Ben moved.
Faster than any of their enemies had ever seen a man move.
He appeared before the two leaders—his axe cleaving deep into Smith’s neck, taking him out immediately, and his fist punched Gooding so hard that the man stumbled several meters back into the arms of two of his fighters.
He triggered [Strength of the Protector] to increase his team’s firepower.
Only a second later, Jamal’s taunt roared through the clearing, affecting most of the elites still stunned by Ben’s opening strike. A golden fist punched one of them in the throat; roots spread to take out more.
The first seconds of this fight had been devastating for the Warriors.
While the elites rallied slowly, focusing on Jamal, the normal fighters were torn—some started to run toward Ben and the team, others hesitated.
Ben decided to trust his team to deal with the remaining elite fighters. With two untangling themselves from their boss, one taken out by Anne, and three by Allison, there were only three left, and that was manageable.
Instead, he ran toward the forest edge and the dozens of regular Warriors. He did not want them to surround his team.
As he neared the vanguard, an arrow hit one of them. The other Protectors had entered the fight.
He immediately got into the flow of the fight, trying to bind as many of the men to him as possible—taking them out quickly while minimizing the openings he created for himself.
It worked—to some extent.
He left a trail of blood and bodies behind him as he pushed through the men. He did not get out of it unscathed, however.
For the first time, one of the enchantments on his new armor triggered. As one of his enemies managed to land a hit slightly above his hip, he was pushed back and stumbled, making the attacker an easy target for Ben.
That moment resonated with Ben. Those who attacked him—attacked his people—needed to fear his retribution.
He pushed the thought to the side, but it felt like an avenue to pursue in his quest to replace [Frenzy] once and for all.
His team clearly had taken care of the elites as they slowly fought their way to him. That made him reverse course to team up. He heard reinforcements coming from the settlement.
Some of the Warriors seemed to have second thoughts, but Ben did not relent. He pushed himself and his team to not let them disengage. He saw more arrows strike those who tried to flee or had never engaged in the first place.
One of his opponents appeared from one moment to the next beside him, aiming for his neck with a long knife, but was intercepted by Jamal’s [Bulwark Stance].
While that man’s perk had been strong, it highlighted to Ben what until then he hadn’t realized—the Warriors had few relevant perks. They were basically a group of men who were stronger than the average person before Arrival Day and knew the basics of how to brawl—but the difference between them, his team, and even the other Protectors was stark.
They hadn’t developed advanced fighting techniques or challenged themselves in a way that was rewarded by Meta with more perks—either because they lived in a lower-Energy area or because beating up other weak humans was not the same as running dungeons and fighting Dire Wolves.
Either way—the fight was over.
Dozens of Warriors fell within minutes. From what he could tell, the Protectorate had not suffered any casualties, and the few injured were treated with potions or walked toward their healers, who were making their way out of the settlement.
Ben felt relieved—and a little surprised—by how easy this had been.
But one thing he was not: content.
The Warriors had messed with him one time too many.
“Mom, we need three teams overall to go into the city and end the Warriors. I think an hour of rest or so, then we need to leave to catch those who fled and prevent them from preparing for our arrival.”
Allison looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, let me organize things for while we are gone.”
“Thank you. Did all the elites die?”
She shook her head. “No, two carried their leader away and ran right away.”
Ben nodded. It was not ideal, but he was sure they would be able to catch up with them before they reached the city.
***
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Ben was waiting for the remaining teams to gather when Michael appeared, nodding toward the forest. “Found something.”
“Do we need the others?”
Michael just shook his head and jogged toward the forest.
A few minutes later, they came to a clearing where a man was frantically pulling the cart that Thomas had built for the chest that Deepika had enchanted. The chest was on top of it, and the man was Little Tony.
“Little Tony. You still haven’t learned your lesson…” Ben was deeply tired, and seeing the entitled young man frustrated him maybe more than it should have.
The man froze, then raised his hands in surrender. “I tried to convince them not to come after you, but they didn’t listen. You have to believe me!”
“I don’t have to do anything you say. Give me a reason why I shouldn’t eliminate you like any other Warrior.”
“I swear that I will do whatever it takes!”
“Why sh—”
Ben was interrupted by a golden notification that he opened right away.
Antonio has sworn an oath of his own free will.
Consequence of breaking the oath: loss of all perks.
Oath achievement condition: to be specified.
Ben’s obligations: none.
Do you acknowledge the oath?
Michael made a threatening motion toward Little Tony, not realizing that Ben was reading the notification, but Ben waved him off and acknowledged this—for him—new capability of the system.
