Supreme Swordfiend

The north of town had been protected by walls of magically reinforced earth, archers and casters firing into the throng of bony boys while warriors formed a kill box near a hole opened in the bulwark.

It was here the Swordfiend began his attack, half his mana spent on an Ascending Demon circuit, the other half held in reserve.

Behind him, the leaders of the defence ran, bellowing orders to cease fire and retreat for healing and mana recovery.

Not a single one of these defenders reached even level twenty-five, the highest he'd seen had reached only fifteen.

Leon noted that fact with a detached curiosity.

For regular non-tutorial Earthlings that speed might have impressed some, but then Leon sat at a measly thirty-six and felt utterly confident in taking them all on and winning easily.

Levels weren't the whole story.

Drawing his blades while sending a stream of mana to coat their bodies, Leon accelerated past the last sword and board fighter.

Bleached bones with green flames burning behind their empty sockets, more bodies than the eye could see, wielding jagged black metal implements that seemed designed to hook into skin and rip.

These weren't soldiers- they were torturers.

His eyes saw what had been, a verdant field reduced to mud and blood, as humanity fought and bled to keep their home.

In this spot, on this day they would triumph.

A skull exploded, Scream tearing through bone as though it were but wet paper and the Swordfiend bellowed to both enemy and ally.

"Well then! Let's put on a good fucking show!"

Skull after skull burst as the fiend began his counterattack, driving back an army with nothing more than brute force and ignorance.

Black clouds swelled as his strikes grew wilder, every skeleton that threatened to slip by struck down by bolts of heavenly fury.

Any that managed to reach the one-man army failed to breach his armour, their strikes only drawing his attention.

His blades, his enemies and his joy.

All else faded to noise as the fiend fought.

The storm raged ever stronger, a nasty lightning stake striking his swords as an uppercut took them aloft, a coat of heavenly fury wrapping around the metal and mana.

He returned to lucidity as a long overdue quest dinged its completion.

"Quest Complete- Court Death

Reward- Epic Skill- [Chaos Storm Tempering]!"

He'd had the idea of using unaspected mana to coat his blades, only half expecting it to absorb the lightning.

Not like it mattered, he still had enemies to kill.

Skeletons couldn't rout, they had no morale to break but break they would as Leon reduced the invading army down to nothing.

Fragments of the dead whipped by in the wind as Leon leapt on the last skeleton, ripping it apart.

A bone-strewn field lay in his wake.

How many had he killed- hundreds, maybe thousands?

His circuit guttered out alongside the storm as his blades returned to their sheaths.

Crunching his way back to the walls, the hunger and fatigue struck as one.

At least the peasants knew their place. They'd provided food and stationed a healer at a table just for him, inside the wall but still close enough for Leon to keep an eye on the horizon.

While he sucked down every morsel offered to him, he watched the other defenders converse amongst themselves, worried looks shot his way.

He didn't seek their love or their fear- but if he had to have one, he would have fear.

"Sir? Do you require any healing?"

Two ample distractions presented themselves as his healer leaned in to inquire, noting the break in his feasting.

Unfortunately, indulging himself here and now wasn't on the table.

Tilting his head back to appreciate the peaks and valleys of his attendant, Leon chomped straight through a chicken wing.

"Nope. I'll tell you when I want you. Until then, shut up and don't die."

She didn't quite manage to hide her blush as she pulled back, her shapely figure easily discernible even beneath her bulky combat gear.

He wondered how she would scream if he drove a sword through her stomach.

The thought gave him pause- even as fucked up thoughts went, that one rated pretty highly.

As an experiment, he considered an archer halfway across the camp- less buxom than the healer but her tight athletic form had an appeal of its own.

He imagined trailing kisses along her tan neck before ripping it open with his teeth.

Once was bad luck, twice was coincidence.

Third time- he pictured Octavia in his mind's eye and nothing insidious followed, as weird as considering that was. Sure, she had a certain appeal if you liked publicly dominant women who treated you better behind closed doors but she had a face like a model, nearly too beautiful to love.

She didn't bring those thoughts bubbling up.

Okay, the Amazonian warrior woman heaving a battle-axe over her shoulder, downing a beer two tables down?

It'd be novel- a woman with scars and muscles who you could choke the life from with your bare hands, crushing her windpipe between your fingers.

Well, Versa hadn't mentioned this to him and were he not anticipating another round of undead he'd have sworn fresh vows of extreme and brutal vengeance for implanting an intrusive thought response in his mind.

One of the four leaders approached his table, the man who'd been yelling as Leon arrived.

He made quite the point of waiting for Leon's acknowledgement, allowing the town saviour to slurp down another chicken thigh before giving a status update.

"We have men scouting the woods- the undead aren't trying to encircle us. Their commander's just throwing more waves at us, like a fucking idiot. Ten minutes until the zombies come into view- can you still fight Stormbound?"

Taking a pull on his pint of water, Leon let the droplets flow into his beard, considering his next move.

"'Course I can fight. Set 'em up, I'll keep knocking 'em down. Their boss can't stand the idea of the natives beating him back, so he'll keep forcing more bodies down our throats, hoping we'll choke. Make sure you get my good side, the recording will be worth a pretty penny to some off-world vultures when they realise I won you this battle."

Rising to his feet he let the mana flow through his veins, every breath bringing more into his body.

Eyes followed his every move.

Jealousy, admiration, gratitude, lust and hatred. Above all and within everything else lay naked fear.

The looks stoked his ego higher, even as he focused on his newest skill.

"[Chaos Storm Tempering]- Allows one to utilise the method of the Stormblades to temper their bodies, to better embody the storm. This chaotic variant trades safety for power. Those who survive the process strike with such speed they become near impossible to halt."

