Chapter 256: Criminals, again…

The carriage moved along the dirt road at a steady pace, its wheels creaking softly with each bump in the road as the horses maintained a firm trot under the coachman’s command. The interior was simple, but comfortable enough for a journey that would take several hours to reach Arven. Damon sat on one side of the padded seat, his body relaxed, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed. The repetitive swaying of the carriage created an almost hypnotic movement, the kind of rhythm that made it easy to lose oneself in thought or simply rest for a few moments. Sunlight streamed through the small side windows at irregular intervals as the carriage passed through shaded areas and open stretches of road, drawing moving patterns inside the vehicle.

Despite the apparent tranquility, Damon wasn’t exactly sleeping. He was simply using the silence of the road to organize his thoughts, mentally revisiting Morgana’s letter, Elizabeth’s words, and the silent expressions of Aria and Esther when they saw him leave. Arven was no ordinary destination, and the political situation described in the letter indicated that the problem might be deeper than mere court intrigues. Still, at that particular moment, there was a relative peace in the movement of the journey, a pause between what was left behind and what awaited him ahead.

This peace lasted until the constant swaying of the carriage abruptly ceased.

The change was so sudden that Damon opened his eyes the very second he perceived the unusual silence replacing the regular sound of the wheels on the road. The vehicle stopped completely, and the horses let out small, restless grunts outside. Damon remained seated for a moment, listening intently, before hearing the coachman nervously clear his throat outside.

“Sir…” said the man, his voice trembling.

Damon tilted his head slightly, already anticipating the tone of the next sentence.

“We have a problem.”

He let out a discreet sigh and uncrossed his arms before pushing open the carriage door and calmly descending onto the road. The afternoon sun was now higher in the sky, illuminating the strip of land that cut through the open landscape between small hills and scattered groups of trees. As soon as his feet touched the ground, his eyes scanned the surrounding scenery with quiet attention.

It didn’t take him long to identify the cause of the interruption.

A small group of men had blocked the path a few meters ahead, scattered carelessly along the road, but clearly intent on preventing passage. There were six of them in all, dressed in worn clothes, some carrying short swords, others holding improvised spears. One of the men held a crossbow pointed in the direction of the carriage, although his hands didn’t seem particularly steady.

Behind Damon, the coachman remained seated on the carriage seat, his face pale and his fingers tightly gripping the reins as if holding onto the only thing preventing him from simply fleeing. The man was visibly trembling.

Damon observed all this for a few seconds in silence before letting out another low sigh.

“Again…” he murmured to himself.

One of the thieves, apparently the leader of the small group, stepped forward with a crooked smile that tried to appear confident. “Very well, traveler,” he said, twirling the short sword in his hand as if it were impressive. “You’ll descend very slowly, hand over everything you’re carrying, and maybe we’ll let you continue your journey.”

Damon tilted his head slightly to the side, as if assessing the situation with genuine curiosity rather than concern.

“Do you have some kind of base nearby?” he asked casually.

The thieves exchanged confused glances.

The leader frowned. “What?”

Damon took a few calm steps down the road, approaching the group a little closer without showing any sign of tension. “I’m asking if you have a camp around here,” he continued, his voice calm. “Some cave, maybe a hideout in the hills.”

The confusion on their faces visibly increased.

“Why the hell do you want to know that?” asked another of the men, holding a spear in both hands.

Damon shrugged nonchalantly. “Because this is the second time a group of thieves has tried to kill me on this very road.”

The silence that followed was brief, but heavy with unease.

Some of the men began exchanging less confident glances now, as if the situation had deviated from the simple script they expected. The leader gripped the hilt of his sword tighter and took a step forward again.

“Listen here,” he growled. “Do you think you’re in a position to ask questions?”

Damon finally stopped walking, now only a few meters from them. His eyes scanned each face, each improvised weapon, each nervous posture that tried to appear threatening.

And then he smiled.

It wasn’t a broad smile.

But there was something profoundly wrong with the absolute calm present in that gesture.

“I’m going to count to three,” Damon said calmly, as if explaining something simple.

The thieves fell silent, watching him.

“If you’re still here when I’m finished,” he continued, “I’m going to murder you all.”

The road fell completely quiet.

For a moment, no one seemed to know how to react to that statement made with such serenity. The man with the crossbow hesitated slightly, his arms trembling even more now. The group’s leader tried to regain his menacing posture, but the expression on his face was no longer as firm as before.

Damon slowly raised one hand.

“One.”

The wind swept through the surrounding hills, raising small clouds of dust on the road.

Some of the thieves began to move uncomfortably, their feet dragging slightly on the ground as if reconsidering their positions.

Damon continued to look at them with the same unwavering calm.

“Two.”

Now the tension was palpable.

The man with the crossbow lowered his weapon slightly without realizing it. Another of the thieves took a half-step back, glancing quickly at the leader as if expecting an order.

Damon inclined his head slightly.

“Three.”

Damon held his hand suspended in the air for a brief moment after uttering the final number, as if giving those men one last invisible opportunity to grasp the gravity of the situation. None of them moved quickly enough, and some still seemed trapped in absurd disbelief that a single traveler before them was serious. The wind continued to blow gently along the road, making the dust dance around Damon’s boots as he observed each face before him with an almost contemplative expression.

Then he let out a small sigh.

