“Welcome back, Grandpa! Did the ‘Radiant Garment’ caravan go well? Will we eat meat tonight?”

  A young boy, about four years old, with tattered clothes and a missing tooth, joyfully ran up and hugged the hip of the old man who entered their straw-covered home. The walls of the hut were patched with woven reeds, and the floor was a mix of packed earth and straw mats.

  From his vantage point in the treeline, Soloman watched the scene with a clinical detachment that masked a growing discomfort. The village was typical as you would expect from the middle ages, but the disparity between the farm villages from the slums of his world gave the appearance of royalty.

  “Hohoho, I’m back. Have you been a good boy while I was gone, Ricky?” The old man, Chief Willard, gently patted the head of his grandson, who always ran up to give him a hug anytime he left the house.

  “Hmm-mmm! I was good! I did the laundry and fed the goat. Hey, hey, can we eat meat?” Ricky looked up at his grandpa while tugging at the hem of his robes, his eyes wide with an anticipation that only the truly hungry can possess.

  “You young’uns do need to eat. I was able to scrape some coin to buy some oxtail.” Willard chuckled, reaching into the folds of his robe to grab a palm-sized cloth wrap. He unfurled it just enough to show the lively child today’s treasure.

  “Yay!” The child threw his arms into the air in a frantic celebration of survival and ran into the kitchen, grabbing a hanging pot to place over the fire. The kitchen was a simple setup—a stone hearth, a few wooden shelves holding clay pots, and a bundle of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, their scent faint and dusty.

  “It is good to be lively. Grab some water from the river; I need to rest my bones a bit.”

  “Okay~!”

  The old man shambled down to the irori to tend the fire. He reached into a tattered pouch, throwing what meager mushrooms and edible tree bark he had scrounged during his long walk back onto the iron plate.

  It was the diet of the desperate, a filler for the stomach that provided little more than the illusion of fullness. Ricky pitter-pattered back, his small feet slapping the earth as he clumsily poured water into a small kettle to boil for the day’s stew.

  The boy leaned in, his nose twitching. “Mmmm! Smells good, Grandpa!” An innocent smile grew on Ricky’s face. For the first time in weeks, the scent of rendering animal fat overpowered the bitter, earthy smell of boiled bark.

  “Hohoho, simmer down, simmer down. The meat is all for you; you will be big and strong.”

  “Big and strong!” Ricky flexed his tiny arms proudly.

  The two sat down, waiting for the water to boil, their wooden plates placed in anticipation like ritual offerings. To pass the time, Willard began telling stories—heroic tales of legendary cultivators and personal legends with enough embellishment to rouse the boy’s morale.

  A soft smile etched itself on Soloman’s face listening in on the tales from this family of two. Memories of his childhood with his mother peeking into his mind at the dinner table. A much needed mental reprieve from this harrowing circumstance he was displaced in.

  The crackling of the fire and the rhythmic bubbling of the stew created a pocket of false peace in a harsh world. An hour passed before the stew was finally ready. Ricky held up his grandpa’s plate, then his own, and gave a quick, whispered prayer to heavens that had long since stopped listening.

  “OL’ CHIEF WILLARD! Where is today’s protection money?!”

  The voice was deep, croaky, and shredded the silence. It came from the fence line where the family’s goat inhabited. A ruffian began making a deafening din, kicking farming tools and rattling the rickety fence posts. The goat bleated in a frantic, high-pitched frequency of agitation before the bandit burst into the hut, brandishing a sword of low-grade, poorly quenched iron.

  Willard embraced his grandson as soon as he heard the too familiar voice that brought deaths and mutilations to his village.

  “Haa~ Eating dinner and being all cozy when you haven’t given us our due?!”

  The ruffian didn't wait for an answer. He stormed over to the fire pit and kicked the pot. The iron plate clattered, and the oxtail stew—the "big and strong" future of a four-year-old—spilled across the straw mats. The smell of burnt wood and wasted protein filled the air, thick and tragic.

  “My stew~!” Ricky reacted without thought, leaving his grandpa’s arms to reach for the boiling mess seeping into the dirt. Tears flickered in his eyes, reflecting the dying embers of the hearth. The ruffian grabbed the collar of the small child and hoisted him up to face level, showing an excited, twisted grimace.

  “Let go, let go!” Ricky thrashed his short arms, his muscles no match for the bandit’s leverage.

  “Don’t hurt him, please!” Chief Willard spoke, his voice cracking under the strain of absolute powerlessness.

  “…Sure~ no problem. Heyaa~”

  The ruffian obliged the chief with a casual, devastating release of force. He hurled the child across the room and through the doorway. Ricky sailed past the door frame, his body tumbling on the hard-packed dirt with a sickening, wet snap.

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  “Do you want the boss to vent his anger on this village?” The ruffian started to throttle the chief in rage at the notion he would spend his money away causing the chief to slowly turn beet red.

  Soloman watched the child lay limp on the dirt, his eyes burning with fury. His hand tightened on his scalpel, a primal impulse to intervene surging briefly before his logic suppressed it. To kill this bug now would stop the sting, but anger the swarm that follows. He couldn’t allow himself to act on emotion.

  “HAHAHAHA~… Where’s our money?”

  “I-I had… It will be…” Willard started stammering, his mind fracturing. He subconsciously looked toward the spilled stew—the small strips of meat seeping into the floor mats—a reaction that did not escape the ruffian’s notice.

  “You used all our money to buy some smelly thrown-out meat! Do you want the boss to vent his anger on this village?”

  “Don’t hurt grandpa!” Ricky limped forward and started to flail his arms against the ruffian who was attacking his only living family member.

