A story of a hundred years ago: The imperial army had been advancing towards the Snow-Fang Tribe for 2 months now and they had finally reached the mountain slope. At the top of it waited 39 warriors of the Snow-Fang Tribe on their feathered bears. Below was the imperial army, numbering 314 men, lingering their commander’s command.
A young Thirgheth, sitting on her mount, was at the foremost front of her tribe’s warriors. She had become the new chief just a few weeks ago. To her right was her most trusted companion and lover, Tharkmis. To her left stood four individuals who did not have a feathered bear. They were criminals of their tribe. The worst of the worst whose punishment should have been execution. Instead of execution, they were assigned the role to attack the enemies first to give their tribe a rough estimation of their enemies’ strength.
One of those four was, Krugroll, one of their strongest warriors. He had committed the crime of killing an entire family because he didn’t like the way one of them talked to him. He was a despicable pile of trash, but he was still a respected warrior because of his strength.
On the imperials’ side, one unarmed, thinly clothed man walked a few metres forward. He was clothed so lightly that even the barbarians that grew up in the cold mountains shivered at the thought of walking around like that. Judging by the way the soldiers treated him, Thirgheth guessed him to be the highest ranking individual on their side.
“It’s your time. Go and show us what they can do.” Thirgheth ordered in a cold voice.
Three of them quickly ran forward, weapons in their hands and glad to be allowed to die in battle. Unlike the other three, Krugroll trotted forward and observed how the battle between the thinly clothed man and the three warriors would process.
The first reached him a few seconds earlier than the others and swung his sabre, made from a moon tiger’s fang, at him. The man swiftly dodged his strike with minimal movement to the side, grabbed him by his wrist and neck and swiped him off his legs. Simultaneously, the man used his hand on the barbarian’s neck to make him fall backwards. When he landed on the ground, the man used his hand on the wrist to spin it and stab the barbarian with his own sword in the heart right through the armour.
He immediately stood back up again, pulled out the sword of the warrior’s lifeless body and anticipated the other two’s attacks. The second one, equipped with a short sword and a leather shield, put up his shield and stabbed his sword forward. The man parried the sword with the stolen sabre, took a quick step forward to close the gap between them and hit his opponent hard in the face. The warrior stumbled from the impact and the third warrior tried to stab the imperial man with his spear. The latter ducked, pushed the spear away with his arm, took a step forward and briskly stabbed him through the throat. He wasted no time, pulled the sword out again and faced the shielded barbarian again.
The barbarian, not caring about what just happened to the other two, rushed to slam the man with his shield. The man spun to the warrior’s left side, evading the slam, while switching the sabre to his left hand and stabbed him through the side of his neck. The barbarian fell to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
The thinly clothed and originally unarmed man had taken out three of the Snow-Fang Tribe’s warriors in less than a minute. This obviously raised the morale of the imperials and lowered that of the barbarians.
Krugroll was an exception. At first, he was disappointed that he would have to die during a battle against a bunch of weaklings, but now, he was exited to battle against that strong man.
He stopped 3m in front of him and announced with a huge grin on his face, “I am Krugroll Biggurn! Proud warrior of the Snow-Fang Tribe!”
The man, who seemed as thin as a stick compared to Krugroll, responded, “I am Kazamir! Proud serial killer, mass murderer and genocider of the human race! And a commander in the imperial army, but that isn’t important. I only became commander because I killed the previous one anyway.”
“…Is murder something normal down on the plains?”
“No, that’s just me. I’m pretty fucked up in the head.”
“…”
“Anyway, you wanna continue talking or finally go to the killing part?”
“Yeah, let’s get to the killing part.” Krugroll answered and took on his battle stance with his spiked mace.
Kazamir threw away the bloodied sword and gestured at him to ‘come at me’ with his hand. Krugroll carefully approached him and swung his mace at his legs. Kazamir performed a flying side kick to his lower jaw, but the barbarian managed to block it just in time with his bulging forearm.
Next, he tried to ram Kazamir, using their difference in size and weight to his advantage. Kazamir sidestepped and punched him in the liver. Taken off-guard, Krugroll stumbled and the imperial commander used that chance to put his right arm with the spiked mace in an armlock. Before he even knew what was going on, Kazamir broke his arm. After he got let go, Krugroll stood up again as fast as he could.
He was now unarmed and had a broken right arm. Blinded by the pain and the weird fighting style he had never seen before, he rushed in and threw a punch with his left. Kazamir countered by kicking him between the legs. As he fell forward in pain, Kazamir punched him in the face and broke his nose. Tears filled the warrior’s eyes and blurred his vision.
