The mist began to dissipate.
Not because Ash had decided to stop his ability, but because his will had become erratic, unpredictable, as furious as the flames consuming the battlefield. The hazy cloak that had enveloped him during the first phase of the massacre now swirled around him like a gray whirlwind, opening and closing according to the whims of his mental state.
Within that chaos of mist and blood, Ash massacred without rest.
But it was no longer enough.
His eyes gleamed with madness as he looked ahead. He had eliminated dozens of abominations in his zone, turning the ground into a sea of mutilated corpses. The Pale Needle and the Sword of Seven had been permanently stained black, the corrupted blood of the nightmare creatures drying in layers upon the metal. His gray cloak, once immaculate, now hung from his shoulders like a blood-soaked rag.
Massacring wasn't enough.
He needed more.
He desired more.
Battle cries reached his ears, not from his own death zone, but from beyond. From where the humans fought against the endless tide of monsters. Ash turned his head slowly, like a predator detecting movement in the periphery of his vision, and he saw them.
Sleepers. Allies. Humans fighting with their own skills, their own weapons, their own lives at stake.
And before them, more abominations. Many more.
A fleeting memory crossed his mind — hazy, as if seen through fogged glass — that those humans were not enemies. That he had come to this battle to fight alongside them, not to kill them.
For a moment, he regained some of his sanity.
But it was only a moment.
Yet, it was enough.
Ash surged forward, discarding the mist around him. The hazy cloak that had once hidden and empowered him now dissipated completely, leaving him exposed to the light of flames and lightning. He no longer needed to hide. He no longer wanted to stalk in the shadows.
He wanted them to see him.
For everyone to see him.
His speed was like a gray blur that cut through the abominations with overwhelming ease. The monsters that stood in his path didn't even have time to react. One second they were roaring, preparing to attack some defenseless sleeper, and the next they were already dead.
Ash cut left and right with precision bordering on superhuman. The Pale Needle pierced heads and hearts without effort, while the Sword of Seven reaped limbs and split entire bodies with each strike. When he couldn't cut, he struck. When he couldn't strike, he crushed.
A shelled centurion — similar to the one he had killed before, but larger, more imposing — tried to block his path. Ash didn't slow down. He launched himself directly at the creature, dodged its charge with a twist that would have broken a normal human's hips, and cut.
The Pale Needle found the weak point between the shell plates, right where the neck joined the torso.
The metal pierced flesh and cartilage, and Ash pulled back with all his augmented strength. The centurion's head separated from its body with a wet, cracking sound, rolling across the ground as its gigantic body collapsed like a falling building.
One more.
Beyond the centurion, a twisted, bloody mass caught his attention. A blood worm — one of those elongated abominations that crawled across the ground like deformed snakes, leaving a trail of crimson viscosity in their wake — was coiling around a group of sleepers trying to flee.
Ash didn't think.
He ran straight toward the creature, the Sword of Seven raised high. The worm — at least six meters long, with a circular mouth full of spiral teeth — detected him too late. Ash leaped, landed on the monster's body, and began running along its spine as the beast writhed in agony.
The Sword of Seven plunged once. Twice. Thrice.
On the third strike, Ash split the worm in two. A jet of hot, thick blood bathed him completely, soaking his gray cloak in a dark red that would soon mix with black. The front half of the worm continued writhing for several more seconds before finally going still. The rear half was already dead before hitting the ground.
Ash stood upon the creature's remains, his chest rising and falling with rapid, deep breaths. His cloak, once gray, was now stained red and black. Drops of blood dripped from his sleeves, from his chin, from the tips of his weapons.
He looked like a demon fresh from hell.
But he didn't stop.
Ahead, a figure wrapped in white flames caught his attention. The flames weren't normal — they were hot, yes, but they also had an almost liquid quality, as if fire itself had decided to take human form. They danced around the figure with lethal grace, spreading in waves that consumed everything in their path.
The abominations that came too close turned to ash in seconds. Their roars of fury transformed into shrieks of agony, and then into silence.
Nephis.
