The Martial Unity

The supply dispatch had exited borders of the town of Hajin just under two hours. The Apprentices in the carriage had already perked up, growing more and more alert. They had decided that at the very least a minimum of three of them ought to keep a lookout at any given point in time.

Although the dispatch naturally had guards on horses forming something of a perimeter around the dispatch team, surveilling their surroundings, Martial Apprentices were still better. The Foundational Stage of the Academy carefully trained sensory awareness as well as their kinetic vision well beyond the norm. And the discovery of the Martial Path further raised those attributes and parameters above the conventional limit.

Three Martial Apprentices keeping an eye from within a carriage were better sources of surveillance than all the guards on horses outside.

Rui was currently off-surveillance duty along with Dalen. He used this time to gather his thoughts.

('According to the intel provided by the Martial Union, the bandits likely operate by incapacitating the dispatch convoy by crippling their means of transport.') Rui mused. ('In most cases that involves damaging the carriages sufficiently enough and slaughtering the horses.')

The reason the bandits did this was because the chances of survival of any travelling convoy was minimal if they could not maintain a high mode of transport.

Thus, even in the unlikely situation that a travelling transport or supplies dispatch convoy had the means to counter them, they would not be able to escape their predicament easily at all. The bandits could simply retreat and wait until for the right moment to launch an ambush.

Of course, thus far not a single travelling convoy had been able to successfully resist the bandit ambushes.

('Yet despite this, they continue with the norms of crippling the means of transportation in their initial strike.') Rui thought. ('That sounds uncharacteristically careful for bandits.')

were usually chaotic unorganized groups of low lives who banded together to rob travellers. They were not careful and methodic like an organized strike force. Yet all the data that Rui had gone through indicated that this bandit group was more akin to the latter

Rui did not want to fight with a disciplined group of criminals, that was much scarier than messing with

highly unlikely that this bandit group was formed in a

some entity in the black market was much more likely, this would explain the sense

head. It wasn't relevant. The point was that if they were targeting means of transport then the group would

about their modus operandi did not mean they would be able to counter

thing they could do at the end of the day was to defend, protect and eliminate threats. That did not change regardless of

of an ambush. The element of surprise in the hands of the

were the measure they could take to mitigate the

to abandon the outer ring of the convoy and focus on the most important and

were mostly there to act as a shield for

and the others of the Martial Quint would immediately focus on ensuring the inner circles endured as little harm

from the town of Hajin, and the mountains that were on the horizon at the distance had grown larger in

Trails is only half an hour

time since I came here." Fae

before?"