Kazamir immediately followed up by grabbing his hair and hitting the back of his head with his elbow. Krugroll fell to the ground. He was dead. But Kazamir always made sure that his opponents were really 100% dead. He lifted his leg high up and brang it down on the barbarian’s neck.
*Crack*
His neck was smashed, but Kazamir wasn’t done yet. He grabbed the head and started turning it over and over again until he could pull it off. It was a bloody mess. The blood sprouted out like a fountain but he didn’t care.
He took the head by the long plaited brown hair and started spinning it like a rope. He made eye-contact with Thirgheth and gestured ‘come at me’ at her.
“He’s strong. Don’t let him provoke you.” Tharkmis warned her.
“I won’t.”
At that moment, one of their rangers returned. Their job was it to study the imperial army from a higher point. The most important part was to watch out wether they had brought those big weapons, catapults, with them.
“Chief, they have around 300 men. They brought no big weapons with them.”
“Good. Bring the boulders.”
Since they already knew ahead of time that the battle would take place on the mountain slope, they prepared a little something for the imperials. The warriors at the back pushed a dozen boulders 2m in diameter to where the slope started going downhill.
When they came in sight, Kazamir only reacted with a surprised face. There was no worry or fear in him. Even the soldiers behind him were free of fear, though they were worried about evading all these boulders. When the boulders came rolling downhill, the soldiers quickly ran to the sides so that the men in the centre of their formation would have enough space to dodge the incoming threat.
One of them came straight for Kazamir, but he calmly hopped to the side and easily avoided it. As for the soldiers, most of them escaped death, except for a few unlucky ones.
“What the…?!”
Tharkmis, Thirgheth and all the other warriors were surprised at this outcome. They didn’t expect that this would destroy or do much damage to the imperial army, but they thought that it’d cause a lot more chaos among their ranks. But not only were the casualties a LOT lower than they had expected or hoped for, they all seemed to be completely calm, as if this was just a daily routine for them.
“Is this what the entire imperial army is like?”
What the barbarians didn’t know, was that it wasn’t the imperial army that was so efficient, but Kazamir’s unit. Kazamir was a crazy bastard and they experienced that first-hand. Sometimes, he would start a fire in their midst in the middle of the night and call it ‘special training’ afterwards. He’d also lead them into crazy and unrealistic battles and tell them to win. One time, he forced them to fight a battle against 1.000 men strong army with no great battle tactics or advantageous environment. Another time, he had started a war with a small country for absolutely no reason.
They had filed complains to the imperial knights, senior commanders and imperial family in hopes they would take away his title of commander, but that never happened. Kazamir brought too many good results for them to just dismiss him and because of that his soldiers had to continue to survive under his command.
Like that, they had gotten used to the crazy and unusual. A dozen boulders coming down at them from the top of a mountain was nothing to them. They had enough time to run and the boulders weren’t too large to evade.
“What should we do now?”
“What can we do? We have no choice but to face them head on. *Deep inhale* ATTACK!”
At her command, the warriors all rode down to fight an already decided battle, or so they had thought.
“ATTACK!” A woman in a shining silver armour lead the imperial soldiers into battle.
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She had short golden-blonde hair. Her well-trained, yet feminine body was hidden by the iron armour she was wearing. In her hand was a rapier, ready to strike down her enemies. She was the secretary of the commander, Eudeline Rikild.
Usually, the job of a secretary meant doing the paper work and not going into battle, but she wasn’t a secretary because she wanted to be. Originally, she was just another soldier with no special position, but because she was so good at quickly doing what her commander, Kazamir, told her to do, no matter how weird or crazy it sounded, she was appointed as his secretary. Though, in this case it had the same meaning as ‘slave’, though, she had grown quite close to the commander. She was the only friend he had. Except for that one weirdo, but he didn’t count because they also hated each other. Because of Kazamir’s incompetence as a leader, she had to take up that role and lead the unit.
When the imperial army clashed with the Snow-Fang Tribe, something unexpected happened. With every swing of her axe, Thirgheth sent at least 5 men flying and so did her feathered bear.
At that sight, Kazamir’s excitement started to rise. Ever since he was little, he had always desired to die at the hands of someone unbelievably strong, but he had never met a person like that before. He had met many strong people, that was indisputable, but they weren’t ‘unbelievably’ strong. Save for one, but he didn’t want to die to him because he didn’t like him. Dying to him would have been shameful. But now, he had finally met a person so strong, he would gladly die at her hands. Though, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try his best to survive and win against her.
He started walking up the slope towards her. He didn’t have to run because he knew none of his soldiers would be able to kill or seriously injure her anyway. As he was approaching, Thirgheth’s feathered bear noticed him. Its instincts were telling it that he was dangerous so it immediately reacted by putting up its feathers to seem twice as big as its original size and letting out a powerful roar that shook the entire battlefield.
