This was bad. This was seriously bad. What had I been thinking, going on this hunt on my own and without backup? I had always had friends and comrades backing me up when facing one of those things so far. And this one looked a lot more menacing than the human ghoul kings despite its lack of advanced armor and weaponry. Not even the lack of giant wyvern mount this time around could ease the dread building within me. Damn, with my luck one of those was circling somewhere above us. Or maybe not? Where wyvern active at night? I couldn't tell. I simply had no clue.

I had a considerable advantage regarding gear at least. There was no doubt about that. My armor should be pretty much impervious to all weapons they had and my glaive should be able to kill headhunters, with the exception of their leader, if it just scratched them. I had the moment of surprise as well. I cold shiver went down my spine at this thought and my gaze was drawn skyward just as the last sliver of the waning moon's crescent disappeared. And as I managed to tear my gaze away my eyes met those of the pale king and his mouth distorted into a nasty, bloody smile showing entirely too many teeth.

A trap. It was a damned, bloody trap! Well, there went the moment of surprise. Or maybe not? So far the majority of the headhunters seemed still unaware of my presence. Either way, hiding was not an option anymore. I drew in a tremendous amount of Mana, channeling it into two spell matrices at once, casting both Cat's Grace and Bull's Strength on myself. The two witches accompanying the pale king noticed right away, their heads whipping around to face my way.

I didn't give them any more time though, springing into action right away. The thorny bushes that had been hiding me pretty much exploded, as I burst forth, my glaive impaling the young headhunter who had been standing nearest to my hiding spot. The young man barely had a chance to register my attack at all, as the tip of my weapon burst from in between his ribs, flesh and bone already rotting due to the weapon's poison. He was dead by the time he slid of my weapon and hit the ground. I didn't even spare him a second thought.

Another headhunter jumped me from somewhere up in the trees with her knife raised to strike. I smacked her aside with my new shield, the bones of her face giving in with an ugly wet sound. She went flying into one of the witches, sending them both to the ground. I in turn brought my shield back in close to cover my face as blowgun darts started bouncing off my armor. Not many of them had weapons like these, preferring to get up close and personal with their knives, but still enough to be bothersome.

Those darts probably were poisoned. I could only cover my vulnerable spots to the best of my abilities and hope that I would not find out with what exactly. I made sure to keep moving as well to make myself a harder target. So far I had gotten lucky. I couldn't count on it staying that way though. The Chameleon Skin spell and the magical mist still wafting off the two headhunter witches interacted in a most curious way as well. I became a misty white blur as I moved at top speed to strike at my next real target.

The still standing witch tried to dodge my lightning quick jab and she almost made it as well. Maybe it would have been better for her, had she taken the full, deadly force of the blow. As it was my weapon only left a long but superficial scratch across her belly as she turned sideways. She started screaming almost right away. She clawed at her rapidly rotting flesh as she dropped to the ground still screeching. The mist stopped wafting off of her as well. Whatever spell it had been, she had lost control of it in her death throes.

Three down, fifty or some more still to go. As I withdrew my slightly overextended weapon arm I smashed the butt of my weapon into the solar plexus of another young headhunter who had been coming at me from behind. Again I could hear bone break and flesh tear. The youth coughed up a spray of blood as he stumbled mid step and collapsed like a puppet that had its strings cut. His momentum carried him forward a little further and I kicked his corpse into two more, who were charging at me from my right side, sending them sprawling to the ground.

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Another one almost got lucky. A knife scraped across the scales on my shield arm's shoulder, thankfully without penetrating them. I elbowed him, twisted slightly and placed another shield bash into the center of his torso. It knocked the breath right out of him and sent him flying at the same time. He too took down several more of his comrades who were already getting in each others way to have a chance at striking me. So far their numbers were not exactly working in their favor. That could change though.

Things did take a turn for the worse when the pale king finally got involved. I was a little off balance after that last shield bash and the strike of the heavy cleaver came in a lot faster than I had expected. I couldn't dodge without opening myself to a dozen more attacks from all sides and I couldn't properly deflect the strike either. My arm arm went numb as the heavy weapon smashed into my shield. It probably was only thanks to the enchantment my brother had placed on it that I could bring it back up after wards at all.

At least the heavy weapon sunk deep into the ground, getting stuck on some roots in the process, afterwards. I wasn't out of danger though. The witch I had sent to the ground first was back on her feet and she was coming at me, wailing like a banshee. Claw like energy blades, glowing in a sickly green light, extended from her fingers as she swiped at me. I stepped back and brought my glaive around. The magical claws sputtered and extinguished as her head went flying. That was when my luck finally ran out. Or rather things went from bad to worse.

I managed to disembowel another headhunter with the same swing but then something heavy landed on my back. Another headhunter had snuck up on me and dropped down from the branches above while I had been distracted. He locked his legs around my weapon arm while grabbing at my horns to further steady himself. I couldn't help but scream as he grabbed them entirely too hard. At the same time his teeth sunk into my neck. He didn't hit any of the major blood vessels but it still was painful beyond believe.

More and more of them swarmed me now. Even with my weapon arm restricted I still managed to bury the glaive's blade into one of them. His guts spilling everywhere as the destructive weapon ate away at him. I slit another one's throat with the edge of my shield. The head of a last one I stamped into the ground, snapping his spine in the process, as he tried to grab one of my legs. That was about as far as the moment of surprise and my sheer momentum would carry me.

I tried to drop backwards to dislodge the one burring his teeth in my neck. Maybe I could even squash him with my sheer weight? I didn't get to find out. More and more of the pale monsters swarmed me. My weapon was torn from my grip. With grim satisfaction I took notice that even now it still killed another headhunter as it went flying, nailing him to a nearby tree, where he wreathed in anguish and pain for a few moments more before going still.

I buried my fist in the face of one more headhunter, ramming his nose all the way up into his brain and collapsing him to the ground as well, before three others managed to restrict my weapon arm by grabbing onto it, just like some more had done with my shield arm. Yet more grabbed onto my legs to immobilize me properly, forcing me to my knees in the process. Within moments I was rendered pretty much helpless, which did not mean that I stopped struggling though.

My struggle only ceased when the pale king, that disgusting, fat monster, finally grabbed my chin to force me to look him in the eyes. Ice cold shivers ran down my spine as he spoke. “Well, well, what a tasty little morsel we have here.” Several of the other headhunters hooted and hollered. He looked around at the bloody remnants of the fight. “At least I understand now why our Lady was so infuriated about you. You are quite a troublesome one, aren't you.” He chuckled. “But in the end we got you. We got you like we always get the chosen of the Lady's pesky sisters. You are always so passionate, so heroic and before long so dead. The Lady whispered in our ears to bait the trap and you went right for it.”

I spit in his face. There was little else I could do after all.

He didn't even bother to wipe my spit away. He simply took a step back to wrench his weapon free of the root it had been stuck in. “Help her out of her armor so we can all feast.” More and more pale hands started pawing me, searching for the buckles and straps fixing my armor in place, even as I renewed my struggles once more, while the pale king smirked.