The words buzzed in the air with weight they should not have possessed.
Who decided?
The Butcher and others blinked in silence.
Then The Butcher replied as a matter of fact, his voice holding the confusion of a man confronting something outside his understanding.
"Well...your chest was torn and your heart was shredded. That is dead."
He gestured at Damian with his serrated blade.
"You... are you a Tokoloshe?"
...!
A Tokoloshe.
In the oldest stories passed down through generations of tribes, a Tokoloshe was a spirit that refused to accept its own death. A ghost given flesh through sheer malice or unfinished purpose, walking among the living while belonging to neither the realm of breath nor the realm of silence. They were said to haunt the places where great violence had occurred, wearing the bodies of the slain like ill-fitting garments.
Damian shook his head slowly as he flexed his hands to feel the force he could now apply to the broken spear halves.
The sensation was intoxicating.
He had forgotten what it felt like to have strength. The kind that came from Mana flowing through skin that could actually hold it.
"I am not some ghost."
His voice was steady and calm.
"I simply decided that...I did not need to be dead."
...!
Because who was this Butcher to decide his life and death? In the Lands of Stone, why was it that others…could arbitrarily make such a decision for him?
The Butcher looked at this scene.
He shook his head with incredulity, a harsh laugh escaping his lips. The confusion in his eyes hardened back into familiar brutality. Whatever this thing before him was, ghost or miracle or something else entirely, it did not matter.
It had killed one of his men.
And The Butcher of the Golden Tribe did not leave debts unpaid.
"What a ridiculous and nonsensical thing..."
His muscles coiled with Mana.
"Let me ensure your corpse will not remain in a single piece this time!"
BOOM!
The Butcher moved once more.
And the brief silence and inaction that had remained here burst into life again like a glorious dance of blood and violence.
Now, when a Warrior at the peak of Flesh Awakening charged toward you, there were a few things you could do.
You could stand your ground and die.
You could run and die slightly later.
Or you could think.
Damian, at this moment, grabbed the broken spear tighter in both hands as he breathed in.
And the breath... actually drew in Mana.
He could not help but feel exhilarated.
The sensation was like drinking cold water after wandering through a desert for years. Like breathing fresh air after being buried alive. The Mana flowed into his lungs, seeped through his flesh, and settled into places that had been empty for so long he had forgotten they existed.
Many thoughts flashed across his mind rapidly as he pulled up everything he knew about Mana from the farthest reaches of his memory.
His mother's lessons. His father's demonstrations. The knowledge of someone who had been groomed to rule an empire before it was all taken.
Not all individuals were equal in their potential for power in the Lands of Stone.
This was a truth that shaped many tribes. There were two critical factors of Sensitivity and Capacity.
Mana Sensitivity determined how easily one could perceive and absorb Mana. Those with high sensitivity could sense Mana from birth, naturally drawing it into themselves with every breath as if the very air wished to fill them with power. Those with low sensitivity might live near Mana-rich environments their entire lives without ever feeling the currents of energy flowing around them. They would watch others grow strong while they remained ordinary, never understanding what they were missing.
Mana Capacity determined how much Mana the body could ultimately hold and utilize. It was the size of the vessel, the depth of the well. Someone with high sensitivity but low capacity could advance across Flesh Awakening with ease, drinking in Mana like a fish drinks water, but they would plateau quickly, their small vessel filling to the brim with nowhere left to grow. Someone with low sensitivity but high capacity might struggle for years to even begin advancing, fighting for every drop of Mana they could grasp, but if they succeeded, they would achieve heights the sensitive but shallow could never reach.
The ideal combination of high sensitivity and high capacity was rare.
Those who possessed both were the true monsters of the Lands of Stone.
Now, the rampaging Flesh Awakening Warrior in front of him should be mediocre on all accounts. The Butcher had clearly relied on brutality and violence to reach his position rather than exceptional talent. His Mana moved with force but without refinement. His techniques were savage but simple.
But mediocre or not, he was still powerful.
Still a peak Flesh Awakening Warrior whose body had been drinking Mana for years.
Still capable of tearing Damian apart with a single well-placed blow.
So as The Butcher of the Golden Tribe charged toward him with murder blazing in his eyes...
Damian also charged forward.
As if he was about to have a grand battle.
As if he intended to meet this monster head-on in a clash of strength and will!
And then...he shifted his feet rapidly to pass to the right of The Butcher, ignoring him completely.
...!
"You!"
The Butcher turned around quickly, his serrated blade singing through the air where Damian had been a heartbeat before. The swing was powerful enough to bisect a man from shoulder to hip. It carved nothing but empty space.
The one thing Damian had with his slightly scrawny body was a bit of speed and the element of surprise.
He had spent years being underestimated. Being invisible to Warriors who could not conceive of a threat from someone without Mana.
Now that invisibility served him.
He slipped out like a snake from the grasps of The Butcher, his feet carrying him toward the cluster of fighting Warriors where Uncle Adam still battled against multiple opponents. The old soldier was bleeding from a dozen wounds. His movements had slowed. But he was still fighting, still refusing to fall, still buying time for a someone he had thought was dead.
Damian's arm drew back.
The sharp broken spear felt right in his hand. Felt like it belonged there. The weight was familiar, the balance was true, and now, for the first time in years, he had the force of Mana to put behind it.
He threw.
SUI!
The broken stone spear flew through the air with speed it had never possessed before. It was not the throw of a farmer defending his fields. It was the throw of someone who had been trained by masters, someone whose body remembered techniques that his shattered foundation had once made useless!
It found its way to the back of the head of the Warrior attacking Uncle Adam.
SQUELCH!
'Ugh.'
The sound was a horrible one.
Damian was still not entirely used to it, no matter how many times he heard it today. The spear went all the way through, entering at the base of the skull and emerging from the eye socket in a spray of bone and brain matter. The Warrior did not scream or twitch. Simply dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, dead before his body knew to fall!