"Haha! The fruits in this village are truly delicious! Each one is like a treasure."
The stone house and many buildings were in flames. The grasses had ignited each other, and the fire had spread to the forest. Of course, the village with its farmland was also affected. In the center of the village, a similar-looking leader with 20 rough, stubbly, dirty men was tasting an apple in his hand. His ears were very long and his head was absurdly triangular. He looked thin, but his muscular arms were strong. The burly barbarians behind him, each of them looking angry, looked like they could double him, but that was a lie. These men were ordinary barbarians who challenged the experts of the Beginning Realm with their physical strength. He himself was a man at the first stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm. He was one of the leaders of the barbarians. Among the entire barbarian contingent, only three others like him had reached this stage.
"Blow up this place too! Maybe there's a secret chest."
But there was no secret chest. There was no reason for it to be there. And this barbarian knew it. This was all part of his entertainment. He didn't care about the dead villagers on the ground. He didn't care that the black smoke was even choking his own soldiers. All he cared about was the destruction and the entertainment. It had been years since he had forgotten humanity and empathy. He was part of the cycle now.
"Excuse me?"
"Huh?"
The sudden voice surprised many of the barbarians. The barbarian leader lowered his head and saw the boy, who looked smaller than he was. At first, he was frightened by the staff in the boy's hand, and immediately wanted to kill him. Anyone who could get close to him without him noticing must be dangerous, but then he remembered this boy.
This was the blind boy who had been fed by the woman he had killed. He had left him there because he was blind, thinking how scared he would be if people were dying around him, but after he left he realized that he might not even be able to leave the house. That made him laugh.
But the boy had come out and even found him and asked him what had happened. A smile appeared on his face.
"They are dead. We wiped out the whole village. We robbed them. And you know what? I killed the woman who fed you right next to you! You didn't even notice! Haha!! Do you see what fear is like? "
Mais's face went white. At that moment, he did not see the man laughing in front of him. He could hear the man's voice rising and falling with his movements. But that was it. He knew that this man was not from this village. He had never heard this voice before and the man seemed to mean what he said. He heard a lot of laughter in the area. He felt the presence of a liquid touching his foot. Immediately he noticed its coldness. When the blood touched his foot, it became colder.
It was just like before. It was different from the warm blood dripping on his face, but similar. It reminded him of the puddles of blood in Jadeweb.
It brought back memories.
He counted the laughter. There were 17 people laughing. Mais didn't think there were many who weren't laughing. The thickness of their voices and the number of people they had killed in the crowd told him they were no ordinary people.
"They must have defeated Kasuur by numbers. He is a man who does not even know what a sword is. His fighting power must be far behind his cultivation... It's sad... I wanted to spend more time with him. With everyone. Maybe... I thought there was a glimmer of hope."
When the barbarians heard these words, they began to laugh again. Some of them were already lying on the bloody ground, rolling around and enjoying themselves. These were people who had lost a good part of their minds because of the terrible things they had done.
"Hmmm?"
But the barbarian leader immediately realized that there was a problem. This blind boy made no attempt to escape. The barbarian leader wanted to run after him and maybe see him fall and get covered in blood. He was expecting that. Instead, the boy's face was white and frightened, but he continued to stand straight in front of him.
Did he want to fight?
The barbarian leader found this completely absurd. He didn't even consider it as an option. Something was different. The barbarian leader did not think that he was too afraid to run away. He frowned. Then he turned away. It was clear that he wanted to leave. He didn't want to be around this blind boy anymore.
"Kill the boy. Then let's get the stuff and go to the leader."
"Understood, big brother."
This person who was their big brother no longer cared about this boy. He had expected him to be full of emotions. But how much emotion could he expect from someone who lived in darkness? They sighed. They were done here. The fun was over.
'Oh, what a pain.'
The barbarian leader could not stop thinking. Then he felt something else.
"What is this?"
Suddenly, the big brother realized that his perspective had changed. It was as if he had risen a few centimeters in height and was still rising. There was no change in the expressions of his men. But he began to realize that they were all changing at the same time, in slow motion.
'Why is everything so slow?'
He could never understand why the image was so slow. His upper body flew into the air and then fell to the grass.
His feet were still firmly planted on the ground. But where his waist should have been, a thin black and white staff had split it in two. It had not cut. This long staff had split his body in two with its sheer force.
The blind boy, pretending to use it as a prop, swung it like a weapon and killed him.
Mais, blood splattered on his face, knew that he had killed someone. But he couldn't see the body. All he saw was darkness. He had no time or mood for remorse. He already felt remorse for the massacre of the village. He did his best to ignore them.
He heard movement. The remaining barbarians surrounded him. Mais used his staff as a cane again, but this time he didn't look like an ordinary blind boy. He had just killed someone from his own realm with a single blow. Besides, this man was older than him. Therefore, his physical abilities were stronger. Even so, he didn't stand a chance against Mais.
"Now, no one has a chance to hurt me because of my blindness. I must use everything I have against those who underestimate me."
Mais again tapped his wand on the ground. A thin gray wave began to envelop the area.
***
Mais may have been blind, but before that, he was a prince of the World Empire. He knew more techniques than a man in a village where nobody knew anything, and every technique he knew was far beyond the ordinary. Therefore, he could kill someone at his level with a single stroke of his staff.
When he knew his position and stance, and there was a sufficient difference in strength, Mais's blindness didn't matter much.
He was born without any talent. Compared to his two older brothers, he always knew that he was far behind. They were great men with great accomplishments. Mais was born with a weak talent. He knew that. Even in an ordinary village, he found someone much more talented than himself.
That's why he wanted to become an emperor. He believed in developing his intelligence, that he would excel. He studied. Soon after he could speak, he learned to read. A few years later he began to study cultivation techniques.
Although he was born with an incredibly slow cultivation rate, his understanding was the most extreme his father had ever seen. Even before he began to cultivate, he was able to perceive the techniques of the Origin Energy realm and understand the logic behind them.
Since it was thought that he wouldn't have to fight at all in the beginning realm, and since the energy-increasing techniques came from the Origin Energy Realm, he didn't have any techniques he was familiar with in the early realms. Instead, all he had was basic combat experience. However, Mais had no problem perceiving the logic of the advanced realms. He learned it even though he could not use it. Even though he was only at the 1st stage of the Foundation Realm, the techniques he used were difficult to learn even for people in the Origin Energy Realm.
It was impossible to compete at the same level with Mais. Even if he was completely blind.