Filled with rage and grief, Omar looked at the crowd.
"How can you people be so stone-hearted?!
How can you all just stand there like cowards?!"
Defeated, Omar dropped to his knees in the dirt and began to cry.
At that exact moment...
"Enough."
A calm voice, yet echoing with the authority of thunder, sliced through the noise of the bazaar.
Someone had firmly caught Zubair's descending whip mid-air.
The crowd immediately parted.
Stepping into the sunlight was a towering man, standing six-foot-two.
He wore an open-front dark leather vest, designed in the style of ancient Persian heritage.
He had long, flowing blonde hair, but completely lacked a mustache.
Instead, his strong jawline was framed by a sharp, perfectly groomed blonde anchor beard, giving him a majestic and lethal presence.
Hanging from a red and gold sash at his waist was a legendary weapon—it was the exact same 'Scimitar' sword that Maazin possessed!
Zubair gritted his teeth, his fat, wrinkled face turning red with rage.
"Who the hell are you, you insolent fool?!
How dare you interfere in my business?!"
Ghazwan, the man who had come to save the boy, looked at the bleeding child and then at Zubair.
"First, tell me... why are all of you grown men beating a starving child?"
Zubair stepped forward, his voice dripping with arrogance.
"Why do you care?!
You dog, you won't leave here alive today!
You don't know my power!
My reach extends straight to the Sultan!
I will have your head cut from your shoulders today!
Kill him!"
All of Zubair's armed guards drew their swords and rushed forward.
Ghazwan didn't even flinch. For these ordinary thugs, drawing his Scimitar from its scabbard was an absolute insult to the blade.
As the first guard lunged, Ghazwan sidestepped with blinding speed and delivered a devastating punch directly to the man's face with his bare fist, shattering his nose instantly.
Another man tried a cowardly sneak attack from behind.
Reacting purely on reflexes, Ghazwan ducked, grabbed the attacker's arm, and snapped it with a sickening *CRACK*.
As the man fell to his knees screaming, Ghazwan delivered a flawless spinning kick to his jaw, knocking him out cold.
The crowd gasped.
Omar watched in absolute awe.
The two remaining swordsmen charged together, swinging wildly.
For three entire minutes, Ghazwan did nothing but dodge from his standing position.
He moved like the wind, his reflexes so perfect that not a single blade even grazed his clothes.
Frustrated, one swordsman swung a heavy overhead strike.
Ghazwan stepped into the attack and struck the flat side of the enemy's blade with his bare, hardened fist.
The steel sword shattered into two pieces!
Before the man could react, Ghazwan grabbed the broken piece of the blade from the air and drove it straight into the attacker's shoulder.
"AAAAAAH! MY SHOULDER! AAAAAH!"
the man wailed, dropping to the dirt.
"You won't survive this, you dog!
Take this!"
The final guard roared, stepping forward for a killing thrust.
Ghazwan swiftly grabbed the bleeding guard he had just stabbed and used him as a shield, pushing the man's arm forward.
The final guard's blade missed Ghazwan entirely and sliced cleanly through his own friend's hand!
A massive splash of blood flew through the air and landed directly across Zubair's fat, terrified face.
Ghazwan let out a deep, mocking laugh. "What a tragedy...
You've just cut off your own man's hand, you idiot."
"I won't let you live!"
The last guard screamed, rushing forward again.
Ghazwan simply stepped to the side and delivered a colossal slap to the side of the man's head.
The impact was so brutally heavy that the guard's eardrum burst instantly, and he collapsed to the ground, completely unconscious.
The entire bazaar was dead silent. Ghazwan slowly walked toward Zubair.
"Now,"
Ghazwan said calmly.
"Give the boy the money you promised him."
Zubair was trembling violently, but his arrogant pride remained.
"I won't give it!
I will never give it! Never!"
"Very well," Ghazwan smiled slightly. "I know how to extract money the hard way too."
Ghazwan slowly drew his legendary Scimitar sword.
The terrifying sound of the steel leaving the scabbard made Zubair's blood run cold.
"No! No! PleaseTake it!
Take as much as you want!,spear my life" Zubair shrieked, falling to his knees in utter terror.
"Just let me go!
Please! I made a mistake!"
But as Ghazwan lowered his sword slightly, Zubair's eyes flashed with cowardly malice.
He suddenly pulled a hidden dagger from his velvet robes and lunged straight for Ghazwan's stomach!
Ghazwan didn't even blink.
He effortlessly caught the razor-sharp blade of the dagger between his two fingers.
Zubair pushed with all his weight, his face turning purple from the effort, but the dagger wouldn't budge an inch.
Ghazwan easily twisted the dagger out of Zubair's hand and delivered a brutal, bone-crushing kick to Zubair's fat stomach.
Zubair coughed violently, completely losing his breath as saliva and bile spilled onto the dirt.
Ghazwan leaned down and picked up Zubair's fallen leather whip from the dirt.
"You rewarded this boy with a hundred strikes, didn't you?"
Ghazwan's voice was colder than death.
In the next second, Ghazwan struck the heavy whip across Zubair's fat body with immense force.
*CRACK!!*
"NOOOOO!
It hurts!
It hurts so much!"
Zubair squealed like a pig.
"No, please, forgive me!
I swear to Allah,
I will never do it again!
For God's sake, let me go!
I won't ever do it again!"
But Ghazwan didn't stop.
One after another, the whip sliced through the air, delivering exactly 150 brutal lashes to the cruel merchant.
Zubair's expensive silk clothes were shredded, and he writhed in the dirt, bleeding heavily.
Witnessing this, the entire crowd—who had been terrified of Zubair just moments ago—erupted in joy.
People cheered, an immense relief washing over their faces as they watched the tyrant suffer.
Ghazwan threw the whip down and grabbed Zubair by the hair, lifting his bloody face.
"How does it feel now?"
Ghazwan asked, staring into his terrified eyes.
"I gave you fifty extra strikes for free. How does it feel?"
"F-Forgive me...
let me go..."
Zubair squealed in humiliation and agony.
"You take great pleasure in mocking the helplessness of others, don't you?"
Ghazwan said.
"I will make sure you remember this lesson...
So you never dare to make a joke of anyone's misery again."
Holding Zubair down, Ghazwan used the merchant's own dagger to carve a word deeply onto Zubair's fat forehead.
He carved the Arabic word: "حمار" (Corrupt jackass).
"NOOOOOOO!!!
Show some mercy on this old man !
,Please don't do this to me !
I will never, ever do it again!
Please, have mercy!,
I am begging you,
Spare my life."
Zubair screamed in absolute humiliation.
Ghazwan's eyes narrowed coldly.
"Did you ever show mercy to anyone when you were the one beating them?
Huh?"
Ignoring the wailing merchant, Ghazwan sheathed his sword and walked over to the bruised and starving twelve-year-old boy.
He knelt in the dirt, offering his hand to the child he had just saved from death.
Watching from the perspective of the phantom memory, Omar's breath caught in his throat as the boy finally looked up into the sunlight.
Seeing that innocent, starving, and tear-stained face, Omar's own heart ached in agony.
In the eyes of that boy, Omar saw the exact same loneliness and terrifying pain that he himself had endured at the port of Julfabaad after losing his parents.
It felt as if Omar was not looking at someone else, but staring directly into his own tragic past.
Because
that innocent, starving boy...
was none other than Aslam.
Chapter End