Kazamir responded in kind and let out a roar himself. His roar was more beast-like than that of any real beast. It shook not only the battlefield, but the entire mountain. Her feathered bear took a few steps back in fear and terror of this foe. Thirgheth realised this, dismounted and sent her mount to help the others.
After she had done so, Kazamir sprinted towards her, rotating Krograll’s head in his right hand. As soon as he was in reach, she swung her battle axe at him with unbelievable speed, and yet, he evaded it. He abruptly stopped centimetres before he was in reach and simultaneously let go of the plaited hair, letting the head fly at her face as a result.
She caught it before it hit her and threw it to the side, out of her sight, but it was already too late. During the time her sight was blocked, he had kicked her lower leg. Thirgheth gritted her teeth, resisted the pain and kept on strongly standing upright. She swung her axe back again as fast as she could. Kazamir lowered his body to the ground and let the attack fly over him.
He swiftly got back up and tried to kick her liver, but she blocked him with her arm. She reacted immediately and grabbed his leg with her other hand. With her inhuman strength, she lifted him into the air. She thought she could catch him off guard by doing that and tried to use that chance to split him in half. Unfortunately for her, Kazamir reacted instantly. He pulled himself closer to her by bending his caught leg and used the momentum he got from that to deliver a knee kick right in her face, breaking her nose.
While her sight was blinded by her tears, he precisely chopped her shoulder, dislocating it and breaking her collar bone. Now, with her grip on his leg loosened, he pushed himself off her body with his free leg, escaping from her grasp. He fell down to the ground and rolled a few metres down the slope.
‘How is he doing that?’ Thirgheth wondered as she relocated her shoulder.
What she was confused about was Kazamir’s fighting style. When he was moving, he was as quick as lightning and as light as a feather, but when he was attacking, he was as strong as a beast and as heavy as a boulder. It didn’t make sense. How could a human move like that? What did he have to go through to be able to move like that? Thoughts like that shot through her mind when she though about it.
The answer as to how he was doing that was simple: martial arts. But not just any martial arts. His’ were martial arts that were created and perfected on the battlefield. While most of his techniques were created purely for efficiency, he had also created some flashier, less efficient ones to throw his opponents off.
“Die!” A warrior screamed as he attacked Kazamir in order to help his chief.
“Don’t!” Thirgheth tried to stop him, but it was already too late.
Kazamir calmly dodged the attack without even looking and elbowed his chin. Then he grabbed him by the hair, pulled his head down backwards and broke his neck with a knee kick. As a finisher, he crushed his skull with his an axe kick.
“Now then, shall we resume our fight?”
In that moment, Thirgheth had wanted to rush at him and save her fellow warrior so badly, but she only bit her lips instead. She knew that if she did that, she would die just as easily as all the other warriors he had killed. She needed to keep a cool head. He was the strongest opponent she had ever met and would probably ever meet.
They continued their battle. As he ran towards her, he picked up a sword from one of the fallen soldiers on the ground and threw it. She wanted to dodge it but she realised that it was unnecessary. The sword flew past her, straight into the chest of a young soldier that was sneaking up on her.
‘He killed his own ally?!’
“She’s mine, fuckers!”
‘Crazy. He’s insane!’
A certain feeling arose in her heart that she had never felt before. Not when her elder brother was killed during battle with another tribe’s warrior. Not when she was betrayed by one of her friend during a hunt. Not when the warriors of her tribe were killed by Kazamir. Anger.
Her brother’s death was an honourably one, one of a warrior. Her friend had betrayed her because she wanted to survive, and that was alright. Everyone wants to live. The warriors killed by Kazamir also all died an honourably death. She could forgive all of those and never felt anger or hatred because of them.
But killing your own ally?! Your fellow warrior?! As a chief and as a warrior, such an act was unforgivable, which is why she also resented Krograll. But she didn’t feel anger, but rather, disappointment at both him and herself for letting something like that happen.
When Kazamir got into striking range, she didn’t attack him, but, instead, stomped on the ground with so much force that the ground broke. If even just for a second, Kazamir lost his balance. Thirgheth used that chance to swing her axe down at him. Her downward swing was much, much faster and stronger than all of her previous attacks.
Kazamir could neither completely block nor evade it so he decided to sacrifice his arm. Her axe brutally cut off his left arm, and yet, he didn’t even flinch. He didn’t waste any time and kneed her liver, and yet she showed no reaction. Thirgheth used her left fist to punch him in the face with all her might and broke all of his face bones.
