The mist did not yield.
Within that thick gray mantle that spread like a living lung over the battlefield, death danced to the rhythm of a single man. Ash moved among the abominations like an invisible blade, like a thirsty phantom that knew neither mercy nor rest.
Each step was a death. Each breath, a cut.
The Pale Needle glowed in his right hand with a ghostly light that seemed to absorb even the slightest reflection. The weapon was fast, lethal, designed to pierce defenses and reap souls before the body even understood it was already dead. But Ash did not limit himself to stabbing. There was a ferocity in his movements that transcended any technique or strategy.
He massacred.
That was the only word that could describe what happened within the sea of mist. Ash did not fight. He did not struggle. He did not battle. He massacred abomination after abomination with an efficiency bordering on superhuman, amplified by each death he brought upon the nightmare creatures.
An abomination with elongated arms — one of those that looked like humanoid spiders with inverted joints — lunged at him from the left. Ash didn't even turn completely. His arm moved in a wide arc and the Pale Needle pierced the beast's skull from side to side. A downward tug and the head split in two. The body fell with a wet thud.
Without stopping, Ash spun on his axis and kicked another abomination approaching from the rear in the chest. The impact was so violent that the creature's sternum caved inward with a muffled crack. The beast flew several meters backward, crashing into two of its companions and knocking them down in a tangle of twisted limbs.
Ash pounced on them before they could get up.
He drove the Pale Needle into the first one's eye. Pulled it out. Drove it into the second one's throat. Pulled it out. The third tried to hit him with a deformed arm, but Ash simply grabbed the limb, twisted it in a direction no joint should allow, and when the bone cracked under his augmented strength, he used the opening to sink the weapon hilt-deep into the creature's chest.
The abomination's soul shattered like a mirror struck by a stone.
[You have killed a fallen beast...]
[Your soul strengthens...]
Ash felt the familiar tingle running through every fiber of his being. With each death, with each soul he reaped using his Soul Guide ability, his own strength increased. His speed improved. His reflexes sharpened.
It wasn't much for each individual death. But he had killed dozens. Perhaps already close to a hundred.
And he had no intention of stopping.
An enormous smile spread across his face. It was not a human smile. There was no warmth in it, no compassion, not even the cold calculation of a professional assassin. It was something more primitive. Darker. A smile full of manic madness and bloodlust that burned in his eyes like embers in the darkness.
Ash laughed.
It was a low laugh at first, almost a whisper that escaped his lips without him being fully aware. But it grew. Became louder. Wilder.
He laughed as he pierced an abomination still trying to get up from the ground, the Pale Needle entering and exiting its corrupted flesh like a knitting needle through rotten wool.
He laughed as another beast managed to hit his shoulder with a massive claw, pushing him back a step, only for him to respond by plunging the Sword of Seven into its belly and dragging it upward until he split it in two.
He laughed when a fallen abomination — one of those creatures that were once human or something like it, twisted by the corruption of the spell — lunged at him with a roar of desperate fury. The beast was enormous, at least twice his size, with claws that could split steel and a mouth full of teeth that should never have existed.
Ash charged directly at it.
The impact was brutal. The abomination's claws tore strips from his hazy cloak and opened superficial cuts on his chest and arms. Blood splattered through the air, hot and red. But Ash did not retreat. His smile widened even further, showing teeth stained with his own blood.
"MORE!" he shouted, his voice broken by fury and ecstasy.
He buried the Pale Needle into the fallen abomination's neck. The beast roared, writhing violently. Ash clung to the weapon like a dog to a bone, letting the creature drag him as he searched for the angle for the final blow. He found it. With a sharp movement, he twisted the weapon and cut the abomination's spinal column from within.
The body collapsed. Ash fell with it, rolling over the corpses that already covered the ground like a macabre tapestry.
He stood up quickly, spitting out a mouthful of blood that had filled his mouth. The laugh escaped his lips again, now louder, clearer. A cackle that echoed within the mist like the echo of something no longer completely human.
