Journey of the Son of Ares

"You're not the only one here that can use essence," the woman said, trying to convince Aurelius to run, but he simply waved her off.

"I'm not? Good to know. But you should go now. This might get dangerous," he answered, his gaze staying on the mercenaries who were starting to surround them.

The woman gave up finally and left before the mercenaries managed to surround Aurelius.

After she was gone, he raised his hands and talked while directing his focus to a large man with short black hair and a thin scar between his dark eyes, whom he assumed to be their leader just because of the air surrounding him, "I'm sure we can resolve this peacefully."

"We can... but we won't," the large man Aurelius directed his focus at spoke.

It seemed like he had been right about who their leader was. He wasn't very enthusiastic about his correct guess, though.

"Well, maybe we'll let you go if you give us all of your belongings," the mercenary leader brought forth a not-so-generous offer, seeing that Aurelius was starting to prepare himself for battle.

Aurelius tilted his head slightly to the side. "I don't own much, but the answer's still no."

"You'll regret that," the man said, rolling up his sleeves.

Aurelius shook his hands, warming his wrists up. "Really?"

"You're taking this a little too lightly. It would be best for you to understand that if you lose, we will kill you."

"Oh, I know that."

"You may think you do, but you can't comprehend it until you experience it," the man said, his voice even lower than before.

Aurelius looked around and wondered if he had made a mistake by staying. Maybe running would have been best. Suddenly, a thumping in his chest started. Regardless of that, Aurelius tightened his jaw and made up his mind.

"Okay then, make me comprehend it," Aurelius said and readied himself.

There were 18 men around him in total. Well, 17 if the weak link next to the leader of the group was counted out. The weak link was a boy, maybe his age, with ash-brown hair that reached his eyes, coupled with dark eyes and round features that stuck out. He had a slightly browner skin tone than the other mercenaries, and he was dressed in baggy clothes, which could have hidden how skinny he was if one didn't take a peek at his thin wrists. He also seemed to be very nervous, continuously making all kinds of subtle movements. Maybe he was the brains of the group, and those movements were just a part of his thinking process. That would have also explained why he stood right beside the leader. Whatever the case might've been, if Aurelius needed to escape, he would surely run towards him if the leader switched positions.

He doubted that he could be fatally wounded by these people in one hit, so he thought that he could gauge their power a little before deciding whether to fight or escape. It was exactly how Gabriel had told him to approach a battle against an unknown opponent.

"Should we use our weapons?" one of the men asked the leader.

"He can use essence. Swing your weapons to your heart's content."

'They intend on killing me? Am I supposed to do the same to them?' Aurelius considered. 'No, that's too harsh for these people. Though, I can't hold back in a bad situation.'

After such thoughts, the battle began.

Aurelius, of course, started by quickly performing his basic setups. He tapped quickly on his forehead two times, his senses flaring up. Then he squeezed his interlocked hands as tightly as he could, concentrating before feeling a reinforcing reaction. And lastly, he flexed all his primary muscles lightly twice in rapid succession, enhancing his muscles.

The familiar sensations calmed him down quite a bit as he started to focus on where the first attack would come from.

Immediately after, he heard the striking sound of a blade cutting through the wind directly behind his head.

He ducked down while turning and grabbed a hold of the arm holding the blade before thinking of his next move, which was a palm strike to the face of his attacker. He made sure not to put too much power into it, but the man still ended up falling unconscious.

After dealing with his first opponent, Aurelius glanced at the leader, whom he assumed was the only essence user out of the bunch, and was surprised to see that he still stood far away with his arms crossed, not having moved a muscle.

He was then forced to avert his focus from the leader because another attack was coming his way from the right.

He grabbed the hand holding a blade aimed at his neck with his right hand and was about to direct his full attention to that attacker when another came from his other side. His left hand shot out to grab that attacker's hand as well.

He had managed to restrict them, but more were coming. In addition, the man he was holding on his right dug his pockets before bringing out another weapon and aiming it at Aurelius.

Aurelius grunted and twisted his body, throwing the man on his right in the leader's direction from where men were rushing at him.

He turned back, crossing his legs awkwardly, and threw the man he held with his right hand at his other attackers. He lost his balance in the process and fell onto his side.

Not only that, but he heard the leader laugh and grit his teeth.

Aurelius pushed himself off the ground and to his feet before the enthusiastic, armed men managed to jump on him. He then proceeded to dodge a stab from one of the mercenaries closest to him and shift his balance before twisting his hips and throwing a sharp counterattack in the form of a fist to the jaw. Upon impact, a crack resounded and the mercenary's head spun before he flopped onto the ground.

