Alexander King, or as most people called him nowadays, chief Alex was a normal man before the apocalypse. As normal as any chief of police was, anyway. Aside from that, though, he was a son, a brother, and most of all, a single father of one. Unfortunately, the apocalypse took all of that away.

He was in a meeting with his lieutenants the day it happened. He even thought that it was a pretty boring day, until, of course, red beams of light literally just burst out of the ground where little green creatures which he now knew as goblins came rushing out.

The system did end up containing those invasion gates, though, so it mitigated their losses. And of course, their guns still worked. They killed most of the goblins that managed to pass through in the small window of time that the gates were open, but that was only for the ones close to them.

Chief Alex led what was left of the police force around the city, gathering survivors and killing every non-human hostile that they encountered.

Eventually, they ran out of bullets and had to scour every house for ammunition. During this search, they happened upon a curious sight. A man with glowing red eyes and red veins visibly pulsing on the hand that held the axe was massacring everything that he came across, whether it be goblin or human. Nothing escaped him.

Alex tried to talk to him, tried to tell him to stop his madness, but it was as if the man couldn’t hear him. He even attacked Alex and the other police officers. They tried to forcefully remove the axe from the man’s hand, but it was stuck to him. And with the countless goblins closing in on their position, Alex made a choice. They put him down. “It’s a mercy.” He told himself.

After that, they eyed the suspicious axe. Some voted to leave it be as it was obviously cursed, others said that it was dangerous to just leave it alone as someone might pick it up and end up becoming a second axe murderer. So Alex stepped forward.

“Kill me if I become crazy.” He said to his people before bending down and picking it up.

Axe of the Fated End (EPIC) has bonded with user Alexander King…

Bound… (1/3)…

-This axe is a cursed weapon that takes the bound’s life force in exchange for power beyond one’s imagination-

Requirements:

-Class of sufficient authority-

-Must always have 3 bound lifeforms upon activation-

Do you wish to activate…?

[Yes/No]

WARNING! MAY LEAD TO MADNESS AND DETERIORATION IF THE REQUIREMENTS ARE NOT MET!

He looked at the notification in front of him and blanked. “I guess that guy activated it without meeting the requirements.” He thought as he noted one requirement glowing green. “I guess my [Chief] class has enough authority. Hmmm.”

He was torn. Using this item could very well give them the power to take back the city and save the most people, maybe even save some of their family members in the process. But was he willing to condemn himself and two others to certain death for that purpose?

“Sarah…”

The answer was yes.

Alex turned his head toward his people and looked at his two most trusted lieutenants. He beckoned them over and explained the power that the axe held. And after thinking it over for just a second, Otto and Josiah touched the axe and bonded with it. After all, they also had families that needed saving.

And so they went, with renewed conviction and the power to kill any enemy they came across. They gathered every survivor and every gun that they could find and took back Louisville. Unfortunately, because they prioritized their duties as police officers, most of them paid the ultimate sacrifice.

At the end of it all, only five percent of the total population of the city survived apocalypse day. Most were killed by the invaders, some… by their fellow man. This infuriated Alex and the remaining police. Some of them sacrificed their lives for the city and some even chose their duty instead of going to save their families. And this is how some wannabe warlords wanted to do things?

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Alex was infuriated. And for the first time in his life, he decided to take the law into his own hands. He took his axe and all those who were willing to go with him, which was every police officer left, and went to kill the wannabe warlord and his thugs.

And a few hours later, Alex kneeled on the ground. He looked at his hands that were drenched in blood, and couldn’t help but think. “Too easy… Why was it so easy? Was my life dedicated to upholding the law all in vain? Was it all just a joke?” He collapsed on the ground and hugged his knees. He felt defeated despite their overwhelming victory against the gang.

Then he heard footsteps drawing near and shouted for whoever it was to go away. He didn’t want anyone to see how pathetic he was right now. He’d failed to protect the city, the people, and his daughter, and now he’d taken several lives, completely defying his core principles.

Alex looked at the cursed axe in his hand and brought the blade up to his throat, intending to just end it all. After all, taking lives was as simple as a swipe of his axe.

“Chief, please don’t… the people need you… now more than ever.” Josiah pleaded.

“Chief, we’re here for you.” Otto said.

Then several more hurried footsteps sounded from the distance. The rest of the police force came, and all begged him to stay with them. One in particular, John Harris, raised his pistol and aimed it at his temple.

“Chief! I understand how you feel and I’m ready to follow, but please, we need you! The people, they need you!”

