This chapter contains gory descriptions. Please avoid reading while eating.
Trust me, you might really wanna put the plate aside.
******
Vorrak's PoV:
The silhouette shrank until it finally took the shape of a man.
When the smoke cleared, I saw him.
Black hair, leather jacket, no weapon in hand.
Rune.
A small smirk spread across my lips. Perfect. The little bastard had walked straight into his grave.
My mind already painted the picture of how I'd torment his precious girlfriend before his eyes, break her in ways he'd never forget, until he begged me to end her suffering.
"Yeah, yeah… thanks for showing all the cattle sheds. Shut up already," Rune muttered, eyes half-lidded, staring at the ceiling like he was bored.
What?
Then his face twisted even further, dripping with irritation.
"Not enough gratitude? Dude, this is literally the last one left in the entire village." He waved his hand like he was shooing invisible flies.
Gunther leaned toward me. "Did he lose his mind?"
"He must have," I sneered, smirking at the boy's insolence.
Then Bastion's voice cracked like a brittle twig beside me.
"Kids…" His sword trembled in his hands.
"Run."
The steel quivered as he pointed it at the eighteen-year-old. Decades younger than himself, not even armed.
"Sir Bastion, chill. He's just Rune," Gunther scoffed, shaking his head.
But Bastion was sweating buckets. His arms trembled, gripping the hilt harder.
I looked at Rune again.
Still smug, still wearing that irritated, empty expression.
"Hey, bastard! You came here to watch us violate your girlfriend from the front row? Hah! What's with not even bringing a weapon?" I mocked, my laugh twining with Gunther's until the shed walls echoed with it.
The thought of his helplessness made me giddy.
Sera was slumped unconscious from the essence, body twitching faintly. She wouldn't save him.
"Nah! He's got a point," Rune muttered again, but not to us.
His voice was distant, like he was speaking to something else. Someone else.
Then he walked forward, past the bodies, toward the broken basin at the corner.
"I didn't bring a weapon," he said calmly.
Was he going to pick up a sword from one of the fallen lackeys? I smirked again.
How pathetic. Scrambling for scraps when he was already dead.
Gunther laughed too, louder this time, mocking.
And then—
"RUN, VORRAK!!"
Bastion's roar thundered beside me, raw and desperate, as Rune's boots stopped over a shattered pipe, his hand reaching, not for steel, but for the tattered strip of cloth that once tied the basin's waterline.
My smirk faltered for the first time.
"Sir Bastion, what's with you—" Gunther started, but I cut him off, my eyes narrowing.
"What's wrong, Bastion? You're not yourself. Is there… someone else?" I asked.
I knew the old dog too well for this to just be some trauma.
"This would do…" Rune's bored voice cut through the tension.
He flicked the strap of the cloth in his hand, and a cloud of dust jolted out of it.
"Ahk!"
He even coughed. My gut twisted. Something was off. Too off.
Then Bastion's voice came again, broken, tripping over itself like his tongue couldn't believe the words leaving it.
"I-It's impossible…" his eyes locked onto Rune, scanning him with disbelief.
"How… how could a child…"
His throat closed, trembling, before he forced the words again.
"How could a child… possess aura?"
The air turned heavier than steel.
I froze.
Gunther frowned, clueless. "What's aura…?"
But Bastion wasn't in any state to answer him. His hand shook around his sword hilt, his face drained white like a corpse.
Aura. I knew that word.
I remembered overhearing a knight commander from the SBV once when he visited my father.
Aura was not something meant for people like us. It wasn't like mana, it wasn't magic.
No pools, no reserves, no crystals to draw from.
Aura was the final stage of swordsmanship itself. The pinnacle. Channeled only by sheer will at the instant.
They said it took decades of excruciating practice just to channel it… and even longer to use it in combat.
Aura users were legends. Old, seasoned warriors of the royal force, top brass of the SBV, men whose very names bent nations.
And now Bastion was saying… Rune? This bastard brat?
"You're joking…" My voice cracked as I stared at Bastion, who looked as pale as a ghost.
"Right…?" I asked.
But the way his sword quivered, the way his eyes refused to look away from Rune.. there was no joke.
The ragged cloth flicked again.
At first, I thought it was a joke.
Until the entire wall beside him vanished.
BOOMM!
The sound came after, rattling my bones as the wooden planks exploded outward like kindling, the force of it sucking dust into the shed and swallowing Rune in its haze.
I coughed, shielding my eyes, but then his voice cut through, calm, annoyed.