Aurelius's eyes flew open, and he grimaced. He couldn't dwell on it any longer as a group of yelling men came rushing at him. He could've run at that moment, but he put on a stern face and rushed forward.

Aurelius didn't cross his feet once afterward, and not doing so became much easier as the number of conscious mercenaries was reduced to the single digits. Eventually, their number was reduced to only two.

The leader and the boy standing next to him.

"Was your strategy just to drain my essence by making me fight these people first? It doesn't seem like a very good strategy. I'm not drained at all, and I'm certain your men don't appreciate being used as cheap pawns," Aurelius said, his still, deep-blue eyes directed at the leader.

His breathing was getting uneven. Truth be told, he was a bit drained. Maintaining double enhancement and reinforcement for a while was no easy feat.

The leader gave a small chuckle and then answered, "The point wasn't only to drain you. It was just to see how you fight. I also couldn't care less about "my men". We're mercenaries. We do what we have to assure our victory."

"Alright, I guess," Aurelius said with an exaggerated raise of his eyebrows. "Anyway, isn't that guy going to fight?" he asked, pointing at the boy next to the leader, who seemed to have calmed down or stopped thinking

"No, he's kind of an apprentice of mine, so he's just gonna watch what I do."

"An essence user?" Aurelius pried.

"Yeah," the leader answered simply.

'Oh, so maybe he was just excited to see what I could do. Was he disappointed?' Aurelius thought, seeing that the boy's hands were no longer twitching.

"Well, that's that. Let's fight," Aurelius said, consciously raising the amount of essence being supplied for his reinforcement and muscular enhancement, feeling the effects immediately.

The leader huffed a little before tapping on his temple quickly and just once, causing his eyes to go fully black, and squeezing his right hand. Aurelius could sense that the man's right hand radiated essence. The essence in the man's right hand then spread throughout his body.

Aurelius's breath started running short as he looked at the man. The mercenary leader seemed to be better with setups than him.

He still stood his ground, however, since he remembered Gabriel saying something along the lines of, "Setups tell you about the time someone has put into practicing setups. How hard one hits or how fast one moves is the actual tell when it comes to someone's battle prowess."

In addition, the man's essence usage was rough. He didn't seem fully aware of how to channel essence. Otherwise, Aurelius might not have even been able to sense anything after his setup was complete.

Once the leader was done with his setups, he wasted no words and rushed at Aurelius. His movements were faster than any Aurelius had seen in the past few years. Even the smallest animals didn't move at that pace.

In just a second, they were suddenly face-to-face. Aurelius hadn't even fully processed what had happened. This wasn't like the battle with those other mercenaries. He couldn't simply calculate his moves while dodging. Against an opponent with similar speed, everything he did had to come from instinct. There was no room for thought, and any mistake could be fatal.

Aurelius quickly leaped backward, attempting to create space, but the leader simply leaped forward, and they were in the same extremely uncomfortable situation again.

The leader grunted and punched downward. It was a strike that Aurelius could easily dodge, and he did exactly so. Then the punch connected with the ground, creating a tremendous sound. The ground beneath Aurelius shook, and while he struggled to regain balance, the leader launched at him and aimed a punch at his midsection. Aurelius was unable to dodge the blow in time and ended up simply trying to reduce damage by blocking with his forearms.

He ended up getting launched for tens of meters and only stopped when he hit a tree and got the wind knocked out of him. He raised his gaze while trying to catch his breath, only to see the leader in the air about to land on top of him.

He realized the right move instantly and stopped trying to catch his breath. Then he closed his eyes for a split second, during which he cut off the supply of essence to his brain, muscles, and bones, shutting off his enhancements and reinforcement. He inhaled, cold sweat running down his face and into his mouth, spreading a taste of salt. Finally, he extended his arms and put his palms together, pointing the tips of his fingers at the man flying through the air towards him with his hands above his head, ready to strike.

Aurelius wasn't sure he would survive the encounter, but at that moment, he accepted whatever fate had in store for him and stayed still.

Suddenly, the leader's eyes flew open, and his smile disappeared.

Then, as a beam of essence shot out of Aurelius' hands, the leader twisted his body in a panic and managed to evade the beam just barely before clumsily landing on the ground in front of Aurelius.

The leader rose to his feet, and Aurelius did the same after coughing a few times. Then they took their stances once again, with Aurelius being the one doing the setups this time.

