“Pathetic,” Shaslik spat from beneath his hood— And then he jolted forward.

Kicking off the ground, he sprinted down the ridge and into the swarm of monsters quickly making their way up. Although he was charging in a direct line through the middle, everything around him—and every monster he passed—seemed to disappear in a spray of crimson mist with every twitch of his arm.

“What the hell… I guess we’re doing it!” The scaly blue lizardman gave a quick lick of his eye, and charged down the ridge after him, brandishing a large axe in both hands.

“Th-this is crazy…”

“Ah, screw it!”

A few more adventurers charged down afterwards.

“Let’s go, brother!” Flexing his huge pecs for some reason, Grapple gave One Swing a friendly slap on the shoulder, before turning back to the purple-haired Arrow. “You too, sister!”

Both of them nodded in response, and followed the others down the ridge too.

“What’s the plan?!” Arrow shouted, nocking an arrow in her bow as she followed swiftly behind.

“W-well, Shashlik’s the one leading this party. So he should be the one coming up with a plan. Not me.”

“You’re so useless! How are you a veteran adventurer?! I thought you’d at least be reliable when it counted!”

From up ahead, Shashlik had already descended the ridge and was fighting his way through the swarm of monsters on more level land. He looked to be heading in the direction of the cave, where more and more monsters were continuing to spill out after having heard the commotion.

Though many were falling from a simple twitch of his arm at one of the countless knives holstered across his body, several monsters had made it past him, intercepting the other adventurers who were trailing behind.

One Swing clicked his tongue in frustration.

Though there was length in numbers, One Swing was suddenly aware of the fact that swinging his colossal blade in this moment was not a good idea. The path ahead of him was laden with his fellow adventurers, and they would surely disappear alongside the monsters in a shower of red mist if he were to swing it down.

“W-watch out!”

The purple-haired elf’s voice suddenly cut him away from his thoughts as he found a hairy lizard-like kobold lunging up at him.

“Skreee—!” It screeched, before being silenced by an arrow tearing across its abdomen, spilling its innards across the dirt below and sending it crumpling to the floor.

“Ah, Arrow Grain. You have my thanks.” One Swing turned to give a quick nod to the woman.

“Don’t thank me! Just pay attention!”

She was right. He needed to pay attention.

One Swing glanced briefly up at his violet blade trailing high up into the sky. A blade that threatened to scrape the clouds and pierce the very heavens. A blade that could cleave through anything and everything One Swing willed it to. A blade that was, undoubtedly, the longest. And as One Swing knew, the longest was the strongest.

One Swing gripped his hands around the handle tightly and turned his attention back to the battlefield in front of him.

His time would come.

From up ahead, the axe-wielding lizardman was hacking through the shoulder of a charging direwolf. The large, furry beast—both larger and more vicious than a regular wolf—yelped loudly as it tried to limp away, before having its skull caved into the dirt by the butt of the lizardman’s weapon, joining the many crushed and bloodied monster corpses torn asunder by the very same axe.

“Why the hell are there so many of them?!” he complained. “Are there really that many dead goblins in—!”

He was suddenly cut off by something below his vision. Crawling out from beneath one of the hacked corpses, a horned rabbit had caught the lizardman by surprise, driving its long single horn deep into the man’s calf.

He quickly stomped it into the floor with his good leg, crushing it into a pink paste below his clawed foot.

“D-damn it. Why the hell did it have to be a rabbit of all things to get me…?” he complained, kneeling to the floor in pain.

As he did, the sickening scuttle of many legs creeping across the dirt quickly assailed him. A pack of giant spiders—as large as the average man—had descended upon him. The lizardman tried to lift his axe to defend himself, but one had already pinned him to the floor, the sticky threads oozing from its body making it impossible to properly swing his weapon.

As the mounted monster drew its grotesque, eight-eyed face closer, snipping its sharp mandibles in front of the lizardman's face—

The man bit it. Leaning his head forward, he crunched the spider’s face between his wide, lizard-like maw, sending it reeling back in pain with a sharp hiss.

As the other spiders moved to descend on him, a sharp howl from behind suddenly drew their attention— Before they were quickly cut down by the swift claws of a grey, shaggy-haired wolf-woman in red-leather armour, charging through them like a rampaging animal.

After clearing them away, she extended a paw down to the lizardman.

“You alright, Eye-Licker?”

