Ander choked out a gasp as the demon held him off the ground, slowly increasing the pressure around his neck.
“Mum! Help!” Ander yelled but nothing more than a whisper made it past his throat. He was going to die. Other demons moved past the disabled fighters with ease, some killing them as they went but most moved towards the other kids who were now screaming in terror as much as Ander wanted to.
Ander kicked at the monster but it was like kicking iron and all he got out of it was a terrifying smile from the monster’s fang-filled maw.
A roar startled Ander and the demon pulled him bodily to the side as Leo staggered into view as he hacked down two monsters, “Drop the boy!”
Ander felt a flicker of hope as Leo charged toward him but it vanished as the bonedrinker battered him aside and plunged its claws into his side before kicking him into a group of wolf-like monsters.
Tears began to stream down Ander’s face as the monster brought its attention back to him. The storm roared overhead and an explosion dragged his attention away from the monster’s horrible eyes. His vision began to fade but a sudden feeling of dread so potent his eyes widened and he began to scream.
The screams from the pain of injuries and fear of death all around him were replaced by blood-curdling screams of terror. The monsters killing the fallen guards froze and spun to face the storm even the monster strangling froze and turned its head.
Ander’s throat cracked but still he screamed. Blinded by terror his gaze flickered around the sky before they latched onto a dark shape falling from the storm, it was man. The monster holding him moved over the fallen to see the man as they reached the ground.
The man looked like he was about to hit the path head first but at the last moment, he brought his legs down to slam into the path. The whole platform shuddered from the force of the man’s landing and the monster holding him hissed and moved to stand at the front of the monsters.
The man was huge, easily a foot taller than the largest fighter Ander had seen, and wearing strange black armor partially covered by a cloak. His right arm dangled from his side and Ander could see it was covered in blood but the other held a large black sword. But what Ander couldn’t take his eyes from was the man’s eyes. They burned red with flickers of gold moving through them.
Blood dripped from all over him but the man’s expression was neutral as he leaned on his sword for a moment before tearing it from the ground. Ander almost started screaming again as the man’s gaze fell on him but then the fear was suddenly replaced by a sense of calm. He wasn’t this man’s enemy.
Ander choked as the monster tightened its grip and the man’s expression darkened. Ander didn’t look away and used his only skill. His body suddenly started to burn and more tears came to his eyes but he managed to read the display.
[Kalum Lesta | Slayer of Fate ??]
“It’s Him!”
The monster holding him froze up and Ander fell from its grip. No longer paralyzed with fear, Ander scampered away from the monster closer to Him. Dalen had said he wasn’t that strong but Ander could tell just by looking at the man that it wasn’t true.
Even wounded he radiated strength. Kalum Lesta took a step before he charged along the path and all around Ander the demons flinched but roared and hissed before charging towards him in turn.
The quicker wolf-like monsters made it to him first but his left hand moved and five died in a single swing as heads rolled and bodies were sliced into. Then he moved faster as the wounds on his legs faded. Three more died, his blade and another’s body crumpled as his boot came down on its neck.
The clawed monster arrived next but his right arm snapped up from its side to snatch a flanking monster from the air, snapping its neck and pivoting to bludgeon the next monster to the ground with the corpse. The monster who had strangled him attacked as Kalum hacked six more, his body seeming stronger with every step as he strode through the horde of monsters.
The monster attacked from the cover of its dying kin but He ducked the first claw and deflected the second with his black blade before spinning to block a second monster’s attack then kicked backward hard taking the first monster hard enough that Ander heard its ribs break.
As the first monster tumbled away he caught the arm of the monster during its next attack and slammed it into the ground before it suddenly burst into crimson flame.
Ander watched in amazement He fought, “They were right…” A thrill of excitement and terror ran through him but he could turn away.
Twisted screams of agony sounded across the path but they died as the slayer stomped down on the monster’s skull before pivoting to hack through more demons. His speed increased and he darted between groups of monsters leaving nothing but corpses in between clashes with the larger ones.
The burning in Ander’s chest intensified and he suddenly found it hard to remain sitting but even lying there he watched the slayer kill.
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“Save my mum…”
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Dalen choked out a mouthful of blood as he suddenly awoke to screaming. At first, he thought it was a fighter but it sounded wrong. He opened his burning eyes to absolute chaos, the demons were everywhere but none of them fighting the order’s people.
Health:
543/980
Stamina:
0/240
Mana:
0/2560
He could barely move but something made him push through agony and turn his head. A large muscular man in dark armor moved through demons like a scythe through grass, every step reinforced by both savage strength and speed.
