Last Scion Of The Sun

Slave encampment

Just when he thought that the situation wouldn't get more worst, he encountered a familiar face, once again. It was Ric whom he last saw during his escape.
His condition didn't look fine to Sol. His eyes and lips were swollen as if somebody had punched him really hard in the face. His eyes were barely visible due to the swelling and his lips looked like that of a pig. He looked like a human shaped orangutan.
"Pft.. Hahah"
Sol chuckled.
Sol couldn't hold his laughter after witnessing the swollen face of Ric.
Despite that nobody paid any attention towards him. As if they've lost meaning to their life, they all looked like walking corpse.
Afterall Sol was the sole individual in that whole room who was actually calm about his situation. Hence, it wasn't the people around him who were abnormal but Sol was the one who was abnormal.
Despite being abducted and taken as a hostage, Sol was unusually calm.
Sol quickly hid himself behind one of the captives, as Ric turned towards him.
"Phew... That was close"
"I've already had enough of him and I don't want to get stucked up with him even more. So might as well hide myself."
He whispered while gasping his breath.
Sol continued to stay hidden and kept on evaluating the situation. He kept on thinking of ways to escape.
He crawled towards the door of the carriage.
His eyes which were well adapted to darkness played a huge role to help him locate the door even in that pitch black darkness.
While avoiding the piles of unconscious people, he crawled towards the door.
Upon reaching the door, he tried to push the door. The door was unusually sturdy, thus it didn't budge even an inch, no matter how hard he pushed.
After relentlessly pushing the door multiple times, he only exhausted himself.
But still, he wasn't willing to give up and was persistent on making his escape. Thus after catching a moment of breather, with all his strength, he tried to push the door.
Just then the carriage abruptly stopped.
With the sudden stoppage of the carriage he stumbled backwards and fell down on his back.
"Ouch..."
He mumbled in pain.
As he laid down, he heard chatters of people outside the carriage. Slowly somebody was approaching towards the door of the carriage.
He quickly crawled back, after hearing the approaching sound.
Suddenly a bright light illuminated the whole carriage. His eyes which were adapted to the darkness were blinded by the sudden bright illumination.
[Enough sleeping! Get out now you worthless lumps of meat. Get out of the carriage]
A loud voice echoed from the door.
Sol couldn't see well due to the bright light. But a shadow of a person became visible infront of the door, as the door of the carriage opened.
Judging from the tone of the voice, he could tell that the person who was swearing was a man.
It took a while for Sol's eyes to get adapted to the brightness. In that duration, the swearing only intensified.
As soon as his eyes got adapted to the brightness, he witnessed groups of people dressed in some kind of armours approaching towards him.
The armoured people, shoved forward the captives one by one, out of the carriage.
Those who refused to leave the carriage were brutally whipped by a thorny whip.
Each strike of whip effortlessly piercing through their skin, while completely ripping apart their clothes, as if it wasn't there in the first place.
Swoosh~
Followed by each sound of whip was an agonizing scream of the person who was getting whipped.
After few whips, out of fear, other people voluntarily followed the order of the armoured gaurds without any hesitation.
Fear and Despair were vivid in their eyes.
Sol felt like a livestock which was on it's way to get butchered, when it was finally his turn to get out of the carriage.
But before the guards could push him outside the carriage, he voluntarily stepped outside.
As he stepped outside, his eyes widened and his jaws dropped.
Ahead of him was a large field of encampment. Towering tall towers, numerous tents, uncountable armoured guards and just like him hundreds and hundreds of captives.
The dreadful scene terrified him.
[What are you doing you piece of shit. Move!]
One of the armoured guard with a blond beard pushed him, as he stood frozen in his place, jamming the queue.
"Argh.."
Sol stumbled.
Despite that he kept his mouth shut and didn't talk back. He was aware that he would have got whipped if he dared to talk back. Thus, he voluntarily walked towards the queue and joined the queue.
The captivities were queued up in a straight line.
Infront of them was a person dressed in an armour that looked unique than the rest of the armoured guards. With a masculine face topped by neatly trimmed beard the person was wearing a metal helmet with two horns on top of his head.
While the armours of other troops looked like leather patches stitched together, the armour of the person with two horned helmet was flashy and made up of metal, just like armours worn by knights.
As if indicating the heiarchy among the armoured troops. The man exuded an aura of magnificance.
[Commander Gilbert, this are the new batch of slaves for the mine]
One of the troop standing beside the person with unique armour reported.
"Can they even lift the cart? They look all dead to me"
In a hoarse voice, Gilbert responded.
Just then one of the captives tried to flee from the scene.
But before he could flee, Gilbert snatched the spear of the troop standing beside him. He then threw the spear towards the slave which was fleeing.
The spear effortlessly pierced through the body of the slave. Just like meat impaled onto the barbeque stick, the fleeing slave was impaled by the spear and flew along with the spear.
Finally the spear hit a nearby boulder and it stopped. But as the spear hit the boulder, the boulder was smashed into pieces.
And even the body of slave which was impaled onto the spear was completely smashed.
Sol was terrified by the strength displayed by commander Gilbert. And just like him, everybody around him were terrified as well.
"How many times do I have to tell you to carefully watch over the slaves?"
Gilbert nonchalantly spoke as if nothing happened.
He then stroke his hand towards the direction of the spear. With a flick of his hand, fire appeared out of nowhere. The fire then completely burnt the body of the dead slave.
"It's magic"
Sol exclaimed in awe and fear.
Not many people were familiar with magic as it wasn't a common thing. Magicians were rare and even more rare were the magicians who could exude such power.
Even Sol who could perform basic magic was pretty rare in the entire kingdom. But to witness a magician capable of incinerating a person wholly, was on a whole another level of rarity.
People were aware of mana but not many could materialize the mana. Most of them could only materialise it through some kind of medium.
And to materialise mana, magical artifacts were needed. And only 9 or 10 people in the whole empire were capable of materialising mana without the use of any magical artifacts.
But to witness one infront of them, they couldn't help but feel terrified.
When Gilbert used his magic on the dead slave, he didn't use it to clean up the mess that he had created but rather as an warning to everybody present there, who thought of escaping.
And his flashy warning definitely worked as after that incident even Sol who had the idea of escaping, dropped his idea.
One by one they were handed clothes as they entered the entrance of the encampment.
Beside the huge door was two tall towering towers and on those towers were groups of archers patrolling.
'Why didn't they just shoot the fleeing slave?'
Looking at the archers on the top of the tower, Sol wondered.
Before they could even enter the encampment, they had to go through another checking.
One by one everybody were stripped naked and thoroughly inspected. Every thing which were in their possession were confiscated, as they passed through the checking.
Seeing that, Sol realised about the picture which he had kept in his pocket. He started to panic upon thinking about the picture.
He had absolutely no idea on how to hide the picture. Even if he wanted to hide the picture in his clothes, he would get stripped. Thus, leaving him no place to hide.
'Do I have to burn the picture?'
Having no place to hide the picture, he mumbled in desperation.
Just then he noticed that everybody who went through the inspection were carrying the clothes which they were granted at the entrance.
Making use of the loophole, he rolled the picture to the size that naked eyes would have difficulty to locate.
He then placed the rolled up picture in the sleeves of his t-shirt.
One after the other everybody were getting checked. Finally it was his turn to get checked.
As soon as he entered the inspection area, he was stripped butt naked. Then one of the guards responsible for inspection began inspecting.
The guard thoroughly examined him but found nothing in his body. The guard then began to check on his clothes.
Nothing were found in his original attire.
He let out a deep sigh, thinking the checking was over.
But right then, the guard started to check on the clothes they were granted at the entrance.
As the guards went through his slave attire, he started to panic. He started to sweat profusely. Fear was vivid in his eyes.