“Fire!”
A storm of arrows screamed through the air. Alice’s feet planted firm, eyes sharpened—and she moved. She ducked, twisted, rolled—each movement cutting narrowly between death and survival. Arrows grazed her arms and legs as she backflipped for space.
Then came the war cries.
Dozens of knights charged from all sides. No time to think—no time to breathe. Alice lunged into the swarm and struck first, slicing clean through a knight’s neck. Before the body dropped, three more swung down in unison. She leapt, barely clearing their blades. They were exposed—she landed behind them and, with one sweeping arc, cleaved through all three.
But her acrobatics came at a price. Her wounds tore further open, fresh agony contorting her face. She hit the ground hard—and Roy was already there.
He came crashing in like a battering ram, fist cocked. Alice bent backward instinctively, narrowly avoiding the punch that would’ve pulverized her skull. Another swing. She kicked up from the ground and cracked him under the chin.
Roy staggered half a step.
Alice launched herself away, panting hard, every breath laced with pain. The kick had done more damage to her than him. Roy barely noticed it—his skin tougher than steel, his fists strong enough to level a building. But worse than his strength was his speed. She couldn’t take her eyes off him for even a blink.
“Volcanic Glacier!”
A spell chant finished—and too late, Alice noticed the cold breath wrapping around her feet. A massive spike of ice erupted beneath her, launching her into the air. Blood splattered across the ballroom floor.
At the peak of the icy spire, she clung to her sword, the only thing keeping her from being impaled. Her limbs twitched violently. All her wounds—reopened. Her soaked bandages bled through, her face writhing in agony.
She gasped for air.
The seconds up here were precious. A moment to breathe. A moment to think.
Roy smashed the ice below with a single punch. The spire crumbled beneath her. Alice leapt, catching the chandelier above, swinging from its chain as her golden eyes scanned the battlefield.
Twenty knights still standing. Not counting the vanguards.
She needed to isolate one. If she couldn’t thin them out, she was done.
Arrows chased her across the chandelier as she blocked and deflected them mid-air. Mask leapt into the air with a predator’s grace, claws extended like a beast.
Alice cut the chain.
The chandelier collapsed, crushing a cluster of knights below in a thunderous crash. She landed in a roll—fifteen left.
A knight met her in a clash of blades. Sparks flew.
“You traitorous bitch! Letting you in was always a mistake!”
He slammed his shield into her face. Disoriented, she staggered—then screamed as a brutal kick landed square in the spot Axel had impaled her.
She dropped, howling in pain, clutching her side. The knight raised his sword for the kill—but Alice kicked it aside and kipped up, countering with a brutal twist that snapped his neck.
Another rush.
She grabbed his body, using it as a shield. The next wave swung—and their blades thudded uselessly into their comrade’s corpse. Her ears twitched.
She shoved the body into them, snatched his shield, and pivoted hard.
Clang!
Five blades smashed into the shield, nearly knocking her off her feet. Metal shrieked as Mask slid beside her.
“Hehehe… your bloodline saved you this time. But the next shot won’t miss.”
Alice’s body tensed. She hurled the shield at him and leapt back.
Mask struck—but the shield took the brunt of the damage. Alice hit the ground and turned to counter—only for pain to explode through her left arm.
She looked down.
A gash. Deep. Her arm went limp, she wasn’t able to entirely block the attack as the sheild clattered against the ground.
"Her left arm’s gone dead!" one knight shouted. "Now! Kill her!"
They charged, all of them at once. Her sword trembled in her remaining hand.
Her chances were fading—fast. Like a flame in a downpour.
But her eyes didn’t falter.
She gritted her teeth. Tightened her grip.
And ran straight at them.
If this was the end—she would decide how it finished.
BOOM.
A body slammed into the stone wall like a meteor, folding with a sickening crunch. The entire audience chamber shook. Cracks spiderwebbed outward as blood seeped from the impact, trailing like black ink across fractured marble. Steam hissed from the torn muscle and shattered bone—a grotesque fog rising from a barely recognizable figure.
