Commander Elwin eyed the village before him, no lights and no noise at least from what he could tell, having just teleported he was somewhat unsteady on his feet and his head fuzzy.
Out of all the villages in the south they'd chosen, or more aptly gambled on this one as part of a ludicrous plan cooked up by one of the nut job court mages in the capital.
Five-hundred of the Black Guard, the most elite fighting force of the empire answering directly to the emperor himself had volunteered for this mission. Even equipped with the unassailable black steel arms and armor none of them expected to make it home alive.
He'd made that reality apparent when addressing his men about the operation, it was ridiculous even by the absurd standards they were known for; their quarry was after all the legendary monster…
A feeling of eyes bored right into him snapping his attention forward. Ahead of him was a figure, surrounded by corpses. He didn't have to see its eyes to know who it was, the white hair and decrepit form told him everything. The Azure Eyes.
He took a deep breath, his body feeling hot. It wasn't just fear, fear was like boiling water in your blood sapping your strength, this on the other hand was like molten lead being poured onto his body.
A familiar feeling for a soldier, bloodlust, pure and terrible. He hadn't felt such an intense murderous aura since the siege of Athos, when he faced down a seven foot tall dragon warrior that stood on a mound of dead bodies.
It wasn't anything he and his men couldn't handle, or were unfamiliar with. They'd been on more than a few so called suicide missions. If anything it helped to push away the last of the fuzziness from his head.
Elwin didn't waste time not on himself or his men and gave the signal for those obsidian mailed braves to advance. "Having our formations set prior to teleporting was worth the extra effort on the mages part." he thought, peering from behind his square tower shield.
The reports he'd read noted that the Azure Eyes was cautious when facing greatly superior numbers. So the sudden appearance of fully formed troops seems to have made it lag in its decision making.
Hopefully, by the time it decides how it'll respond they'll have properly surrounded it. The black guard excelled at fighting in tight conditions, so heming it in should guarantee victory.
The troops were nearly upon the village center. Elwin eyed the creature through his helmet visor. Its white hair was long going down to its waist and hung in its skinless face, which lacked a nose and bore a bloody maw of eerily white perfect teeth that were covered in fresh blood.
It's body was thin and skin gray and discolored. its stomach sunk in and each bone well pronounced. What little muscle it had was grossly defined, and it's left arm was spindlier than its right. It wore a soiled and tattered rag around its waist that hung down to just passed the knees.
A curved sword which it wore edge up was tucked snuggly at its hip. "What a strange way of wearing a sword." Elwin thought.
Perhaps it was his time as a commander, but his great eye for detail noticed something else about it. It was neither tall nor thick-boned. Disregarding it being an undead, Its frame wasn't like that of a grown man's.
"That's right undead were once human and you must've been little more than a brat when you died." Elwin realized. He wanted to make a quick prayer for him, but he could do that later. Now was not the time for pity, especially towards a creature which had murdered so many. "I've grown soft in my old age." He muttered.
"Aye, 'bout time you retired ye salted gray fuck." One of his men Balor replied, causing laughter within the formation. "Come now Balor, you shouldn't talk like that in front of your grandmother." Elwin replied, nodding his head forward. "Ah, shite." Balor chuckled, along with the other men.
The soldiers without being ordered all suddenly came to a stop; it felt like they might be ripped apart in an instant as cold boney hands wrapped around them in a steel grip.
Elwin realized he'd made a mistake looking at the Azure Eyes which stood relaxed with its left hand resting on the scabbard of its curved sword. He understood now that it wasn't slow to react, it simply didn't need to; that we weren't worth the effort of closing the distance.
What he had felt earlier then wasn't the Azure Eyes bloodlust. It was his own body trying to tell him to run by making use of something he knew to avoid at all costs. What he felt now went beyond that scaled beast capable of slaughtering a cohort of troops.
Elwin tried to shout the order to charge, their only chance for victory was to press and overwhelm, but the words wouldn't form.
Eyes closed, the undead abomination seemed to be taking a deep breath making a noise like that of a forge stoke filling with air. Once its lungs were full, it let out a scream that sounded like a wild cat in heat and was so loud the air around its mouth seemed to tear and left the men in the front lines deaf.
