I looked at the battlefield in front of me as my weapon from my inventory appeared behind my back. The greatsword fell and sank into the earth, its tip biting into the soil while most of the blade remained exposed and light catching on its edge.
I stepped forward and reached back, fingers closing on the hilt. I gripped it tightly with one hand, then launched it into the sky with a hard toss. I bent my knees, pushing a cushion of air beneath my feet, and leapt toward the blade. In an instant I was above it, seizing the greatsword with both hands over my head.
Beneath me the horde stretched like a living tide—endless undead shuffling, gaping maws and hollow sockets reflecting the sun. Behind me, the cliff I'd jumped from fell away. To my right and left the ground was a cracked wasteland crawling with corpses; farther off to the right, tree silhouettes—leafless, branches like black hands. Ahead there was only the sea of the walking dead. I hung in the air like a hunter above prey.
As excitement swelled, a grin spread across my face and I murmured, "Let's.. begin".
I tightened my grip and drove the greatsword and my body down toward the earth. In the blink of an eye I closed the distance to the nearest cluster of undead—one meter—and the blade was coming for the first zombie.
My feet slammed the ground; the greatsword buried its point into the rotten skull with effortless force. It plunged through the gaping skull, tore through half-exposed brain matter, and smashed ribs as it punched into the chest. Bone splintered and ribs sheared outward like snapped branches; the corpse split down the middle, entrails spilling and slapping the cracked dirt as both halves and landed apart. A gust of wind blasted from the impact, a pressure wave that swept across the field and sent nearby zombies and skeletal soldiers tumbling end over end. The two halves of the ruined body sailed in opposite directions, a macabre punctuation to the strike.
The edge of my jacket snapped in the blast, drifting behind me in restless ripples. I stood—still—greatsword in my right hand, the blade slick with gore and dust.
Around me the ground was hard and parched, a cracked halo radiating from where the sword had struck. The soil felt brittle and lifeless for ten meters before the undead mass gathered again, closing like hungry fog. I was on a little island in the middle of a sea of corpses.
The air was hot and gritty; each breath tasted of iron and rot. The smell of decomposing flesh and rusted armor hung thick, sour and persistent.
'The air smell is really bad. But I've also smelled a lot of bad odour because I just was curious what stuff smells like.... Why people feel like vomiting and all. I was curious. What I found was that it's an unpleasant smell that's about it. Maybe if I smelled it for long I felt like vomiting..... And this smell here is similar to rotting corpse of a animals.' I thought calmly.
Undead circled on all sides, the closest nine meters away, a slow, inevitable orbit.
'But still I could get a disease from inhaling it for long time or there could be poison in the air. So might as well purify air around me.' I thought as I sifted the unwanted particles from the air and held only the purest breath close to me. The breath-pocket expanded half a meter in every direction and moved with me like a personal bubble of clean air.
I drew in a deep, improving breath.
'Now this is better. Though..... this will take a toll on my mind. To keep this up while fighting and also keeping an eye on them.' I thought as I glanced back toward the hill—Liora sitting on a chair, eating with Evangeline.
'It's usually times like this they can be attacked from someone. Or…..' I thought as the distance between me and the undead shrank to seven meters.
'Even though I left Liora with Evangeline. I can never be sure. I need to make sure Liora isn't out of my range. If Evangeline try something... *a deep sigh* I don't feel anything in the air. I have seen in anime that blood poison is a thing but I can't feel anything and I have area near Liora purified to some extent.' I thought as my head tightened.
Now the distance was six meters.
'This much distance is good.' I thought, bracing as I took both hands on the hilt.
From my right I dragged the blade along the dirt, teeth of rock and soil scraping the edge and sending fine grit into the air. Then I carved in a brutal upward arc—an upward slash that tore a line through ground and bone. Wind screamed along the blade's wake, a scything force that sheared through the horde. Heads of ghouls exploded like rotten pumpkins; brains splattered in a dark spray and dessicated flesh shredded in sheets. Skeletons fractured into ragged halves; bone shards skittered and clinked like broken chimes.