In order to not be thrown away, he had grabbed her by the hair before her punch landed. He followed up with a head butt to her chin, knocking her out for a few seconds, though it had cracked his skull a bit, too. Then, he kicked her leg to bring her down to her knees quicker and chopped not her shoulder but her head, splitting it a little open.
Her body fell face-first to the ground. Kazamir still stood on his feet, but his head was spinning and he was out of breath. The blood flowed out from his severed arm and coloured the ground beneath them red. This was the first time he ever used this much strength against a single opponent.
Before he could finish her off, she suddenly jumped forward and grappled him with her robust body. The exhausted Kazamir couldn’t escape her grasp. They rolled down the slope together, crushing the soldiers in their way, until they finally came to a stop. Before he could regain his sense of orientation and stand back up again properly, Thirgheth swung down her battle axe again and split his head in half. He was dead. His body went limp and she threw him even further down the slope.
“Commander!” Eudeline cried out when she saw his corpse rolling down the slope.
She rushed towards it and caught it. She checked his wounds and body functions, only to realise that he was truly dead. The man who had killed over a hundred men at once and came out with but a few scratches. The man who had fought and humiliated some of the strongest fighters on the continent without breaking a sweat. The man who once single-handedly defeated an entire army in a head-on fight. Dead!
“Retreat! Everyone retreat!” She ordered the soldiers.
Without their commander, their fighting prowess was much lower than they’d like to admit, and most important, the person that was able to kill their commander was still alive and seemed ready to fight. Even if they won, the losses would be too great so she decided to retreat. This whole attack was just a decision made on a whim by their commander anyway.
“They’re running away! We won! We won!” The remaining barbarians shouted in joy.
“Thirgheth!”
Tharkmis ran towards his half-dead, wounded lover. It was a wonder that she was still alive with such an head injury. One could even see a tiny little bit of her brain. The moment he arrived next to her, she collapsed.
“Thirgheth! Thirgheth!”
She was still alive and only passed out. He carried her back to their village on his feathered bear as fast as he could.
The war between the Snow-Fang Tribe and the imperial army. 39 warriors against 314 soldiers. 7 warriors and 186 soldiers survived.
The soldiers retreated until they reached the base of the mountain. They put up their tents and gathered all the corpses they managed to take with them. Eudeline took Kazamir’s corpse to her tent. She didn’t know what to do now. The possibility of him dying had never crossed her mind.
Not knowing what to do, she started praying to god, ‘Oh great Zephyr. Please give this lowly believer of yours a sign on what to do.’
Her mind was filled with nothing but plans for the future and prayers so as to distract herself from his death. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when she believed to have seen his body twitch.
“…Commander?”
‘No, that’s impossible. I’ve alrea-.’
“Aaaaaaah!” She suddenly screamed on top of her lungs as Kazamir’s body straightened up.
“Is this the afterlife?”
“W-What? C-Commander? What are you talk- No, how are you alive?! Are you alright?! What about your injury?!”
“Don’t scream. You know I don’t like that.” He said as he covered his ears with both of his hands.
That’s right. Both of his hands. His severed arm was back and his split skull was whole again.
“What…What’s going on? What is this?!” He screamed as he palpated his body where he should have been hurt.
Then he quickly ran outside, looking for a pool of water. The still shocked Eudeline hurried after him. She wanted to ask him what was going on, but she could tell that he didn’t know either, so she silently followed. He arrived at the river they had camped near to and looked at his reflection. Where his skull should have been split open, only a scar remained.
“WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT’S GOING ON?! WHY AM I NOT DEAD?!” Kazamir wailed in despair.
His perfect death was ruined. He had finally found a ridiculously strong person that could and would kill him. He had died to her hands, he knew it. He knew he died when her axe chopped his skull, there was no mistaking it. He had reached the goal of his life. He could not have had a better death.
“SO WHY AM I STILL ALIVE?!” He cried out again.
His screams attracted attention and a guard walked towards where they were, “Dame Eudeline, what is going on?”
“Nothing. Don-”
Before she could tell off the guard that had come, Kazamir rushed at him, grabbed and crushed his neck and stole the sword hanging on his hip.
“Commander?!”
She tried to stop his next actions, but he was too quick. He had already stabbed himself with the sword and fell to the ground. She immediately checked his pulse and breathing. He was still barely alive but unconscious. She couldn’t carry him to the medics because she was worried that the movement might kill him or worsen his wound to the extent that they wouldn’t heal anymore, so she dashed to the medics.
When she returned with them less than 5 minutes later, he was gone. Left was only the corpse of the guard and a bloody sword on the ground. There were no traces to where he might have gone to. It was as if he had simply disappeared.