“Who dares intrude upon my territory?”

A mighty booming voice echoed across the icy plain. The source appeared to be a fairly ordinary looking walrus. However, if one were to look closer, they would notice some particularly sharp tusks. They would also notice a tiny black cape attached to his back. His name was Odosfer, and he was a vampire walrus.

“I’ve gotten horrific reports from this region. Villagers drained completely of their blood, with two massive holes in their neck.” Ace said, as he snazzily strode across the rocky plateau.

“Ah yes. You’re that bounty hunter,” Odosfer replied. “Did the pathetic villagers scrounge some lunch money together to buy your sub-par service?”

“No. This matter is...personnel. I heard your little group made an alliance.”

“Yes, we did. I do believe that the arrangement will be quite beneficial for my group - The Conglomeration of Undead Sea Souls.” Odosfer said as he stroked his tusk.

“So… it’s our allies you’re after. They are quite secretive about their operations. Of course, none of that matters”, -the walrus spat at the ground- “since you won’t be leaving here with any blood left. There are few who can survive more than a few minutes once I have set my sights on them. Are you up to the tusk?”

Moments passed. Moments turned into longer moments. These longer moments turned into even longer moments. At some point using 'moment' as a unit if time became meaningless. For all you, the readers, know, they both could have gone to get tea or something. Maybe they traveled to Paris, met a nice girl, had a tragic falling out, then drifted around Germany for a while with a man bun. After the moment of undefined duration passed, the two stared intensely at each other. This intensity was so intense that it reflected off the nearby ice and caused global warming. The absolute coolness of Ace Sando fixed it.

In an instant Odosfer closed the distance to Ace, and unleashed a flurry of mighty tusk attacks. By then, Ace had a katana in each hand. He deflected the attacks effortlessly without even deflecting them.

“It looks like your attacks are in vein, vampire!” Ace quipped.

“My fangs will ensure that you’ll be blubbering soon enough!” the walrus replied.

With an effortless movement, Ace launched straight up into the air. He paused at the top to make sure the wind didn’t mess up his hair. His katanas glistened in the early morning sun. As he fell, the air started to heat up. There was a sharp crack as he broke the sound barrier. Finally, he landed directly upon Odosfer. A superheated steam cloud exploded outwards, obscuring the area. A tense silence followed, while Ace looked at the cloud. A moment later, it cleared. Odosfer was completely unscathed. The attack had bounced off like a sexual harassment allegation would bounce off a hollywood celebrity. Ace casually raised his eyebrows.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Hahaha! Your puny moves cannot penetrate my「BURLY BLUBBER BARRIER」! In fact, I doubt that you have a single powerful enough piercing attack in your entire arsenal to even make me remotely start quivering in my boots. Which I don’t have.” Odosfer boasted. “Observe as I kill you. Or don’t. The end result is the same.”

Two tiny, leathery, bat wings unfolded and started flapping. The large walrus then gracefully rose into the air.

“Nice fly, but that won’t work!” Ace replied as he used his force of will to rise up in the air to meet him.

One thousand feet in the air, the two fought. Hundreds of blows were exchanged each second, too fast for any normal human to even see. As metal met ivory, the aftershock of each strike destroyed portions of the landscape below. Chunks of ice and rock flew in all directions, threatening to give any potential observers piercings in wildly outlandish places.

"Ha!" Odosfer proclaimed. "You're barely worth my time! I have some friends for you to meet. Maybe I'll let them slay with you for a while."

Odosfer then used his flipper to loudly slap his fat. A shockwave rippled across the icy water. On cue, a number of penguins leapt out of the sea. Each penguin was wearing a blue bandanna with the initials C.U.S.S. embroidered on them, to stand for the Conglomeration of Undead Sea Souls. Each had a tiny knife duct taped onto their flipper that they were having difficulty wielding. One appeared to be wearing a hand knit sweater. All of the penguins were adorable. Even more penguins rose from the sea afterwards. A seemingly infinite number followed. Ace felt bad as he cleaved through the birds. Despite culling their numbers, they began to advance. A penguin stabbed him in the thigh. After that, Ace felt slightly less bad.

The fight continued. Ace fought valiantly, but none of his attacks could pierce the hide of Odosfer. Conversely, anytime his undead marine foe struck with his razor-sharp tusks, damage would accumulate. Ace gradually began to become covered in small knicks and scratches.

Ace only smiled. “There is a part of you not protected by that hideous hide of yours!”

He transferred all of his ki into offensive power, and gambled that Odosfer would move to block the attack with his tusks. His undead foe took the bait, moving to block Ace’s katanas with his tusks. At the last instant, Ace put his foot forward and delivered a devastating kick. With a crack, one of Odosfer’s tusks broke clean off.

“Ow! I have nerve endings in there, you know!”

After doing a quintuple backflip, Ace thrust forward with the broken tusk. With almost no resistance, the tusk plunged deeply into the heart of Odosfer, who screamed in agony.

“UHAAAAAAGH!”

“Now tell me about your allies and I’ll make it quick.” Ace grunted.

“Never! CUSS will avenge me, and sea your defeat!”

With those final worlds Odosfer turned to ash. The wind carried the debris silently into the distance. Ace now stood nearly alone on the rocky shore with only some puffins and the bodies of far too many penguins for company.