My hand hung in the air after the slash. I twisted, sinking my weight into a downward follow-through, driving the steel point like a reaper's beak. The second strike cut a straight clearing through the horde, a narrow but deep lane of carnage. Tinny clatters of armor, the wet slap of severed organs, and the soft, rasping sighs of dying things filled the space behind the blade. Intestines trailed and snapped; vertebrae cracked in dull, final pops.
'It's not making a dent. Let's try something else.' I thought, dragging my right foot back as the greatsword followed. I crouched, coiling like a predator. Wind began to gather, currents sliding toward the blade as if called, hairs on my arms standing up from the pressure. I pulled the sword hard from right to left in a long, horizontal arc, charging the air with a lethal edge.
The resulting slash of wind sliced out like a wolf lunging at a rabbit. When the teeth of that wind met flesh, bodies were rent and peeled. Skin tore as if cut by thousands of fine knives; muscle and sinew shredded into ribbons that streamed and stung the hot air. A line of corpses was reduced to a spray of gore and clotted bone, bodies disintegrating into a crimson mist that fell like rain over the cracked earth. The smell intensified—metal and rot, sharp and dizzying.
I felt the charge throttle down, every limb humming from exertion. Dust and blood hung in the pocket of cleared air around me, painting my boots and the hem of my jacket crimson. The undead were relentless, more appearing in the distance, their steps were strange and twitchy, but they never tired.
The battlefield sang with the sound of war—the wet rip of flesh, the brittle crash of bone, the low grinding of bones scraping stone. Above it all the wind carried the echo of my own breathing, steady and cold, ready for the next hunt.
My front had a wide gap in the horde, like a road cut through a deep forest by the force of my last slash. Bodies lay heaped in the cleared lane; to my sides the wounds in the ranks were already closing as more undead shuffled in to fill them.
'I needed some empty area to use this move.' I thought, smiling as I slid back into position.
Knees bent, left leg set a half step behind, I held the greatsword parallel to the ground at my left, the blade extending past my shoulder and the tip pointing toward the empty path I had carved with the horizontal wind slash. I closed my eyes.
The air around me thrummed with the clack of bone and the rasp of brittle armor. Metal dragged over dirt sent up a scream of grit. The groans of ghouls and the low snarls of rot-eaten zombies braided into a single, ugly chorus.
Hiding behind these….. a quite sound of wind...… Like a beast which can't be bothered with such insignificant monsters resting in silence
I breathed inward, feeling the stillness coil.
The distance from me to the nearest undead was five meters.
Fading wind brushed against my cheeks as I felt it answer my call.The beast found its prey, locking its gaze as the current coiled around my hand and slid toward the great sword.
Inhales
The beast stirred, the wind sharpening like unseen blades.Bursts of compressed air lashed out in every direction, shoving the undead back a step. Oblivious to what was coming, the horde pressed forward.
Exhales
The gap closed to four meters.
Inhales
The beast surged toward its prey, the wind gathering around the great sword in a sudden burst of speed.Its pace quickened, a predator ready to strike, as the furious gale swirled and the blade swelled—an invisible extension stretching several meters into the cleared path within the horde.
The distance between me and the undead… three meters.Exhales
I swung.
The hunt began at 8 o'clock. With the beast bound to the blade I drove a horizontal slash from my left toward my right — a predator striking with unstoppable momentum. The wind-teeth first slammed into the hindquarters of the nearest undead, snapping rotten femurs like dry twigs. Limbs collapsed, joints exploded into wet, crackling confetti. As the invisible extension carried on, it cleaved through skulls with a bone-deafening crunch; brains burst out in steaming, pulpy sprays that dusted the battlefield with gray and crimson. Ghouls were shredded into clotted rags, torsos peeled open as if unzipped, intestines unfurling and whipping in the gale. Heads were toppled and crushed, helmets crushed inward like rotten fruit.
Bodies were torn apart from back to front, ripped into impossible fragments. The wind's teeth chewed through muscles and tendon; armor plates skittered like dead fish across the hard earth. A chain of dismemberment followed the blade: arms severed at the shoulder, ribcages splintered into jagged fans, spines snapped and slumped. The air filled with the metallic, fetid stench of iron and rot, with steam rising from exposed organs under the sun's heat.
The hunt ended at five o'clock, the arc complete, leaving only a cleared path littered with broken limbs and ruined bodies.