Ash recognized her instantly, though he could barely see her face amid the glow of the flames. The crown she had given him pulsed stronger, and he felt his mind clear for another moment.
She was an ally.
She was an ally.
Ash's mind became enveloped again in the wild frenzy of death.
He moved toward her, cutting through the abominations trying to surround the bearer of the white flames. He arrived just as three fallen beasts — smaller versions of the messengers the raven was eliminating in the sky — lunged at Nephis from a blind angle.
They didn't reach her.
Ash cut the first in half with a vertical slash that began at its head and ended at its pelvis. The second received the Pale Needle in its eye, its soul shattered before its body finished falling. The third tried to flee, but Ash was already upon it, the Sword of Seven piercing its chest and emerging from its back.
Three deaths in less than five seconds.
Nephis turned her head slightly toward him, her eyes gleaming with the reflection of her own flames. She said nothing. There was no need. A nearly imperceptible nod, and Ash had already lunged forward again, continuing his massacre.
The battlefield stretched before him like an endless feast.
More abominations, much stronger than before.
Ash cut them, stabbed them, struck them.
His technique was flawless, yes, but it was his fury that sustained him. A fury that had no limit, that knew no fatigue, that desired only one thing beyond the next death.
The next.
And the next.
And the next.
---
While Ash ravaged the ground, his echo — the Black Knight — continued its own massacre in another section of the battlefield.
The living stone armor moved among the abominations like a harvester of death. Its great sword cut left and right with an efficiency no human could match. Each blow split bodies. Each thrust pierced hearts. Each step left a trail of corpses behind.
The sleepers fighting in that zone began to notice the change.
First was the pressure. A feeling that something enormous and dangerous was nearby. Then they saw the Black Knight's silhouette cutting through enemy lines, and they felt something many of them hadn't felt in hours: hope.
One by one, they began to gather around it.
Not because they trusted it — it was a summon, an echo of a defeated enemy, and its presence was as terrifying as the monsters they faced — but because it was effective. The Black Knight killed faster than they did. It killed with less effort. It killed without fear.
A sleeper with a flaming spear positioned himself to its right. Another, a woman with arms covered in metallic scales, to its left. Behind them, the archers and throwers who had run out of space to shoot now advanced, taking advantage of the path the Black Knight opened.
"Let's go!" someone shouted. "Follow the knight!"
And they did.
The Black Knight wasn't leading them, not really. It simply advanced toward where the abominations were densest, and the sleepers followed, taking advantage of the openings it created, finishing off the wounded, protecting its flanks.
Together, they began pushing the enemy line backward.
---
In the sky, the battle reached its peak.
The Black Steel Raven no longer fought alone.
A flying human — a sleeper whose ability allowed him to soar through the skies — had joined the fight. Together, the metal raven and the flying human formed a lethal team.
The raven attacked with its claws and beak, tearing winged abominations apart with a ferocity that recalled its summoner.
The flying human, faster and more agile, moved among the creatures like a needle, attacking with his bow, unleashing a rain of furious arrows.
Above, the gray clouds covering the sky began to illuminate from within.
Lightning.
Not the kind the raven launched from its wings, but natural lightning — or something like it — descending from the heights with apocalyptic fury. Each bolt struck the ground or some winged abomination too slow to dodge, and the ensuing thunder shook the bones of all who fought.
Boom.
Another bolt fell, illuminating the battlefield as if it were noon for an instant before plunging it back into the gloom of mist and smoke.
Boom.
The winged abominations shrieked, disoriented, some of their charred bodies plummeting toward the ground.
The Steel Raven used the chaos to eliminate two more messengers that had managed to survive the first wave. The flying human, for his part, took care of the smaller creatures, those trying to escape the raven's reach.
The sky was an inferno of lightning, black feathers, and corrupted blood.
Below, Ash looked up between death and death, saw the spectacle of destruction above his head, and smiled.
It was an apocalyptic scene. Perfect.
He plunged back into the massacre, his weapons singing in the air, his laughter lost among the screams of the dying and the roars of those yet to die.