[Do you wish to accept it?]
"...Yes."
...
At the eastern side of the wall, a battle had already waged on. The daemon legion was overwhelmed as Melina's previous attack hadn't just breached the walls but was also a Trojan horse containing many of her undead soldiers.
Her ability was overwhelming the enemies, but it was only for a few moments, as using this had cost a lot of her soul essence. They had to breach the eastern side of the wall to crush the enemy's remaining chances of winning.
Wren was on the battlefield, riding on the mighty noble creature, before he jumped off it, landing directly between the horde of the battle.
A myriad of sparks generated around his hand, coalescing in the form of a scythe. An awakened with a sword was already at him, aiming to end his life before Wren could even move.
However, the awakened didn't know that he was walking into his own death, as the curved blade of the scythe had already cleaved his head off.
Two other awakened would have followed the same fate, if not for an ascended to parry his attack at the last moment.
Moving a few steps backwards, he looked at the enemy. He had no intention to waste his time; all that remained in him was cold rationality to kill the enemy.
The enemy didn't hesitate either.
He had already launched a swift attack; the halberd was aimed at piercing Wren's chest, but it wasn't so easy. Though the attack was instantaneous, the ascended warrior was able to anticipate it. The moment Wren ceased using the soul essence, something yanked the halberd downward, allowing Wren to use it as a step for his body.
Wren made a quick step on the shaft of the halberd, which plummeted to the ground, and then twisted his waist and arms before he moved his scythe's curved blade in a wide arc.
The ascended hadn't anticipated a movement like this. Although he managed to twist away from the sudden attack, he lost his right eye in the process. It was a necessary sacrifice; the curved blade had passed so close that if he hadn't moved, it would have taken half his head.
Wren stared at the Ascended. Blood poured from the ruined socket, but the warrior didn't even flinch.
The man drew a dagger, then a shortsword. Wren shifted his stance, ready to finish it, but then he felt multiple presences reaching closer to them.
Before he knew it, multiple ascended and awakened had surrounded him. Wren didn't show it, but his hand slightly trembled before firming its grip against the scythe.
"This many warriors against a mundane human?" He asked coldly.
Then one of them, clad in black iron armour and carrying an axe in her hand, said with a dangerous grin.
"As if you're mundane. You humble us too much, Broken King. Though I'll admit, this might be a bit much for you alone. Consider it a compliment from our Lady."
A cold, grim smile touched Wren's lips. He laughed as the scythe in his hand disappeared in a myriad of sparks, and a curved odachi made out of pure darkness appeared in his hand.
"Your lady doesn't seem very bright to think she has misunderstood the fact that I am alone."
A large shadow of a winged creature loomed above them. The warriors could feel the heavy presence of the creature overhead; even the ascended woman grew quiet and serious.
Wren's violet eyes shone with a dark glee.
The mighty dragon opened its maw and released a torrent of black flames below. The warriors escaped the raging flames, but not everyone was lucky.
Two awakened were caught in the black flames, which hungrily ate their armour. They tried to use their soul essence to push the flames, but the devouring flames didn't spare the soul essence either.
In the end, the two burned without even being able to scream for help. Wren, on the other side, moved with the blade of the great odachi.
He moved, carrying the odachi's blade with his centre of mass perfectly balanced, and the curved blade struck down at the ascended woman with the axe.
The blade of the axe swatted the long sword aside, allowing the woman to close the distance and swing her axe at him. Wren blocked her attack with the guard of his odachi, but before he could recover, another attacker appeared with a short sword and struck at him from the side.
The awakened's blade failed to pierce through his robes. He kicked the ascended woman and swung the long blade of the odachi at the awakened. The awakened lifted his short sword to block the incoming slash, but failed miserably.
The blade of the short sword shattered like glass against the crushing weight of the dark odachi before it cut through the body of the unarmed awakened like paper.
[You have slain an unknown awakened human.]
The bewitching voice of the spell only left him with a bitter aftertaste; he couldn't use the soul essence he gained after killing a human, as the darkness flowing inside him devoured everything.
The curved blade of the odachi began to twist and change, morphing into the shape of a katana.
Suddenly, Wren heard a whistling sound slicing through the air, aimed directly at his head. He instinctively moved to the side just in time for the dagger to move past him, but the threat was far from over.
He detected a lethal intent approaching from behind. Turning around, he saw a blade moving toward him. With barely a moment to react, he dropped his centre of gravity to duck underneath the sudden attack.
Wren looked at the attacker. It was the ascended he had fought and wounded before; the man somehow had switched places with the dagger he had thrown.