“Time’s up,” he said calmly, his voice low but perfectly audible in the silence of the road. His eyes moved slowly between them, like someone assessing a simple problem before solving it. “It’s time for the murders.”

The sentence fell on the air like a stone sinking into still water.

For a moment no one reacted. The leader of the thieves opened his mouth to reply, perhaps a threat or an order, but the words never came out.

The air around Damon shifted.

It was subtle at first, almost imperceptible, like a sudden change in temperature that makes the skin crawl before the mind even understands the reason. Damon’s breath became visible in the warm afternoon air, small clouds of vapor escaping his lips as a cold, silent energy began to spread around him.

The ground beneath his feet began to crack.

Thin strands of ice emerged on the road’s surface, slowly snaking like crystalline cracks spreading across the dry earth. The first of the thieves to notice took a step back, looking at the ground with a pale face.

“What the hell—”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Damon raised his hand slightly.

The cold responded.

A sudden surge of icy qi exploded around him like an invisible wave, the air becoming cutting as the temperature plummeted in a single brutal instant. The nearest man simply froze in place, his entire body covered in a thick layer of ice before his brain even registered the danger.

The dry sound of shattering crystal echoed down the road.

The frozen body shattered into pieces in the same second.

Now panic finally set in.

“Kill him!” shouted the leader, taking a step back as he raised his sword.

Two men advanced simultaneously, one with a spear and the other with a short sword, running down the road with nervous cries trying to compensate for the growing fear in their eyes.

Damon didn’t move.

He just breathed.

The air around him condensed into a thick, white mist, and when the two men got close enough to attack, the ground beneath them froze instantly.

Their boots slipped.

Their bodies lost their balance.

And before they could regain their grip, Damon moved his hand slightly to the side.

Thin spears of ice erupted violently from the ground.

The first man was pierced directly through the chest, the impact lifting his body a few inches off the ground before leaving him pinned in place like a grotesque frozen statue. The second tried to stop the movement, but another ice stake pierced his abdomen from below, silencing his scream in a single muffled gasp.

The coachman, still seated in the carriage behind Damon, was completely paralyzed.

He gripped the reins so tightly that his knuckles were white, his eyes wide as he watched the scene in sheer terror.

Three robbers remained now.

The man with the crossbow finally fired.

The sound of the string vibrating echoed down the road as the bolt sliced ​​through the air toward Damon’s chest.

He raised two fingers.

The bolt stopped mid-air.

Literally stopped.

A thin layer of ice formed around the arrow the instant it entered the cold qi field surrounding it, freezing the object in mid-air as if trapped inside transparent glass.

Damon watched for a second, almost curious.

Then he slightly closed his fingers.

The ice shattered the arrow into pieces.

The man with the crossbow let out a startled cry and tried to reload his weapon with trembling hands, but the cold had already reached his feet.

The ice quickly rose up his boots. Then, down to his legs.

He tried to run.

He couldn’t.

His body was engulfed in ice in seconds, freezing completely in place while his expression of terror was immortalized beneath the translucent layer of crystal.

Damon moved his hand again.

The statue shattered into pieces.

Now there were two left.

The leader of the thieves no longer seemed particularly interested in fighting. His sword was still raised, but his posture had completely changed. The man looked around like a cornered animal, realizing too late that he had made the worst mistake of his life.

“Wait!” he said quickly, raising his free hand. “We can negotiate!”

Damon walked slowly towards him.

Each step left a thin layer of ice on the road.

“Negotiate?” Damon repeated, tilting his head with slight curiosity.

The last thief, a younger man holding a short knife, simply panicked.

He dropped his weapon.

And he began to run down the road.

Damon didn’t look at him.

The air behind the fugitive suddenly froze.

A long spear of ice pierced his back before he had taken five steps, his body falling to the road with a dry thud.

The leader saw it happen.

And the little courage that remained in him evaporated.

The sword fell from his hand.

He fell to his knees on the frozen ground.

“Please…” he murmured, his voice breaking. “I didn’t know who you were.”

Damon stopped before him.

His eyes were cold.

Literally cold.

Tiny particles of ice danced in the air around his body, reflecting the sunlight like shimmering dust.

“I asked before,” Damon said calmly. “Do you have a base around here?”

The man hesitated for a second.

That was a mistake.

The cold advanced a few inches down the road. “We have it!” he said quickly. “We have it! In the hills to the north! A cave!”

Damon watched his face for a few seconds.

Then nodded slightly.

“Good.”

The thief let out a sigh of relief.

Which lasted less than a second.

Ice rose from the ground in a brutal movement, piercing his chest in a crystalline stake before he could even react. His body lay motionless for an instant, trapped within the ice formation that impaled him.

Damon snapped his fingers slightly.

His body froze completely.

Then it shattered.

Silence returned to the road.

Fragments of ice and scattered pieces of the thieves covered the ground around him, small clouds of cold vapor still dissipating in the air as the icy qi slowly began to recede back into Damon’s body.

He looked around.

Then he sighed.

Behind him, the coachman hadn’t moved an inch.

Damon walked back to the carriage as if nothing particularly unusual had happened.

“The way is clear,” he said calmly as he climbed back into the vehicle.

The coachman blinked a few times, still trying to process what he had just witnessed.

“Y-yes, sir…”

He gently shook the reins, and the horses began to move again down the road.

As the carriage picked up speed, Damon closed his eyes once more.

But this time there was a slight smile on his lips.

Arven wasn’t so far away now.

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