Chapter 147: No Mercy on This Road

The bandit leader’s face twisted from confidence to panic as he watched his men fall like wheat before a scythe. “Five! They’re only five! HIT THEM, YOU COWARDS! DON’T JUST STAND THERE!” His voice cracked, a desperate, shrill edge cutting through the chaos.

Adam didn’t even look back at Elise. “I’m going to butcher them. Don’t try to stop me this time.” His tone was flat, final. A statement, not a request.

Elise’s hands continued weaving crimson sigils, her expression hardening as she bound another bandit for Seraphina’s blade. “I won’t. Crush them.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Adam’s features, quickly replaced by a sharp, approving grin. “That’s how it should be.”

He didn’t wait another second. Seismic Shatter. He slammed his palm against the ground. The shockwave rippled through the earth in a focused cone, sending the clustered bandits staggering, their footing destroyed. Several fell, their weapons clattering from numbed fingers.

Pressurized Spines. Adam’s scales rippled, launching a volley of high-pressure, water-aspected projectiles. They weren’t aimed to kill—not yet. They tore through leather armor, embedded in shoulders and thighs. Screams of pain and shock filled the air. Crippled, not dead. The fear would spread better that way.

At the cart’s flank, the enemy mage—a ratty man in tattered robes—managed to get a spell off. A lance of jagged ice shot toward Lilith. It never reached her. Lilith’s head turned, her crimson gaze locking onto the mage. She didn’t move. The ice lance simply… stopped, three inches from her face, held by an invisible psychic grip. The mage’s eyes bulged. Lilith tilted her head. With a delicate flick of her fingers, the lance reversed direction and impaled its caster through the chest. He fell without a sound.

Ignis was a living inferno. She had abandoned any pretense of restraint. Her fists were cinders, each punch caving in breastplates and sending bodies flying. A bandit tried to flank her; she caught his axe with her bare hand, the blade glowing red-hot, and ripped it from his grasp before burying it in his skull. “TOO SLOW!” she roared, laughing.

Seraphina remained a wall of disciplined steel. Each strike was precise and efficient—a thrust to the throat, a slash across the hamstrings, a shield-bash that crumpled bone. Her sword moved with practiced economy, taught by years of training and honed by battle.

Her Oath-light glowed steady along her blade. Not a desperate flare, but a calm, constant presence. It didn’t waver, just like her focus.

And through it all, her gaze never left the cart’s perimeter. Every bandit who fell did so because they crossed the line she had drawn. Her duty was simple: keep them away from Elise. She didn’t need to be faster or stronger than Adam or Ignis. She just needed to stand exactly where she stood and do exactly what she had trained her entire life to do.

Adam was already among the disoriented bandits. Mirage Cascade. Three afterimages. Three real strikes. A shattered knee. A crushed trachea. A spine bent backward at an impossible angle. He moved like water, like shadow, like death. Monarch’s Pierce. His hand, shaped into a spear, tore through a bandit’s shield, through his chainmail, through his chest. The man stared at the arm protruding from his back, disbelief frozen on his face, before Adam withdrew and let the corpse fall.

And then he released the Venom of the Void.

It wasn’t a mist. It was a deliberate, controlled emission from his glands—a thin, almost invisible haze that settled over the surviving bandits like morning dew. It touched their skin. It seeped into their eyes, their mouths, the shallow cuts Adam’s spines had opened.

The effect was not immediate, but it was absolute. Paralytic agents locked their muscles. Neuro-toxins set their nerves ablaze with phantom pain. Hallucinogens painted their vision with nightmares—spiders, shadows, their own dead comrades rising. One man began screaming, clawing at his own face. Another collapsed, twitching. A third dropped his weapon and simply wept.

The leader, the scarred man with the cleaver, felt the venom creep into the gash on his forearm. His hand grew cold. Numb. Then the pain hit—excruciating, white-hot, spreading up his arm like liquid fire. He dropped his weapon, clutching his limb. His men were dying, screaming, fleeing. The cart was a fortress of monsters. The “treasure” he’d seen were executioners.

“P-Please!” he gasped, falling to his knees. “Mercy! We won’t—we’ll never raid again! I swear it! Just let us go! PLEASE!”

Adam stood over him. His crimson eyes held no pity. Just the cold, dispassionate judgment of a predator deciding whether the creature beneath its paw is worth the effort of a final bite.

“You should have thought of that before you opened your mouth,” Adam said quietly. His hand shot forward. The bandit leader’s plea died in his throat, replaced by a wet gurgle.

Adam withdrew his hand. The body crumpled.