"Mannn… I can't even ooze out enough to send the wood flying far with this pathetic state of the body."
His footsteps echoed closer, casual, deliberate.
"What do you mean, 2%? Are you underestimating my peak? This isn't even 1% of my real strength…"
He rambled like a lunatic, but every word carried weight, every step making the floor creak like it was about to split.
My feet… they shook. My legs gave out and I hit the ground on my ass.
"N-No… no…" It was all I could whisper, my throat strangled by terror.
Gunther stood frozen beside me, eyes bulging, mind clearly still unable to process what just happened.
Then Bastion moved. The old knight grabbed my shoulder and shoved me back, his face carved with grim resolve.
"Run. Now."
He raised his sword and charged Rune with everything he had, summoning two massive slabs of rock from the earth.
They roared toward Rune from both sides, a crushing death trap.
The slabs collided with a deafening crunch, stone breaking stone.
But Rune wasn't there.
"Who hired this garbage?"
The voice came from right next to Bastion.
Bastion's body locked. He swung his sword blindly, desperately.
But there is no sword... no... his wrists... no, everything above them... was gone?
SHHRRIIKK
Blood sprayed into the air like twin fountains. Bastion stared for one fleeting second before it hit him.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
His scream tore my ears apart. He collapsed, saliva flying from his mouth as he shrieked and shrieked.
"AAAAAHHHH! AAHHHHHHHHHH!" The sound was primal, animal.
His blood pooled fast, black-red on the dirt floor, his arms stumps oozing, squirting, dripping.
He rolled, spasming, his legs kicking at the air as if trying to run from the agony clawing through his nerves.
My stomach flipped. I bit down bile, panting, choking on the metallic stench that filled the shed.
Rune crouched over him, calm, methodical.
He tied the tattered cloth around Bastion's stumps, tightening it until the blood flow stopped. A casual tourniquet… as if saving him.
But then Rune picked up one of the severed hands still clutching the sword.
My eyes widened.
Rune took the blade, cut away the limp fingers, and pried them free.
What remained was a bloody palm, raw and grotesque, flesh dangling from the cut tendons.
Then he shoved it.. Bastion's own palm.. into his mouth.
"MMMMMHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Bastion choked, thrashing as blood poured from the mangled flesh, spilling over his lips, down his chin, gurgling into his throat.
"Yosh!" Rune said, cheerful, eyes glinting like a demon.
"Now he won't die, even if he wants to."
I couldn't breathe... The gore, the screams, the stench.. it filled every corner of me.
My body trembled. My mind screamed to run, but my legs… my legs were stone.
This was hell.
Bastion crawled at the ground, not even trying to stand anymore, just dragging himself through his own blood toward the shattered entrance.
Then Rune caught him. One hand on his ankle.
SHRIIEEK!
Both of Bastion's legs, clean off, from the knees down, flew through the air and slammed against the shed wall with a wet, sick thud.
Flesh burst like a slaughtered pig, blood jetting from the torn stumps in streams, spattering the walls, the floor, me.
"MMMMMMHHHHHHHHH!" His pitch rose and cracked, saliva bubbling from his mouth as he writhed.
His arms beat against the floor, but his body was nothing but meat now, crawling, flopping, screaming.
My stomach twisted, my throat convulsed.
BLUURRGHHH!
I vomited onto the dirt. Sour, acidic bile coated my tongue, the stench mixing with the copper stink of blood until it made me gag again.
When I wiped my mouth, Rune was looking at me. And smiling.
Not just smiling, baring his teeth, wide and shining, like a beast savoring the kill.
My whole body shivered at the sight. The most malicious grin I had ever seen.
My legs twitched, spasming, wanting to bolt. My instincts screamed RUN!
But I couldn't.
Gunther did.
He darted past me in blind panic toward the back exit Bastion has ceased shut with concrete, one foot stomping hard on my palm.
I didn't even register the pain, because right then, a blade spun past my face.
SHHHHRK!
Gunther's legs came off at the thighs, clean, smooth, severed like butter.
His momentum threw him forward, his head bouncing off the dirt floor.
THUMP!
Before slamming again with a sickening crack.
He landed twisted, eyes bloodshot, staring at the feet no longer attached to his body.
He didn't scream.
His mouth contorted, trembling like a child's, drool trailing from his lips as he tried to crawl. His arms dragged his ruined body, pulling with desperation.
But he didn't move. Not an inch. The blood poured too fast, rivers streaming from the twin holes of his thighs, soaking the floor beneath him.
