Chapter 25 - Surrender
The three archers, one in front and two from the back, shot their arrows at Vincent.
To the elves, the wooden shafts were lethal streaks of speed, guided by wind magic to pierce heart and throat in the blink of an eye. But to Vincent, it was all in motion.
He didn’t even bother to fully transform. His brown hair swayed gently as his green eyes shimmered with an ethereal blue light, calling upon a small amount of his divine power.
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
"Vincent! Look out–!"
In a split-second Vincent’s hand shot out into the air.
CRACK!
Maelle gasped. He had caught all three out of mid-air with a single hand and crushed them into splintered twigs.
The three elves’ eyes widened in uncomprehending shock. But before their brains could register that their attack had been shattered, Vincent vanished.
BOOM!
A sonic boom displacement rippled through the air. Vincent flash-stepped behind the two archers directly to their rear.
SNAP! SNAP!
With two swift strikes, Vincent shattered both of their master-crafted longbows in half. He then flashed again, reappearing behind the green-haired leader.
From across the river, the remaining three hidden elven scouts abandoned their positions and vaulted through the high branches to join the fray, drawing their bows.
"No way, Jose. You stay right there." Vincent turned to them and with a death glare, fired off a mere fraction of his divine aura – a crushing pressure drenched in suffocating bloodlust.
To the five elven scouts, not counting the leader, it felt as though a mountain of iron had been dropped directly onto their shoulders, accompanied by the predatory glare of death.
"Gah!"
"N-No...!"
The divine pressure forced the elves to their knees. Their weapons slipped from their numb fingers as they collapsed into the dirt, clutching their chests and gasping desperately for oxygen that felt too difficult to breathe.
Watching from the side, Maelle stood in awe. Her mind was reeling in complete and utter speechlessness as she watched Vincent dismantle the elves with almost no effort at all.
As she stared at his back, a realisation washed over her. For all his silly antics, his whining about who’s older, and his complete lack of royal etiquette... he was ridiculously reliable in battle.
The green-haired elf grit her teeth as her eyes burned with fierce rage and elven pride. Gathering her birthright innate mana over the winds, she broke through the divine aura and vaulted backward off the ground.
She soared onto a high tree branch and in a single, fluid motion, she drew three wind-wrapped arrows, pulling her bowstring back to its absolute limit, and fired a rapid shot.
FWOOSH! FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
The arrows whistled through the air, shrouded in razor-sharp gales.
Vincent casually reached out and snatched the first wind arrow right out of the air. With a casual flick of his wrist, he used the shaft of the first arrow to smack the second arrow out of its trajectory, sending it spinning uselessly into the river.
The third arrow, however, surged straight for his forehead.
THWACK!
"Vincent!"
The force of the impact snapped Vincent’s head clean backward making the lead elf’s face light up with triumphant delight.
"I got him–!"
"Pfft... hahahaha!"
Vincent’s head slowly moved back down as he laughed with amusement. There, clamped between his teeth was the steel arrowhead of the third arrow. He spit the projectile onto the stone, wiping his lip with his thumb and putting his hands in his pockets.
"Not bad, Ms. Elf. A little more speed and you might have scratched my nose."
Her jaw dropped.
Throughout Pristina, the elves were a legendary race, known for their archery mastery and wind manipulation. To see a human boy treat her squad like child’s play, it threatened to destroy her lifelong arrogance.
’Who... what was he?!’
Infuriated, breathless, and driven by desperation, she dropped her bow and compressed a burst of gale mana beneath her boots, launching herself straight down at him like a falling comet.
She pulled twin steel daggers from her thigh pouch and infused it with vibrating winds.
Descending into the shallow river water beside him, she initiated a whirling hurricane dance of slashes – a high-speed martial art passed down through elven generations.
SLASH! SWISH! CUT!
Wind blades tore through the air, spraying river water into the sky. Yet, Vincent didn’t even take his hands out of his denim pockets.
He nonchalantly swayed his body left, right, leaning back, ducking low. Every strike missed his skin by inches, slicing through thin air and splashing harmlessly into the water. His expression remained entirely bored and his movements relaxed.
"Hah... hah... damn you!"