"Is that all?" he asked the void, the shadows moving beyond the mist, the abominations that hesitated before entering his domain. "IS THAT ALL?!"
He took a step forward. Then another. The abominations lurking at the edges of the mist instinctively retreated. Some fled. Others lunged at him, blinded by a hatred that was no longer strategic, only visceral.
Ash welcomed them with open arms.
He cut. Stabbed. Struck.
There was no limit to his fury or his madness. Each movement was a death. Each death fed his power. Each fragment of power made him faster, stronger, more dangerous.
He punched an abomination, feeling the bones of his own hand crack from the force of the impact along with the beast's skull. The pain was a white flash that shot through his arm, but Ash only smiled more intensely. Pain? Pain was confirmation that he was still alive. That he was still fighting. That he was still killing.
"Come," he murmured, almost with devotion. "Come, you damned creatures!"
And then he shouted it louder, his voice tearing in his throat:
"COME!"
The echo of his cry was lost in the mist and the distant roar of the battle. But something answered. Something deep within him, in that part of his soul that remained hidden, was awakening and reacting to the massacre.
The Dawn Crown he had given to Nephis pulsed with a faint light, and Ash felt his memories strengthen, felt his connection to death become more intimate.
He killed another abomination. And another. And another.
With each one, his laugh grew wilder.
But even the hottest fury needs allies.
Ash raised a bloody hand and summoned the Black Knight. The familiar echo resonated in the air — a metallic, deep sound, like the tolling of a funeral bell — and the mist swirled violently around him.
From the center of the mist, a silhouette began to materialize.
The Black Knight stood at least two and a half meters tall, his armor of living stone polished like obsidian, with crimson veins that pulsed like freshly opened veins. His form was that of a demonic knight, a fallen warrior who had transcended death to serve a darker will. In his hands, a great broad-bladed sword that seemed to absorb the light around it.
The Black Knight's eyes glowed with a pale fire, and he turned his head toward Ash as if waiting for an order.
"Kill," said Ash, his voice barely a hoarse whisper. "Kill them all."
The Black Knight needed no further instructions.
He launched himself at the abominations with a ferocity that matched, and even surpassed, that of his summoner. The great sword moved in wide arcs, cutting through flesh and bone as if they were butter. Each blow split entire bodies. Each thrust pierced hearts and lungs and whatever other organs those creatures possessed.
The Black Knight felt no pain. He knew no fatigue. He did not hesitate.
He was death made stone.
Together, Ash and the Black Knight swept away everything that entered the mist. They created a zone of death within the zone of death, a circle of carnage so absolute that even the most bestial abominations began to hesitate before crossing the mist barrier.
Meanwhile, the mist moved.
It was not static. Ash controlled its expansion and contraction with each beat of his will. The sea of mist flowed like a living being, covering corpses, hiding the horror of what had happened, revealing only fragments of the battlefield when the spell pleased.
What was visible was enough to freeze the blood.
A sea of broken abomination corpses stretched across the area Ash had cleared. Bodies piled on top of each other, some still smoking, others already cold, all of them mutilated in ways that suggested an almost artistic violence. Severed arms. Heads separated from bodies. Torsos opened like badly written books.
It seemed as if an invisible entity had fed on their souls, leaving behind only empty shells. And in a way, that was exactly what had happened.
Ash stepped onto a mound of corpses that reached his waist. The Pale Needle and the Sword of Seven glowed with a wet gleam, covered in that thick black blood that flowed from the nightmare creatures. His hazy cloak was torn in several places, dripping the same corrupted liquid mixed with his own blood.
But he smiled.
He always smiled.
That was when it happened.
An enormous abomination, one of those that camouflaged themselves among the corpses waiting for the perfect moment, emerged from the pile of bodies like a released spring. It had been waiting. Watching. Calculating.
Ash didn't see it until it was too late.
