"None of us can escape…?"
"Hahahahaha!"
"Boss, did you hear him? This brat says NONE of us are getting away!"
"This is hilarious. I really don't get it—what gave this little punk the courage to stand in front of over a hundred of us and talk big like that?!"
The bandits howled with laughter.
"Kid, I'll show you soon enough…"
"What despair really is!"
A towering, nearly four-meter-tall brute stepped forward, a massive cleaver resting on his shoulder. His cold, hungry eyes locked on Ryukawa with open malice.
"Oi, Water Buffalo, bullying kids again?"
"Boss, let ME handle him!"
"No, no, this one's mine!"
The bandits squabbled over the "right" to kill Ryukawa.
Ryukawa narrowed his eyes slightly.
"No need to complicate it."
"Kid, go ahead," one bandit sneered. "Pick whoever you like to fight."
"Pick?" Ryukawa's expression didn't change as he spoke quietly.
"Wouldn't it be better if you all came at once?"
The bandits froze mid-laugh.
"…What?"
Before the confusion settled—
Ryukawa raised his wooden sword.
And—
Swung.
No wasted movement.
No hesitation.
The wooden blade moved like a razor of pure steel, releasing a suffocating wave of killing intent that rippled across the clearing.
A faint red aura coiled along the blade—
Then burst free.
Iai—Sword Aura Release.
The moment the sword descended—
The sword aura tore forward, a streak of crimson destruction.
The towering brute known as "Water Buffalo" stood directly in its path.
The sword aura pierced him cleanly through the chest.
A beat of silence—
SPLASH!
Blood scattered like crimson rain.
His body—
Simply ruptured.
The destructive force burrowed through flesh, organs, bone—
Shredding everything in its path.
"N–No…"
Water Buffalo stared down in horror at the gaping cavity where his chest should've been, blood gushing like a fountain.
His terrified eyes lifted toward Ryukawa—
A terror beyond comprehension filling them.
The sword aura didn't stop there.
It continued ripping forward—
Straight into the crowd of bandits behind him.
PUH! PUH! PUH!
One by one, bodies were pierced—
Screams didn't even have time to form.
They simply dropped.
Blood mist filled the air.
When the aura dissipated—
Dozens collapsed onto the dirt.
Lifeless.
Blood pooled beneath their bodies.
In the blink of an eye—
Over twenty bandits died instantly.
One swing.
One breath.
And they were gone.
Silence.
The atmosphere froze.
Every remaining bandit stared at the corpses, faces pale, eyes trembling violently.
A chill ran up their spines, straight to their skulls.
"T-This… this isn't real…"
"What just happened?!"
"One second they were laughing… next second—they're dead?!"
"More than twenty brothers… gone in one strike!"
Terror swallowed their bravado.
Nearly a hundred remained, but none could stop shaking.
"He… he's a monster!"
"That's not a kid! That's a monster in human skin!"
"They were killed by his sword aura—he used a wooden sword to do that!!"
Knees buckled.
Weapons clattered to the ground.
Every gaze locked onto Ryukawa now—
Eyes wide.
Bodies trembling.
The boy who stood before them now felt like—
Death incarnate.
Even Kuison, the bandit leader, was ashen.
His jaw trembled.
His back drenched in cold sweat.
"How… how can someone that young… have such power?!"
His heart collapsed in terror.
He remembered how they had mocked this boy moments earlier—
And now, the regret hit him like a hammer.
That wasn't a boy.
That was a devil.
"No—no, I have to run!"
"We can't fight this thing—he'll kill us all!"
"Even with a thousand men—he'd still wipe us out!"
As Kuison turned to flee—
A second crimson wave roared past him.
Another sword aura.
Aimed straight at him.
"No! No no no! Spare—"
He couldn't finish the sentence.
PUH!
The sword aura punched straight through his torso, then continued carving through another cluster of bandits behind him.
Over twenty more bodies fell.
Kuison among them.
When the dust settled—
The clearing was soaked in blood.
Corpses littered the ground like scattered leaves.
The hundred-man bandit brigade—
Extinguished.
Not a single survivor.
Just as Ryukawa had said—
"In front of me, none of you will escape."
Behind him, Kuina and Zoro stared blankly at his back.
They hadn't moved.
They hadn't needed to.
Ryukawa had handled the entire bandit troop alone—
As effortlessly as cutting vegetables.
Blink—
The bandits were alive.
Blink again—
Every last one lay dead.
It didn't even feel like a battle.
It felt like an execution.
A massacre.
And Ryukawa—
Was the executioner.
"One man… wiped out the entire bandit group…"
Kuina whispered, legs trembling.
Zoro clenched his fists.
His voice barely audible.
"Senior Brother… is a monster."
A monster who walked the path of the sword.
A monster they now chased—
But might never reach.
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