The leader exhaled with a devilish grin before springing into action before Aurelius had finished his setups. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't quite fast enough.

He had probably assumed Aurelius would complete the same set of setups as earlier, but that was the flaw with observing someone's actions and expecting to know everything. There were always variables in a battle.

Aurelius was aware of his limited time and scrambled through the setups, but he realized he didn't have time and looked up to see the leader aiming a possibly lethal strike at his head. At that moment, he neglected reinforcement. There was no time for calculation. It was all instinct, as it should be.

He lowered his body to the right, spreading his stance and dodging the leader's attack with the help of his enhanced senses and the speed that enhancement provided. Then, because the leader had likely been sure of the success of his attack, he wasn't ready for a counterattack that came in the form of a palm strike loaded from Aurelius' low one-side dominant stance, from where he pushed with all his power, transferring his momentum to the leader's left side ribs. There was a crack, and saliva flew from the leader's mouth as he was launched diagonally upward in the direction of the forest.

Aurelius didn't watch and admire his feat that had launched a grown man capable of essence use into the air even higher than the trees, however. Instead, he reinforced his body before taking a couple of running steps and jumping after the leader. He had seen how jumping in an arc could go wrong, so instead of that, he aimed his body like a projectile and shot off directly after the leader.

The leader was still conscious and mobile, but he could do very little as he flew through the air as a target. His apparent lack of prowess in other types of essence usage besides reinforcement and enhancements meant all he could do was focus on reinforcing his body while he waited for what was to come.

The wind rushed past Aurelius' airborne figure, and as he got closer and closer to his target, he stopped the supply of essence to his senses and loaded up an attack he was conflicted about using.

He tightened the joints in his hand in a half-closed position, streaks of essence starting to gather into a sphere shape as he imagined what it would do to the man. It was likely that the hit wouldn't kill him since he was doing it while he was maintaining enhancement and reinforcement, but that was certainly a possibility since he didn't seem to be good at defensive essence usage and was trying to simply endure the blow with reinforcement.

He cursed how he had jumped into the air so thoughtlessly as if running wasn't an option. Why had he felt the urgency to end the fight? He had created enough distance to end the fight just by walking away. Was that still possible? It was, wasn't it?

His time to think ended once he reached a distance where he could land a hit on the man. He had made his decision.

The streaks in his right hand grew weaker, and he grabbed a hold of the man, who then shivered before taking a peek at Aurelius from behind his guard.

Right then, he remembered something Gabriel had told him when he taught him about battle for the first time. He hadn't even gotten his notebook at that time and hadn't written it down.

'Right, this guy was right,' Aurelius thought as he looked at the helpless man below him. 'I just couldn't understand it before I experienced it.'

"Look, Aurelius," Gabriel had said with a serious look in his eyes. "Killing intent reflects, so if there's ever a situation where you have to fight. For example, if some bad people come to your home and threaten your family, you'll maybe have to kill those people, but don't do it for the wrong reason. Don't get swept up by the atmosphere. After you win, you should calm down and think the situation through. Never kill a person needlessly."

Aurelius smiled after the memory popped up in his mind and loosened his grip on the man. Then he said with a loud voice that he hoped the man could hear even with all the noise the surrounding wind made, "You helped me see something new. Thanks for the fight."

Then he brought his knees to his chest, and with his legs, he pushed himself off of the man. The man plummeted into some trees below, and Aurelius flew just far enough back to land on his feet outside the forest.

He turned around to look at all the mercenaries lying on the ground. Some were unconscious, others were visibly conscious but seemingly too afraid to move.

Then he looked at the boy he had determined to be their weak link, and he made his hand into a fist a couple of times to see how hurt his hand was. "Don't worry, your master is alive."

"Thank you for sparing him," the boy said with a deep bow.

"It's nothing. Thanks for the fight," Aurelius said with a wave as he turned his back.

He needed to go get his duffel bag before it got too dark. Otherwise, he would need to stay here, and that option didn't seem great.

As he was walking, there was a sound from behind him. It was a mix of a thump and the sound of a shoe scratching against little rocks on the ground. It was like the sound of an enhanced human exploding toward something. Towards him.

But he hadn't sensed any essence usage!

He turned immediately, having maintained full-body reinforcement and enhancement, but before he could set up a shield or even see who his attacker was, there was an impact on his chin. In an instant, his senses went dull and he collapsed onto the dirt, falling unconscious.