Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance
Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance - Chapter 4: Raid

Everybody in Green Grass Village has fallen asleep for the night. Unbeknownst to them, the Forest Hunter Bandit is about to attack their quaint little village.

Right outside of the village, one can see around 20 figures running through the night ready to attack. After a couple of minutes, there was the snapping of tree branches on the ground.

The Grand Elder awoke, "Who is there?!?" He screamed as he ran out of his house with a bad feeling.

"Hehe. Old man, it would've been much simpler for you to continue sleeping. Then you would've died peacefully you know." Said a large, buff many with a large scar on his face. This was the Qi Condensation leader from the Forest Hunter Bandits.

"Damn you! I'll be sure to kill you for messing with my village!" The Grand Elder screamed as he took out his sword and rushed towards the leader.

The leader just looked at him with a disdainful grin on his face, took out his sword, and slashed at the Grand Elder. The Grand Elder knew this man was stronger than him, but he was going to die either way. The least he could do is try to harm this man or go down with him. Then the some of the villagers might have a chance at escape. At least the children might.

The Grand Elder swung his sword towards the leader, but it was immediately blocked. He kept slashing, with all of his might. He couldn't find an opening to actually get a hit in, but luckily the leader was not on guard at all towards this old man.

"Old man, just give up. This village is going to die today. We, the Forest Hunters, will kill all the men and children, have fun with the women, and then kill them after we are done! HAHAHA!!" The leader laughed like a crazy man while still defending against the strikes from the Grand Elder.

The Grand Elder was silent, but he was formulating a plan to try to kill this guy even if it meant giving up his life. He wasn't going to live for long anyway, so he might as well have a warrior's death.

After a couple of minutes of fighting, the leader felt it necessary to end this. He lunged towards the Grand Elder and ended up stabbing him through the stomach. The Grand Elder spat a mouthful of blood, but he looked on with determination. His left hand held the bandit leader's hand that was in his stomach, then with his right hand stabbed his sword in the leader's throat.

The bandit leader looked at him with shock, not expecting the Grand Elder to give his life to kill him. The Grand Elder had mouthfuls of blood coming out of his mouth but used the last of his strength to decapitate the leader. Both of them fell on the ground lifelessly and died.

The other Forest Hunter bandits looked on with shock, but soon they went crazy and started screaming.

"AHHHH! This fucking village! I'm going to kill every last one of you!"

"Fuck this village! We shall kill everyone here as a tribute to our leader!"

The bandits roared as they rushed towards the village to start their slaughter. The villagers didn't know what was going on, but soon they all awoke and started seeing people rushing in while leaving corpses of their fellow tribesmen behind.

"Attack! We are under attack! Everyone grab something to fight with and protect our home!"

One villager yelled and everyone soon started grabbing whatever they could. Swords, Spears, knives, clubs, they gathered anything they could use. Soon it was an all-out brawl. 5 villagers would gang up on every one bandit and it was still a hard fight. The villagers were still in the Strength Training Realm or Bone Forging Realm of Body Tempering. Also, their weapons were only the most basic of Human Grade weapons.

The villagers were on the losing end of this fight. Even though it was 5 villagers to 1 bandit, the villagers weren't fighters so it only took the bandits a couple of moves to kill one. Every now and then a bandit would die, but it would cost the villagers 3-4 of them to do it.

"Mira, you have to try to sneak out of here. The least we can do is try to fight it out and buy you some time to escape. I know that you have hiding places that you have found. Go towards one of those and hide. Don't come back until you know it's safe. Mommy and Daddy love you. Now go!" Zach said to Mira while tearing up.

"Please, Mira! As long as you're safe, then we will be able to die without regrets. These last 5 years were the best of my life. I couldn't have asked for a better daughter. I want you to be able to fulfill your dream. Become the strongest for us! Live for us!" Jannette said while crying as she brought Mira into a long hug. After the hug, she pushed Mira to the backdoor and picked up a knife, and waited by the front door with Zach.

Mira started to tear up, as even though all of her lives these parents were the best. She didn't want to lose them, but she was only a 5-year-old girl. Much less fight, she could barely hold a weapon.

'What do I do? I don't want them to die! Even though I'll have to leave the village in a few years, I still don't want them to die! Dammit! Even though I have this spiritual scythe that is residing in my soul. It still weighs thousands of kilograms. I can barely carry a large stone with my strength.'

While Zach and Jannette were waiting by the door, Mira just stood there not knowing what to do. Both of them looked back and saw Mira not moving and screamed at the same time, "GO!"

Mira came out of her stupor as she looked at them, but as all three of them were about to move everything turned eerily silent. They all gulped as they had a bad premonition.

Soon they started hearing fires all around them, then someone burst into their house and spotted Mira, Zach, and Jannette. The man that barged in was covered in blood and looked like he'd gone mad. He was about to try to kill Mira first as she was the first person that he saw, but her parents jumped in front, gave her a look, and smiled lovingly. Like they knew this was their last moment with her. All three of them started to tear up but soon resolved themselves.

Mira started to run, but looked back and screamed, "I LOVE YOU!!". Tears ran down her eyes as she started to run away. Those three words that her parents heard were like lightning coming down on them. They had never her say that to them before, but now they were able to die without regrets.

"You little bitch! Get back here! This whole village needs to die for killing our leader! Get the fuck off of me and get back here!!" The bandit madly screamed, but Mira was already out of sight.

The battle between the bandit and her parents carried on, but Zach and Jannette were full of cuts and gashes and barely had any strength last. They looked at each other and smiled. This was a smile that carried their whole life behind it. One that told each other this was the last moment together. One that told them they have no regrets. One that told each other that they love each other from the bottom of their soul. Such a smile can only come from true love.

They both looked at the bandit and ran towards him. The bandit stabbed Jannette, but Zach was able to stab into the bandit's stomach with his sword. The bandit was still going mad and kicked Jannette to the ground then stabbed Zach near the heart. The bandit then kicked him to the ground then started to chase after Mira. Soon after he started chasing, he fell down with blood gushing out of his stomach.

Zach and Jannette lay on the ground next to each other. They looked at each other and smiled, then passed away leaving this earth for good.