The skill felt unlike anything he'd had before, a trigger in the back of his mind waiting to be pulled.

Never one to leave an option unexplored, Leon did so and felt a shift in his being, something had changed.

He could undo the change whenever he felt like it, the skill more a state to be toggled than anything permanent.

A call rang from the top of the wall, sending Leon back into the killing fields, his mana only at two-thirds capacity as he charged to meet the next wave.

Rotting flesh hung from decaying frames, hundreds of the newly dead sprinting across the open ground moving to meet the swordsman.

For a while he lost himself amidst the violence, the gnashing teeth and singing steel.

Each slit throat and severed head offered another battlefield baptism, thick crimson sprays validating his violent conquest.

The first lightning bolt of the storm streaked from on high, smashing into Leon and bringing understanding alongside radiant pain.

This would be his tempering. The tempest's wrath sought to cleanse him.

A section of back plate rolled aside, his bare flesh exposed for the storm to target.

As the sun reached its zenith, the defenders watched on in horror.

He'd thought about retreating to replenish himself, only for his own blood to remind him- a Swordfiend did not run from battle.

Alone against the slowly ebbing tide of bodies, Leon had been forced to feast on any undead foolish enough to draw near, rotten meat used to fuel his rampage.

The localised storm struck with unnerving accuracy, those with greater visual acuity able to report the swordsman's back had been stripped to exposed bones and bloody ribbons of blasted flesh.

Abruptly the storm petered out, one final bolt scorching the Stormbound Swordsman as he sheathed his blades, the last zombified corpse clenched by the neck.

One hand pushing down on its shoulders, the other slowly wrenching its head upwards until the entire spine and head came free in a spray of gore alongside an animalistic war cry from the victorious swordsman.

Head in hand, he made his way back, blackened skin dripping from his back as he healed the damage done, his prize in hand.

Fear had taken hold of the survivors- fighting as Leon did took a kind of insanity to even consider.

Collapsing into the chair by his table, his entire body soaked in blood, Leon barked an order.

"You. Heal, now."

No one spoke near him anymore, the healer's mana simultaneously accelerating and fuelling the healing process as Leon waited.

The nerves had been destroyed and as the healing progressed he began to feel agony, then pain and finally nothing.

He'd run out of meat in his storage ring. He'd needed energy to keep fighting since retreat would never be an option for him.

It had tasted like rotten pork, overly fatty and terribly chewy and as he considered the flavour profile of long pig his stomach convulsed.

Jabbing a finger at the healer, he issued another order.

"Bucket. Now."

They quickly found him a bucket, a nice metal one which he filled with half-digested human meat and watery blood.

He drank and feasted to remove the taste from his mouth, another of the leaders he'd surprised on his arrival appearing to interrogate him.

"You could have retreated instead of doing that. We aren't helpless."

Disgusting weakness guided this man's words.

Between mouthfuls of roasted meat, he replied.

"If I want a weakling's opinion I'll ask for it. Leave."

Disregarding the mongrel, Leon turned his attention to the boxes that had dinged towards the end of his zombie-slaying excursion.

"Quest Complete- Mastered Chaos

Reward- Epic Skill- [Flash Step]!"

“Capstone reached! Congratulations! +100 Speed!”

“Capstone Quest Unlocked:

Chaotic Fulminator- Endure a bolt of [H] Grade tribulation lightning with your bare flesh.

Reward- Continued Progression."

Swiping the notifications aside, Leon returned to what mattered. Preparing for the next round.

Half an hour of breathing, sweet pure mana flooding his veins as the little people busied themselves with inconsequential matters, his tempering skill toggled off now that the quest had been completed.

Footsteps approached, a figure parting the air near his lair. A messenger in light leathers with daggers strapped to their sides.

"Sir! The enemy has sent an emissary. They wish to negotiate, the commanders have requested your presence."

How interesting, that they already had placed themselves as above the rabble with their fancy titles.

Cracking open one eye, Leon dismissed the messenger.

"Don't care. Tell me when the fighting starts."

That earned him ten minutes of peace.

The ants scurried hither and thither, placing more chairs at his table as he sucked in more mana.

Fighting without a circuit to keep him sharp had been acceptable, though he suspected the enemy would soon bring proper forces to bear.

The four 'commanders' as they dubbed themselves soon took seats at his table, their air of nervous exasperation no hindrance to his efforts.

A pale body took the last empty seat, purple fire where eyes should have been, six-limbed, with long fleshy growths that trailed down its head in the place of hair.

It spoke first, voice incongruous with appearance- a fact Leon had learned to accept as common among the many species of the Myriad Worlds.

"Well, ain't this a kick in the behind! Mister Stormbound himself, right in the path of me and mine! I'd say it's a pleasure to meetcha, but then I'd be lyin' since I hardly count you speakin' to a meat puppet as a proper introduction. Regardless, y'all may refer to me as Nigh'queel [H] Grade Wight, Necromancer Prodigy and with a little luck, overlord of this here fine planet. Pleasure is mine, I assure you."

A commander opened their mouth only for Leon to cut across.

"Silence dog. There's a way these aliens like introductions done. Leon Knox, [H] Grade Swordsman, Stormbound Swordsman and with a little time, scourge of Earth's invaders. Tell me what you want so I can reject you and get back to killing your minions."

The puppet reclined, head swivelling to focus on Leon.

"Oh ain't nothin' much- I'm more than willin' to let you fine folks go on livin' your ordinary lives in exchange for a teensy little favour. I need me a pregnant human, for reasons we're both better not gettin' into. Bring me one and I'll let y'all keep on keepin' on. Sound good? Sounds great to me!"