image [https://i.imgur.com/RCGrn1f.png]

The intruder pulled his Murus knife out of the gladus's guard’s neck. The hooded man moved his glowing fruit away from the squirting blood and the corpse fell. The man bit into the fruit again. The Gladus studied the stranger. Black skin, full lips.

“The Multus…” The Gladus pulled out his blocky, heavy blade.

“The who?” said the dark man as he finished his Great Forest Fruit, swallowing a huge amount of mana like it was nothing.

“Die by my blade, Vile Creature!” The gladus blade swung at the assassin, and a gust blew as he missed the fleeing Multus. Several pellets were thrown around and dark clouds blocked the Gladus' vision. The hooded man pulled his mask up, vanishing into the fog.

“Come and fight, COWARD. Don't you have any honour!?”

A chuckle hopped from left to right, in front and backward. The chuckle grew into hearty laughter.

“Sire! Where are you, I can’t-ARRGGHHH”

The gladus sliced an aura wave to the origin of the guard's scream. Dark fog parts and a Mountworth soldier held his intestines, drifting in agony to death.

“Women.” A voice spoke from the left. A guard wailed.

“Children.” From the right, a sombre voice whispered. A soldier cried, then was silenced.

“Enough reason,” said the hood in the dark fog. A choir of screams echoes in the forest. Something tapped Gladus' feet. A head looked at him from his feet.

“To not care.” A voice whispered behind him. The Gladus’s defence went up to find no one. Steel glinted moonlight from the corner of his eye.

With a reverse grip, Drac's blade aimed for the neck. Steel met steel in an air-pulsing clash. The gladus roared, using his amazing strength to force Drac again into the dark fog.

“ENOUGH!” The Gladus’s flaring sword of white fire hit the ground. A tsunami of wind pushed about the fog in every direction, blowing corpses and guards with it. Drac reversed Levitation and made himself heavy while sticking his blade into the soil.

An aura blade sliced upward, ripping into black leather, and dark skin, severing through ribs and puncturing a lung.

Shit.

The Gladus swiped his sword to the right.

Drac gurgled, and his neck opened up like a ripped letter.

Drac fell, scattering into flecks of light.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Three Drac stumbled, huffing as the pain flowed into them.

Drac! Get the fuck up!

Drac rolled from a stabbing aura blade. The Gladus stared, still in the same spot, as his aura retracted back to his large sword. In Drac's vision, Copies fight guard within the trees, deflecting shots. Out of almost a hundred, fifty-something remained. All forest adventurers used to battle. Every minute passed, his stamina whittled down, and his concentration waned. Drac prayed to Gaia for them to come faster.

A copy got stabbed on the left tricep, and another a gunshot to the shoulder.

A voice carried in the wind. “The stories were true... Tell me, Dark ‘Man’. Did they die well?”

Drac moved to the left. An aura blade stabbed the ground near him.

“Answer the question, child.”

As the pain from earlier was subsiding, his words finally came out. “As well a death from my blade can give them.”

Air drifted closer to the Gladus as if filling a vacuum. Rushing clouds encircled him on the waving grass. The muscle-bound man slicked his dark hair back from his eyes. With a lowered stance and hand behind his back, the Gladus points his lunky sword out.

“A good death.”

Muscles, imbued with aura, moved like a whip and the Mountworth leader lunged. His aura extended from his sword like a bullet. Glowing eyes barely see it coming to Drac's face and hastily Heilong blocked it. Feet scooped the terra under him just as he was pushed back.

Oh, Gaia. We might die.

Stop being negative and fucking help!

Axton's connection grew strong.

The gladus lunged again with a shower of extending stabs. With two hands gripping Heilong, Drac moved smoothly with glowing eyes, pulsing the aura blade away. Drac went to parry again, falling for a feint. The Gladus’s aura blade pulled before Drac's blade could touch and extended again with swiftness and cut into his right thigh.

“Arghh!” Drac pulsed to the left on his good leg. An aura blade suddenly blocked his way. Drac blocked with a Murus barrier, which shattered instantly. A line of red on Drac's chest leaked. Another step…

This feeling.

Drac looked at the burly warrior, clad in black leather, scratching his thick, short-cut beard. Drac's eyes played tricks on him as he saw Halen’s form over the Gladus. Halen's bone-crushing fists flashed in Drac’s mind. The powerlessness he felt still chilled his soul as if he were still there. Drac blinked his eyes again and a new form overlaid on the Mounthworth man.

Flashes of blood on a child's nose and shirt enter his mind. The child’s face stung and ballooned. An older boy stood over with a cocky smile in a dark wooden cabin. Cal’s bloody fist rose high.

Axton’s and Elkan’s connections grew.

Drac took it all.

Aura burst wide. Soil crumbled under his feet. Grass and leaves wither in his presence. A bonfire of energy erupted from Drac, lighting the forest white.

An aura blade stabbed to be pulsed away. A terra-cracking pulse emitted from Drac’s soles and he flew towards the Gladus. The speed surprised the burly warrior for a second before he whipped his aura blade. The Gladus’s blade attacked from all angles. A lightning-marked, Drac parried each attack as he pressed forward.

Aura collected around the Gladus’s sword and Drac drew a rune in the air. The towering aura wave clashed with the wide Murus.

A Gladus appeared on Drac's right, his sword glowing in an arc en route to the hooded man’s body.

Drac condensed his aura around his blade to guard his stomach with two aura-imbued arms. Air burst into clouds from the warrior's steel colliding. Drac growled, using his newfound strength to drive the warrior’s sword up, leaving the gladus abdomen open. Drac pulsed for a slice.

Ventus blew the Mountworth man out of Heilong's way. The burly man slashed down and Dac flipped off the crumbling soil. Levitation and Ventus ushered the boy in the air as he spun and then he sliced down at the guard with all his strength. The guard held his sword with one hand. The ground swallowed his feet. His form was unperturbed.

Drac flared his aura and the gladus stone face crumbled as he leaned back from Drac's strike.

A copy tuned Murus knives indented with runes. With a flick of the hand, the exploding daggers were thrown at Gladus’s back.