Seeing them discuss how to take him down right in front of his face, Kal was not in the least anxious. On the contrary, he even watched them with a smile, wearing an expression that suggested he was happy to see it happen.
Originally, Kal had intended to spare the members of House Crakehall, to capture them and throw them all into prison.
After all, he did not wish to inexplicably leave himself with a reputation for indiscriminate slaughter, because it was impossible for him to kill every single person before him.
Moreover, doing so would bring no benefit whatsoever to his future rule.
His purpose was nothing more than to use this opportunity to intimidate those with ulterior motives, and at the same time seize this castle and bring it under his control.
Killing and spilling blood would only be the inferior choice.
But if these people were so eager to follow his wishes that they would even take the initiative to strike at him—when heads were being delivered right to his door—if Kal still refused to take them, that would be rather impolite of him.
At the very least, taking a few heads and picking up some economic benefit along the way was hardly a bad thing, was it not?
Facing enemies who, driven and pressured by interest, had already let hot blood rush to their heads—who not only refused to surrender but even dared to strike back—there was only one thing Kal could do: show a bit of mercy and lend them a hand by sending them to meet the Stranger.
Watching the enemies who, under Tybolt Crakehall's orders, grabbed their weapons and prepared to attack him, Kal did not move his feet at all. With effortless calm, he casually pulled the greatsword he had planted in the floor back into his hands.
Then he lifted the greatsword and held it horizontally. With a strike like playing whack-a-mole, he immediately smashed the head of a fellow who, mouth wide open and revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth, was shouting as he charged toward him—driving that head straight down into the man's chest cavity.
Too ugly. Not worth looking at.
The skull shattered, blood and foam spraying everywhere.
The headless corpse still clutched an iron sword in its hand, but under Kal's tremendous strength it was smashed flat onto the ground and slid to Kal's feet, where it lay completely motionless.
But Kal had no time to pay him any mind, because at this moment there were still many people who had lost their reason and rushed up to besiege him.
This great hall had originally been the place where House Crakehall invited Kal. Here, aside from Kal and the two Kingsguard, everyone else present belonged to House Crakehall.
Thus, after dealing with the person closest to him, Kal could only raise the greatsword once more and, with a backhanded sweep, execute a move like a reverse sword cloud-hand, spinning as he sent the greatsword back out again.
The greatsword—one size larger even than the Stark family's ancestral blade, Ice—was in Kal's hands as nimble as a straight tree branch.
Light. Swift.
Three people who had not yet managed to get close to him only saw a flash of sword light before they were cut cleanly in half at the waist.
"Not bad. Fits the hand."
Amid the successive screams and cries of alarm, Kal gave the blade a shake to fling off the bloodstains, feeling that the thing he had Tobho Mott make for him was truly easy to use.
That inhuman attack range, and the killing power that meant death on contact and injury on a mere graze when it was swung in his hands, all made him think of a mowing game from his previous life.
In an instant, four people died in succession, and everyone present could see clearly that the thing in Kal's hands was no toy.
As a result, those two moves of his also conveniently poured a bucket of cold water over the originally feverish atmosphere.
Seeing this, Kal suddenly let out a loud shout.
"Surrender and you won't die!"
However, his roar not only failed to intimidate these people, it instead seemed to enrage them further.
Or perhaps, once blood had been spilled, there were always people whose reason would be lowered.
"Bastard, son of a whore!"
A burly man who had no idea where he had found a shield squeezed out of the crowd, grabbed a bronze ewer from a wine table and hurled it at Kal while cursing loudly.
Then, taking advantage of the moment when Kal turned his head to dodge the ewer, the burly man shouted again to the people beside him.
"Come on, with me—everyone together!"
"He's only one man! Could he really kill all of us?!"
As he spoke, he raised the shield in his hand, picked up another plate and threw it at Kal, then charged straight at Kal in a savage rush with the shield held up.
Facing the curses, Kal, who had not paid them much attention before, frowned.
Seeing the huge man charging at him with the shield, trying to knock him down, Kal immediately stopped speaking any further.
With a flick of his hand, the greatsword lifted, intercepting the precious ceramic plate in midair.
Along with the sound of porcelain shattering, Kal pushed off with his foot and leapt into the air.
The greatsword, nearly as tall as Kal himself, was raised high. Facing the charge of the foul-mouthed man, Kal delivered a clean, decisive jumping slash.
There was only a puchi sound.
The shield bearing House Crakehall's black-and-white boar emblem was, under the greatsword's chop, like a sheet of paper. Together with the burly man behind it, it was easily split and torn into two pieces.