“Y-yeah. Just. Thanks for that.”

Gripping her paw with one of his scaly claws, the man was helped back to his feet, and the two of them continued to push on.

“See that, sister? That’s what adventuring is all about!” From at the back of the group, Grapple nodded over at the scene that had just unfolded across the battlefield, his arms crossed in front of his bare chest. “And see how he bit that monster’s face off? That’s how Eye-Licker got his name, you know?”

From nearby, Arrow nocked another arrow in her bow, before shooting him a sharp glare.

“Do something!” she complained. “Why are you just standing there? Why are you giving a running commentary on a fight somewhere else?! Why are you trying to turn this into some kind of lesson on camaraderie?! Please show a little camaraderie over here! And he clearly got his name for a completely different reason! Stop making up lies!”

While Grapple had been standing around, watching the fight in the distance, Arrow had been busy picking off the individual monsters attempting to skirt their way around the edges of the battlefield.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“And One Swing!” she continued. “I don’t know what you’re doing either, but—!”

As she turned toward the man with the giant sword, she suddenly found herself facing down against a direwolf. The large beast had swiftly and stealthily approached from the ridge at their backs and leapt within reach of the elf, preparing to dig its huge fangs into her small frame.

As it lunged at her—

"I got you, sister!" The large, moustached man dived in, wrapping his thick arms around the direwolf's neck before it had the chance to attack.

“M-Mr. Krumble!”

“Pay close attention, sister! Let me show you what a veteran adventurer can do!” With veins popping out across his bulging muscles, Grapple tightened his hold on the direwolf. “I’m gonna take this sucker to Krumbletown!”

As Grapple tightened his grip even more—

The direwolf threw its head to the side. The shirtless, middle-aged man was immediately shaken and flung from its body, rolling and ragdolling across the dirt before eventually sliding to a stop against the trunk of a tree.

“M-Mr. Krumble?!”

“Heh… Don’t worry, sister…” Grapple slowly crawled to his feet, wiping the blood and sweat from his gashed forehead. “Don’t underestimate a D-Rank adventurer...”

“You were only D-Rank?! Why is a veteran adventurer still at D-Rank?! That’s only one rank higher than me! Krumbletown must be a damn ghost town! Population zero!”

“J-just you watch! I’ll take this sucker down in no time!”

“Ah, that’s okay,” Arrow said, plucking her arrows from the direwolf’s corpse. “I already got it.”

“I—I see… G-great work, sister…”

On the opposite side of the battlefield, swiftly making his way through the mass of monsters, Shashlik was continuing towards the entrance to the goblin den. As he neared—

The sounds of heavy footsteps rumbled across the forest, causing the hooded man to stop in his tracks.

From out of the large opening in the rocky hill, a huge, lumbering beast emerged. Ducking its head beneath the mouth of the cave, it stepped out into the daylight, recoiling a little as the warmth of the sun touched its thick, blueish-grey skin. A troll. Although only of middling size for a troll, it still stood as large as a house.

The ground shook with each huge step it took from outside of the cave. As its eyes flicked to Shashlik, still frozen on the spot— A ferocious roar escaped its tusked mouth, echoing across the entire forest, causing both adventurers and monsters to recoil in fear.

The troll began to charge at Shashlik, the monsters caught in its path disappearing in a mist of blood beneath each huge foot. Lifting a huge arm in preparation to swipe at the hooded man—

“Pathetic,” Shashlik spat, and both of his hands twitched at his sides.

In the blink of an eye, a dotted trail of knives had embedded themselves up the troll’s body. A trail that crept up the troll’s leg, all the way to its head.

As it stopped momentarily to roar in pain, Shashlik leapt ahead. Using the embedded knives as stepping stones, the man raced up each dotted knife, before quickly arriving atop the troll’s head. Taking two of the longer daggers across his belt, he raised them up into the air, and then drove them swiftly down into each one of the troll’s eyes.

“—!”

The troll instantly silenced its roar, before falling to its knees and crumpling to the dirt with a resounding thud.

As it collapsed, Shashlik slid effortlessly off its back, and marched on towards the den once again, standing victoriously in front of the entrance.

All the adventurers across the battlefield gave a loud cheer at the felled troll, and continued to push onward towards their party leader.

“I’m heading in!” he shouted back at his companions. “Let’s hurry up and clean out this den of losers already! I want to be out of this shithole before night—!”

