Reidar and Karl took advantage of their distraction to surprise them.

Reidar pulled out a dagger and slit the throat of one of them, who sank to the ground in a pool of blood, slaughtered.

Karl hit the other one with the tomahawk behind his back and then violently pulled it out, killing him.

The third warrior turned to them and tried to hit Karl, who had just pulled the axe from the bandit's back and raised his s.h.i.+eld to parry the blow.

The bandit hit the s.h.i.+eld with his sword, and when Karl managed to raise the tomahawk, he kicked his hand, disarming him.

Reidar charged another arrow, but this time he was slower than his enemy, who had breached Karl's defenses, which having been unbalanced, failed to properly reposition the s.h.i.+eld.

Just before the enemy warrior could hit him with a direct lunge into his stomach, his head shattered into a thousand pieces: Dag had thrown his hammer to protect his comrades and the weapon, after hitting the target, stopped a few inches from Reidar's face and returned back, strapped to Dag's arm with the black fluid, which acted as a rubber-band.

The man's headless body knelt, while his neck splashed blood like a fountain. Then he fell to the ground.

Reidar remained wide-eyed: for a moment he feared that Dag's hammer would hit him too, but his captain had managed to calculate the distances in an extremely precise way.

Karl and Reidar, full of blood, looked at Dag, who after saving them, turned around again and continued to walk to the hut.

Karl pulled Reidar with him, to get him back from the shock of the hammer and together, they ran towards their captain.

In front of Dag, there were four other men left, who placed themselves in front of the entrance of the great hut.

"I just want to say one last goodbye to your boss, get the f.u.c.k out of the way! You're p.i.s.sing me off! he yelled at them.

The black liquid had been absorbed by his arms, which had become obscure, as when he had fought against Kenneth.

The bandits, despite being intimidated by Dag's scream and appearance, stood ahead at the door, flickering.

Dag began to run in that direction and then jumped towards them.

He leaped very high and while he was in the air, he raised the hammer to the sky and a narrow lightning bolt struck it, charging it with electricity.

For the first time, he was trying to perform a textbook Lightning Strike, with the same technique as his master.

When he hit the ground, the bandits tried to dodge the blow, but the explosion of sparks was so powerful that it completely enveloped them and burned their bodies.

After falling to the ground, only two of them were still able to breathe.

One tried to say something to Dag, who stood up and walked towards him.

The dying bandit raised his hand to him and opened his mouth slightly, but before he could say anything, Dag kicked him in the face, breaking his neck with ease, because of his burnt muscles and bones.

"I don't know how he does it. His power is truly incredible. Even Master Magni would have had trouble using all those skills, one after the other. It takes inhuman physical resistance" Reidar told Karl, as they continued to walk toward Dag, watching the scene.

"It looks like he's out of control. He wants to find Kjetil and kill him at all costs. Right now, he doesn't care about anything else… " said Karl, who was trying to study the psycho-physical changes Dag was undergoing after drinking the magenta blood.

Dag grabbed the door handles of the hut, trampling one of the burnt corpses under his feet.

After noticing that the door was closed, he stepped back and kicked it, smas.h.i.+ng it.

In front of him, when the cloud of dust he had caused began to disappear into the air, the interior of the hut looked like a throne room.

The walls were adorned with all kinds of artistic artifacts: there were statues, golden weapons, and other s.h.i.+ny trinkets.

On the other side, there was even a piece of wall hanging with a fresco painted above it.

Beneath Dag's feet, a bear-skin rug stretched to the end of the long hall, at the foot of an elevated throne.

It was a large wooden armchair, covered with white furs of all kinds and with a fine appearance.

Right next to that sort of throne, the two men who had managed to take away their leader's body, stood motionless with their weapons pointed at Dag.

Behind them, Kjetil sat on the ground, resting on the wall, pressing with his hand a rag soaked in blood on his neck.

"I thought I hit him well, that son of a b.i.t.c.h" said Reidar, who finally joined Dag and entered the bandit throne room with Karl.

"Look at this... there are all kinds of riches... gold, heads of ferocious animals... you even managed to steal a fresco" said Dag, who began walking next to the walls of the hut, as if he was a tourist visiting a museum.

The two guards broke out in a cold sweat, following Dag's movements with weapons.

When approached the throne, they both bandits stepped back, to protect their dying leader.

Dag sat on the throne, but only for a few seconds.

Then he got up.

"Bleah... I just feel disgusted at touching with my back the place where a person as disgusting as you sits" he said, referring to Kjetil, who even though he couldn't answer, was listening carefully to every word, which could be the last.

"You have killed all our men, now leave us alone! There's no point in killing us too! Kjetil will die... we will never be able to save him... let us go! You can take anything you want in this room, they are objects of extreme value!" said one of the bandits, weeping with despair and leaving his sword on the ground, kneeling before Dag, his forehead on the floor.