Drosso towered over her. He was savagery incarnate, muscled like a bear and armored in the pelts of wild predators. His jaw was like a brick, wide and stout, but his eyes were beady black things that oozed with heartless hunger.

"So Lord Lys has asked the Adventurer's guild to put a contract on me," said Drosso with a fanged grin. "Does your kind not hunt only monsters? Do they no longer believe me human? I daresay I don't know whether to be flattered or not."

"You've killed too many innocents to be called human anymore," said the woman as she gritted her teeth and started squirming against her chains. She winced in pain. The skin on her arms had long since worn away from struggling against the chains.

Although her build was athletic, it was not that of a warrior. She had the lithe and agile figure of a ranger. Not nearly enough power to break through ironborn chains that clamped tight upon her arms.

"As a knight, I served Soleil faithfully for the better part of my youth. I fought against the beastmen, elves, orcs, dwarves and all the other savage fiends that laid waste to our fields, children and women.

But what do I see? When the savages form a united Republic, Soleil, led by a dainty little d.u.c.h.ess who has never touched a sword, shakes in fear and sues for peace. She wishes to forgive the beasts for all their sins against us. And yet when I see this injustice and desert, it is I that becomes the monster. Ironic, no?"

Drosso withdrew his blade from her neck. His smile faded. "But I will bring change, and change cannot be built without the body of innocents to hold it up."

"Oh, so this is change?" spat the woman. She jutted her head out, pointing at the horde of bandits surrounding them, their eyes glued to her with obvious intent. "Hiding in the woods and stealing from the poor? What else do you tell yourself to sleep at night?"

Drosso snorted. "Silly little girl. The banditry is a front. It is meant to draw attention. I knew that when enough peasants cried out, Lys would have to act, and so he did. He sent you. You and your now dead party. And on the tails of your failure come riding the knights of Lys."

"Congratulations, you've gotten the attention you deserved. G.o.ds, you sound like a little child throwing a tantrum. But now what? By some miracle, your band of half-wits beats back the knights. Then what? More knights come. Then more of us. Until there are none of you. On that day, my soul will laugh upon your corpse."

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"You think too little of me." Dros...o...b..ckoned to his bandits, and a procession of the came forwards carrying two bodies. One was a slight young man dressed in robes. Another was a woman garbed in hefty plate with enough muscle on her bones to put most men to shame. They dumped the bodies in front of Drosso.

The woman looked away from the corpses. "You vile b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Do you get off on parading my dead partners like this?"

"No. I am not ruled by such base and human emotions anymore. All I do, I do for a reason." Drosso sheathed his sword and knelt down to pick up the corpse of the young man. He raised the corpse high in the air, his bear-like hand cupping the head like an apple. "Come forward, O great Zagan, and receive your sacrifice. [Dark Ritual]."

Drosso's arm convulsed, the muscles rippling and quaking like worms. The skin started to tear apart, revealing sleek, black tendrils underneath that wriggled out, slithering around the arm until it was completely covered in a ma.s.s of eel-like creatures with mouths lined with fangs that snapped incessantly, ever hungry.

The worms surged forwards and savagely tore into the corpse. The corpse disappeared into the mouths of the creatures with terrifying speed and efficiency.

Within seconds, the corpse had disappeared. There were not even bloodstains upon the forest floor – a testament to the worms' ravenous hunger.

As the worms retracted back into his arm, Drosso shuddered. What was once a man had been digested as liquid black and thick as tar that traveled from his arm throughout his body, making all his veins black and grotesquely visible through his skin.

"Such power," said Drosso as he licked his lips. "I can feel my mana growing. My insight grows sharper."

He opened his palm and focused. Wind began swirling around, gaining solid form as it condensed into a pressurized ball ready to be shaped into a blade and shot forwards like an arrow.

"Such a useful spell, this [Wind Blade] is. Many of my men fell to it, but now it is mine. Consuming peasants has given me strength, but now they are not enough. You see now why I desire attention? Lys will throw knights at me, and I shall consume then, and then he will be forced to send more to their deaths. Before his pride can stop him, I will have become powerful enough to topple his rule over Riviera."

The woman's face blanched in horror as she stared at Drosso's arm. "You really aren't human anymore. You would sell your soul to a demon just for vengeance?"

Drosso sighed in impatience. "Not vengeance. Change."

With a casual flick of his wrist, he cast [Wind Blade]. The almost invisible scythe of wind flashed past the woman. Her head, an expression of horror still etched upon it, separated from her neck and fell to the forest floor.

Drosso unsheathed his blade and thrust it in the air. "Come, now, brothers! Today, we are bandits no more! We hide no more! We will show these perfumed knights what real men fight like! Today is the first of many battles. We may bleed and we may fall, but in the end, we will take Riviera and show the d.u.c.h.ess that her precious savages deserve nothing but the ends of our blades!"

His voice roared throughout the forest, powered by an inhuman force. The bandits cheered along, some out of excitement, others out of fear.