Zobi slowly pushed himself away from where he had been standing and walked toward the trader and the other soldiers. He closed the short distance between them cautiously. The muscles of his face were tense, and his gaze lingered on Lioran for a moment—not with anger, but with a deep unease.
'Since when has he been here…? How did I not sense his presence?'
His hand instinctively hovered near the hilt of his sword, though he still hadn't drawn it. His instincts were warning him, even if he didn't know exactly why.
At that moment, the trader stepped forward. His face had turned red with anger, the veins in his neck bulging. He glared at Lioran with contempt and shouted brazenly,
"Who the hell do you think you are? Shut your mouth and get lost!"
Then, with a sharp motion, he gestured toward the children. Their small bodies were curled up together, their eyes full of tears, their faces soaked with fear as they stared at Lioran—almost as if they had unknowingly found their last hope in him.
"We found those black-skinned brats first. They belong to me."
Lioran glanced at the children's frightened faces.
"They're not my prey."
His tone was calm, completely devoid of emotion.
The trader paused for a moment, clearly not expecting such an answer. Then he frowned and asked.
"Then what the hell do you want here, bastard?"
Lioran cast a cold look over them.
"You… all of you… are my prey."
Those few words were enough. The color drained from the trader's face, and he instinctively took a step back, as if the ground beneath his feet had suddenly vanished.
But unlike him, the three soldiers standing beside him reacted differently. Almost at the same time, they drew their swords from their scabbards; the sound of metal scraping through the quiet forest air echoed sharply. They pointed their blades at Lioran, and one of them stepped forward angrily.
"Hey, you little bastard… I think you've lost your mind. Looking for someone to kill you, huh?"
Before he could even finish speaking, Zobi reached him. He placed a firm hand on the soldier's shoulder and stopped him.
"Wait."
The soldier was forced to halt. Zobi withdrew his gaze from him and stared straight at Lioran. In a calm but serious voice, he said,
"Leave while you still can. I can't guarantee your life."
Lioran let out a short sigh—not from exhaustion, but like someone growing irritated by another's stupidity. His cold gaze never left them as he spoke.
"I hate repeating myself… I already told you. You are my prey. I'm going to turn you into my dogs and show you what it truly means to be a slave."
Lioran's words ignited the three soldiers' anger like an uncontrolled fire. Their jaws tightened, the veins in their necks bulged, and almost at the same moment they pushed off the ground. Dry leaves cracked beneath their feet as all three charged at Lioran with raised swords, shouting with fury:
"You red-haired bastard! How dare you insult us?!"
"I'll teach you a lesson first, you damned brat—then tonight I'll visit your whore of a mother for raising such a disrespectful son!"
"Yeah—and I'll pay a visit to his sister… hope she's got the same long red hair!"
Lioran didn't even blink when he heard their words. His gaze simply grew colder—a heavy chill locking onto a single point. His eyes never left the soldier who had insulted his mother, as if the rest of the world had faded away.
Anahita spoke with concern,
"Hey… hey… please control yourself, Lioran. Don't kill them."
Without even shifting his gaze from the soldier, Lioran answered in a completely cold voice,
"Shut your mouth."
Anahita, knowing there was no way to control Lioran once he was like this, fell silent for a moment. Her eyes moved to the three soldiers who were slowly approaching Lioran with their drawn swords.
In the darkness of Lioran's inner world, she gently shook her head and murmured under her breath, quietly enough that only she could hear it:
"These idiots… they're running straight toward their own deaths."
Seeing his soldiers charging forward, the trader threw his head back and shouted with loud laughter,
"Good! Kill that bastard! Show him his place!"
His face was flushed with excitement and his eyes gleamed, as if he were watching an entertaining show rather than a human being about to be torn apart.
Zobi, meanwhile, slowly shook his head. His gaze remained fixed on Lioran—there was neither mockery nor anger in it, only something close to pity. He murmured to himself,
"I wanted to save you… but you're the fool who chose your own death."
A few steps away, Rona, Toncha, and Goncha stood frozen in place. Their fear-filled eyes shifted between Lioran and the three soldiers rushing toward him with raised swords. Their breaths were quick and uneven; they had neither the courage to run nor the strength to scream.
They could only watch… waiting for something they did not know whether it would be salvation or disaster.
When the three soldiers reached within five meters of Lioran, they shouted at the same time and leapt toward him with all their strength. Dirt scattered beneath their feet, and the blades of their swords flashed in the air.
"Now you'll pay for your words with your life!"
"Die, you bastard!"
But Lioran didn't even blink.
His gaze—cold and unmoving—was locked onto only one of them: the soldier who had insulted his mother. It was as if the other two didn't exist. The world had narrowed down to a single point.
That soldier noticed it too.
While his body hung in the air and his sword came crashing down with all its weight, his anger only grew stronger. The veins in his neck bulged as he shouted wildly,
"Stop staring at us with those damn eyes, you bastard!"
Lioran still didn't move.
The three soldiers leapt through the air with furious cries; their shadows fell across the ground as their swords came down at deadly angles toward him. The wind cut by their movement pushed Lioran's red hair back, yet his expression didn't change in the slightest.
At the very last moment—just when death should have reached him—Lioran simply slid half a step to the side.
Not a dramatic leap, not an exaggerated movement—just a smooth, precise shift, as if he had already known where the blades would land.
With a sharp shing, the three swords passed right beside his body and cut through empty air.
At that very moment, Qi burst out from behind his right hand. Dark light gathered, condensed, and in an instant took the shape of a complete sword—a blade without shine, yet heavy, like a fragment of the night itself.
"What the—"
One of the soldiers had just noticed, but it was already too late.
Lioran turned.
The first strike came in a horizontal sweep without pause. The Qi sword passed through the neck of the nearest soldier. The head separated, while the body still took one more step before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
Lioran didn't even pause. With a twist of his wrist and a shift of his weight, he delivered the second strike. The blade slid past the second soldier's neck; blood sprayed through the air, and his head fell onto the dirt with a dull thud.
The third soldier didn't even get the chance to retreat.
With a flushed face he shouted, "You bastard—!" and tried to charge at Lioran again.
But his movement never finished.
Lioran simply took one step—no haste, no effort. The Qi sword flashed briefly in his hand, and with one clean, precise motion, both of the soldier's arms were severed from the shoulders.
The swords slipped from the severed hands and fell to the ground with the dry clang of metal.
The man collapsed to his knees with a broken scream, then fell onto his back and writhed on the dirt in agony.
It was all over in a matter of seconds.