The blow caught him fully in the side. It was like being rammed by a war chariot. A claw the size of his torso caught him in the air, the claws piercing his reinforced leather armor and sinking into his flesh. The impact threw him through the mist like a broken doll, his arms and legs flailing uncontrollably.
Ash flew at least fifteen meters before crashing into the ground. He rolled. Bounced. Stopped against the corpse of a shelled centurion, the impact making his teeth chatter and his vision blur momentarily.
The pain was searing.
His fractured ribs crackled with each breath. His left side burned as if on fire, the flesh torn by the deep furrows the claws had left. Blood gushed out rapidly, soaking his clothes.
For a moment, just a moment, Ash thought that perhaps this was the hour. Perhaps the spell had decided his luck had run out.
But then he smiled.
His mouth was full of blood. The warm, metallic taste filled his tongue, ran down his throat as he swallowed instinctively. He spat some out and watched the red liquid splatter the black-stained ground.
He smiled wider.
"More," he whispered, his voice barely a gasp. "More. More. MORE."
He stood up.
Every movement was agony. His broken ribs protested. His side bled uncontrollably. But Ash was beyond pain at that moment. Or perhaps, simply, he no longer cared. The crown in his soul pulsed with an almost frantic urgency, and the memories Nephis had granted him swirled in his mind like a whirlwind of blades.
The abomination that had struck him approached. It was massive, at least four meters tall, with a jaw split into four sections revealing rows of teeth like daggers. Its arms were as long as its entire body, and each hand ended in three claws the size of short swords.
Ash looked into its eyes.
And his smile became absolute.
"MORE!" he shouted, the word bursting from his chest like a war roar, like a challenge to the entire spell, to the nightmares, to death itself.
He grabbed the Sword of Seven with both hands. His bloodied fingers slipped a little on the hilt, but he clung with a strength born of desperation and madness.
He charged at the abomination.
The beast raised an arm to crush him, but Ash was faster even while wounded. He slid under the blow, felt the wind of the claw pass over his head, and drove the Sword of Seven into the creature's leg.
The sword activated instantly.
Blood Sacrifice began to work. Through the blade, Ash felt the abomination's life being sucked out, transformed, channeled into his own body. The blood stopped flowing from his wounds. The cuts began to close, the torn muscles to regenerate, the broken bones to knit together.
It was fast. Violent. Enlightening and painful.
Ash felt the beast's vital energy fill every pore of his body, returning strength, speed, vitality. When the sword finished feeding, the abomination fell to its knees, its flesh pale and withered as if it had aged centuries in seconds.
Ash didn't wait for it to die on its own.
He pulled out the sword, spun on his heels, and with a circular motion involving his entire body, decapitated the beast in a single stroke.
The head fell to the ground with a dull thud. The abomination's eyes blinked twice before going out forever.
Ash stood over the corpse, breathing deeply. His body was as good as new. No wounds. No pain. No fatigue.
The Black Knight appeared beside him, his great sword dripping black blood. For a moment, the two stood in silence, observing the sea of corpses surrounding them.
Ash turned his head toward the Black Knight. The smile of madness still shone on his face, but his eyes... his eyes had changed. They were still sinister, still gleaming with a dangerous light, but there was something more in them now.
Something that might be called clarity.
"We're not finished," said Ash, his voice now calm, serene, completely out of place in the midst of the carnage. "This is nothing. We haven't seen anything yet."
He looked toward the heart of the battle, beyond the mist, where the screams of the sleepers and the roars of the abominations mixed in an infernal symphony.
The smile widened a little more.
"Let's go," he ordered, and the Black Knight nodded with his stone helmet.
Together, master and summon, they ventured once more into the heart of the storm.
The mist closed behind them, enveloping them in its cold, deadly embrace. And somewhere, deep within that sea of mist, Ash's laugh echoed again.
Low at first.
Louder after.
Until it became the only sound the abominations heard before they died.