Amid exploding splinters of wood came shattered bones, brain matter, blood, viscera, and the faint, almost inaudible sounds of flesh and bone being ripped apart, splashing across the floor.
The burly man was simply cleaved into two lumps of ruined meat by Kal's single jumping slash, splitting from the middle and sliding away to either side of him.
A scene like hell itself—this time, it thoroughly frightened these hot-blooded men into numb, stunned silence.
But how could Kal possibly give them any chance now?
Somewhat angered, he raised his head and looked at the enemies before him who still dared to hold weapons in their hands. Grabbing the greatsword once more, he took the initiative and charged straight at them.
The blood-colored gale that had once raged only through the Riverlands and King's Landing rose again within the castle of Crakehall in the Westerlands.
Screams, pleas for mercy, gasps, and curses tangled together in chaos.
Accompanied by limbs and severed bodies flying through the air, they formed a vivid tableau of hell.
Yet from the moment Kal cut down four men in succession and intimidated them, to when he spoke to urge surrender and was instead cursed and attacked, less than thirty seconds had passed in total.
It could be said that in the blink of an eye—before anyone could even think through what had happened—the hall that had been brightly lit moments before had turned into a slaughterhouse splattered with flesh and blood.
And seeing that these madmen actually dared to lay hands on their king, Arys Oakheart no longer had the presence of mind to marvel inwardly at his king's inhuman strength on the battlefield.
His heart tightening, he immediately lowered his gaze to Roland Crakehall, the lord whose hair he was gripping while holding a blade to his neck.
Without hesitation, he did exactly what he said he would do.
Already terrified, Roland Crakehall saw a vicious light flash in Arys Oakheart's eyes. Realizing what he was about to do, he had no time to open his mouth—what came out instead was only the hiss of air leaking from the wound torn open in his throat.
Mixed with spurting blood and a body that was rapidly losing its strength.
Arys Oakheart's sharp longsword merely drew lightly, and Roland Crakehall's neck was laid wide open—the entire throat was rotated open into a huge gash under the keen edge of the blade.
Crimson blood, driven by blood pressure, sprayed out in an arcing line, like a fountain.
But Ser Arys Oakheart had no intention of stopping there.
Before Roland Crakehall's corpse could even collapse, facing an enemy charging straight at him, he lifted his foot and kicked hard into Roland Crakehall's back.
Using the body of the lord of Crakehall to block his enemy.
Perhaps the man had not expected that the man in white truly dared to strike, or perhaps he was simply obstructed by Roland Crakehall's corpse.
But no matter what the reason, the Crakehall knight's sword-swinging charge could not help but slow by half a beat.
And that half beat cost him his life.
Because Arys Oakheart's longsword followed with a direct horizontal slash, violent force combined with a perfectly chosen angle—and in a single stroke, his entire head was sent flying.
Feeling the inexplicably smooth, well-fitting sensation in his hand, Arys Oakheart had no time to be surprised.
He immediately turned and called out to his sworn brother, Ser Marlin Warwick.
"Together with me—protect the king!"
Holding a shield, Marlin Warwick had just forced open a gap by ramming aside a foot soldier in front of him, then thrust his sword into the man's throat to end the fight.
Hearing Ser Arys Oakheart's shout, Marlin Warwick took a breath, turned, and charged toward Arys Oakheart.
But the moment he turned, an arrow from nowhere pierced in from the back of his head and burst out through his eye socket.
A round eyeball was skewered on the arrowhead, crookedly staring at his brother Arys Oakheart.
Carried by inertia, Marlin Warwick took only two more steps before collapsing to the ground with a dull thud, revealing behind him the killer who had just lowered his longbow.
Garse Flowers.
At some unknown point, he had actually gotten his hands on a longbow, and with a sneak attack, a single arrow had killed Marlin Warwick.
Seeing him draw another arrow and raise the bow to aim at his position, Arys Oakheart—without time for grief or further thought—could only manage a quick roll in place, narrowly dodging the sharp arrow shot at him.
With a single ding-dang, the arrow struck the ground, kicked up a spark, and bounced away.
"Tch!"
Seeing how fast he reacted, Garse Flowers, hidden in the dark for a sneak attack, spat to the side in disdain.
But immediately after, he did not bother with that Kingsguard who had already noticed him. Instead, he raised his longbow again, nocked an arrow, and aimed at Kal El over there—Kal El, who, after piercing two people through with a single thrust of his sword, simply lifted the greatsword and used it like a hammer to smash.
The fingers on the string loosened; with a single whoosh sound—
What Arys Oakheart saw when he lifted his head after his roll was precisely this scene.
In terror, his eyes split wide.
