The first thing the Spartan did was snap out of his thoughts before they killed him. The second thing he did was dodge out of the way of the incoming projectiles and dash towards the crowd with a target in mind. After all, they were made of the same cloth and build as the ones they had faced back in the lobby, these should have the same weakness as the previous ones.

The spikes slammed into the marble floor and stayed stuck there, which bought him extra time to rush in and rip apart the legs of one of the monsters. His theory held true as the enemy began to dissolve into dust and bone once more, leaving behind twenty three more to kill.

They acted far quicker than he expected and in a way that threw him off completely. Rather than charge him recklessly, most of them held back and tried to get their spikes back into their arms. Three of them chose a different route of assault: they jumped.

The moment their feet left the ground was what changed everything. That spike seemed to draw them in as they began rushing forward with the same speed as their shots. He could not have anticipated such a move and he did not expect these monsters to pull off anything as insane as this exact moment.

Thus, he was forced to use his divinity to divert the paths of these warriors. However, even then he was not fast enough to react in time and thus collided with one of these monsters. While he avoided getting impaled, he was still at the mercy of this monster that had him in his grasp. He didn’t have the space to maneuver his spear to take the enemy down and he certainly did not have the time to start pathing a strike to the monster’s leg as he was immediately head slammed by the opponent.

His focus waned as his head began to ring. He was so disorientated by the blow that he failed to account for the moment the monster slammed into the spike and he was launched to the ground at high speeds. Yet, he was capable of thinking and reacting enough to roll to try to mitigate the damage.

He wasn’t able to do so. He heard a loud and sickening crack erupt from his left leg and a giant flare of pain erupted the moment he struck the ground. He grit his teeth and swallowed the shout of pain that threatened to come out of his mouth.

He was a proud warrior of Sparta. He’d be damned if he was going to cry out in pain and give the edge to his opponents. No, he was going to fight every last bit of the way and do his best to make these monsters pay for such an injury.

He tried to get up but his leg failed him. Damn, he must have cracked his leg from the impact! This was bad, he didn’t have a chance to defend and–

He didn’t have the chance to react. That warrior was on him now, the lance up and ready to spear through his head. A red glint of hate and sadistic longing was in its eyes as it stabbed forward, ready to put his life to an end.

So focused was this monster on killing the Spartan that it failed to keep an eye out for the Crusader’s actions. The longsword went through the legs and destroyed every single last one of the fleshy protrusions within, rendering it to become one with dust and bone again.

“Get up! They’re still coming!” The Crusader roared as he proceeded to deflect an incoming lance strike, “We have to move now!”

The Spartan nodded and struggled to get himself up. However, no matter how much he tried, his left leg refused to cooperate and thus forced him to use his spear as a crutch. He managed to get back up, but he knew one thing was for certain.

He would not be able to do much in this battle and the activation of his divinity was a necessity. With that, he closed his eyes and did so.

He got the full image of all the monsters relatively nearby. In this instance, ten monsters were within his range. He could cut the threat down by half here and now and make things so much easier on the two of them.

Though that wasn’t going to be much as there’d still be twelve of those monsters coming after them. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like he had a choice anymore in the matter: there were far too many and they were getting ready to shoot once more. He didn’t have the time to focus and expand his range to get every single last of these monsters. No, he needed to do what he could now and try his best to at least cull the numbers before they became far too much to deal with.

He created the path in his mind as fast as he could and then launched the strike with his spear. Unfortunately, without the crutch, he was forced to fall down pathetically onto his back. Such an action did save his life as every single projectile shot went over him once more, driving itself into the ground and avoiding him unceremoniously. However, it did nothing for his pride as he was only able to stay alive through sheer luck and stupidity.

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His attack was unfortunately not as good as he’d like. Try as he liked, the total monsters that were killed were far less than he anticipated. In his haste, he had been far too sloppy and he was unable to achieve his goal of ten killed in one go. Instead, there were a total of six downed with that strike, which left still far too many to deal with.