A breeze drifted through the clearing as I sensed the field. For several meters around me the ground was a mosaic of gore: heads crushed flat, skull fragments glittering like white shells; limbs sprawled at unnatural angles; entrails tangled around boots and hafts. The dead lay layered on dead, a carpet of ruined bodies and ruined metal.
Huff. Huff.
'This takes a big tool on my mind. Ugh…. I don't think I can keep doing this one.' I thought, breathing deep as the pressure in my skull pulsed with pain. My head had been tightening for a while; every effort stitched new agony beneath my temples.
A slow, deep breath.
'Is this my limit…. Was I too overconfident...? Ughhh…. My head hurts…. ' I thought, each inhale a small war.
Liora was still where I left her —small, bright against the grey—Evangeline beside her, cheerful and watchful. Even through pain, that sight steadied something inside me.
'Liora is still safe. Maybe…. I can trust Evangeline….. Ugh…..' I thought, then winced as the ache flared.
Pain lanced across my skull like cold iron. I thrust the greatsword point-first into the ground with both hands and fell to my knees, fingers clawing at my temples. For a moment my body felt strangely disconnected, as if my limbs belonged to someone else.
All my focus narrowed to that white-hot pain.
'It hurts….. it hurts….. ARRGGHHHH it hurts like hell!!!.... I …. I don't like… to be hurt… Then why am I doing all this…..?' the thought tore through me as the pain persisted, anchoring me to a trembling, furious question.
I let my back rest against the flat of the greatsword, left leg stretched out, right knee drawn up. I sat amid the carcasses like a broken sentinel.
'Argh….. Even with no limit to mana, ......no limit to control, ugh….. there was still limit on how much my mind can handle….. I need.. to calm my mind… I need rest… rest… The potions! They can clam mind..' I thought, in the haze searching for any fix.
I hauled an intermediate potion from inventory and drank. The liquid tasted washed out and strange.
'Ugh.. I can't understand taste… When… When will it kick in….' I ruminated, waiting for relief that did not come immediately.
Cough. Cough.
'Should I ......retreat? Why am I suffering ? Am I looking for excitement? Do I like killing? Was I always crazy? Why….?' the thoughts rushed, jagged and relentless as the pain.
I glanced toward the cliff. Liora waved both hands, bright and innocent. Her lips moved and she mouthed something I couldn't quite make out. A sudden, smile cracked across my face.
'I remember why am I doing this…. So there's no one who can …ugh.. hurt you…. If ever comes a times .. I don't want to be powerless. If …..Injustice happens. I don't want to tell you to turn your face and ignore it…. No matter what anyone says. Even though I've met lot of good people. But world no matter which one. It is a cruel place.That's why..... I …. want power….Power to protect you.' The thought came like a balm, slow and resolute.
Behind her, Evangeline watched Liora and then looked at me; her smile changed, something unreadable in her eyes.
'Why are you making …such expression… for a stranger… you just met.' I thought, warmth spreading through my chest despite the pain.
'I need power... power to fight the whole world if … needed.' I thought, steadying myself on that certainty.
I could not let them see me break. I forced myself up, planted my right hand on my knee for support, and waved back. My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
'I ugh… can't let them see this weak version of me just consumed by depression…' I thought, and forced motion into my limbs. I took another intermediate potion, then another, until the vials were gone.
'Huff ….I need to manage myself.' I told myself, breathing and recalibrating.
I shrank the purified air to a thin layer—only ten centimeters around me. Then I pulled back my sensing field to just a few meters, sacrificing distance and choosing to rely on vision for anything farther. Still, my focus stayed fixed on Liora.
'It's…. manageable…. Now. I can handle this much…..' I thought as the pain eased to a bearable pressure and my breath found steadier rhythm.
The ground trembled beneath my boots. A distant, heavy vibration rolled toward us like the drumbeat of something huge coming awake.
But this time, something new loomed among them—massive shadows towering over the horde. Each step sent tremors through the cracked ground, bones rattling and dust rising in clouds. Their sheer bulk made the lesser undead scatter and jostle around them, a tide of decay forced to yield to these monstrous shapes. The air grew thick with the scent of rot intensified, and the oppressive weight of their presence pressed down like a storm ready to break.
to be continued…