandelier hung in the middle, one fancy ornament inside of the rotting building, but even that was rusting away.
Walking toward the bar, he took notice of grooves and cracks staining the floors and walls, with even some of the chairs and tables still holding signs of a swung sword or fist.
There were loud, drunken hollers coming from many tables, but what took the hooded figure’s attention were the low whispers in the corners hidden away from the low burning lanterns. Arriving at the bar counter, he took a seat and focused his attention toward the man running the entire establishment, or at the very least, who he assumed to be.
“You’re a new face around here.” His voice was low and gravelly as he greeted the hooded figure, a voice fitting for the man’s hulking features.
“New face? You can’t even see my face, so what makes you think I’m new?”
“Cause you’re the only hidden face I’ve seen around here.”
“Really?” The hooded figure swept his gaze across the tavern, finding not a single person like him. “You’d think people in a place like this would want to stay hidden.”
A town full of criminals, no, a town run by criminals would be more fitting to describe the place that they were in. He had done his research before coming to Vitir, to this lawless town which had been taken by a much stronger and fiercer group of criminals.
“Well, guess you don’t need to hide anything when Vulf has your back, eh?” The hooded man let out a sigh at the surrounding corruption.
His words set the tavern owner off, and suddenly, his gravelly voice became a growl. “You’re here for Vulf, aren’t you?”
Suddenly, the shadows of the tavern began to stir, and the hooded man could sense piercing gazes from the darkness coming toward his direction.
“What are you? A bounty hunter? A hero chasing glory? Or did they finally send someone to investigate?”
“Who said anything about that? What if I just came here looking for something to eat and a place to rest?”
“Don’t throw that shit at me, no outsider comes here looking for that.” The tavern keeper leaned in, trying to get a look at the man’s face. “Now answer my question. Are you here for Vulf?”
The gazes grew even sharper, but instead of cutting him down, they only made the hooded man fiercer. A wide grin began to grow on his face as he met the tavern keeper in the eyes.
“Right, let me introduce myself.” He began to reach for the sword slung to his waist. “But I’m sure you’ve heard of me, of Ega.”
The stirring shadows of the tavern suddenly froze at the sound of that name. It was a name that had been quickly spreading across the kingdom “Ega the Blood Hunter.” Was the figure sitting before them truly that infamous Ega? What if it was just a bluff? But if he was telling the truth, there was no way that could afford a fight with him right now.
One of the men sitting in the shadows tried to call him on his bluff and threw a dagger aimed straight for his head. Just a moment before it pierced his skull, Ega moved his hand, summoning a flicker of metal to deflect the incoming blade. In just an instant, he had drawn his sword
The clashing of metal quickly silenced the tavern. Regular civilians in the tavern, even the ones with their heads full of alcohol knew what would happen next. Used to these types of occurrences, they all began to rush out the door, scattering like pigeons. The only ones left in the tavern now were Vulf’s men, Ega, and the tavern keeper who was hiding under the bar.
A volley of blades flew towards Ega as he stood up from his stool, but each of them faced a similar end to the first. With just a few strokes of his blade, he deflected three daggers and formed a domino effect of deflected daggers clashing with other daggers until they all cascaded onto the floor.
Grabbing the stool he had just sat on, he launched it across the tavern, disorientating the men for only a moment before they cut it down with their own swords. But a moment was all Ega needed.
His cloak fluttered behind him, barely keeping up with his shadow as he dashed towards Vulf’s men. In an instant, he brought his blade through three of them in a single swing, almost like he was cutting through butter. One swing of his sword shook the criminals down to their core, leaving some with quivering hands as they held on desperately to their blades.
“What are you doing!” One of them yelled out from across the tavern. “Attack him all at once!”
Despite the valiant effort to rally his men back together, Ega was already moving onto the next few bandits. They desperately tried to parry, or at the very least, block his attacks, but such shoddy swordsmanship was easy to break through.
For some strikes, he changed the trajectory of his sword mid swing. For other strikes, he knocked their blades to the side. Whatever strike he used, he was quickly bringing all of their heads to the ground.
“Now!” The same voice as before gave out another command right as Ega dealt with the last bandit on his side.
He swung his head toward the source of that powerful voice and caught sight of their plan. A giant steel net had been casted towards his direction, and though he could cut through people with ease, a metal net was a different story.
Grabbing a bloodied table, he flung it towards the net, blocking it before it could capture him. Following that net however were criminals chucking daggers as they ran toward him. Unable to deal with all of them at the same time, Ega dashed onto a table and leaped for the chandelier hanging in the middle.
A few daggers caught his cloak, ripping it off of his body, but he had avoided taking any damage. Seeing another net and even more daggers flying towards his direction, Ega quickly came up with an idea to disrupt their attacks.
Swinging his sword at the chain connecting the chandelier to the ceiling, he began to burn away a soul from his soul realm. With a newfound strength, he threw the amalgamation of iron and candles towards Vulf’s men, crushing them as he dropped down.
Though he had stopped another net from entangling him, he had left himself open to the daggers. A few of them grazed his flesh, with one even piercing into his abdomen as he landed back onto the ground. A few of the criminals found a hint of hope as Ega took a second to recover from his wound, but if something as small as that were to stop him, he wouldn’t have been granted the title of a “Blood Hunter.”
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Ripping it out from his abdomen, he threw it towards the remaining six left, quickly bringing it down to five. They all froze for a second, not expecting Ega to start moving so quickly, but giving him that time was the greatest mistake they could have made.
