As the masked man continues to whistle again, the bandit leader is now definitely agitated at being mocked. With his two-handed sword, he swings towards his opponent with a whole arc horizontally. The masked man leans backward as he dodges the strike at a hair's breadth.
Despite looking as if he will fall at a moment's notice, he remains standing with only his knees supporting his entire upper body weight. As the blade of the bandit's sword reaches above the wanderer's face, he grabs at it with his hand. The momentum suddenly comes to a halt for the bandit as he suddenly realizes that he can't budge past the current position his stance is in.
Not only did the bandit leader have the initiative of the first strike, but it was also only one exchange. Yet he can't move after attacking. The man before him had done nothing other than dodging once and caught his sword. As the leader tries to pull the weapon free, he found it strangely hard to do so despite the man grabbing it with only his fingers. As if adding insult to injury, he is still whistling carefree while this absurd situation happens.
The masked man stops whistling after the leader finally decides to let go and fight with his fist. He stares at the bandit boss as if amused.
"Haha, is that all you can do now?"
The masked man hits the bandit with the pommel of the sword that is still in his hands. The leader cries shortly as his nose got broken. Meanwhile, the bandit's aide tried to go after Kite, trying to use him as a hostage. Kite notices that the aide is coming right for him. Kite starts to run from getting caught until he hears a different scream, it was the aide's turn to scream in pain.
A leg is now gone as the aide falls to the ground. Kite noticed that near the now amputated leg is a sword. It is the two-handed sword earlier that the boss let go from his grasp. It seems that the masked man tossed it towards the aide's direction and made a clean cut. The masked man stood back up, walks towards the leader and grips him by the neck. Slowly raising his hand, the boss chokes and tries to struggle out of his grasp.
"Struggling against me now is pointless you know?"
"You *gasp* are... *chokes*"
"Shhhh"
The masked man puts the finger from his free hand on his mask again as he hushes which a few moment later he later holds that hand up while still pointing upwards.
"Oh about the whole whistling earlier, I wasn't whistling at you, I am whistling for someone else from up there."
"Wh *choke* "
"Oh, whoops. Let me make it easier for you to talk first."
"What are you talking about!? There is nothing up..."
As soon as the boss talks a shriek blurs loudly from the skies. Soon silhouettes of birds swarm the blue sky above as a murmuration gathers. As they fly in a circle as if spotting prey, descend into the hole slowly and gracefully. As they got closer, it was a rather large four-winged bird. It is about 3m tall with a wingspan about 5m wide. Its colour gives an impression of green jade and among the birds, some of them have large crests of blue hue but most of them are estimated to be around 10m or more in size since there are comparisons to the smaller versions.
The flock slowly gathers around all of them. Except for the masked man, Kite and the bandits are completely stunned by the sudden appearance of these huge birds. The bandits who are completely busy dealing with the disaster no longer have the will to do anything as they look at the unknown invaders.
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"What are these things!?"
"Where did they come from!?"
"Don't move! If you don't move, they can't see you!"
All sorts of commotion came from the bandits as the birds start to outnumber them by two to one. Unlike the bandits, Kite recognizes these birds. If he recalled his memory, they are called Storm eagles. The Desertum desert's largest bird of prey. These large birds can easily lift an adult terran with its talons. Its primary food source is the great sandworm. Despite the overwhelming size difference, a single eagle can hunt two of such prey but they normally hunt in a group as they are a communal bird group.
Not only do they make the magnetic mountains their nests, but they are also capable of emitting unique magnetic fields from their feathers. The masked man chuckles as satisfied. The bandit leader is now completely afraid as he suspects the man had tame these unknown beasts.
"What are these!"
"Well, you guys have been here for about two weeks, so it's expected you don't know about them. This guy is called a storm eagle."
A bird flew next to him and rubs its face at him as he raises his hand.
"And you guys pissed them off recently."
"Wha?"
"You probably think nothing in this area will come after you. If let's say the subjugation army from the kingdom, you guys would long be gone a day before they arrive."
"So what! Those slabs are just too slow to be any good for me."
"Well, that's until you guys messed with this friend of mine. They were complaining that a bunch of Terran invaded their territory and hunting grounds. They offered me this little seed."
"You trapped us inside a wall for a mere seed!!!"
"Yes, I did trap you guys 'inside' here for just a seed. Well, don't you also steal from others just for a bunch of rocks, didn't you? Besides, we aren't inside a 'wall'. We are inside a hole."
"What nonsense are you saying!"
"Doesn't matter if I explain it to you in detail. Besides, didn't I already say you guys messed with my friends here?"
He snaps his fingers as he tossed the leader towards the bird which uses its talons and digs deep into the leader killing him. The rest of the birds begin to make their move as they swoop toward the bandits and starts shredding them. Many bandits scream in terror as they feel their flesh being torn apart by the powerful beak and talons. Some tried to fight back to no avail as they felt a strange sensation of their weapons rising in their hands. Others tried to attack with wooden and stone debris. Despite their best effort, they failed to injure the eagles, which only irritated the birds further.
Cries of fear rang everywhere in the pit as body parts fly in all directions within the carnage. Kite witnessing Terrans being shredded apart as their organs are sent flying everywhere begins to vomit his gut clean as the sight and smell of the carnage overwhelms his senses. The bandits beg for mercy but were only met by the looming shadow of death the birds cast. Soon every last bandit is dead. The eagles left the site satisfied while the duo prepares to return to town.
Kite had seen things that he probably regretted knowing about it. The masked man looks at him and sighs again.
"Do you feel sorry for them?"
"You don't?"
"When they are a menace to the hard-working folks?"
"But they shouldn't die like that..."
"Listen kiddo. If you don't hunt, you starve. The bandits getting attacked by them in that fashion is stating the obvious. That is how the world works."
"Even so..."
"Kid, reality has nothing to do with what is right and wrong. Only what affects it and what effect it will have. Do you know why you followed me here?"
"..."
"That's right. It's because you want to know about things especially how I handled them. The reason I asked you if you want to take a look with me, did you remember the answer?"
"Yes, you said because it's fun. But..."
"What's fun for me isn't fun for you. It's all about how it matters to you. Even if you don't like it, things will happen in one way or another. Whether it is good or bad, only time will tell. You made a face of wanting your curiosity filled back at the bar. So are you scared of your emotions now?"
Kite stays silent. He has never given thought to what happens to the world around him or how he should feel about it. It is precisely what the man said, only one will know whether it's a treasured experience or not. Just because it's good doesn't mean it's the same for others. All it takes is just one tiny difference and that changes everything else.