Dalen tried to identify the man but his eyes simply burned and his chest twisted making him fall.
One of the powerful bone drinkers moved to end him from behind but the man’s feet stood firm as he raised his bare left arm to intercept the claws.
Dalen grimaced expecting blood but his eyes widened as the claws bounced off the man’s skin as if it was made of iron before the man turned the intercept into a grab of the demon’s arm and hacked it off at the elbow. As the demon screamed at the loss of the limb the man’s boot shattered its right knee and it fell, failing to catch itself with the loss of its arm.
The man’s assault never stopped, he moved to the next group of demons and slaughtered them as he battled even the strongest of them with ease. A second sword appeared in his hand before it burst into flames and flew through the air to take a sky hunter from the sky as he decapitated a garghound noble and shattered the neck of a slaughter.
“What?... Who?...” Dalen gasped.
Pillars of green flame arced over the fallen men and women of the order to slam down on the man. The flames washed over everything within twenty feet and several of the slaughterers fell screaming. Dalen’s hope faltered. There was no way anyone could survive that…
The green flames parted as the man's sword appeared to bisect a fleeing garghound noble. The man stepped out of the flames without a mark on him besides the portions of his armor and cloak that had caught alight.
It was only when the man turned his head scanning for enemies that Dalen saw his face. A strong face with an expression far harder than he remembered stared down each demon as they died. Even his hair was longer, almost shaggy but the main difference was his eyes. They burned crimson and golden light but even so, he knew them. It was Kal.
Dalen couldn’t keep the smile from his face even as his health fell and blood poured from his eyes.
“Kal!” Dalen yelled as loud as he could with his weakened body and tried to sit up. He failed, barely lifting his head an inch from the ground but he kept his eyes locked on Kal as he butchered his way through more and more of the demons.
His vision darkened again but before it turned to black Kal’s head turned and his eyes focused on Dalen’s. His expression remained grim and sinister light flashed through his eyes but it was gone faster than it arrived.
Fear gripped Dalen’s chest for an instant as the prophecy and the order’s ideals came to mind but then Kal smiled and nodded and any thoughts of Kal being some kind of monster vanished.
Dalen chuckled painfully, “Go get’em Kal…” Then all he knew was darkness.
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Leo watched wide-eyed as the demons that were once moving to kill him froze in terror at the same time he did. A terrifying presence had flooded the platform and everyone around him writhed in horror as something deadly moved towards them.
The demons broke their paralysis far before he did but instead of finishing him and the children off they started charging away from him into a gathering horde. Leo shook as those around him screamed, the children had become near catatonic at the arrival of the presence and now lay practically on top of each other as demons ran past them towards that presence.
Leo’s core burned as he felt the foreign mana worming its way into him but he gritted his teeth and dragged himself towards the fallen children, propping himself up next to them with his now dark sword.
The presence bore down on him with every moment but he had felt it twice before, “Kalum?”
The demons closed on something he couldn’t make out through the mass of bodies but in only moments demons began to fall with the sound of tearing flesh and the crack of breaking bone.
Among the fallen Leo spotted Melisia struggling to rise. Her face was drawn and her body shook as she managed to rise to a commando crawl but her glowing eyes were clearly fixed on the carnage that was moving towards them.
“Is it him?!” Leo called across the chaos. Melisia didn’t seem to hear but only seconds later the horde was broken as a large man in black armor shattered the wall of demons and moved between isolated groups, tearing them apart with savage ease before moving beyond them to a group of the demon fire users.
Their flames washed over him harmlessly as he hacked through each of them one at a time. It was a slaughter. Only when the last of the felflame conjures fell did he move back to the fodder without pity. Weapons sped from his offhand into the sky to strike down flying demons even as he shattered the skull of a bone drinker with the hilt of his black blade an instant after he bisected another.
As the bone drinker died something amongst the demons shifted and Leo gaped as many began to flee. Their screams of terror instantly drowned the moans of the fallen men and women. But the slaughter only sped up as their resistance broke and Kalum darted between flailing demons and he moved to end what they could not.
Leo grunted and spat out a mouthful of blood as he felt a horrible wrenching in his chest, “What a monster…”
Leo wanted to be relieved as the last of the demons died but the presence he felt would not pass and as Kalum’s gaze moved over the suffering people he had just saved from being devoured Leo saw only hatred. Melisia saw it too, her face paling even further as his gaze locked onto her and flared with sinister light.