Feeling exhausted and sweating heavily, the green haired elf was starting to push her body past its limits. She lunged forward in the shallow river, executing a desperate, two-handed cross-slash aimed straight for his neck.
Vincent raised his hands from his pockets, extending his index and middle fingers.
CLACK!
The cross-slash came to a halt as he caught the flat of both glowing steel dagger blades between his fingers.
With a casual twist, Vincent snapped the tension and easily disarmed her. The daggers flew out of her hands, splashing into the river current and washing away downstream.
"Ah... ah..."
The elf’s legs gave out. She dropped onto her knees in the cold, shallow river, her chest heaving violently as she stared up at him in pure, overwhelming defeat and terror.
Vincent let out a soft sigh and extended a warm, friendly hand down to her.
"You okay there? You fought pretty hard."
Maelle stepped forward, her regal posture returning as she looked down at the lead elf.
"If my familiar were truly a human bandit, all six of you would have had your throats slit before your arrows even left your bows. We realised you were watching us long before your ambush. Recognise when you are outmatched."
"F-Familiar–?"
Suddenly, from behind across the bank, one of the terrified, younger elven archers lost her nerve. Driven by pure panic, she shrieked, "GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU MONSTERS!"
PEW!
She shot an arrow, heading straight for Maelle’s unprotected head.
Maelle’s eyes dilated in mortified horror. The arrow was coming in too fast, and she had no time to dodge.
’I’m going to die–!’
BOOM!
A blinding surge of blue and golden light erupted across the entire river valley.
In that split second, moments before disaster, Vincent flashed in front of Maelle. His bare hand clamped around the arrow shaft an inch from her throat, snapping it in half.
When she looked up, the feeling of danger quickly died away.
Vincent had fully transformed. His blue eyes burned with a terrifying fury, and two majestic white wings flared out behind his back.
"Attempting to murder Maelle right in front of me... even though you said you wouldn’t ...is a mistake you won’t live to repeat."
The sight of his white wings, his ethereal blue hair, and his godly aura left every single elf in the clearing paralyzed.
"T-This feeling..." the lead elf whispered as she stared up at him from the riverbed. "White wings... divine mana... This is just like half a million years ago. Y-You’re... A... A God...?"
Realising that a human bandit could never possess genuine divine power – nor would a divine entity spare an elf after being ambushed – the green-haired elf immediately pressed her forehead straight into the wet river.
"STAND DOWN!" she screamed to her squad. "SURRENDER YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY! BOW BEFORE THE DIVINE ONE!"
The remaining five archers instantly threw their bows and daggers aside, dropping to their knees and pressing their faces into the dirt, weeping and begging for forgiveness in rapid-fire elven dialect.
Vincent felt his anger deflate as he looked around at the six weeping, bowing elves. "Wait... what? Why are you guys bowing all of a sudden?"
Deactivating his divine form, his wings vanished into glittering specks of light, and his hair shifted back to brown.
Vincent rubbed the back of his neck, explaining calmly, "Look, it’s as she said, if we were truly the bandits who kidnapped your village’s young, you would all be dead already. Furthermore..."
He pointed a finger at Maelle. "... The Princess here was literally beaten half to death, by what I suspect are those very same bandits you’re talking about, last night before I broke her out of their mountain cave."
Maelle crossed her arms, stepping beside Vincent.
"We hold no hostility toward your sanctuary. We were simply following the river to find a human settlement, so that we may secure transport to the imperial capital and reach the Academy."
"I-I see." The lead elf stood up shakily and bowed deeply. "Forgive us... please, forgive our grave disrespect. My name is Talia, chief scout of the Shadow-Leaf Sanctuary. You... you possess such staggering, unthinkable strength..."
Talia looked between Vincent and Maelle with eyes that shined of desperate hope.
"If I may be so bold as to ask a monumental favor of you both... if you possess the power to defeat those vile bandits... we would do anything for you. Please... help us save our stolen children."
Vincent turned his head toward Maelle. He didn’t say a word, leaving the ultimate decision to her.
Maelle closed her eyes, considering the situation carefully.
"....."
Opening her violet eyes, she gave a firm nod. "Very well. We accept."
"T-Thank you! Thank you, both! Please! Follow us to our village! We will take you to meet the Elder and inform our warriors of the rescue mission immediately!"