Thankfully, the Crusader seemed to have understood what to do. He became a blur once more and dashed forward to one of the monsters in his path and began slicing and slashing at each of their legs. Each of the monsters he came across became nothing more than dust and bone and he continued onwards without much problem.

He knew what his goal was. He wasn’t focused on the battle anymore or on achieving a glorious victory. No, his goal was to cull the numbers no matter the means and to ensure that the duo had the chance for safety before dealing with the mess that was the bombshell from earlier.

One went down, two, three, four. The monsters kept on dissolving as they had no means or method of taking down the Crusader. None of them could react or even move as fast as him, which resulted in each and every one of them dying to his sword.

At least until he finally ran out of divinity and fell to the floor, dry heaving and shaking as his energy had all but plummeted to zero. He didn’t even have enough power to stand and was forced to lay down on the ground, completely defeated and unable to move forward.

The Spartan would like to say that the coast was now clear and that there were no more threats in the area. However, that would be a lie. There were four that remained, all of them with their harpoon and lances ready to strike them down. All the while his associate was struggling to breathe on the ground and he was laying down with his leg broken.

With the odds stacked against them, there truly was seemingly no way of reversing the outcome. The four monsters all aimed their spikes at him and got ready to fire. The Spartan couldn’t help but scowl as he got ready to activate his divinity in hopes of diverting the attacks away from him and to the ground, anything to get a chance of turning the tides of the battle in their favor.

Such a thing was not to come. The four halted in their movements, before shaking their heads and putting their spike arms down.

“No.” They spat, before marching towards the Spartan with their lances at the ready, “You deserve far worse, scum. For your heinous crimes, you are sentenced to death by a thousand cuts.”

He couldn’t help but grimace at those words. Yeah, no thank you, that was something he did not wish to have.

He closed his eyes and activated his divinity. He waited for all of the sadistic monsters to get into his range. He had to wait for a little while as they moved in slowly, clearly savoring the moment their weapons would rip right into him and force his blood to leak out onto the hard floor.

Fifteen steps. Ten steps. Three, two, one… Now!

He stabbed forward with his spear and all of the pathing he had preordained prior to their steps activated. The spear slammed into their fleshy protrusions and pulverized them completely. His actions worked as nearly intended, with only one problem.

He miscalculated on the last one. Three of them died and transformed into dust and bone, but there was still one that was left standing. However, its legs were all ripped to shreds and it too fell to the ground with a scream of rage and pain combined.

The Spartan gasped as he struggled to get the full grasp of the last monster. How? How had he missed? This wasn’t right, he knew he had gotten everything correct, he–

A spike slammed into his side. This time, there was no fighting it, the scream was ripped out of him. Baleful laughter erupted from the monster at the end as it began to pull him towards it.

“Come! Get turned into smithereens you filthy mongrel!”

He was being dragged through the ground at such a fast pace that he could feel his skin burn from the motion. His leg kept slamming into the floor each time and he couldn’t keep up his divinity anymore, not with all this pain running through his system. He tried to get his spear ready to take the monster down like last time, but he was unable to get this lucky.

One bump against the floor was all it took for him to lose his grip on his weapon. One single mistake that was getting him to tumble to his inevitable death. He was without a method of defense and now he was being dragged to a painful and grueling end.

So this was the end now. After everything he had done, his decision to try to redeem his ultimate mistake truly led to his death. He didn’t know what to say or do in this situation, everything occurring now was nothing more than his own failings. His desire to be like the Crusader even though he knew how wrong such an action was. His wish to go fly to his own death despite the fact he had his own family to take care of. His utterly ridiculous notions of glory and dying for his King all led up to this exact moment. Everything had been for naught.

There would be nothing left for his family to bury. He wouldn’t have a name set in history. He would become nothing more than dust and bone like every being here, his being as a whole lost to the annals of history and meant to be forgotten. He was going to be lost in everything without a single memento to leave behind for anyone to recover.

In the end, he was nothing more than a fool that had been taken advantage of. He was going to get his rightful death at the hands of this sadistic, hateful freak. There was nothing more he could do in this instance. He was finished for good and in the end, this was the only way things would truly go.

He closed his eyes for what should be the last time.