"Kuuek…" he croaked, choking on his own spit.
His hands trembled, clawing air, his eyes bulging as the life drained out of him second by second.
My brain… it stopped. I couldn't register it anymore.
The gore, the screams, the blood.. they blurred together, one endless nightmare.
Then my legs jolted.
Berserk(A).
I felt it ignite, a primal surge pushing through my paralysis.
"Y-Yes!" my mind screamed. My body snapped into motion, throwing me upright.
Run. Run. Run!
I bolted for the back exit.
SCRRIIICH!
My head cracked against the ground, stars exploding in my vision.
One leg wouldn't move.
Dazed, I turned back.
A rusted iron rod from the collapsed basin had pierced through my foot, nailing it into the dirt.
Blood oozed around the jagged metal.
"Aahhh…" A low, broken groan leaked from my lips.
My eyes stung, tears spilling down uncontrollably.
"H-hick…"
A sob escaped me. I cried, trembling, unable to stop it.
BLUURRGHH!
My stomach lurched again and I puked, splattering bile and acid across my own chest.
Rune didn't stop. He walked toward me, calm, carrying a long iron rod in one hand, a bundle of dried grass in the other.
I tried to scream. "N-No! Move away! Don't—!"
But my throat locked. All that came out was a strangled, pathetic "Ack…"
I shook my head violently, left and right, begging him with my eyes.
My body convulsed, every fiber screaming for escape, but my voice… nothing.
Rune didn't speak. Didn't hesitate.
He took the second rod, pressed it to my other foot.. and shoved it through.
SKRRRK!
Like a knife through cake. Smooth. Effortless.
I didn't even feel pain. My mind had gone numb, refusing to acknowledge the horror anymore.
I just stared.
Stared as he pinned me down like a specimen.
He walked past me.
Not even glancing, like I wasn't worth the effort.
Gunther still twitched on the floor, arms scraping in pathetic circles, blood gushing from the ragged stumps of his thighs.
Rune dropped the bundle of dried grass beside him.
Then he bent, picked up two swords from the dirt.
CLINK.
The first sound made my stomach lurch.
SCREEECHHH.
He dragged the blades across one another.
Sparks erupted, fell from the sliding edges.
WHOOOMPH!
They kissed the dry grass and in an instant the flames roared to life.
"No… no no no…" My thoughts tripped over themselves, frantic, choking me from inside.
Rune lowered his head toward the blaze, his lips curling into a smile.. too wide.
A demonic grin. He was already savoring what he was about to do.
The swords rested in the fire, heating, blackening, glowing.
"Move… move damn you…!" I tried to wrench my legs free, thrashing against the rods that pinned me.
The flesh tore, the blood seeped, but nothing gave way.
The rods were nailed deep, and the ground swallowed them whole.
"Pull it out, pull it out!" I grabbed at one rod, my hands slick with sweat and blood, but it didn't budge.
It was fused with the earth itself.
Pain wasn't even the enemy anymore. My body had gone too far, too numb.
I just couldn't escape.
Then came the sound.
SSSSHHHHHH.
Not steel anymore. Not blades.
The swords glowed molten, as if Rune was holding solid magma in his hands.
And he walked to Gunther.
Gunther's body convulsed, mouth foaming, his blood making pools around him.
His eyes rolled, pleading, praying to anyone listening.
Rune crouched. Calm. Gentle.
And pressed both glowing blades against the gaping holes where Gunther's legs had been.
SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
The hiss was deafening. Flesh boiled. The smell... thick, choking, sweet and rancid all at once slammed into my nose.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Gunther's scream tore through my skull.
His body thrashed, convulsed so violently I thought his spine would snap.
"AAHHHHHHHH! NOOOO! NOOOOO! BLUURRGHHH! HUEECCCCHHHH!"
He vomited mid-scream, bile and blood spewing from his mouth, spraying down his chin.
His shrieks twisted, cracking into sobs, then bursting into fresh agony as the fire ate deeper.
Rune pressed harder. Enjoying it. The sizzling never stopped.
"NOOOAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Gunther's voice broke into a wet gargle. His eyes bulged so far I thought they'd pop.
His skin blistered, blackened, smoke curling from the wounds.
And then… silence.
Only the hiss.
I felt cold. A breeze brushing my sweat-soaked face. My vision blurred, my eyelids heavy as stones.
My head dropped with a dull THUD, cheek landing in something wet. Sticky.