Max blinked once as the warriors recovered from their shock and began drawing their weapons. Crimson and golden mana gathered around blades, spears, and armored fists, filling the road with enough pressure to scatter dust from beneath their boots.
None of it frightened him.
He could feel the new power moving throughout his severed head and gathering beneath his neck, responding to him as naturally as any limb. The sensation was strange, but the amount of magic at his disposal caused a cold smirk to spread across his dirt-covered face.
"What are you waiting for?" Max asked. "Are you going to stand there like a bunch of frightened sissies, or will one of you actually try to kill me?"
That single sentence erased the remaining confusion from the soldiers’ faces.
Several expressions twisted with anger, while others tightened their grips around their weapons and cautiously moved farther apart. They had been chosen to carry the fallen king’s head to Voidstar, and none of them were willing to accept being mocked by the very trophy they had intended to display before his kingdom.
One of the Imperial Court warriors stepped forward.
He wore golden armor beneath a long white cloak stained by weeks of travel, while a straight sword rested inside his hand. Golden light gathered along its narrow edge as he approached Max’s head, though his rigid shoulders and shortened steps revealed the unease he was attempting to hide.
"Your body is dead, yet your hateful soul continues clinging to this world," the warrior said as he raised the sword. "Allow me to vanquish what remains of you."
He thrust the blade toward Max’s forehead.
The weapon stopped several inches from his face.
Black mist poured from the torn flesh beneath Max’s neck and spread across the ground before rising between him and the sword. The Imperial warrior pushed harder, forcing more golden mana through the weapon, but the darkness refused to move. Its shifting surface had become harder than steel, holding the sword in place no matter how much strength he used.
The confidence upon the man’s face slowly disappeared.
"Is that all you have?" Max asked, his smile becoming colder as the soldier desperately attempted to pull his sword free. "This will be easier than I expected."
The black mist changed.
A portion of the darkness gathered beneath Max’s head and stretched upward, narrowing until it resembled a long curved blade attached to the remains of his neck. Its edge did not shine or reflect the daylight. It simply removed every trace of light touching its surface.
Before the warrior could release his weapon and retreat, the blade moved.
A black line passed through his golden armor from one shoulder to the opposite side of his waist. For a moment, the man remained standing, his hands still wrapped around the sword trapped inside Max’s mist.
Then his body separated.
Both halves dropped in opposite directions and struck the road with a wet thud, blood bursting across the stones as the soldiers behind him froze before any of them could understand that the attack had already ended.
Max’s severed head remained between them, his expression unchanged as the blade of darkness slowly curved around him.
"One," he said. "Who wants to be next?"
For the first time in a long while, Max was having fun.
Killing made his soul happy for some reason, far more than it ever had before. Watching the Imperial warrior fall apart filled him with dark satisfaction, which only deepened as he looked toward the remaining soldiers.
The others immediately became wary.
None of them dared to approach him after witnessing the first man die. They retreated several steps instead, spreading across the road as crimson and golden light gathered around their weapons. Swords burned with flames, spears crackled with lightning, and several mages raised their hands as long-range spells began forming above their palms.
"That thing has been possessed by something otherworldly!" one of the Imperial warriors shouted from the front. "If we do not destroy it now, it might slaughter countless innocent people!"
Max rolled his eyes.
"You speak as though you are a bunch of saints and not merciless killers and rapists."
Black mist poured from beneath Max’s severed neck and gathered against the ground. Four narrow limbs formed from the darkness, each ending in a sharp void blade that lifted his head from the dirt and allowed him to stand.
The result looked almost comical, with a severed head covered in blood standing upon four thin legs of darkness, but none of the soldiers surrounding him felt the slightest desire to laugh. The sharp points dug into the road beneath him while more black mist twisted around Max like a living cloak waiting to strike.
"Kill him!" someone shouted.
Max did not give them enough time to finish gathering their attacks.
The four void blades bent beneath him and violently straightened. In a split second, he vanished.
Several spells struck the empty road where his head had been, exploding against one another and filling the area with crimson fire and golden lightning. The warriors’ faces paled as their eyes desperately searched for him through the smoke.
The sound of a blade cutting through metal passed between them.
Three soldiers stiffened at once.
Their heads separated from their necks and dropped to the road, their eyes remaining open long enough to watch their bodies collapse beside them. Before the others could react, another black line crossed the formation and passed through four more throats.
Blood erupted into the air.
Max moved among them as a black shadow supported by four bladed limbs, changing direction so quickly that the soldiers could not follow him. Every time the darkness passed, another body fell.
Several warriors attempted to flee, but none made it farther than a few steps.
Five seconds after Max launched himself from the ground, the road became silent.
All nineteen soldiers lay scattered across it, their bodies separated from their heads and surrounded by broken weapons, fading magic, and streams of blood flowing between the stones.
Max landed upon the road on his four bladed legs.
"Now that is better," Max said. "You were all so mighty and tall a moment ago. Now you are below my level, exactly where you belong."
Several severed heads continued staring at him, terror trapped within their eyes as the remaining light slowly faded from them. Darkness soon swallowed their vision, but unlike Max, none of their heads would ever rise again to walk and fight.
"Time to retrieve my body," he said with a sigh. "Wherever those bastards buried it."
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter