To Jackson, Uhtred’s hand felt like an immovable block of solid iron. The man subtly tried to loosen his grip and pry his fingers away, but Uhtred didn’t let go. He maintained the crushing grip for a few seconds longer than necessary, letting the silence stretch between them. It was a wordless, brutal warning: I know exactly what you just tried to do. Do not attempt it again.

Once the message was thoroughly delivered, Uhtred finally released his grip, nodding curtly.

He didn’t respond or reveal his name, instead, he looked past Jackson, his eyes narrowing slightly as he gestured toward the brushes in the distance. "You said you’re taking ’precautionary measures,’ right? I take it sending an informant sprinting back to your main base is also part of those precautions?"

Jackson’s eyes widened immediately. The remaining color drained from his face, and his entire posture shifted. In that single instant, he came to a terrifying conclusion about exactly what kind of monster he was dealing with.

It wasn’t just the bone-crushing, immovable physical strength in Uhtred’s hand, it was the fact that the young man’s senses were sharp enough to detect that minor detail that should have been entirely invisible.

The guard line had actually been tactically arranged in two stages. There was the visible line of goons where Jackson and the bald man stood, and then there was a secondary layer hidden far behind them.

Tucked away inside the light foliage in the distance were scouts whose specific classes were tailored directly for camouflage and stealth. All Jackson had done was flash a tiny, silent hand gesture behind his hip, a signal for one of the cloaked scouts to immediately break rank and sprint back to the main settlement to report that a high-tier threat had appeared at the border.

Yet this Uhtred fellow had picked up on the hidden hand sign and accurately tracked the stealth scout’s movement through the dark brush without even turning his head.

Uhtred didn’t waste his time waiting for the man to invent a pathetic excuse. He simply looked down at Jackson, his voice flat and completely devoid of any particular emotion:

"Well, you already know I’m a pioneer. And you know well enough that I could take out every single person standing at this outpost right now without breaking a sweat. So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to try and keep me here?" he asked, though it was entirely a rhetorical question.

Because without waiting for Jackson or the bald man to formulate a response, Uhtred casually stepped around them, walking straight past the outpost and stepping directly into the shimmering blue reaches of the safe zone.

The surrounding Level 1 guards cast panicked, flitting glances at the bald man and then at Jackson, desperately waiting for an order on whether they should attempt to detain the intruder who was openly disrespecting their authority or not.

But Jackson remained completely frozen, staring at his own throbbing, white-knuckled hand in absolute silence. He didn’t make a sound, allowing Uhtred’s silhouette to disappear into the blue light of the safe zone.

As Uhtred strode further into Zone 0, leaving the outpost far behind him, he hummed quietly to himself, I guess they aren’t completely stupid after all.

He had fully expected Jackson to be arrogant enough to probe his capabilities further, perhaps by ordering one of the lower-leveled goons to throw themselves at him just to test the waters. But he had surprisingly chosen absolute submission instead.

Then again, it’s not that surprising, Uhtred mused, his hand gripping the shaft of his long battleaxe. Depending on how close their actual base is to this border, the news of my arrival should have already reached the people in charge by now...

"So much for being low-key," he chuckled, then grinned even further. "In that case, let’s not keep them waiting."

Uhtred hefted the obsidian battleaxe from his shoulders and held it in an easy, unobtrusive position as he suddenly burst into a sprint towards the patch of light he could see in the distance. Which was surely the settlement.

Seeing Uhtred’s sudden burst of speed from the distance, Jackson, along with the rest of his goons, simultaneously sucked in a sharp, cold breath.

The low-level goons turned back to look at both Jackson and the bald-headed man, their eyes filled with immense gratitude that neither leader had been foolish enough to order an attack. To their eyes, the staggering force left in the young man’s wake made him look no less powerful than their own boss — not Jackson, but their true leader running things back in the settlement.

Back on the path, Uhtred was eating up ground like crazy. With his high agility and strength attributes, the weight of the massive star-metal battle-axe in his hand didn’t hamper his stride to any significant extent.

He couldn’t wipe the wide grin off his face as he continued to tear across the distance at a blistering pace. He didn’t know exactly what his speed would read right now, but by natural human standards, it was essentially superhuman.

Within the span of just a couple of minutes, the patch of light illuminating the settlement grew rapidly in his view, and Uhtred’s sharp perception caught sight of a moving silhouette ahead. It was the stealth scout who had run off earlier to deliver the warning message.

The scout had almost reached the perimeter of the settlement, but with the terrifying pace Uhtred was maintaining, he was on track to intercept him before the man could even cross the threshold.

Nice, I can still get to observe what’s going on first before he can deliver his warning, Uhtred thought to himself in excitement.

He had initially assumed the scout would have reached the base long by now, which was why he had thrown away his original plan to be low-key. But now that the opportunity was still perfectly viable, he was absolutely going to take it. He wanted to observe the internal mechanics of the human settlement with his own eyes and gain a solid understanding of the factions before revealing his hand.

As he rapidly closed the gap on the running figure, the young scout’s head turned backward cursorily at first hearing something incoming. The scout didn’t register that it was a human incoming at first, but then he did a sharp double take right after, his eyes widening in absolute terror at the sight of Uhtred closing in like a freight train.

The scout frantically reached into his pocket, trying to pull out some kind of item or signaling device, but Uhtred didn’t give him the chance to do a single thing.

Coming to a sudden, skidding halt directly alongside the running man, Uhtred raised his free hand and delivered a precise, controlled strike to the side of the scout’s head, knocking him unconscious in an instant.

The sheer momentum behind the blow could have easily been fatal, but Uhtred had been careful to rein in his strength to avoid causing any lasting damage.

Still, the moment the scout collapsed like a sack of bricks into the ground, Uhtred let out a sharp, panicked gasp of surprise.

"Fuck, I hope I didn’t just kill him."