Flow of Existence

Cantor was walking calmly through the village, he had just finished up a hunt and was going back towards his house.

He took in the calm sight of the Ashen village, the sun shone brightly upon it, it truly was a nice day.

But suddenly he got hit with an uneasy feeling. Cantor was a seasoned hunter and very proficient in Flow, he was sure something bad was going to happen.

He looked around but found nothing wrong in his surroundings, his Flow wasn't picking up on any presences either.

'Am I just imagining it? Either way I better stay on guard, better to be safe than sorry.'

Cantor kept walking towards his home but kept his guard up, constantly searching for a foreign presence with his Flow.

And suddenly he felt it, a foreign presence.

The presence was approaching the village with crazy speed. Cantor doubted any of the hunting team members could reproduce the same speed.

Cantor immediately shot into action, he needed to intercept the presence himself before it got to any of the other villagers they wouldn't be able to handle it.

He wondered if it was a wild beast or a human approaching but from the way it moved he assumed it to be a human.

He didn't know why the human was rushing towards their village at this level of speed, but he couldn't assume they were there for anything good.

Cantor jumped from building to building not going all out yet, he needed to preserve Flow for later if this turned into a fight. He didn't want to cause panic throughout the village so he decided against alerting the villagers for now, intercepting the threat came first.

He made sure to go just fast enough to be able to intercept the presence, he doubted the presence was going all out with this speed either, it was strong, maybe even stronger than him.

Cantor shuddered at the thought and rushed over the ground, his speed reaching far above inhuman levels at this point.

As he approached the presence it finally came into sight, it was a tall man with long light black hair draped in a red robe. He didn't seem very muscular or scary from the outside but his Flow told a whole other story. He seemed to be good at suppressing it too, Cantor was the only one who had noticed him.

The tall man seemed surprised to see Cantor intercepting him. "Oh, a welcoming party just for me. I think you have bigger issues to worry about, you are the leader of the hunting party are you not?"

Cantor's mind immediately shot into turmoil. If what the man had just implied was true, there were three major things to worry about.

First and foremost the man seemed to know Cantor's identity, he knew he was the leader of the hunting party. This was clearly a premeditated attack.

Secondly apparently he wasn't the only person attacking, there would be more raiders arriving soon.

And third and most importantly, he had bigger issues to worry about. This implied the tall man imposing a terrifying presence upon him was not the strongest member raiding the village.

Noticing his inner turmoil the tall man got into position to fight and spoke intimidatingly. "My name is Tamp, state your name."

Cantor's mind quickly focused, he would just have to get this over with, and fast. "My name is Cantor, leader of the hunting party of Ashen village. But I suspect you already knew that."

As soon as the words left Cantor's mouth Tamp began forming something. It was smoke.

Smoke quickly shot out over a wide area making the surroundings very hard to see.

Cantor quickly realized what was going on, and put his guard up.

Putting his guard up seemed to be the right decision as a punch quickly came for his head. And it wasn't a simple punch, the punch felt heavier than getting rammed by a boar. 

Cantor recoiled a bit and quickly retook himself pouncing on the spot where the punch had come from. But to his dismay nothing was there.

He felt something coming from behind and quickly took a step back, the kick that was coming for him hit the air. Cantor pivoted and tried to grab the leg, but it quickly retracted leaving him grabbing at air once more.

The smoke was thick and murky making it harder for Cantor to breathe. If he took too long flailing around like this he would die or at least be disabled from the smoke overdose entering his lungs.

The smoke was also pricking into his eyes. He decided his best option was to discard his sight entirely focusing only on detecting his opponent with Flow.

Closing his eyes he quickly focused and let out a long breath. He felt himself enter a state he didn't often enter when being out hunting, it was a state of pure concentration.

He focused on the bloodlust around him, the attacks that were aimed for him would certainly contain them.

He felt something aiming for his chest, he quickly stepped back and grabbed what turned out to be an arm.

Cantor quickly put all his strength into throwing Tamp over his shoulder, and he succeeded. 

With a loud thud Tamp's back hit the ground. Cantor gave him no chance to recover and quickly jumped on top of him.

Cantor hit Tamp in the head with multiple hard punches all the while Tamp flailed his hands and with almost unnatural strength, much stronger than he had shown before, and he managed to barely slip away from his hold.

Cantor was incredibly surprised by this. He was a hunter, used to holding down incredibly strong beasts, but this man had managed to slip away from his grip.

But Tamp wasn't without damage, his skull had been bashed in by Cantor's incredible strength, he seemed to wobble on his feet.

He snuck back into the smoke forming even more while he was at it. 

Cantor wasn't about to let this opportunity slip. He quickly dashed after him, forming and shooting ash at the directions he felt the presence of his adversary.

Then suddenly Tamp dashed at him, seemingly disregarding his earlier cowardly strategy of hiding in the smoke.

Cantor wasn't about to be blindsided by the tall attacker, he blocked the flurry of punches that was being thrown at him.

Each punch felt like a bear was hitting him instead of a man, his arms started hurting from the immense force that was wailing on them. His bones almost cracking under the weight of the punches.

Cantor slithered like a snake moving behind his prey, he locked his legs around Tamp's middle and grabbed hold of his head.

Tamp grunted as he felt the force twisting his head. In his last moments he shot his arms upwards and formed an immense amount of smoke shooting it up.

Then Cantor pulled hard, twisting his neck. Tamp's bones cracked loudly as his head got twisted clean off.

Cantor let go of the now headless corpse and covered his left side with his hand. Apparently the long man had managed to hit him there during the previous struggle, it hurt a lot.

He realized he had gotten very lucky during this battle, Tamp hadn't been much weaker than him. He probably had not expected Cantor to sense the punch coming for his chest, which allowed him to floor Tamp at a critical moment and seize the advantage.

But that wasn't the thing Cantor was most concerned about now, he was a lot more concerned about the attack on the village.

The man had clearly been stalling for time, dodging around in the murky smoke and keeping Cantor occupied for as long as possible. He also had seemingly disregarded his defenses and gone all out in hurting him when he realized he couldn't win the battle.

Because of the lucky shoulder throw Cantor had finished this fight a lot quicker than he should have but he was still incredibly worried.

Cantor coughed loudly, realizing the smoke had been a lot more harmful than he had previously expected. His adversary had been strong, probably stronger than anyone in the village. But he couldn't measure up against Cantor.

This made Cantor shudder as to what exactly was attacking the village, and also shudder because of the final move the man had made.

Cantor knew he didn't just shoot up smoke for fun, it must have been a smoke signal or something like that. He quickly dashed while still holding onto his left side trying to get out of the domain of smoke formed by Tamp.

When he finally left the smoky area he did not like what he was seeing, twelve people draped in red were waiting on him.

When they spotted Cantor their eyes grew wide. The ashen haired leader of the hunting team looked very imposing, blood covering his gray robes and a mad expression on his face.

Cantor tried to intimidate his attackers with his Flow as much as possible letting out a burst containing as much bloodlust as he could muster, and it currently was a whole lot.

Parts of the village were going up in smoke, Cantor could hear screams from the villagers and their children. It made him mad, very mad.

None of his attackers seemed particularly strong, Cantor doubted any of them had even formed their innate element but he was still heavily outnumbered.

Cantor took heavy steps towards them as he let out an ear deafening war cry. "Come!"