'Is this an ability of his aspect?' He thought before deflecting another attack from the injured ascended.
Wren blocked the second blow, and then the third and then the fourth. The two of them exchanged blow after blow, but none of them seemed to fall back.
Then, the ascended suddenly changed his stance, and Wren shifted his form in response; however, something bizarre happened.
In a mere fraction of a second, a gruesome wound resembling the blade of a sword appeared on his chest, and the ascended was nowhere to be seen.
Then, another appeared, and another, in three seconds, eight gruesome wounds appeared on his body, ripping even through his protective robes.
The ascended form reappeared, but the man looked exhausted. It seemed he had used his aspect again, but whatever he had done consumed whatever soul essence had remained in his soul core.
He looked at Wren, his gaze unwavering, and then he spoke for the first time, in a heavy voice.
"Don't even try to move, it has no use. All of your tendons and ligaments are severed. If you want the best for yourself, surrender."
It seemed to the ascended that he had won, but then there was one thing he noticed.
The wounds on Wren's body didn't bleed at all.
Instead...
They bled darkness.
Before it could spill on the ground, the darkness retracted, and the harrowing wounds on his body healed, leaving not a single trace. The ascended's eyes widened in astonishment. He had used whatever remained of his soul essence.
But the enemy wasn't neutralised.
The ascended sighed.
'This is way above my pay grade. Shitty contractor, ah... my life is wasted. The daemon and divine legion should both die, wretched beings. I hate being a mercenary, messed up life...' He thought as he raised his weapon, a last effort for his hopeful survival.
Wren took a stance that was awfully similar to the injured ascended. In a mere second, his body disappeared before reappearing behind the ascended, whose head fell from his shoulders.
The voice of the spell spoke in his mind.
[You have slain an unknown ascended human.]Wren stood still for a second before both of his hands grabbed his head, keeping it in place as the wound on his neck healed. His eyes drifted to the corpse; the man had still tried to kill him even at his last breath.'
To think he had purposely placed such a flaw in his technique, but in the end, I won.' His thoughts, however, betrayed his sense of victory; if it had not been for this ability of his, his death would have been certain.
Suddenly, the roar of a beast echoed throughout the battlefield. His eyes turned towards the direction where he saw the mighty dragon killing the last of the enemies, and beside it was someone he didn't want to see.
The leader of the fourth elite cohort. Ascended Orion had helped the noble creature in killing the remaining awakeneds.
Wren's gaze swept over the battlefield. The battle was still going on, though only soldiers like generals and the rest were here; the main force hadn't entered the battlefield yet.
The group—Wren, Orion, and the dragon—regrouped. The tension between him and Orion was visible, but both chose silence over it and picked a different topic.
"We need to maintain some distance from the wall for now," Orion said as his gaze swept over the eastern wall.
Wren nodded.
Suddenly, a wave of nausea passed over his entire existence. It was a familiar feeling he had experienced when he came to this nightmare.
His eyes snapped to a certain distance. And there, he saw a figure wreathed in light swarming the entire battlefield with her presence.
The commander of the divine legion made her entrance.
Just then, dark clouds began to gather, and lightning started to sparkle in them. Another heavy presence with a similar nauseating feeling washed over him, if not far worse than the previous one.
The three of them looked at the source of the heavy presence. It was a being whose body was covered with lightning. Sparks began to appear in the air, as thunder began to concentrate in one place.
It all happened in one moment."We need to retreat..." Orion muttered. Without any further ado, the two of them climbed the back of the mighty creature before it sprinted away from the battlefield.
But even if they had managed to create distance, it was inevitable. The entire battlefield was blinded by the lightning that fell continuously on it.
The light blinded Wren and Orion, and the thunderous sound of the lightning made their ears ring. As moments passed, the dragon began to descend as its sense of balance was disturbed. But then the Commander of the divine legion used her will against the attack, stopping it before any further destruction it would have brought.
The area the lightning had struck was completely gone from the face of the realm, along with the soldiers of both legions. It might have been seen as mutual destruction, a loss, if not for more enemy battalions to pour out of the walls.
Wren rose from the sand, his ears still ringing and his vision distorted. The enemies were approaching, but he couldn't tell from where.
As his vision restored slightly, he noticed a tall figure approaching them. It wasn't a human, and he didn't know who it was until he heard a familiar maniacal laughter.
A laughter that spread dread, a laughter he hated very much.
"What a pathetic sight. Though it's pretty pleasing to my eyes, seeing you grovelling on the sand of this scorched hell. A pleasant feeling, indeed." The figure laughed again.
The Mad Shadow had appeared on the battlefield.