Chapter 103: Flashback
Kaelen didn’t say a word as his cold gaze locked onto the man, making him shudder as chills ran down his spine.
"M-Morty, bring him to me." The man roared, his fat finger pointed at Kaelen.
In response, a large man almost twice the size of everyone around him, including Kaelen, stepped forward from behind the group as he approached Kaelen. Each and every one of his footfalls sent slight tremors across the surface of the earth.
He arrived before Kaelen like a Titan. His size blocked the sun from Kaelen’s view and cast a long shadow across him.
The man stood before Kaelen for a moment, staring down at him like one would stare down at an ant. Before he clasped his palms together in a firm grip and lifted them above his head like a hammer.
"Kneel." He sneered as he brought down his hands on Kaelen, making everyone present flinch.
"You’re blocking my view."
Those were the only words that escaped Kaelen’s lips. His voice was sharp and sonorous as he raised the back of his hand like he wanted to swat an annoying fly away and slapped it across the large man’s torso.
From the strength it looked like he put into it, everyone expected to hear the crisp but soft sound of a slap. Like when a child hit an adult.
What they never expected was...
As soon as Kaelen’s hand came in contact with the man’s torso, instead of his hand being stopped by the man’s thick skin, it kept moving forward as the man’s skin sank inward, like Kaelen’s hand was moving across a body of still water.
Boom—!
The man bent at an unnatural angle from where Kaelen hit him before his body was propelled away like a cannonball under pressure. He ran through several shacks that couldn’t stop his momentum before he hit the ground and skidded across it like a pebble thrown across the surface of water, till he collapsed in a heap.
Leaving a clean hole through the several shacks he’d run through, everyone stared dumbfoundedly for a moment before their necks snapped back toward Kaelen.
For a moment, only the sound of the whistling wind could be heard across the slums as all eyes fell on Kaelen. Including those of the guards on the wall and some mercenaries who had climbed down from their vehicles to see better.
The leader of the group opened his mouth several times to speak, but no words came out each time as he seethed in rage.
It was Kaelen’s footsteps that snapped him out of it, as Kaelen began moving towards the man in calm strides with a deadly expression.
"W-What are y’all waiting for?!" He screamed at the men behind him. "G-Get that bastard!"
On his orders, the underlings snapped out of it as well and sprang into action, drawing their blades as they charged at Kaelen.
They were fast.
Two appeared behind Kaelen in no time and closed in on his exposed back with their weapons.
Kaelen didn’t look. He didn’t need to look before his hand shot out to grab the wrist of one man aiming a dagger at his shoulder, before he swung him over his shoulder, slamming his entire body into the ground.
The second man who had gotten behind him saw this as a window of opportunity to strike while Kaelen was distracted, when Kaelen’s foot suddenly moved, throwing a flying kick behind him and hitting the man in the jaw before he could even react. His neck snapped at a 180° angle from the sheer momentum, and he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
But this still didn’t discourage the others, and the last two came at him from both sides when Kaelen swung the body he still held by the wrist at one, sending them both flying into a stack of barrels.
He calmly stepped back just in time as the tip of a blade rushed past his eyes before his hands shot out to grab the face of the man, lifting him above the ground against his own momentum before dipping down and sinking his head halfway into the ground.
Everything happened so fast that the spectators were still trying to make sense of the entire situation when Kaelen had resumed moving towards the leader with calm strides like he had never been interrupted.
The leader stumbled back in fright as his pupils constricted to the size of pinholes, staring at the state of his small army, before he flared up in rage as he lifted an arm towards Kaelen with the other supporting it like a rifle, before he roared:
"I’m not as weak as these useless bastards. I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna smoke you like the unfortunate animal you are. Crimson Flames—"
The man had just activated a skill when Kaelen arrived before him and grabbed his wrist as his other hand moved for the man’s fingers.
Just as a wisp of flame was starting to form in his open palm...
Crack!
"Arghhhhhhhh!"
Kaelen snapped the man’s pinky finger at an unnatural angle, making him scream in agony and automatically canceling the skill.
Before the man could catch his breath from the first fracture, Kaelen had already moved onto the next finger, and then the next, and the next, methodically.
"Arghhhhh! Arghh—DAMN YOU!!!" He suddenly roared amidst the pain as flames shot out from his palms towards Kaelen, who was standing before him.
But before the flames could singe a strand of hair on Kaelen’s face, he swiftly sidestepped and drove his elbow into the man’s arm, twisting that too at an unnatural angle that made his palm face the sky and released the rest of the flames upwards.
Before the man could scream some more from his broken limb, Kaelen drove his fingers into his jugular, making him retch and salivate.
"If you dare to interrupt my market or harass any of my customers again, I’m gonna nail you to a wall, cut your balls off, and make you eat them. Do you understand?" Kaelen asked with a cold gaze.
The man swallowed his agony and nodded so hard his head almost came off.
That was only when Kaelen shoved him away and exhaled softly to calm his nerves before he turned to see everyone within sight watching him with varying expressions.
The locals looked terrified. The guards on the wall looked amused, while the mercenaries had unreadable expressions.
Kaelen softly sighed in exasperation.
’I think I might’ve overdone it a bit... just a bit. This is still salvageable.’
Kaelen was interrupted when a small girl ran up, bent down, and started picking up the spilled meat.
It was the same child who had come with Kaelen’s first customer.
"D-Dora, no—" her father called out in fright, but lost his voice when Kaelen turned to stare at him.
Kaelen didn’t say a word as he bent down to start picking up pieces of the meat as well, gathering them in his hand before handing them over to the little girl, who smiled innocently as she grabbed the paper and wrapped them up.
"Thank you, mister, for saving my father the trouble." She said and took out a sprig of flower pinned to her gown like an ornament before reaching out to Kaelen. "Here’s a token of our appreciation."
Kaelen was taken aback.
He stared at the flower for a long moment, and in that moment, the scene around him changed like a glitch in reality. This time, it wasn’t the same little girl who was offering him the yellow flower. This one had long blonde hair and a bright smile. But it wasn’t her hair nor her smile that made her unique.
It was her eyes. They bore two different unique colours.
Crimson and purple.
’You saved my life. Here’s a token of my appreciation.’