The Sinful Young Master

Chapter 322: Limits of a human

The question hung in the air between them.

Everyone in the square knew what he was talking about.

Earlier that day, Lord Eude’s mercenaries had killed seventeen innocent people - men and women who had done nothing wrong except try to protect their homes and families. Their bodies had been dragged away, but their blood still stained the stones, and the memory of their screams still echoed in everyone’s minds.

Gales shrugged his shoulders as if the question meant nothing to him. ”We killed whoever Lord Eude told us to kill. That’s what he pays us for.”

He scratched his beard and looked at Jolthar with the kind of interest a cat might show in a mouse it was about to catch. ”Why? Did you know some of them?”

The words were like putting a torch to dry wood.

Jolthar’s anger, which had been building like pressure behind a dam, suddenly burst free.

The silver lightning around his hands became so bright that people had to shield their eyes, and the stones beneath his feet began to crack and split from the power flowing through him.

”Those people had families,” Jolthar said, his voice now carrying the rumble of distant thunder. ”They had children who will never see them again. They had dreams and hopes and loved ones who are crying for them tonight.” His hands clenched into fists, and the lightning began to arc between his fingers like tiny spears.

”And you killed them for gold.”

Behind Jolthar, Maelruth sensed his rider’s rage and responded to it. The great drake’s eyes began to glow brighter, and smoke started to pour from between his teeth. He raised his magnificent head and let out a low growl that seemed to come from the depths of the ground itself.

The sound made everyone in the square feel it in their bones, and several people stumbled backward in terror.

From his place on the ground, Lord Eude finally found his voice.

It came out as a high, terrified scream that cracked like a boy’s voice changing.

”Gales! Preeyonka! Kill him! Kill this bastard now!” He pointed at Jolthar with a shaking finger, his face twisted with fear and rage.

”I’ll pay you double! Triple! Just kill him before he kills us all!”

The two mercenaries looked at each other and then back at Jolthar.

They had faced many enemies in their time, and they had always won.

But looking at the young man surrounded by silver lightning, with a drake at his back and power crackling in the air around him, they began to understand that this would not be like their other fights.

Still, they were professionals, and they had never backed down from a job.

Gales drew his sword with a smooth motion, and the steel caught the last rays of sunlight. Preeyonka’s daggers appeared in her hands as if by magic, and she crouched low like a cat preparing to spring.

”Sorry, boy,” Gales said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all.

”Nothing personal. It’s just business.”

Around the square, people held their breath.

They had seen what these mercenaries could do and had watched them cut down good people like wheatgrass before a scythe.

In the crowd, little Mira pressed her face against her mother’s dress, too frightened to watch but too worried about her big brother to look away completely.

High on his ground, Lorryll leaned forward even further, anticipating the next moments.

Without warning, Jolthar raised his right hand slightly in the air.

[Telekinesis master]

What happened next made everyone in the square gasp in wonder and terror.

All around the edges of the square, where Lord Eude’s other soldiers had been standing with their weapons pointed at the townspeople, men suddenly began to rise into the air.

Their feet left the ground as if invisible hands had grabbed them by their collars. They kicked and struggled, their swords and spears falling from their shocked fingers to clatter on the stones below.

”What sorcery is this?” one soldier screamed as he floated higher, his arms windmilling uselessly.

”Put me down!” shouted another, but his voice was lost in the wind that had begun to swirl around the square.

There were about thirty of them, all tough men who had thought themselves safe behind their armor and weapons.

Now they hung helpless in the air like dolls in the hands of a giant child.

Jolthar’s green eyes glowed brighter as he slowly closed his raised hand into a fist. He was using his telekinesis to draw them together. His grip on the power had increased tremendously after his return from the mountains.

The invisible force derived from Jolthar made them hang in the air, holding them all together.

The floating soldiers suddenly flew through the air toward him, drawn together like iron pieces pulled by a powerful magnet. They crashed into each other with heavy thuds and cries of pain, forming a pile of tangled bodies and bent armor right in front of Maelruth.

The great creature looked down at them with her burning yellow eyes, and smoke began to pour more thickly from her nostrils.

”Impossible,” Gales whispered, his sword wavering in his grip for the first time.

He had seen many strange things in his years as a mercenary, but nothing like this. ”No man has such power.”

Preeyonka’s cruel smile had completely disappeared, replaced by a look of vulnerability she rarely showed. Her eyes, once sharp and mocking, were now wide open, reflecting a flicker of something that could only be described as fear—though she would never admit it, not even to herself. Her lips trembled slightly, betraying her attempt at composure as she whispered softly, ”Not if he reached the limits of human,” a statement heavy with unspoken implications and underlying tension.

They know from experience that one can only wield such powers when they reach the transcendent state, but the young man in front of them was only in his late teens.

It was possible only if he had reached the state.