In just a second, he had cut the distance between him and the criminals and began to tear through them and their broken morale. Ega heaved for air as he scanned the bloody tavern, making sure no one was left. Clutching his abdomen, he closed his eyes and began to focus on his soul realm again.
Instead of burning another soul, he did something much more intricate, he mixed his soul with the soul of a salamander. The pierced and grazed flesh began to mend themselves at a rapid speed, but there was something strange about those patched areas. The skin over those areas was strangely smooth and almost wet, but he paid it no mind having been long used to these types of side effects.
Hearing some rustling from behind the bar, Ega turned his attention to the tavern keeper rising from the ground. Walking over to the counter, he got ready to lob off another head.
“So? Are you going to fight me as well?”
“No no no! I–” The tavern keeper could barely speak as Ega’s bloodied figure approached him. “I’m not with those bastards, I swear! I’m just trying to run a tavern here and ended up being swept up with Vulf’s gang. I can barely even pay for the repairs every time they cause a mess here! Please! I don’t want to die as well!”
Hearing the tavern keeper's desperate tone, Ega was starting to feel a little bad for him as he scanned the wrecked tavern. This was probably the worst state that it has ever been in, especially since he had brought down an entire chandelier.
“Here, how about this,” Ega sheathed his sword as he talked, “you tell me where Vulf is located, and I’ll do the honors of taking care of him for you.”
“So you were after him! I can’t do that, if he finds out I ratted him out…” The man’s eyes grew wide at just the thought of it.
“He won’t be able to do anything if I kill him first.”
The tavern keeper took a step back, bewildered by Ega’s straightforward assurance. Still, he started to contemplate the offer.
“Come on, put some trust in my name. Just look at what I was able to do here, Vulf won't be any different.”
Despite his display of bravado, Ega knew things were going to be much more difficult than that. The men he had fought here were pathetically weak. None of them possessed any powerful souls and a good chunk of them probably weren’t even soul bearers.
“Argh! Fine! Ten silver and I’ll be a rat.”
A smile formed on Ega’s face as he reached for a pouch slung to his belt. “Right, you have to make something out of this if you’re putting your head on the line, huh?”
Pulling the ten silver out of his pouch, he handed them over. Ega probably could have easily figured it out himself with some more digging, but finding out as soon as possible after causing such a huge scene was imperative. Plus, he felt bad for the tavern keeper.
The moment the coins dropped into the man’s hands, he started to speak. “The slums south of here is where Vulf and his men base themselves at. You’ll find them quickly. Their base sticks out from all the rundown buildings. Also… stay here for a minute.”
The tavern keeper started to walk towards the back of the building and returned with something, or rather, someone.
“Come out here kid.”
A small child stepped out from the back of the tavern. She was small, tiny even, probably no older than eight. Although her figure was quite thin, her face and black hair was clean at the very least, showing that the tavern keeper was at least taking some care of her.
“I don’t know exactly why, but Vulf seems to care about this kid a lot. Forced me to hide her away in my tavern, even away from his own men. I’m sure you can use her against him.”
There was a wide grin on Ega’s face as he looked at the child, instantly realizing why Vulf cared so much about this child as to try and hide her. “Is she his kid or something?”
“As if. What kind of woman would want to be with that bastard?”
“Who knows, people can have a soft side.”
But if this child didn’t have any familial relation to Vulf, then what Ega was seeing now was probably the reason he cared so much about her. Ever since the Old God guarding their kingdom had died, people began to harvest its body for their needs.
Those in possession of its Mithril Blood, aside from the small boost in their physical capabilities, had gained the power to see divinity. What Ega could see now, and what Vulf had probably seen was this child’s blessed soul. He couldn’t tell which Old God had blessed her, but being blessed meant you possessed a special power, and if you could take that soul for yourself, who knows just how much power you could wield with that soul.
“You really are spilling everything to me, huh?”
There was a smirk on the tavern keeper’s face. “Well, if I’m going to bet on you, I gotta go all in. And besides, I’m screwing out of this town anyways with that ten silver. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta get things in order.”
He moved back toward the back of the tavern, and Ega couldn’t help but feel a sense of pity for him. Caught up in the chaotic workings of the world, if you weren’t a capable soul bearer and didn’t possess the right connections, there was nothing you could do.
As the man left, Ega turned his attention toward the child, and as their eyes met, she shuddered and dropped her gaze. He never had a kind face in the first place, and the blood all over his body definitely wasn’t helping.
Walking over to her, he crouched down to meet her at eye level. There was a long, awkward silence as Ega tried to figure out what to say. He had never dealt with kids before let alone talked to them. Was there something he had to do differently compared to adults?
After a bit of thinking, he gave up and approached the situation the same way he usually did. “So, what’s your name?”
“E–Ella…” Her voice was unbelievably quiet, like a squeak from a mouse.
“Ella huh? Do you know Vulf?”
She nodded her head.
“You like him?”
She shook her head.
“Great! Then we got something in common. You just have to help me out here and I’ll free you from his grasp, deal?”
She nodded her head, not that she could have refused in the first place.
Noticing that Ella was still shaking, Ega tried to comfort her. Tried.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be doing anything bad to you. Just listen to what I say and we’ll be fine, alright?”
Seeing another head nod left Ega satisfied. Maybe dealing with kids wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.
“Then let's get out of here quickly.” With all the chaos that he caused, more of Vulf’s men were probably swarming towards the tavern.
Scooping Ella into arms, he quickly left, prepared to strike at Vulf and his gang.