Before he could finish, he suddenly cut himself off, taking a big leap back from the entrance of the den. Moments later, a scaly red claw swiped down across the spot where he had just been standing, planting itself deep into the ground. A shower of dirt and stone sprayed up into the air from the force of the clawed attack.

“Tch. What kind of—?! … Huh?”

Emerging from the entrance to the cave, another creature appeared. Though not as large as a troll, its body was long, and covered entirely in thick, red scales. Sharp, black claws—each one twice the size of Shashlik’s daggers—grew from each powerful foot. Blood and gore glistened across its lizard-like maw, occasionally licking a forked tongue out threateningly. It was a drake. An incredibly rare—almost mythical creature—that was supposed to only exist deep within the bowels of the earth. In the Underground.

After a moment’s hesitation, Shashlik retaliated at the beast. Reaching for his knives, his arms twitched wildly across his body and his hands became a blur as they unholstered each knife and flung it at the creature—

With a quick turn of its body, the drake swung its large scaly tail across the air, connecting directly with Shashlik’s body and flinging him to the side and rolling across the dirt.

His knives had done nothing. Unable to pierce through the tough scales of the large, lizard-like creature, they had harmlessly bounced off of its body and clattered uselessly to the ground.

Shashlik tried to pick himself back up again, but— He suddenly found himself pinned beneath the creature’s large claw. It was not giving him a chance to recover.

As the other adventurers hacked their way through the still-remaining monsters on their way to help the man, Shashlik’s strained voice called to them across the battlefield.

“Stay back, weaklings!” he shouted. “Don’t come over here! Go back to that shithole and tell the Guild!”

“W-we’re not just gonna run away! Hold tight, we’ll have that drake off you in just a second!” another adventurer called back.

“Yeah! It might be a drake, but all of us together should be able to take one down!”

“It’s not…” Shashlik groaned, slowly being crushed beneath the creature’s foot. “It’s not just one!”

As he said that, another scaly creature emerged from the entrance. And then another. And then another. One by one, a line of the powerful beasts had crawled out into the sunlight, hissing menacingly at the adventurers who were now frozen in shock. Each one of these beasts alone was stronger than an A-Rank adventurer, and Shashlik—the only A-Rank in the party—was now being slowly crushed to death beneath one’s foot.

“Get out of here, losers!” Shashlik shouted one last time. “Run!”

The other adventurers hesitated for a moment, and then all turned to escape— But it was a hopeless endeavour. From the look on their faces, they all knew it. There was no way they could outrun a drake. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the sudden light, they would immediately lock them onto the fleeing adventurers, before spilling out of the entrance and tearing each of them apart with ease.

It was hopeless.

As the adventurers gained as much distance as they could from the entrance to the cave, the sudden screech of the drakes announced the signal of their death. The scaly red beasts began to spill from the entrance of the den, and then—

One Swing smirked.

“Judgment of Heaven-Piercing Violet Overdrive—!”

—And then he swung his blade down.

Watching and waiting for an opportunity to act, One Swing had seen a path suddenly open up in front of him from the scattering of adventurers. And so he swung.

The colossal blade left a glistening streak of violet across the morning sky as it descended in a perfect arc. The clouds, and even the sky itself seemed to shift and split apart as the sharpened edge carved a gleaming path through the air.

A low, thunderous explosion tore through the entirety of the forest as the blade connected with the earth. Trees creaked and splintered as they fell over one another. Mountains rumbled as avalanches of stone crumbled off their surface. The screeching whistle of wind cried out as it tore through the surrounding sea of greenery, quickly replaced by the rolling waves of brown upturned soil.

The entrance to the monster den—along with the entirety of the rocky hill it had been set on—disappeared beneath the shining pillar of sharpened soulstone as it plunged deep into the earth. An unending cacophony of consecutive explosions rumbled beneath the dirt, the sound of multiple caverns and underground pockets collapsing beneath the overwhelming force of the devastating attack.

The den, the drakes, the remaining monsters across the battlefield—everything had collapsed and disappeared along the path of One Swing’s attack.

As the dust slowly settled across the area and the sounds of destruction reached a lull, the surviving adventurers all turned their gaze towards the one who had undoubtedly saved their lives with his ridiculous display of strength.

Seeing the satisfied smirk still plastered across his face, their thoughts were easy enough to read. In that moment, they truly understood...

The longest is the strongest.