  “DAMN BRAT!” He kicked the child right in the stomach, launching him into the wall, causing the child to cough up a mouthful of blood.

  “NO! Ricky! Stop! Please, stop.”

  Sniffles

  “Don’t hurt him anymore.” Chief Willard crawled over to the limp child and gently cradled the boy to check if he was still breathing. “We have nothing left. We sold all we have.” He weakly spoke while trying to shield his grandson from the aggressor.

  “Don’t care. It’s not enough, you wouldn’t want us to escalate this to the whole village for your mistake right?” The ruffian brandished his blade with a sickening grin.

  “…Two days…I will have your money then.” Chief Willard weakly spoke in a low, despairing voice.

  “Tsk. With interest ya hear, you ol’ bastard.” The ruffian haughtily swaggered out while spitting on the ground. “Spending our hard earned money on themselves.”

  …

  “I’m sorry, Ricky. I’m so sorry, I couldn’t protect you. Sorry I can’t provide for you. I’m sorry for being so powerless.” Chief Willard quietly whimpered with tears streaming down his weathered face falling onto his grandson only to feel a small hand reach up to touch.

  “Don’t cry.” Innocent words reached his ears that only caused the old haggard grandfather to cry more and to hold his only living blood more tightly.

  Soloman watched the bandit swagger out, spitting on the blood-stained earth. Soloman remained a ghost in the treeline, his gaze cold and precise. He would not offer the mercy of a quick death.

  He turned to follow the retreating silhouette, his movements silent. A scientist didn't just swat a hornet; he followed it home and sterilized the hive.

  The ruffian trekked through the woods for hours, cursing, spitting, and cutting down random branches and vines to release his anger for having wasted a trip for nothing. The constant thought of his time being wasted with every footstep continuously brought his blood to a boil, making him want to turn back and find ways to torment the old man and child.

  “Stupid beggar spending our money. Wasting my time, wasting our money, wasting the boss’s good grace for letting the village stand.” He continued to rant while hacking foliage around more aggressively. “Once the boss is done healing, I’m gonna kill that beggar… No~ I’m gonna kill the boy in front of him first. Hahahaha.”

  While delving into his thoughts of how he was going to torture and kill the family and villagers, he took paths less traveled, continuously being on the lookout for people following him on the ground or in the air.

  The forest grew darker as evening fell, the shadows lengthening and the sounds of nocturnal creatures beginning to emerge.

  He finally reached the bandits’ hideout, a structure with log walls and two guard towers on the east and west sides, encompassing a cave in the mountain face. The hideout was partially concealed by thick foliage and the natural contours of the land.

  He felt some relief knowing he could binge on booze and sleep, having reached his destination, all the while not noticing a strange distortion of leaves and branches being warped in an unnatural manner fifty meters behind him.

  “So this is where their hideout is.” Soloman finally spoke after hours of tracking the bandit from the house in the village to their current location.

  He was about to face something called ‘Foundation Stage’ people whose capabilities he was still unsure of even after spending months with Shariz, he decided to err on the side of caution.

  “I need to repay that family… hopefully the medicine I left behind that Shariz gave me will help the boy.”

  He deeply regretted not interfering, which resulted in the young boy being brought close to death. The behavior of the bandit reminded him of the second wave assault from the angels that disregarded the sanctity of life, resulting in him being an orphan after watching his mother being lanced through the back.

  The sensations of her blood and her dampened hair still felt permanent on his mind.

  “Now… I can give myself an excuse for what I am about to unleash upon these vermin.”

  Soloman’s arms trembled as he clenched his fists hard enough to leave claw marks on the tree he perched himself on. He calmed himself down and waited until the night sky enveloped the world, a domain he felt most comfortable in: the realm of darkness and silence that earned him the title ‘New Moon’ (Xīn yuè).

  The galaxy of stars filtered through the canopy, casting eerie dim shadows on the forest floor, and the cool night air carried the scent of pine and earth.

  “A world without a moon is less beautiful, but the stars and galaxy bands do make up for it. Which beg the question of how did Mùchén know what a moon is?” He gazed at the sky to admire a view that he could only imagine existed in fictional novels.

  “It’s a good thing these ‘Spirit Stones’ can be used as batteries, or else these gauntlets would not be able to capture imagery and project them out to give the illusion of invisibility. Sigh. If only I had more modern tools, I could make an actual device that could redirect light."

  "Doing this ‘T’ pose is cumbersome… Why didn’t I make a torso version?… I’m a damn idiot. This is going to make this operation more difficult. About fifteen of them with two who are cultivators.”

  Soloman slowly climbed down from the tree and ambled towards the western guard tower, dropping the ‘T’ pose while doing so. As he moved, Soloman couldn’t help but mentally kick himself for not thinking ahead.

  “A torso version would have been so much more practical,” he muttered under his breath. “I could have had both hands free, and it would have been easier to move around without looking like a scarecrow. But no use crying over spilled milk. Adapt and overcome, right?”

  He reminded himself of the countless times he had to improvise with limited resources during his time as a rogue assassin. This was just another challenge to tackle.

  Soloman’s mind raced with ideas for improvements. “Maybe I can find some materials in the bandits’ hideout. If I can get my hands on some decent metal and tools, I could start working on a prototype for a torso-mounted device. It would make future missions so much easier.”

  With renewed determination, he continued towards the guard tower, his mind already planning the next steps. The forest around him was alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures, and the starlight filtered through the canopy, casting eerie dim shadows on the forest floor.

  “First, take out the bandits. Then, upgrade the gear. One step at a time.”

  “Alright, time to start."