It would open up new possibilities for deal-making—and potentially even for their justice system.
Antonio has acknowledged the oath—it is now in effect.
Ben quickly relayed what had happened to Michael, then turned to the young man.
“Tony, I don’t know whether you knew about this or just got lucky, but you might have just found a way to get through this. First, tell us about the Warriors.”
It took only a few minutes to extract the key details from the man, who’d joined the Warriors just months ago. Apparently, there were about twenty Warriors who had stayed in the city, plus whatever number had survived the fight. There were three locations of importance in the city: the compound that Ben and his team had freed their friends from, a warehouse where food was stored, and a block of… ‘entertainment’—one of the organization’s main sources of income.
“Are there slaves?”
Tony hesitated, then nodded.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a guess.”
“A hundred, maybe a little more.”
Ben struggled to contain his anger, steadying himself with a few deep breaths.
“Okay, here is how things are going to happen. First, you will leave Simonston. Second, you will never join a criminal organization again or become a criminal on your own. Third, for the next five years, you will give everything you have that you don’t need for survival to those in need. Those are the conditions of your oath and your penance to society. Do you understand and agree?”
Tony swallowed hard, eyes darting left and right in search of an escape. After a few seconds, his shoulders dropped. “I agree.”
Conditions of oath now defined and in effect.
“Now leave—and make sure that I don’t have to see you ever again.”
Tony nodded, defeated, briefly looked at the cart with the chest, then turned and left down the mountain.
Michael looked at Ben with a raised eyebrow.
“What did you want me to do with him? He’s not a threat to us. I still don’t believe in the death penalty, and that way he might actually do some good for other people.”
Michael only shrugged.
They turned around the cart, returned it to the settlement, and then rushed down the mountain together with the other teams that Allison had selected.
***
It didn’t take long for them to catch up with a group of Warriors—four men who looked like the devil was chasing them.
They didn’t resist once they saw how badly they were outnumbered. They looked at Ben warily, remembering how he had carved a path through their ranks earlier.
Ben asked them a few questions to verify the information they had received from Tony. He also questioned them about their own roles and time in the organization. He was a lot less confident about the level of truth in those answers, but they all admitted to being part of the Warriors for many years.
Based on that, he proposed the same kind of oath that Little Tony had taken, with the one difference being that the duration for them to forsake all their wealth was increased to ten years.
Ben was glad that he did not have to spell out what the alternative for them was, as he genuinely did not know what to do.
While he had sworn in the heat of the moment to eradicate the Warriors and he was still committed to doing so, he was not willing to slaughter all these people in cold blood.
Afterward, they let them go and continued their fast descent down the mountain.
Next, they found the remains of two men—victims of wolves or other predators—and then another group of three who also accepted the oaths.
After three hours, they finally caught up with Gooding and the two elite fighters who had rescued him.
Gooding had apparently somewhat recovered from Ben’s punch but still seemed to have trouble breathing, and his two bodyguards were supporting him as they walked.
They surrounded the trio and stopped them in a clearing. Despite being heavily outnumbered, they seemed willing to fight—showing no sign of the defeatism of the men they had captured so far.
“Gooding. The Warriors have ceased to exist, and we are here for cleanup.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to swear an oath that you will leave the area and never return, that you will never commit crimes again, and that you will give everything you own—beyond what you need to survive—to the needy for the next twenty-five years.”
Gooding’s eyes briefly went wide. “OK, I swear. Can—”
He twitched as the system message popped up for him—what he thought were just words turned out to have substance.
“Now wait a minute. We have things we can trade. We can cut you into our business. You would be throwing a fortune away for no reason.”
“A fortune? I am not interested in anything that you own. Quite the opposite—your idea of owning people disgusts me. Letting you swear an oath is an extraordinarily lenient punishment, one that I might come to regret at some point. Do it now!” Ben almost yelled at the end.
“YOU—” Gooding started to yell at Ben but was interrupted by one of his men, who shook his head. He was clearly shocked by this act of insubordination.
The man who interrupted him swore the oath and acknowledged the system message. After a brief hesitation, so did the other one.
While Gooding’s face turned red with rage, his expression barely changed as he forced the words of the oath out of his mouth.
It was done. Ben was aware that there were likely ways to get around the oath in one way or another—but it seemed like a reasonable way forward. He had no desire to build a prison or escort them to the city, hoping some institution still existed to deal with them.
There was no doubt in his mind that those men deserved worse, but he felt that this was a good enough compromise for now. He wanted to focus on building the future—not chasing criminals. The next step was freeing the slaves in the city and ending the Warriors for real.
