Eckehard...
Eckehard Khaos von Grünewald Ehrenfeld – a child born at the cost of his mother's life, or so it was said
He was born a prince; poets sang of his beauty and girls dreamed of his love. Such was he, until he became an evil; no one remained to write history of his madness...
After many long years, no one knew anymore... ...because no one remained.
Upon the ruins of the last city on the continent ravaged by monsters, death and fire
A desolate silence like a dirge, and embers rising in a bleak, miserable scene as the last human stronghold burns
Eckehard stood, a black sword in his hand, gazing at the sky with empty eyes
All the rage and all the madness had subsided until nothing remained but a deep abyss devoid of emotion and a lifeless gaze.
His grey hair moved gently with his slight movement, in sync with the cold wind, as he turned his head and looked at the last humans on the continent. There was no longer even anger, hatred or contempt for him in their eyes... They had all already exhausted their emotions over the past twenty years of endless, gruelling battles
Everyone except this fool with black hair and red eyes, who knelt like an actor in a tragic play, embracing a woman with hair as white as snow, stained with her own blood; she seemed to be breathing her last breaths
She raised her hand and touched his cheek, smiled gently at him and said something. The black-haired man shook his head in despair, placing his hand over hers on his cheek whilst weeping like the fool that he is
The girl's hand slipped from his grasp and she finally closed her eyes. The man held her close, weeping and crying out her name with the utmost despair
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Adal, no... Adalgunde,... please, no, PLEASE,... DON'T LEAVE ME ... ADAAAAAAA"
Naturally, he concluded his drama with a scream so thunderous that the smoke and embers around him flared up.
The man laid the woman on the ground and spoke in a cold voice tinged with rage, without taking his eyes off her.
"… You"
He grabbed his massive sword from the ground and gripped the hilt
"You..."
He stood up, trembling with rage and grief
"You will die tonight"
He finally roared as he lunged like a mindless beast, drawing his sword towards Eckehard
"ECKEHARD"
A faint frown crossed Eckehard's face as he watched the man; frankly, he felt both curious and perplexed by the reaction of this man, driven by the power of love, who was charging at him recklessly like a raging bull
He dodged the first vertical strike with the slightest movement to the side, then parried the second diagonal strike from below with a light touch of his sword, and deflected the third diagonal horizontal strike downwards to the side.
His sword slid straight towards the man's throat, but the man kicked out at him whilst spinning, using his massive sword as a pivot, forcing Eckehard to abandon the attack and retreat gently and gracefully backwards.
What Eckehard couldn't understand was…
Why was this man so angry now?
Without turning his head, he raised his sword and parried a blow from behind by a short girl with short black hair and red eyes who resembled the man in some way... well, she was his sister.
Immediately after the short girl's failed attack, dozens of arrows, pale as moonlight, came his way; he parried as many as he could and dodged the rest. Then, as flaming golden chains descended from the sky—where a man stood on a platform of air above him—he dodged them all, turned immediately, and parried the blow from the man with the massive sword.
Like annoying flies, they continued to swarm around him, attacking him and completely surrounding him in a defensive stance, but honestly, there was no sign of confusion or panic on his face; he didn't even seem to be fighting seriously, but rather appeared somewhat lost in thought
Well, after fighting these men for twenty years, he had indeed noticed an interesting pattern: these fellows never die.
It's not that they're immortal or anything, but somehow they always manage to stay alive, and as their opponent, you always end up making some stupid mistake that lets them come back for round two.
Like now, when he accidentally stepped into a puddle on the ground and suddenly two hands grabbed his ankles and pinned him in place as a massive sword came down in a horizontal swing with a stupid shout, clearly aiming to split him in two. Just as he wrapped his arms around the burning chains, the short woman darted out of the shadows, her dagger aimed at his throat.
______
For most people, and by common sense, severe damage to the head or heart means instant death, but for these fellows...
Well, even when they have no way or even the energy to crawl somewhere to receive treatment, the ground will suddenly collapse – by chance – and they will also fall – by chance – into a blessed pool that happened to be – by chance – in the right place at the right time, healing them from head to toe... And it might even give them a few buffs for some reason
That's why he didn't really believe that the woman with the white hair had died, and that's also why he was baffled by their recurring drama, which for twenty years they had never once failed to perform whenever one of them was injured, and also... His stupid mistake was that he had literally forgotten their team healer...
He had truly and completely forgotten her for some reason
He raised his head and looked at the dramatic, heroic figure in front of him, shouting embarrassing phrases as usual
"Evil and murder have never been a path that ends happily. Look what you've done, you villain. Do you think you're the only one with a painful past?"
Villain?
Painful past?
Eckehard couldn't make head nor tail of most of this third-rate hero's speech.
He simply ignored him...
Now, where were we?
Ah, yes. The hands holding him in place and the fact that...
These men were essentially zombies. The moment you think you've killed one of them, the so-called 'power of friendship' is activated.
The person you thought was dead rises as a zombie, joins the battle at a crucial moment and turns the tide of the fight.
That's why Eckehard didn't bother fighting them seriously after achieving his final goal. In fact, the whole thing had… become terribly boring.
Even after twenty years of the same routine, these clowns have no new tricks up their sleeves... Besides, he had already achieved his goal and this continent had become uninhabitable; even if these fellows in front of him survived, they wouldn't be able to live long on this rotten continent...
So this final battle had become meaningless since humanity's last stronghold had been destroyed.
Just when it seemed they had completely surrounded him in a scene repeated more times than he could count over the past twenty years, with clichéd phrases as if they had victory in the bag.
Despite the chains restraining him, he moved his hand slightly and parried the blow of the massive sword; he moved his head slightly and dodged the short thrust when the massive sword came at him again from an awkward angle. Given the chains binding his arms and the hands gripping his feet, it seemed impossible to defend against this blow, so he did not bother to do anything , and he took the blow. The force of the impact sent him flying backwards several metres until he crashed into a half-ruined building and fell to the ground, bleeding, with a shower of rubble and rocks raining down upon him
He did not bother to get up, and the sword slipped from his hand.
Long ago, the battle had lost its appeal... He did not even know why he was fighting anymore... No... It was not that he did not know; and although he did not strive to survive, he found it shameful to surrender his head without a fight and without finishing what he had started. That was all.
Nor could history remember the last of noble lineage of House Ehrenfeld as mad, so he made sure that no one remained to write history after him.
That was his sole aim after he had lost her long ago... Tsk.
Couldn't these men be any more entertaining? What a bunch of useless clowns...