Axel.
His face was mangled beyond recognition. One eye hung from a sinew of flesh. His jaw was unhinged, teeth scattered across the floor like loose shrapnel. Limbs were twisted at unnatural angles, flesh shredded, ribs exposed like a burst carcass. If not for his regeneration, he would’ve already been a corpse rotting against the wall.
He twitched.
The sound of heavy, unhurried footsteps echoed through the hall. Yokubo strolled forward, his boots squelching through puddles of blood. He was calm. Composed. Curious.
(All stat boost.)
(All stat boost.)
The air pulsed with invisible force.
Yokubo’s eyes gleamed with amusement as he observed Axel’s twitching remains. “Fascinating,” he said, his voice rich with mock admiration. “You regenerate at an absurd rate… but you’re hemorrhaging stamina just as fast. Ah, I see—Regeneration, likely. But not your only perk.”
He stopped just short of Axel’s mangled body.
“You weren’t getting stronger until I hit you. Not Battle Ready. No... this reeks of Carnage Feast.”
He glanced up at the blood dripping from the ceiling, then down at the floor stained in viscera.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Twenty-seven fatal blows so far. Each one enough to kill a lesser creature three times over.” His grin widened, feral now. “But that’s the tragedy of regeneration, isn’t it? You don't get to die. You just keep coming back... in pieces.”
A low growl rumbled from Axel’s chest. The sound was barely human.
His ruined arm moved—violently. A blur. A punch that broke the sound barrier and detonated air itself. It ripped toward Yokubo’s face like a cannon shell at point-blank range.
CRACK.
Yokubo caught it.
The chamber buckled.
Wind exploded outward, cleaving through columns and bursting every stained-glass window into a hurricane of shards. The ground beneath them cracked from the sheer impact, bricks launching into the air like shrapnel.
Axel roared, his body flailing with savage force—but Yokubo didn’t budge.
“You’re still holding back,” he murmured.
With a flick of his arm, Yokubo yanked Axel free from the wall and hoisted him into the air. Axel’s feet dangled helplessly above the floor. The two monsters locked eyes—one with blood-soaked hatred, the other with analytical malice.
Yokubo’s grip tightened.
Axel’s arm shattered in his grasp.
Bones split. Tendons snapped. Steam hissed from ruptured nerves as Axel screamed, more beast than man.
Yokubo slammed him into the floor with a sickening SMASH, creating a crater beneath them. He didn’t let go.
Again.
SMASH.
Again.
SMASH.
Chunks of stone shattered. Blood painted the walls. Axel’s body bent and broke in Yokubo’s grip, his torso contorting like a ragdoll, his screams echoing like wild animals being gutted alive.
Still—he regenerated.
Still—he clawed at Yokubo’s throat with fingers that snapped on contact.
Still—he fought.
Yokubo
Level: 76
Race: Monster (Formal human)
Occupation: The seventh Warlord
Hp: 20,767/20,821
Mana: 15,591/15,591
Attack: 17,921
Magical Attack: 16,667
Defence: 19,531
Magical Defense: 18,901
Mana res: 1000%
Speed:17,642
CRACK!
Axel’s body smashed through a stone pillar and ragdolled across the audience hall. He hit the far wall with a thunderous crunch, limbs flailing like snapped rope, blood spraying as his body slumped to the floor in a tangle of limbs and bone.
He didn’t move.
Steam hissed from his torn flesh. Muscle squirmed, bone snapped back into place. Regeneration kept him alive—but just barely.
Yokubo approached, boots echoing through the blood-slicked hall, his pace unhurried. He looked around at the carnage with the satisfaction of an artist admiring his brushstrokes.
(All stat boost.)
(All stat boost.)
(All stat boost.)
Power swelled in the air like pressure before a storm.
