Scarrings were carved against steel. Sparks burst across the battlefield as Gobuka staggered back, blood streaming from his severed arm. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps, yet his eyes fixed on the spectre before him.
Before him loomed the Sword Ghost. Cloaked in tattered shadows, its blade moved with an eerie grace, each and every strike too precise, too fluid, as if death itself led a dance. Soldiers who dared step close fell instantly, their throats cut before they even saw the blade move. For Gobuka, the universe condensed into this single, implacable enemy.
He adjusted his grip on his sword, his one remaining hand tightening until the leather of the hilt groaned. "Even with one hand…" he spat, blood flecking his lips. "I'll cut you down."
The featureless grey mask tilted. Then the Sword Ghost flowed into motion, a blur that defied physics.
Gobuka instinctively blocked the first strike. But then the ghost's arm twisted, lengthening, splitting into writhing tentacles. Steel whips came from every angle. Gobuka countered desperately, parrying some, but not all. Failed defences carved into his armour, drawing fresh streams of blood.
Gobuka fought with desperate, grinding skill. Razor-tipped shadows slipped past his guard, not just cutting, but unmaking his armour, reducing it to scrap metal and painting his body with deep, weeping gashes.
His vision swam, darkening at the edges. The Sword Ghost dissolved into a wisp of black smoke. Agony, cold and sharp, erupted from his back as a blade punched through his chest plate. Before the scream could leave his throat, a second sword flashed, and his other arm was severed cleanly.
"AGHHHHH—!"
His cry cut short as he collapsed to his knees, a fountain of blood arcing from both shoulders. Yet, the fire in his eyes didn't die. He clamped his jaw around the hilt of his fallen sword. Using it as a crutch, he forced his broken body to stand, swaying and staggering. He dragged himself forward, gripping his blade with his teeth.
The Sword Ghost simply observed him, a warrior unbending even in the face of death.
With a final, muffled roar around the steel in his mouth, Gobuka charged. It was a pathetic, lurching stumble. The Sword Ghost didn't even bother to properly dodge. It simply raised its blade for the final, contemptuous strike.
From afar, Julie's eyes widened in horror. She sprinted, hurling daggers that whistled through the air. But the Sword Ghost ignored them, its sword already descending.
"GOBUKA! NO!"
Julie's scream was raw, torn from the deepest part of her soul.
The sound was wet and final. Gobuka's head toppled from his shoulders, his body crumpling to the churned mud.
Julie collapsed, her scream choking into silence. Grief swallowed her, but beneath it, a darker flame rose. Hatred. The hunger to kill. Her heart pounded so violently that it shook her body. Her eyes shut, and when they opened again, she was no longer on the battlefield.
She floated in a void of perfect nothingness. No sound, no light, no feeling. This was the inside of her soul. And at its centre hovered a crimson sphere, pulsing faintly. Drawn by instinct, Julie drifted toward it. When her fingers brushed the surface, golden energy surged out of her body, pouring into the sphere. It spun, glowing brighter, until its light became blinding.
Her eyes snapped open. She was on her knees on the battlefield. She saw Gobuka's headless corpse, yet her chest felt… empty. 'Why? My mind tells me I should cry or feel something like anguish, rage, sorrow… but something is blocking it.'
Her gaze dropped to her hand. A red haze coiled around her fingers. 'What…is this?'
The answer came not as a thought, but as a cataclysm. A seizure of pure agony dropped her. Blood streamed from her nose, her ears, the corners of her eyes. It felt as if her very DNA was being rewritten, her soul reforged in a crucible of pain. Her body rejected the divine power, then violently adapted to it. When the pain passed, she rose. Her mind was preternaturally clear, a glacier of focused intent. The knowledge was absolute.
'I am the master of the Godhood of Slaughter.'
She walked to Gobuka's body, her steps unnervingly precise. She knelt by his corpse. "Gobuka… your sacrifice will not be in vain. I swear it. The one who took you from us… will not exist any longer." Her voice was a flat, resonant monotone devoid of any emotion.
She pulled up her hood and tied a mask over her face, becoming an anonymous instrument of oblivion. She drew a dagger, and the crimson haze coiled around it, enhancing the blade, making it a weapon fit for a master of slaughter.
She took a single step and vanished.
She reappeared thirty paces away. In the path between her old and new position, a score of enemy soldiers stood frozen for a microsecond before their bodies slid apart into geometrically perfect sections. The red haze around her thickened, pulsing with newfound strength. 'Hmm…the more I kill, the stronger I become.'
She was no longer a simple mortal. She was a force of nature, a localised extinction event. Her form flickered across the battlefield, and with each reappearance, a pocket of Seb-ath's army ceased to exist.
She was searching for his killer. Through the chaos, she finally found her target.
The Sword Ghost was calmly executing another squad. Julie ceased to be in one place and appeared directly in front of him, her enhanced dagger meeting its sword.
Suddenly, the Sword Ghost split into many ghosts, surrounding Julie from every direction. They all attacked her at the same time.
Julie blurred, her dagger glowing red as her haze surged outward, carving through two of the phantoms. They dissolved into smoke, but three more slashed at her back, shoulders, and sides. Sparks lit the field as she countered, each strike tearing chunks of earth and spraying stone shrapnel across friend and foe alike. Soldiers nearby stopped fighting, terrified of being caught between them.
