The Dawn of the New World



"Bring more men! WHAT'S THE HOLD-UP!? Did you send the signal??" a burly man wearing a white uniform with black imprints shouted while being escorted by nearly a dozen others in similar uniforms.

They were marching through the city streets headed for the headquarters of the outer city.

One of the men following along ran up beside him and started giving all the details.

"Yes, sir, we did Master Chaplin. The signal went out almost half an hour ago and the first platoon has already returned. The others should be on their way. We still have no news of Lord Dai Zhi."

"Hmph!"

They turned the corner and the headquarters came into view, along with several figures standing along the road.

The Master Chaplin continued in his usual haughty manner for a few meters until he recognized one of the figures and his demeanor immediately changed.

He ran towards this person with a hunched back and a servile smile while rubbing his hand.

"Master Dai Zhi, you are already here! I was not made aware of your arrival," he said while kicking one of the clergymen behind him.

Dai Zhi was dressed in a simple loose fitting white robe without any tags or insignias to denote his status. There was no need to, everyone on the planet knew who he was.

He moved aside to reveal the body of the guard captain plastered on the ground.

"What happened here?"

The Master Chaplin gestured to one of the clergymen and the poor man swiftly limped forward to hand him a large scroll.

*Cough*

He cleared his throat before listing off everything they had discovered so far.

"We have estimated that anywhere between 15 to 20 intruders managed to sneak into the city within the last few hours. They escaped with several prisoners, killing 7 lowly guards including the guard captain. We found a couple of bodies near the dungeon, one of which belongs to an elite guardsman unit directly under your command. We are still trying to find the rest of the guards to fig-"

"One," Dai Zhi interjected.

"-Er, sorry?"

"One man. Not fifteen or twenty, it was one guy."

Master Chaplin pulled out a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket and promptly put them on to read the scroll again.

"Uh, it seems that was a rough estimation we had because that's how many people we assumed it would take to pull something like this off. If it was one man-"

"Not if, it was one," Dai Zhi clarified, "Which prisoners are missing?"

He unfurled the rest of the scroll but it just kept going and going.

"H-Haha, there are a lot of names here. We think nearly half of the prisoners managed to escape whi-"

"Enough, I'll check for it myself."

As soon as he finished talking Dai Zhi rose into the air and hovered nearly 20 meters off the ground. He extended both hands and muttered an incantation.

A red magic circle materialized beneath his feet and sent out a shockwave in every direction. He came back down less than a minute later to the eager faces of the Master Chaplin and the dozen clergymen at his back looking to him for answers.

"There is no need to bother with this place anymore," he commented.

They exchanged confused glances with one another before the Master Chaplin hesitantly spoke up again.

"I don't quite follow sir. We need to round up the rest of the prisoners and find those damned guards wherever they are hiding-"

"There aren't any left," Dai Zhi cooly remarked.

He turned around to look him dead in the eye, "Everything in the outer city is dead. Every man, woman, and child is lost...all but one."

"!!!"

They were all stunned into silence. Only the Master Chaplin managed to gather his marbles and stammer out half a sentence that was yet again cut short.

"H-How is that possible?! There are over s-seven thousand residents living here, how could they all be-"

Dai Zhi didn't even wait around long enough before walking off in a random direction while his commands were being relayed directly to their ears.

"Check for yourselves. Leave the dead where you find them and execute any remaining prisoners that you come across. When it is done you will gather everyone that's left and meet me at the outer gates. We will be moving out soon. The city has no use for us now."

Dai Zhi's figure flashed through the city streets covering more than three kilometers in just a few seconds before appearing outside the home of the silver warrior.

The silver warrior was sitting in the doorway covered in blood.

Dai Zhi walked up to him, using the back of his hand to lift his face.

"My fault....I did it...we did... a mountain of corpses...price repaid..."

He was mumbling incoherently and didn't even register Dai Zhi's presence.