But he was powerless to do anything, and he did not even have time to shout a warning.
On the other side, Kal, who had just used the greatsword to skewer two people and slap them against the wall, had not yet heard the sound of the arrow cutting through the air when, instinctively, the hair on his body stood on end and a chill ran down his back.
Before his mind had time to realize anything, Kal's body reflexively shifted to the side.
Then the arrow that brushed past him stabbed straight into the neck of the unlucky bastard who had just been slapped against the wall.
Seeing this, Kal narrowed his eyes, gave the greatsword a shake to fling off the corpse clinging to its blade, and slowly turned to look toward the direction the hidden arrow had come from.
Seeing that Kal could dodge his arrow even with his back to him—and then turn around and fix his gaze on him—Garse Flowers felt an inexplicable chill rise in his heart, cold sweat pouring from his back.
Subconsciously, he still wanted to do something.
But just as he reached out in visible panic, still trying to draw another arrow to attack Kal, an extremely violent tearing sound suddenly rang out through the air.
Garse Flowers, who had just lowered his head, instinctively looked up, but all he saw was a blur before his eyes.
Then he felt an unmatched force punch through his chest and carry his whole body flying backward.
With a dull thud.
Unable to suppress it, he vomited a mouthful of blood, and only then did Garse Flowers come back to his senses from the daze a moment before.
Then he discovered that he was now hanging in midair, with roughly 0.6 meters of distance from the ground beneath his feet.
And what had pinned him hanging against the wall was a greatsword that had pierced straight through his chest.
There was no pain as he had imagined; everything felt like an illusion.
Yet the cold that had penetrated his chest was so real, just like the strength that was uncontrollably draining from his body.
The longbow still clutched in his hand fell weakly to the ground.
Driven by the instinct to survive, Garse Flowers subconsciously tried to grasp the hilt of the greatsword that had pierced his chest.
But with his heart shattered and run through along with it, how could he have any strength left?
He had barely raised his hand before it dropped limply, along with all the vigor and spirit in his body.
Staring at the scene before him, Tybolt Crakehall—who had just forced his way through the crowd to Kal's front and was raising his longsword to attack—stood there blankly.
The piles of shattered corpses before his eyes, the severed limbs scattered across the ground.
The wall splashed with blood where bodies had been smashed against it, and that moment just now, right before his eyes, when the greatsword had been thrown one-handed, pierced a man through, and nailed him to the wall.
All of it told him one thing after another: the man before him was not human, and not an enemy that could be faced.
But by the time he shook himself awake from the interests and incitement that had clouded him earlier, it was already too late.
Looking at Kal—who nodded with a satisfied, relieved expression, then turned his face to look at him—terror seized him. Uncontrollable trembling made him want to say something, yet not a single word could come out.
His lips trembled. His cheeks trembled.
When the fight had first broken out and people were packed together, he had not seen clearly. Only after breaking through the crowd and standing before him did he finally understand what kind of god or demon the man before him was.
Yet the man he feared after coming to his senses was smiling at him now.
Then a large hand reached out and rested on his neck.
Another hand followed, removing the longsword he had been holding raised above his head.
"The Crakehall family—" Kal said. "I remember your sigil is a boar. Tyrion even made a little joke about it with me."
"Yes, a hell of a joke. After all, my father died beneath a boar's tusks."
"So," Kal continued, "sorry, I can't seem to remember what your house words are. Can you tell me?"
After taking the longsword from Tybolt Crakehall's hand, Kal casually tossed it aside.
His right hand rested on Tybolt's neck, his thumb lightly stroking his Adam's apple as he spoke slowly, as if he had suddenly recalled something.
A devil whispered. Tybolt trembled, cold sweat pouring down.
He knew fear now.
Blood had washed away his anger and irrationality, and made him understand the impossibility of facing the man before him.
Feeling the large hand at his neck that could crush him at any moment, Tybolt subconsciously swallowed, his lips trembling as he instinctively answered Kal's question.
"Val—valiant and unmatched."
"Our house words are 'Valiant and Unmatched.'"
Hearing this, Kal let out a soft sound of acknowledgment.
Then he suddenly broke into a smile, nodded, and shook his head again.
"Not bad words, but clearly you lack a bit of wisdom."
Kal stopped the motion of his thumb and pressed his entire palm against Tibert Crakehall's neck.
Then his five fingers slowly tightened.
"To become a hunter, you must have enough courage, enough strength, and just a little bit of properly placed wisdom. If you have none of those, then at the very least you should make thorough preparations."
"Otherwise—don't make a move."
"I hope my words can give your next life a bit of advance advice."
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