The Sword Ghost's whisper echoed from all directions. "You cannot kill what has no body. Your rage and effort are meaningless."
Julie gritted her teeth, her haze thickening until it writhed around her like living tendrils. She spun, crimson arcs splitting the ground into trenches that swallowed enemy troops. "Then I'll kill you a thousand times until you stay dead!"
The phantom blades converged. Julie vanished, reappearing above, her dagger descending like a scarlet comet. Her strike ripped through the field, an explosion of haze and fire splitting the soil for dozens of meters. Dozens of Seb-ath's soldiers were obliterated in the blast.
When the dust cleared, the Sword Ghost still stood. No longer cloaked in rags, its body twisted; blades sprouted like skeletal wings, its arms stretched into writhing tentacles of steel. Its form wavered between solid and smoke, its presence pressing down on the battlefield like the weight of death itself.
Julie's chest heaved. Her hands trembled not from fear, but fury. Gobuka's rolling head flashed in her memory.
She inhaled sharply, her haze flaring brighter. The red mist spread across the ground like wildfire, feeding on the blood-soaked soil. Every corpse, every wound nearby bled into her power, thickening the haze until it coiled around her arms and dagger like living serpents.
The Sword Ghost struck. A dozen blade-tentacles crashed down at once, cutting trenches, uprooting trees, tearing boulders into dust. The battlefield became unrecognisable, a morass of smoke, ashes, and shattered stone. Julie darted between them, vanishing and reappearing in flashes of red. Each time, her dagger clashed with its blades, sparks igniting like stars.
She lunged, her dagger glowing like a burning sun. It caught her blow with crossed swords, the impact blasting a shockwave that hurled soldiers hundreds of feet back. Both combatants slid across the ruined field, carving trenches with their feet.
For the first time, the Sword Ghost staggered. Its shadow-body flickered, unstable. Julie's haze coiled tighter, sharper, hungrier.
Her eyes gleamed crimson as she whispered, her voice cold as steel. "Gobuka… this is for you."
Then she vanished, reappeared within the ghost's guard, and her blade descended with all the rage, sorrow, and slaughter the battlefield had fed her.
The Sword Ghost staggered, then dissolved into smoke, into nothing. All that remained were its two swords and its cleaved mask, clattering to the ground.
Julie stood amidst the carnage, the haze around her now a visible, swirling shroud of condensed vengeance. She inhaled, the act feeling like a forgotten custom.
"Gobuka… your vengeance is complete."
---
In the centre of the battlefield, the air crackled with power. Amazel stood her ground, staff raised high. Across from her, Seb-ath loomed, a giant monster in green, scaled armour.
Amazel attacked first.
"Glacial Lance!" she shouted. A spear of solid ice shot from her staff, flying straight for Seb-ath's chest. It hit with a loud CRACK and shattered into a thousand pieces. The ice did nothing. His scales were too hard.
Seb-ath roared and charged. He was surprisingly fast for his size. His giant claws swiped at her, aiming to cut her in half. But just before he reached her, Amazel vanished. She reappeared twenty feet away.
"Lightning Strike!" she yelled. A bolt of white electricity slammed down from the sky onto Seb-ath's back. It made him stumble, and smoke rose from his armour, but he shook it off and turned toward her again. But again Amazel disappeared and appeared twenty feet away.
Every time he got close, about to crush her with his strength, she disappeared and reappeared somewhere else, already casting another spell.
Seb-ath grew angrier. He was powerful, but he could not catch her. She was quick, but she could not hurt him.
It was a total standstill. A frustrating loop of attack and defence. She could not break his armour, and he could not land a hit.
They were stuck.
But just before he reached her, Amazel vanished.
She reappeared twenty feet away, her staff already glowing. "Firestorm!" she yelled. A wave of fire rolled across the ground, engulfing Seb-ath in flames. He roared, not in pain, but in annoyance. He stomped through the fire, his scales glowing red-hot but completely unburned.
He was fast, but her magic was faster. He charged again, and again she disappeared. This time, she appeared behind him.
"Earth Spike!" Sharp pillars of rock erupted from the ground beneath him, trying to impale him. He leaped into the air with incredible power, avoiding the spikes and landing with a ground-shaking thud.
He was getting smarter. Instead of charging blindly, he swiped his massive tail. It swept the area in a wide arc, too fast for her to dodge on foot. She had to teleport again, appearing high in the air.
"Gale Force!" she screamed, pointing her staff down. A tornado of wind slammed into Seb-ath, pressing him down. He dug his claws into the earth, fighting against the powerful gust, but he was pinned for a moment.
It was her chance. She gathered all her energy. "Lightning Strike!" A massive bolt of pure white lightning shot from the clear sky, hitting him directly on the head.
The explosion of light and sound was deafening. For a second, Seb-ath was hidden by smoke.
Amazel landed, breathing heavily. The smoke cleared.
Seb-ath was still standing. A black scorch mark marred his head scales, and he shook his head as if dizzy. But his eyes glowed with pure, furious rage. He was hurt, but not beaten.
He let out a ground-shaking roar that promised violence. The real fight was just beginning.