Chapter 36 - Stage 3 : Clearing The First Obstacles

Standing in place obediently, outside of the van, and waiting for their kidnapper's instructions, Cynrik and Brance caught the faint sounds of crying drifting in the air. He had already spotted a group of over a dozen children roughly the same age as himself not far from them. Still, he chose to overlook it entirely as he couldn't be bothered by their existence and only saw them as a hindrance for his XP farming.

Brance, on the other hand, was struck by sudden rage as his eyes finally acclimated to the darkness, and he saw the huddled up children. {These bastards, there's got to be at least 15 kids other than us that have been kidnapped;} Brance was gritting his teeth and clenching his little fists tightly to keep himself from charging at his captors and saving these children. He always believed in doing the right thing, and right now, his conscience was screaming to protect them and kill everyone who caused this. He wasn't, however, blinded by his rage as he quickly took count of the 27 hooded adults standing menacingly around the corralled kids.

Noticing his brother's rage boiling up, Cynrik quickly went to calm him down. {Hey, it doesn't look good, but we'll save as many as we can. Don't let your anger control you. Do I have to start dropping comments about the light side and dark side at you?} Containing a slight chuckle, he couldn't stop himself and started monologuing at his enraged brother about how fear leads to anger, which leads to hate and hate leading to suffering.

When he finished talking at Brance, he stumbled upon a particular thought.

{Oh, do you think lightsabers are a thing in Vinestra? You know what? I bet I could pull it off by fusing Lightning and Fire into a type of plasma;} even the dire situation couldn't stop Cynrik from making wisecracks.

Funny enough, when they were children in their past life, they had spent several years fighting with toy lightsabers, and in fact, this was when Cynrik had developed his unique dual-wielding fighting style. Back then, Brance had difficulty keeping up with the flashy, wild attacks, and now he was prepping himself to unleash that same style for real to take lives instead of just play fighting.

Listening to his brother ramble on about a specific movie franchise from their previous life, Brance was slowly able to steel himself to the sights panning out in front of him. Cynrik was good at that; in his early years on Earth, Brance had a lot of anger issues, and Cynrik's natural stupidity was always able to calm him down. The current situation was no different. Even though they were deep in enemy territory, he was over there cracking jokes and being his usual weird self, and thus Brance couldn't help but calm down.

While the brothers were distracted, the three kidnappers appeared behind them and, with a shove, herded them to the cluster of crying kids. Upon merging with the group, one of the adults spoke authoritatively, capturing everyone present's attention. "The master has been informed of the 17 new livestock. Finders can return to their quarters while my team brings them to holding."

Acknowledging the command, 24 of the kidnappers seemed to blend in with the darkness and vanish.

"Now then, all of you will follow me, don't even think about running away. Anyone who tries it will never see their parents again," his words caused the already fearful and sobbing children, except for two, to wail even harder.

Clicking his tongue, one of the men suddenly burst out with a wave of powerful energy, causing all of the children to collapse to the ground violently while struggling to breathe. This pulse of energy even caused a handful of them to empty their bladders right then and there.

Cynrik and Brance were completely unaffected thanks to their Body Tempering and gravity training. Still, as they watched the kids collapse one by one, they decided to follow suit and fall dramatically, with Cynrik sticking out his tongue like a dead deer once again. {What the hell was that pressure just now?} Brance commented, feeling the tangible creepy wave of force.

{Either it's some kind of Aura, or Killing Intent exists. Unfortunately, we don't really have anything to compare it to other than the gravity training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.} The group of children struggled on the ground until the man stopped the energy, allowing them to stand back up while Cynrik and Brance were calmly analyzing the situation.

Cynrik and Brance weren't aware what the man had done was let out only a fraction of the Killing Intent he had amassed by reaping hundreds of lives. In Vinestra, each time someone took a life, they would receive a point into a hidden stat called Killing Intent; once this stat reached a certain amount, it was possible to utilize it into a wave of intangible energy to suppress or intimidate someone."So you brats better listen and follow us. We've got a long trip ahead, and you better keep up; stragglers will be ripped to pieces and fed to the dogs."

And now the story has come full circle. (Refer to events of Chapter 12)

{Cyn, what do we do with them?} Brance couldn't take his eyes off the group of crying children who were clueless to what had just transpired. One minute they were being led to this room; the next, those men were gone. What they didn't know is that in a moment of clarity, after killing the men, Cyrnik had quickly summoned up a black fireball to dispose of the bodies before anyone could see what happened. Since the DarkFire, as Cynrik had named it was pitch black and didn't emit much light, the children had only seen the men disappear as both Cynrik and Brance moved too fast for them even to see.

Looking around for options, Cynrik suddenly realized where they were; what he had initially believed was an empty hallway instead turned out to be a long hall lined with nearly a hundred small jail-like cells. A quick scan with Mana Sight showed him several small, emaciated children occupying most of these cells, which filled an area the length of a football field. With a glint flashing through his eyes, Cynirk quickly came up with a plan he knew his brother would disagree with.

Letting out a sigh, Cynrik activated his Shadow Veil, covering himself and his brother before informing Brance about his findings. {Don't freak out, ok;} before Brance could ask why he noticed the dark mist being emitted from Cynrik covering the both of them and then Cynrik vanishing. His disappearance was followed by the sound of several soft thuds as every single one of the children in the group suddenly collapsed onto the floor. Cynrik had gone around utilizing his 50 AGI and knocked out the entire group of abducted children.

{Start moving them into the cells, three to a cell;} Cynrik gave out his order before scooping up two small children under his arms and quickly setting about putting them into a cell. By the time he returned to the group, he had noticed Brance hadn't moved from where he had left him. {What, do you want to take them with us? Listen, they will only become a liability. Stick to the fucking plan, and they will be fine, also stick them in the cells close to us, and don't venture further down the hall; you won't like what you see.}

Snapping out of his stupor, Brance ignored his brother's words and turned his head slowly towards the long hall as a look of pure horror spread across his face. Then, gulping down the bile threatening to come up from his stomach, he took his brother's advice and began moving the unconscious children to separate cells. This process only took a couple of minutes to complete due to both of the boy's Stats being so high.

Once finished and out of immediate danger, Cynrik finally took the chance to look over all of the numerous notifications Tobs had sent him since the moment of his first kill.

- You have killed a level 4 Human -

- You have obtained 100 XP -

- You have obtained 1 STR point -

- Tier 0 Mana Codex located would you like to extract it Y/N-

- You have killed a Level 4 Human –

- You have obtained 100 XP-

- You have obtained 1 VIT point-

- Tier 0 Mana Codex located would you like to extract it Y/N-

- Host has taken a Sentient Being's life; the hidden attribute Killing Intent has been unlocked -

- You have received 1 KIN point –

- You have received 1 KIN point -

Once he finished going through each notification, Cynrik broke into a wide grin. Unfortunately for him, Brance happened to see this. It drew a severe reprimand from him. {You better have leveled up, or some shit Cynrik or I swear to god I'm going to beat the hell out of you for smiling right now;} not wanting to get hit, Cynrik quickly sent him over all the pop-ups he had received from Tobs. {A new stat unlocked; also, we now know that killing people gives attributes just like the virtual creatures in the time chamber, PLUS...} He held up two small diamond-like gems the size of a United States quarter for Brance to see.. {It looks like we don't have to rip Codexes from people's chests forcefully; Tobs did the work for me.}