“John… That’s just not fair…”

“I don’t care! We barely survived and saved our families, thanks to you. I doubt we’ll live much longer without you leading us!”

The rest of the police officers followed suit and aimed their guns at their heads. Even Otto and Josiah joined in.

Alex looked at all of his people and didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. Laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation or cry happy tears because he’d inspired such loyalty from them.

So, he slowly lowered his axe and told everyone to lower theirs. “I do not know if I deserve such loyalty from all of you, but I’ll do my best to not betray it.”

Memories of the first two days of the apocalypse flooded Alex’s mind as he rushed to the south gate. With the added strength from the axe and Noah’s spell, he was running so fast that everything became a blur.

And when he got to the battlements, he felt a sense of dread. There were too many orcs.

Because of the repeated attacks from the orcs and spiders over the days, there were fewer people than the original thirty-nine thousand survivors they managed to save when they took back the city. Of that number, only around eighty percent were capable of combat, and that was stretching it.

“Chief! Everyone is in position!” Otto said from behind him.

“Good. We need to buy as much time as possible for the rankers to get here, so we’re going to need traps. Have the earth mages made the pits?”

“Yes, sir! They made them as deep as they could!”

“Good.” Alex nodded as he looked back at the orc army. “How many of them are there?” He asked a nearby scout.

“Around a thousand, chief.”

That number made a shiver run down his spine. Although they outnumbered the orcs thirty to one, the average level of the enemy was much, much higher than theirs.

“Have the mages seal up the gate and come up the battlements.” He said to Otto.

“Right away!”

He watched as Otto left and went to relay his orders. A few minutes later, the south gate was filled up with earth, closing the only way in or out of the city within the immediate vicinity. After that was done, the mages came to him and awaited orders.

“Okay men, women, I need you guys to position yourselves across the battlements separately. When you see any orc climb the walls and get high enough, you need to push them off. Got it?”

“Yes, chief!” They said in chorus.

Just then, a massive fireball hit the wall directly below them, making the wall shake. Alex hurriedly looked over the edge and was relieved to see that there was minimal damage at the point of impact. “I guess water isn’t the only thing that wins against fire.” He thought as he grinned.

RAAAAAHHHH

He heard the orcs roar a war cry, and he saw them start running. Multiple massive fireballs hit the walls, some got too close to the battlements and gave a few people burns. “Shit! Those shamans are going to be trouble.”

He activated his skill [Commanding Shout] and said. “Everyone! Step away from the edge of the battlements! Archers, mages and anyone else with a long-range attack spell, fire at will!”

“Yes, chief!” Everyone replied.

Projectiles of all shapes and sizes launched from the people and at the orc army. Fireballs, icicles, rocks, waterballs, wind blades, there were even some bone projectiles thrown in the mix. The attacks hit and damaged the normal orcs, no problem, but when it came to the warriors, their attacks were stopped by the red auras.

If that wasn’t bad enough, another war cry sounded out, but this time, it came from the warchief. A green aura spread out from it and surrounded every orc, making them move faster. “Hopefully it only affects their speed.” Alex thought.

WHOOSH

An arrow whizzed by his head as it almost hit him. “Too close!” He thought as others weren’t so lucky. Two archers got hit in their torsos. The first one received a hit in their right lung, barely missing his heart, while the other got hit in the abdomen. Thankfully, neither was critical and only took a few spells from the healers before they were back to shooting arrows.

“Fuck! We won’t last long like this!” Alex was inwardly panicking but didn’t let it show on his face. “I feel so helpless just standing here.”

“Chief! The orcs have started climbing!” Otto said.

“Okay!” He activated his skill again and said. “All earth mages, be prepared! The orcs have started climbing!”

And so he waited, and waited, until an orc’s head peaked out of the edge of the wall. “Now!” He shouted.

Several small earth pillars materialized in front of the orc’s hands and feet, causing it to lose its grip and fall to its death. This repeated for every orc that got high enough on the wall, cutting down the numbers of the enemy by quite a bit. But then, another roar echoed throughout the area as the warchief issued another command.

Several orc warriors that made Alex shiver ran up to the base of the wall and jumped. They couldn’t jump high enough to clear the wall, but as they reached their apex, they dug their hands and feet into the earth of the wall. Then they jumped again. This happened several times with the earth mages panicking and trying to push them off, but the orc warriors were too fast.

Eventually, a few of the warriors reached the top and the melee fighters finally stepped in to protect the mages and archers.

Alex saw this and held his axe tight. “Drink up.” He said to the axe as purple veins spread from his hand to his arm.