A couple minutes after leaving the building, Claire asked the Mage a question,

  "Right over there, that's where you first ran into me. Did you steal my wallet by any chance?"

  The Mage continued to face forward,

  "Huh, you seem to be acting a lot nicer to me then when you first met me. No, I didn't steal your wallet, you probably left it in the building you came out of",

  Claire then stopped and decided to go into the same building she bumped into the Mage in front of, while the Mage said his goodbye,

  "I'm going to go give this money to the orphanage, I'll be back!"

  Walking past a masked woman dressed in green at the front while entering, she looked toward where she sat in the building and saw Sam, the Lord's son, at the same table.

  "Oh, hello Hero of Swords, I've been waiting for you."

  Sam had two big fully armoured soldiers on either side of him.

  Holding up her wallet, he then asked,

  "Are you looking for this?"

  Claire tried snatching it off him but he moved his hand away before she could,

  "Ah-ah-ah, finders keepers",

  Claire stomped her foot down as her expression became vicious,

  "Give it back now, you little shit!"

  Sam gave off the same look,

  "How dare you call the Lord's son a shit! I'll give it back to you if you agree to my terms",

  Claire calmed down but still showed the same expression,

  "Name them!"

  Sam grew a large grin on his face,

  "A neighbouring city just West of here, which has now been abandoned, has been discovered to hold a book called the Book of Spells, it was made by Philip himself. The book allows anyone to learn any spell they want. If you want this precious wallet back you'll have to accompany me and my five top soldiers. So how bout it, will you, or are you gonna be called the Hero of Dastards?"

  Claire looked away in disgust,

  "Fine, but don't you dare pull off any sneaky shit!"

  Sam's grin grew even bigger.

  Clicking his fingers, two more fully armoured men showed themselves and accompanied Sam toward the exit of the building,

  "One more thing Hero, if you mention this to anyone I'll have you killed."

  Upon leaving the building, the masked woman also joined Sam and his little squad walking through the city, however she kept her distance.

  Claire also kept her distance behind them when she was approached by the Mage and Jacob,

  "Oh are you going out?"

  Claire faced the Mage, quickly had a glimpse of Sam still walking toward the city's exit and responded to him,

  "Yes",

  the Mage pushed Jacob toward her,

  "Can you take him with you, he needs more training and I'm a bit busy at the moment",

  "I suppose he could keep me company."

  With that, Claire kept Jacob within arms range of her as they both followed the squad outside the city.

  Thirty minutes after leaving the city, Jacob began getting curious about Claire's title,

  "Hey Claire, how does your title work?"

  Claire rolled her eyes knowing it was going to be a long trip,

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  "My title is to prove that I'm the strongest swords user in the world, Heroes are a new modern system that was created, those titles are basically legends like the Mage but they can actually be passed down. In total there are eight heroes including myself, each hero is different but the most powerful hero is called the Hero of Heroes. I'll get into that another time."

  Jacob looked at her in awe, discovering something new for a while.

  "I'll tell you what kid, if you do well enough I might think about passing my title down to you",

  Jacob responded to her pretty quick,

  "I can't be much younger then you, I'm still twenty years old you know!"

  "Well I'm twenty five so deal with it."

  The party of eight, after hours of travelling, finally stumbled across the small city.

  The windows were smashed, stalls had fallen over and the stone floors were completely cracked,

  "On guard team, there's still bandits in this place, we must deal with them!"

  Jacob raised his eyebrows,

  "That Sam kid knows something about battle?"

  Claire, just standing there responds,

  "Despite how he looks, he's probably the second best fighter in the city behind me, his had specialised training most of his life so he isn't someone to mess with."

  While Claire finished her sentence, Sam's shout attracted the attention of all the bandits.

  In the blink of an eye, they were surrounded by about twenty of them.

  "Keep your guard up Jacob! I'll step in if you need any help!"

  Jacob sheathed his sword, the bandit in front of him attacked but he very quickly parried it.

  Another quickly came from his side but thanks to the Mage's last lesson he was able to dodge his attack and kick him back.

  After around thirty seconds of fighting, Jacob was finally able to subdue the both of them before Claire walked past him and stomped their heads in,

  "What'd you do that for?"

