Chapter 101 Unexpected Reunion

As he lifted up his right hand to launch another dart at Xzavier, he found out that somehow, his right palm had been pierced. He was flabbergasted. He looked at his hand like he didn't recognize it as his own. He glared at it as if it had somehow betrayed him by being vulnerable. It had all happened too quickly for him to process it.

This time, he didn't try to stifle the cry. This time, he didn't try to be all macho about it one bit. He opened his mouth, and like an animal that had been cornered in a trap, a sharp cry of pain came out. He screeched like a wounded hawk, filling the air with the agony of his injury. His torment was on two fronts. The pain of an unexpected attack was twice as agonizing as the pain from an attack that one might have seen coming.

The suddenness of the attack, plus the neat-silent way with which it had been executed had the chief servant reeling in awe of Xzavier. As he lifted up his eyes from his already bleeding palm to look at Xzavier, he saw a very different picture. Compared to the mental image he had already had of his enemy, the figure that stood before him looked like a monster. His cold dead eyes which resembled that of a serpent, was gazing back at him with a homicidal vibe.

In that moment, staring eye to eye with Xzavier, the chief servant realized with a cold chill that Xzavier had actually been relatively relaxed all this while. The deadly cold side of him had only just awakened. With this sudden revelation, and with the terrible pain in his palm as a constant reminder, he didn't know when he found himself thinking;

"Just who is this guy?!"

Now that the tides had changed, Xzavier's own point of view was completely different. His composure was very placid, and he radiated a kind of cold confident calm which hinted at the fact that he was in perfect control of his environment.

Without even raising his voice, he addressed his astonished enemy in a suave tone;

"Listen very carefully…" he began, "…if you try to launch any more attacks, if you so much as breathe aggressively, the next hole will be in your head."

Like a scared kid who had been cornered by his prey, the chief servant remained in a state of perpetual fear and shock. Unable to move, he remained still, as if bound by Xzavier's words.

Right at that moment, Adalia who had taken off to go get help, re-emerged on the scene and spotted Xzavier in his bulletproof vest that she had seen many times before. She instantly recognized it. And because she had associated Xzavier's bulletproof vest with him being battle ready, she knew that he meant business this time.

This time, Adalia wasn't alone. Her flight hadn't been for naught. Indeed, she brought the whole gang back with her! The quick, brash feet of Earlene which was always attracted to trouble had followed Adalia and brought her right to trouble's threshold. Behind her was the younger of the governor's children, Earlene's younger brother Cadence. He was also anxious to see Xzavier in action. The young lad knew he would not be disappointed.

Lastly, following closely on Adalia's heels, and with eager eyes, Laddie also stepped into the scene of the altercation. As soon as Adalia had informed him of Xzavier's situation, the white bearded old man immediately left all he had been doing and dashed after Adalia who led him here, to Xzavier.

Full of knowledge and wisdom, the burning black eyes of the old man took in the entire situation before him and began to assess the damage to the enemy and potentially, to the house of his employer.

The senior mage wasn't disappointed, not in the least way. He realized with glee that Xzavier had beaten up just about everyone present. The bodies of the numerous servants who were still trying to recover from the first wave of Xzavier's assault, were scattered unevenly across the area.

Laddie took in the sight before him with a kind of silent pride. Though he didn't voice it out loud, he praised Xzavier in his mind;

"Nice one Xzavier, nice one!"

The old man wasn't expecting anything less than this. After all, Xzavier was a level 6 hunter who had been able to kill a whole leader of an orc tribe, a feat that had already been ruled out as an impossible task by top hunters and top mages. Of course, for one who had been able to accomplish something of this nature, a bunch of humans would be nothing to him.

As Laddie scanned the scene of the battle, his eyes caught a familiar face. The figure with the bleeding palm and blood soaked thigh appeared to resemble someone very familiar. Laddie came closer to confirm, and alas, it was someone he actually knew.

"Fachnan?" The old man wondered.

Fachnan was a former student of the Senior Mage. Laddie had taught a lot of students in his lifetime. In fact, sometimes, one or two strange faces would walk up to him and introduce themselves as former students of his. Being the courteous one, Laddie would smile and indulge them, even though he could have sworn that he didn't know them from Adam. He hardly every recognized any of his past students.

However, this time, he remembered this particular one. It wasn't because his memory was so excellent, the reason was simply because the young man in question had been one of his most remarkable and memorable students. Fachnan was his name.

Seeing such a stellar student again brought back memories from a seemingly different lifetime. Even as a young child, Fachnan had shown great promise. So, seeing him on the side of Anjou family playing the part of the playboy's muscle was a bit disappointing. He had expected so much more. The old man did not hesitate to make his disappointment plain.

"FACHNAN!!!"

He called his name with the unmistakable authority of one who did not just know him, but as an authority figure who was in a place to rebuke him. Fachnan was dealing with a whole other situation of his own. So when he heard the angry, reprimanding voice of a very familiar person, he was forced to break out of the mental prison Xzavier had locked him in, and turn to find out the owner of the voice.

To his uttermost surprise, he found out it was the Senior Mage- Laddie. Like a scene from his past coming back to haunt him at his worst, the old man stood out in the small crowd like an apparition. His robes flapping in the wind, and his iconic white beard glistening under the sun's rays made him look like a mirage that had been cooked up by his mind.

Fachnan was about to close his eyes and surrender to the fact that he was going mad, when the sharp reprimanding voice of the old man pulled him back.

"You fool!" He thundered. "How did you end up as a mere hatchet man for the Anjou family!?"

The old man might have been a top mage, but he was no seer. There was no way he could have known that such a stellar student would stray so far from his own brilliant future.

Fachnan had already suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Xzavier. As a fighter, his spirit was broken. Seeing his old instructor look at him in that moment with a look of pure disgust…

It was all too much for his broken battered mind to handle. He bowed his head in shame, and endured the tongue lashing. He didn't dare to look his former teacher in the face. His shame wouldn't him.

At that very moment, Eadweard, the playboy of the Anjou family, (and the reason behind all of this ruckus) who had been half drunk and half awake, finally roused from his drunken state and regained a fraction of his consciousness. The first set of faces looked familiar because they ran in the same social circle of nobles.

Best

The conscious part of his brain that was only half awake, immediately registered and remembered their names- Earlene and Cadence!

Eadweard sat up straight so fast that he almost ended up killing himself with a migraine from his hangover. Like a child, he cried aloud in pain and rested his palm on his forehead. Hearing the cry of pain, almost everyone in the environment turned in the direction of the young man thinking some calamity had befallen him. But it was only the self indulgent, pitiful, pathetic cry of a crybaby in the body of an young man.

The rush of the memories of the past hour, coupled with the shock of seeing Earlene and Cadence, further increased the intensity of his headache from the hangover. Noisily, he rose up him the dust where he had passed out, and stood on his feet to challenge Xzavier.