Silence fell. The bandits were dead, dying, or fled. The few who had run were being hunted by Lilith’s threads in the treeline—brief, distant screams that faded quickly. The cart stood untouched. The afternoon sun filtered through the canopy, indifferent to the carnage below.

Adam shook the blood from his hand, his expression calm. He glanced back at the cart. Elise met his gaze. Her face was pale, but her jaw was set. She didn’t look away. She didn’t flinch.

“Anyone else want to rob us?” Adam asked the empty forest. No answer. He nodded once, satisfied. “Good.”

[Multiple Bandit Defeats Calculated!]

[Approximately 24 Enemies Eliminated]

[+1135 EXP | +1262 EP]

[Ding! Level Up!]

[EXP: 500/500]

[Level: 64 -> 65]

[Ding! Level Up!]

[EXP: 635/520]

[Level: 65 -> 66]

[Final EXP: 115/540]

[Evolution Points: 798 -> 2060]

[Skill Point Gained: +2]

[Total Skill Points: 6]

[Crown of the Hollow Glutton]

[Souls Captured: 52 -> 76]

[+24 Souls Acquired]

Adam blinked as the familiar notifications scrolled across his vision, the glow of his system interface briefly overlaying the blood-soaked forest. Another level. Two, actually. The bandits had been weak individually, but there had been so many of them—a perfect, violent grind.

’Twenty-four. Not bad for five minutes of work,’ he thought, flexing his fingers. The last of the bandit leader’s blood dripped from his knuckles. ’EP is climbing. Still a long way from 6000, though…’

He shook his head, clearing the interface. The carnage around him was settling into quiet stillness. Ignis was patting out the last embers on her sleeve. Seraphina was methodically wiping her blade clean. Lilith had returned from the treeline, the dark orb now tucked securely into her robes, her expression serene.

“Everyone good?” Adam called out, his voice carrying easily through the sudden calm.

Ignis gave a double thumbs-up, still grinning. Seraphina nodded curtly. Lilith hummed an affirmative. Elise, still seated in the cart with her binding sigils fading, let out a slow, steadying breath.

“That was…” she started, then paused. “That was many of them.”

“Was it?” Adam asked, already turning back toward the driver’s bench. “Didn’t really count. Felt like a warm-up.”

He swung up onto the seat beside a slightly stunned Seraphina, who was still processing the casual brutality she’d just witnessed—and participated in. He picked up the reins she’d dropped. “We done here? Or does anyone need to loot the bodies?”

Ignis immediately perked up. “Ooh! Loot! I’ll check—”

“No looting,” Adam said flatly. “We don’t have time. They’re bandits; they’re probably broke anyway. Let’s move.”

Ignis slumped. “Laaaame…”

Adam staring down at the cooling body of the bandit leader at his feet.

’…Too bad,’ he thought, his crimson eyes tracing the outline of a fallen bandit a few paces away. ’I can’t eat them to get skill fragments. All that experience and potential is wasted.’ He let out a slow, silent breath. ’Well, never mind. At least they make good fertilizer.’

A soft touch interrupted his thoughts. Lilith had produced a waterskin from the pouch, and was methodically cleaning the drying blood from Adam’s knuckles. Her movements were delicate, precise, almost ritualistic. She didn’t look up, simply focused on her task, her fingers cool against his skin.

Adam blinked. “Uh. Thanks.”

Lilith tilted her head slightly, a small, satisfied hum escaping her as she finished. She produced a cloth clean and dried his hand before releasing it. “This path will prove troublesome,” she stated, her tone shifting seamlessly from caretaker to strategist. “Those bandits were weak individually, but they were not novices. Their positioning, their timing, the use of that sensory-jamming artifact—they were experienced. And they were waiting specifically for travelers on this route.”

Adam flexed his now-clean hand, his expression turning grim. “Yeah. The Duke’s ’suggestion’ is looking more and more like a setup. He didn’t just point us at a dangerous shortcut—he pointed us straight into a hunting ground. Probably knew exactly what was waiting here.” He cracked his neck. “We’ll have to stay sharper.”

“Agreed,” Lilith murmured. Her fingers twitched, and from the folds of her sleeve, nearly invisible threads of Sovereign Silk began to unfurl. They crawled along the frame of the cart, weaving themselves into the wood and canvas with arachnid precision. “I am anchoring detection threads to the cart’s structure. They will resonate with vibrations—footsteps, heartbeats, even the shift of air pressure. It will not bypass a jamming artifact like that orb, but against conventional ambushes, we will have ample warning.”

Adam watched the nearly invisible web spread across their vehicle. “How long will it last?”

“Hours. I can refresh it during travel.” Lilith settled back, her work complete. Her crimson eyes swept the forest edge. “Let them come. We will hear them long before they hear us.”

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