  Claire responded as she stomped the second one's head in,

  "If we take them back their just going to be killed anyway and we can't exactly leave them here to rob everything",

  as Jacob looked behind to see what happened to the rest of the party he discovered they were inspecting the rest of the bandits' dead corpses.

  "Wow, they're not too bad at fighting",

  "They are specially trained to be good swordsman, I'd wanna hope they took them all down."

  Claire looked toward the masked woman whom kept her distance from the fight,

  "Who could she possibly be?"

  Jacob faced the girl as well,

  "I have no clue but she looks like a healer."

  Just as Jacob finished talking Sam screamed,

  "I FOUND IT! I ACTUALLY FOUND IT!"

  Claire and Jacob look in his direction as he held up the Book of Spells.

  Claire then spoke up,

  "If you have got it then lets get the hell out of here!"

  While Claire faced the other way Sam yelled back at her,

  "No, I'm not leaving here until I make sure it's the real thing!"

  Claire stopped in her tracks as Sam made a weird symbol using his hands and shouted an incantation,

  "Time Stop!"

  Everyone around Sam stood silently, confused,

  "I said Time Stop! What's happening? Why isn't it working!"

  Just then, a deep and unsettling voice was heard behind him,

  "Because it isn't the real book."

  A large shockwave of intense aura forced everyone to freeze in place, sweat dripping from their faces, almost too still to even swallow.

  Claire was the first to snap out of it, she grabbed Jacob's wrist and ran straight into a building.

  Sam was able to twist his neck enough to see them escaping,

  "What.. do... you... think.... you... are... doing?!"

  Each word struggling to come out as the rest of his body stood still.

  As each of Sam's four guards slowly began to move again they were approached by someone slowly walking towards them, they saw the silhouette of a man wearing a mask.

  The masked man stood within meters of Sam.

  The second he stood still Sam shouted while proceeding to attack him with his sword.

  Sam swung his sword as hard as he could but it stopped half way.

  The man, putting his arm up completely stopped the attack, nothing but skin, no armour or anything.

  He pushed Sam's sword away from him, grabbed it then pushed him away.

  Despite looking like a light push, he flew straight through a building.

  As he lifted himself back up he witnessed as all his soldiers attempted to attack him, none of them however, could hit the man.

  Every swing every soldier took, the man blocked it with either his arm or stopped it with two fingers always pushing them away.

  As all the men continued to attack the man, the healer stood there, still frozen in place shaking uncontrollably.

  The men kept charging him, taking no breaks in between.

  As they continued attacking, the man unleashed a spell without saying a word and a large shockwave forced all the soldiers to fly for meters all landing into the surrounding buildings.

  As the man stood there he finally said something else,

  "Is it my turn to attack now?"

  Sam looked at him with fear, sweat building up on all his limbs, tears and snot covering his face while being overwhelmed with emotions.

  "Good."

  The man after finishing speaking proceeded to flash step straight to one of his guards, so fast they thought he was teleporting.

  He picked one up by his neck, forced his hand into a fist and punched straight through his chest.

  Another soldier came behind him shouting and attempted to impale his back with his sword, however the man moved out of the way at the last second and grabbed onto his sword.

  He elbowed him in the gut forcing his entire lower half onto the ground, the man then proceeded to snatch the mans sword and impale him straight through the neck.

  In the blink of an eye, he went to the next soldier, as the soldier got up, the man slapped him in the face so hard his neck snapped killing him instantly.

  The final soldier dropped his sword and attempted to run away screaming and begging for mercy, but before he could, the man's fist went straight through his gut, forcing him to collapse onto the ground.

  The man walked toward the soldiers head and proceeded to stomp his head in killing him in the process.

  All this was happening right behind the masked girl, still frozen in place, not daring to look behind at the gruesome sight which awaited her.

  Sam still stood in place, unfathomed by what's happened, the next thing he knew, the man is standing right in front of him.

  He clicked his fingers and both of Sam's legs were amputated.

  Too shocked to scream or react, he lied there, traumatised.

  Claire and Jacob, who had been hiding inside a building nearby looking out one of the windows, had their mouths wide open in shock, their eyes widened, Jacob's jaw shaking all while they both of their clothes got soaked.

  As Sam's head touched the ground, he finally spoke again,

  "Who... are... you?"

  The man stood above him, leaning over to show Sam his face as he takes his mask off.

  Sam's eyes widen looking at the man's face,

  "Buldursmith."