The old man, tired and bleeding, still engaged the monster in front of him with all his might. However, the crude replicas he used as limbs were of no use, leaving him to flail them around as naught but a distraction while forming spells.

The ether blade, the only weapon that had any effect on the accursed was practically unusable in his state, and he was painfully aware of that.

Even if every single spell of his landed, it wouldn’t matter; that abomination of flesh and souls would only heal any damage he sustained within seconds. It was a losing battle with no chance of victory, yet the old man persisted, driven only by spite and anger.

“Pitiful, isn’t it, thief?”

The monster had all but dropped his defense, allowing the old man to bombard him with a barrage of spells freely.

“For this to be your end. Here, amongst the remains of those who thought themselves beyond the divine and plunged this world into darkness. You will die here and be naught but another corpse forgotten by this land.”

The old man ignored him, unable and unwilling to converse with the abomination.

“Silence? Have you nothing to say, thief? No insults to hurl, no lies to tell?”

The barrage of magic weakened, its intensity dropping by the second.

“Perhaps it is for the best. Even one such as you is a victim of the false goddess, and as such, you are at the very least entitled to some dignity in your final moments.”

The accursed’s body warped and stretched, healing and reforming as the last of the old man’s spells finished assaulting it, declaring the end of his short, pitiful attempt at a battle.

He collapsed to his knees, exhaustion and pain clear on his face. The monster stared into his eyes, expecting to see fear carved into them; however, he was met with a strange sight.

The old man’s eyes were dyed with hatred for it and its creators, an admirable but not all that surprising act by one such as himself, yet what followed was not.

The old man’s expression changed to one of shock and surprise. Stranger still, it wasn’t even directed at his soon-to-be executioner, but it was instead locked on what was lurking directly behind him.

It had existed in its current form for centuries and long before, when its different parts lived as separate beings. It had shared the same battlefield as those whose legends are still spoken about by the survivors of this world. It was ancient, experienced, and unnaturally calm, yet, at that moment, the accursed with all its knowledge, power, and skill, felt fear.

It was a sudden jolt that ran down its spine. Such a thing had not happened in a very long time, it was a strange feeling. To experience an emotion it thought itself incapable of experiencing in earnest anymore.

The abomination turned around, facing the source of its unnatural fear.

“You…? How is it possible? We killed you?”

John stood right behind it. His eyes had a nearly animalistic glint to them, as if free of the burden of rational thought; however, even now that it knew the source of its sudden fear was incapable of harming it, it couldn’t stop feeling nervous.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Something was different about John. He stood tall, unburdened by any pain or discomfort even though he had been impaled through the chest mere minutes ago, and as the old man and his opponent were quick to notice, he was also fully healed.

“How did—”

The monster attempted to communicate, too curious to allow itself to kill John outright, only for him to interrupt it with a punch. One that, much like its predecessor, did nothing to it.

The accursed was no stranger to humans and their pointless attempts at clutching survival from the jaws of death. It didn’t bother it; their last cries and weak strikes were amusing and sometimes even commendable, depending on the one throwing them. However, something bothered it.

John was weak. That was a fact it knew very well. It should be unbothered by his attacks as they do no damage, and even if they did, it would simply heal it; but, even as the monster of many souls was assured of such, it still felt just a hint of fear towards John.

Its instincts screamed at it. The combined experience of many individuals coming as one, forming a united voice among the many, telling it just to kill him now.

“Enough of this.”

In the blink of an eye, John’s head was smashed to bits, leaving pieces of brain matter to litter the ground, carried down by rivers of his blood, but, to his killer’s bewilderment, John’s body refused to collapse.

The accursed moved closer to inspect the strange phenomenon, but as soon as it was in range, John’s arm swung once again. The heavy, cold gauntlets smashed into the thing’s abdomen with unexpected force, enough to make it walk back a few paces.

“How is this happening…”

“What is this?”

The accursed’s shock was not his alone, for the old man too could only watch the scene unfolding Infront of him in bewilderment. The light he long came to hate, the golden hue of the great deceiver, wrapped around John’s body like a snake ensnaring its prey, and before their very eyes, his head was healed back to its old shape.

John’s eyes opened, his pupils glazed with a murderous tint, no longer burdened by the goddess’s gift. It was clear that he craved not the euphoria of a level up, but to simply slaughter his enemy.

He seemed bewitched, perhaps even possessed. There was no explaining his condition or how he came to be shrouded by the light of the goddess; however, the great beast, the accursed knew one thing for certain. The man who stood in front of it was different from the one it had just killed.

John clinched his fist, clearly preparing another attack, but even when it knew it to be coming, the monster failed to dodge or even guard in time.

It was fast, so absurdly faster than all of his previous attacks that no sane man would believe that those two fists belonged to the same person.

Fear was an emotion the old man was not overly familiar with. He was too far gone for such things. He had survived in this dying world for too long, however, even a capable and brave warrior of his caliber had limits, and the sight of what he believed to be the most terrifying of the elves’ old creations having a hole carved into its chest by someone who had just set foot into this world had pushed far passed them.

The sound alone was terrifying, for even he who was watching the battle unfold from the sidelines nearly mistook a simple jab for a cannon being fired. Even the gauntlet itself, unable to handle the burden of the fist behind it, was warped and crooked, nearly red hot and breaking at the seams.

The hold in the accursed’s chest healed quickly, but the attack had served its purpose very well, for that creature which had lived long enough to have walked the same ground the heroes walked, breathed the same air those legends of the war breathed, was panicked.

The old man noticed something peculiar: the beast’s attention was not directed at him or even at John. He was looking away, up at the sky, nearly frozen in place, not even ready for another attack.

“Impossible… the false goddess is long gone… so how can you use it.”

The old man looked up as well, matching the direction of his gaze to that of his sworn enemy, and in the sky, he saw something floating freely. A massive ring of golden light was woven into the fabric of reality itself, with John at its center.

“There is no mistaking it. This light, this power, we know it too well, we felt it with this body of ours… this is the blessing of the 18th, the hero of judgment… The Golden Dawn.”