He stopped beside Axel’s crumpled form, studying the twitching, ruined mass. “You heal quickly,” he said with a tilt of the head. “But at a cost. Stamina burns with every heartbeat. You're holding on by threads, and they’re fraying.”
Yokubo crouched, eyes gleaming with perverse interest.
“You're holding it in,” he said softly. “All of it. Every scream. Every shred of agony. Your nerves must be drowning in fire right now. Your bones—resetting just enough to break again. Every breath you take is chewing through shredded lungs, and you're still trying to look me in the eye.”
He chuckled, brushing hair away from Axel’s bloodied, swelling face.
“You have no idea how beautiful that is.”
He leaned in closer.
“Pain is the only truth left in this world, Axel. It strips away pride, memory, fear… Until there’s nothing left but instinct. And you—” his voice dropped to a whisper, “—you are made entirely of it. You don’t feel pain. You are pain.”
Axel’s one good eye locked onto him. His voice came low—gravelly, frayed—but controlled.
“…and yet, I’m still standing.”
Yokubo's grin faltered—just briefly.
Axel coughed blood, lips twitching into a broken smirk. “You think this hurts?” he rasped. “This is nothing compared to what I already lived through.”
A beat passed.
Then Yokubo smiled wider than before. “Good,” he said, voice low. “That means I still have work to do.”
SLAM.
He drove Axel into the floor. Again.
SMASH.
Again.
SMASH.
The ground broke beneath them. Marble fractured, blood pooled. Screams echoed. Axel’s skull cracked like porcelain under a boot. His arms snapped as he instinctively reached out, only to be shattered again.
But still—he didn’t die.
(All stat boost.)
(All stat boost.)
Yokubo grabbed him by the leg and hurled him through another column. The crash sent debris flying. Axel’s body tumbled across the hall, steam rising from every inch.
“You're annoying,” Yokubo muttered, walking through the wreckage.
He extended his arm.
“Black Flame.”
A sinister roar filled the air as a twisting mass of black fire ignited in his palm. The heat distorted the very air around them. Banners across the chamber caught flame. Even the stone blistered beneath its glare.
With a flick, he hurled it.
The inferno erupted.
Flames surged like a living beast, swallowing the room in a vortex of destruction. The stone floor glowed red-hot. The ceiling cracked. Everything bathed in searing fire.
“You could’ve been a brother, Axel!” Yokubo shouted over the chaos. “But instead—I’ll make your agony legendary!”
Axel staggered from the rubble, scorched and skinless in places, but alive. Black blood poured from open wounds. He summoned a swarm of shadow hands—dozens of them—lashing, clawing, slashing.
Yokubo didn’t even flinch.
He charged straight through, ripping them apart with his bare hands. The darkness shredded like paper.
He grabbed Axel by the skull.
And dragged.
He scraped Axel’s face across the wall—peeling flesh, grinding bone—until he smashed it into a crater and threw him aside.
(All stat boost.)
(All stat boost.)
Axel’s jaw dangled open. He rolled to the side—gasping. Eyes unfocused. Ribs poking through his side.
But something changed.
Yokubo’s punch thundered down. Axel twisted, barely avoiding it, the blow slamming into stone and sending cracks spidering up the wall.
The Reaper rose.
For once, his breath was shaky—not from exhaustion, but caution. His fists curled. Blood pooled at his feet. Every nerve burned—but he stood.
Yokubo cocked his head. “Oh? Starting to smarten up?”
No answer. Just a glare.
Axel knew now. This wasn’t a battle he could walk through. This was survival. This was war.
He would have to fight for his life.
And despite everything—despite the pain, the fear—
He smiled.
That same crooked grin Yokubo wore.
Excitement boiled in both their blood.
Two monsters. Two aberrations. No rules. No honor.
Only carnage.
CRACK!
Lightning ripped the sky above.
They launched forward—no words, no hesitation.
Fists clashed.
The room trembled.
And the war began.
