Shadowed Gaze: The Highserk War Saga - Chapter 66

Kicking up the cobblestones, Walm took shallow breaths repeatedly as his blood and magical energy whirled through his body at a dizzying pace. His lungs were desperate for oxygen, and the taste of blood welled up from the pit of his stomach. It had been several hours since the quasi-leader-like High Ogre had rallied part of the monsters and shifted to a major offensive.

Walm was fortunate. The humans entrenched in Dandurg Castle were on the brink of annihilation. It was unclear whether it was due to overconfidence or a lack of cohesion, but the movements of the monsters’ side had become reckless. Had he not succeeded in decapitating the leader of the group with the first strike, Walm would have been overwhelmed by their coordinated numbers and met his second death.

“Phew… haah… haa… huff…”

Without sticking to one place, Walm continued to move, killing only the monsters in his path. When he was about to be surrounded, he deployed Demon Fire to delay checkmate. Even if he couldn’t burn them to death, he could char them enough to significantly reduce their combat abilities.

A troll, enduring the weaker blue flames with its durable body, picked up a support pillar from a collapsed barracks and swung it at Walm.

Walm leaned his upper body and slid his feet touching the ground, closing the distance. The pillar loomed in front of him but passed by without catching him.

Continuing the momentum of his slide, he swung his sword, slicing through the fibula and ligaments of the ankle. The giant ogre, losing its support, toppled over.

The troll managed to avoid falling by planting its hands on the ground, but it couldn’t prevent Walm’s piercing follow-up attack. Feeling the elasticity as he pierced through the Adam’s apple, Walm did not look back and readied his sword.

A Lizardman wielding a war hammer came at him, and Walm joined his sword with the hammer, shifting the trajectory away from his body. While feeling the pleasant high-pitched sound of metal briefly touching, he instantly flicked his wrist.

The Lizardman’s throat, momentarily frozen as if time had stopped, split open, gushing blood like a fountain.

A goblin leaped out from behind the troll’s corpse, striking Walm with what could hardly be called a weapon, but he sidestepped, and it harmlessly passed by.

He grabbed its head with one hand, pulled it to his feet, and kicked it up with his knee. The goblin, its brain shaken and consciousness lost, was thrown to the ground, where Walm crushed its head underfoot. However, he sensed monsters pressing in from all sides.

Expending magical energy, he spread an explosively hot atmosphere, and slightly delayed, Demon Fire began to erode the surroundings. A Horned Grizzly, enveloped in azure flames and its eyeballs seared, swung its mighty arms blindly. Tracking the wildly swinging claws, Walm struck down from above, breaking through the horned bear’s skull.

A wolf, its fur burned off and skin exposed, relied on its sense of smell to leap in. Walm thrust his longsword towards its mouth, piercing through its throat and halting the wolf mid-air. He brushed off the carcass and, while chasing the remaining frenzied monsters with his eyes, sprinted past the pile of dead bodies.

Cutting, sweeping, stabbing, crushing, burning—Walm repeated these actions countless times. A slime attempting to adhere and spray digestive fluid was seared, its liquid body dissipating into nothingness.

The werewolf, having withstood the Demon Fire, now bore a ferocious look as it plotted to pursue Walm. Its sharp, hook-like claws extended, capable of easily tearing skin, but they sliced through the air without mauling his flesh and bone.

The werewolf continued to close the distance, attempting to embrace Walm like a lover parting ways, but Walm’s response was rejection. Before its arms could seize him, a sharp blade cleaved its torso in two, the lower half ending its tearful separation. The werewolf, now halved, clawed at the cobblestones with lingering attachment.

The great rampage, which had felt endless, was gradually subsiding as the battle wore on, and Walm realized that the number of monsters had drastically decreased.

It was like a scene straight out of the Mahayana scriptures, where sinners eternally battled each other in a hellish existence, and Walm could now see the end of this relentless struggle.

His limbs felt as heavy as lead, his internal organs screamed in pain, and his eyes trembled with a dull ache. From the moment he acknowledged the end, Walm’s movements lost their finesse.

A Lizardman from behind thrust a short spear at him. Walm twisted and turned, narrowly entangling his feet.

Walm deflected the spear with the flat of his sword and delivered a low, sweeping “Strong Strike.” Both arms and the head of the Lizardman flew off, with blood spurting from the remaining torso and arms.

Dodging the blood spray, Walm caught sight of a sneaking shadow. Its jaw split to the cheeks, its head and chest eerily human-like, but its lower half was that of a large serpent.

Two pairs of short swords glimmered ominously. A kris dagger, with a blade wavy like a flamberge, was thrust forward. Walm blocked it squarely with his sword, feeling a slight numbness in his hand. His swordplay became sloppy, distracted by extraneous thoughts.

“Ha… haa… haa… phew――”

“Switch gears, focus,” he kept telling himself, taking short breaths and concentrating solely on the monster before him, somehow managing to shift his focus.

The remaining Kris dagger approached from the side, its tail snaking towards his feet. Walm reflexively caught the Kris dagger with his gauntlet and sliced off the coiling tail with his sword. The Lamia, hissing threateningly, tried to overwhelm him with numbers. In response, Walm used the reach of his longsword, stepping forward with one leg and delivering a diagonal slash, severing the body from the waist to the shoulder.

The Lamia, thick with serpent blood, did not die immediately but was no longer a threat.

Without a moment’s respite, a Poison Spider leaped from the rubble, and a two-headed Orthrus charged in, flying across the ground.

Walm impaled the descending Poison Spider, then, brandishing his sword, threw the convulsing spider at the two-headed wolf.

Orthrus took a small step to the left, turning its twin jaws towards Walm, but this evasive move gave Walm an opening for a counterattack.

Walm leaped back while swinging his sword horizontally. The upper parts of Orthrus’ jaws were neatly severed, and its body, losing control, slid across the ground.

As Walm’s movements slowed, three Orcs saw an opportunity and lunged at him. The leading Orc, covering its vitals with a round shield, approached, but to Walm, it was an easy target.

He sliced off its knee from the blind spot of the shield, and as the Orc fell forward, Walm thrust his fingers into its eye socket and unleashed Demon Fire.

The eyeball burst instantly, and the brain boiled like popcorn. Another Orc thrust a spear, but Walm shattered the spearhead with a “Strong Strike” and slit the defenseless throat.

The Orc tried to stem the bleeding, but without the ability to seal wounds with a magic barrier, it was only a matter of seconds before it died.

Without a pause, the last Orc charged. Walm changed his grip, supporting the sword’s hilt with one hand. He fixed the sword in the path of the Orc and met its charge.

Feeling the sword pierce the heart of the Orc by its own force, Walm twisted and withdrew the blade. The dead Orc, bleeding profusely from the stab wound and its mouth, collapsed onto the ground, leaning against Walm.

Walm glanced around, twisting his neck. The number of surrounding monsters had dwindled to less than thirty. Though hundreds more remained inside the castle, what once felt like an infinite stream of monsters was now nearing its end.