Ryan began to form a pn as he ventured deeper into the forest, moving almost without caution while his tiny soldiers, barely visible among the dense grass, moved like small green shadows in a diamond formation.

  Acting as bait, the redhead prepared his knives while organizing new information about his powers.

  For example, having made the Humvees disappear to keep the soldiers running around him in formation, the range of activity returned to 75 meters, marking the first major weakness in his patrol units. Perhaps the vehicles functioned as antennas, allowing him to extend his power within a certain radius; if the Humvees were lost at a range greater than 75 meters, all the soldiers belonging to the vehicle would disappear.

  "That expins why that bastard was always so far from his command center."

  Just as he was now, the former owner of this power had been using his own body as bait, making them think that with his death, everything would return to normal. But Ryan knew very well that even after dying, his soldiers had continued fighting until the end, trying perhaps to avenge their summoner.

  That was another advantage of keeping his abilities a secret, since in his previous life he and his companions had a rigid thinking about theworld, so it never occurred to them to think outside the box about how to deal with someone like "that" person…

  With a new feeling of fury inside his chest, the aura that had been absorbed through his skin now circuted through his veins with a familiar rhythm, almost recalling the countless battles he had fought. This made every cell in his body vibrate with energy as his bare feet sank into the earth for a fraction of a second before his small body unched into the air.

  Almost at the same time, the silence of the forest was suddenly interrupted by a supernatural caw that seemed to tear the very fabric of the air. A crow two to three times rger than Ryan himself, with three eyes that shone with malevolent intelligence, swooped down from the heights beyond the trees. Its enormous body destroyed the branches of the trees that always covered most of the sky, with its feathers emitting a sinister purple glow that left trails in the air as if space itself was distorted by its passage.

  If duels in movies sted minutes to entertain the audience, in real life only sted a few seconds.

  "Too te, very te!" Ryan shouted as he flipped through the air, with the bird passing just where he had been moments before. His legs immediately flexed as if preparing to jump into the air, when a burst of aura appeared under his feet, unching him in the direction of the enormous crow flying low to the ground.

  Although the soldiers did not hesitate to shoot, noticing that the bullets bounced off the bird's plumage, the units closest to the point of impact indicated by Ryan gathered, holding grenades and anti-personnel mines in their hands.

  BOOM!

  It was just before the crow could take flight completely that Ryan fell onto its enormous body at full speed, pinning it to the ground and at least four other soldiers, which exploded in a suicidal attack.

  Caaawww!!

  The poor bird could only emit a final sound before the aura-covered knives carved a path from the front of the crow's neck to its spine, almost decapitating the animal completely.

  "But what the—?" Still, Ryan never expected the enormous crow to explode into a flock of smaller crows, which immediately tried to flee.

  "Haaa, this is going to take longer than expected..." Thus, Ryan spent his time between caws and the hum of his soldiers' gunfire.

  Meanwhile, in the bandits' camp, Cayden felt increasingly frustrated as he sat in the shelter he had built inside an abandoned sawmill. His abnormally long arms and legs touched the ground despite sitting in a common adult chair, his 2-meter height making him appear like a huge, thin creature, which had earned him the title of Spider.

  Slumped in the chair, his mind couldn't stop recalling how he had gotten that lucrative job. All he had to do was kidnap the third son of a noble who was heading to the nearby city of Cavanath. At the time, it had seemed simple, but now everything had gone to hell.

  Frustrated, he hit the table with such force that the jug of cheap beer jumped, spilling its contents over the maps and documents. The incompetence of his men infuriated him. How was it possible that a group of experienced bandits had allowed a simple 10-year-old boy to slip through their fingers? But what truly chilled his blood wasn't the boy's escape, but what had happened afterward. Someone seemed to be killing his men in a way that chilled his blood. The mutited bodies of his companions appeared in his mind every time he closed his eyes.

  "Damn it!" he roared, unsheathing his cymore and unleashing his anger against one of the posts that supported the wooden house. The wood creaked under the impact of the mana-reinforced steel.

  He was so close to earning at least double the money by selling Ryan as a sve. Despite being only 10 years old, the boy already knew how to read and write, which significantly increased his price on the bck market. But now, all Cayden wanted was to find him and torture him mercilessly along with the damned monster that was killing his men. Unfortunately, things only got worse from that day on.

  A week ter, both Cayden and the other bandits began to notice unusual disturbances in the forest. Packs of wolves and flocks of birds seemed to be heading in their direction. It was worth noting that the part of the forest where the bandits lived was the outer part of the outer ring of the Galman forest, where magical creatures, no matter how weak and small, were rarely spotted.

  A part of him warned that there was something terribly wrong with the forest now, but the part still full of fury could only find relief in creating a path of blood through these unintelligent animals.

  The only good thing about this situation was the magical crystals they obtained from those battles, which represented a source of income, as they could sell them in the city once things started to calm down.

  What would never have occurred to him was that Ryan would come looking for him one day, the screams of his subordinates in the background like a symphony for his encounter with the redhead, who now wielded a pair of knives, looking at him without any emotion.

  Nakusyer