When it finished a ringing silence. No chirp of crickets or blowing of wind. The very world seemed to be terrified by Azure Eyes' presence.
The man next to Elwin soiled himself, and an un-deafened soldier was asking him for orders, but he was only looking at their quarry, unable to hear his soldier's plea as blood sept from his ears.
Elwin's gaze met the undeads and rather than fear, despair, or desperation, he felt relief. Even though he'd vigorously trained him in fencing, his son attended university rather than becoming a soldier, so he'd never face danger like this. Though she'd only just come of age he was able to give his daughter away at her wedding.
Elwin's heart stopped. As he collapsed forward, he was grateful that even though he was forty-seven, he had no regrets in death having lived his life as fully as a soldier could.
All the men watched as their commander fell, and all of them understood what came next. Death, the black guard do not run, they do not break, and above all they do not know shame of of cowardice.
Armor rattled and voices thundered shields up as they charged. Nothing to be gained and nothing to lose this would be their final battle.
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It was as if demons had been set upon him, the way these black mailed braves howled as they charged. Awing, but foolish as no one attempted to assume command in their dead leaders' stead.
This would make his victory all the easier, because there is no army in existence past, present, or future that could keep its cohesion without someone at the head.
They were now nothing more than a mass of individuals, all that was left was to pull the strings that would loosen them up. Using his thumb to push on the round cross guard of his sword, clicked it free of its sheath then as if skipping he bounded forward.
Black steel he'd encountered it before, and it was several times stronger than normal steel, but the sword he wielded was even harder than that and far sharper than any other blade; it was a truly vicious thing.
Angling his sword edge down he struck with an upwards draw, his curved sword a flashing arc of crimson that sent sparks as it sheared through the middle of the shield and body of the man in the center of the formation.
He killed the man in the next row the same way with an overhead slash then exploding through the bisected men's gore, impaled the man in the back row shield and all with a thrust down to the hilt.
Then lifting the still impaled man over head he pivoted around turning fluidly in place and flicked him off his sword with such force that he bounced when hitting the ground, his armor clacking wildly as he rolled past his comrades.
A stare down. "Will they realize it now?" the Azure Eyes thought. Steel thumped as one soldier dropped his shield followed by another and then the rest. "Yes, that's it, that's the way. I'm beyond what you can defend against, so offense is your only choice."
A soldier by the name of Algar eyed the undead before him, its crimson blade glinting in the moonlight. "Hey, Oswin." He called out to a man beside him. "Yeah." The man replied. "If I bite it before you, kick me over. I don't want to die with my ass in the air." He said before rushing forward.
Without being able to take even a single step the Azure Eyes shot forward with its jaws nigh unhinged and clamped down on his mailed neck. It's teeth lacked the hardness to break through the mail, but had adequate bite force to snap his neck.
Once it had, it spun, throwing him sinking low as it did, ducking a strike and then shearing off a soldier's arm as it came back up, before slashing through another's carotid artery and then flicking his sword halfway through the man beside hims neck.
Without losing rhythm the Azure Eyes danced amongst a wall of blades dipping and slicing the tendons in one's armpit and the back of his leg as he passed under their thrust. A perfectly aimed thrust through a visor slit, an overhead flick of his blade that split another's visored helmet in half.
Every move they could make he could predict and every move they did make he could feel. He thrust his sword over head as if chambering an overhead strike and stabbed the man behind him through the neck.
Simply butchering them would be easy, but doing so would be a waste while individually they were below him they were still several times stronger than the average person making them perfect practice.
Whether it was a bi-product of his personality before dying or his body's overactive survival instinct pushing him towards it. Mastery of the sword was something of an obsession in his undead state.
Fires began sprouting on the thatched roofs, as he finished wiping out the first maniple.
"I see they're cutting off possible escape routes. They can't stand in the houses and forming in front of them would simply give me a place to leap to should the need arise. I could also simply break through the walls rather than face down their formations if need be so such an act was clever."
Though it didn't matter, he'd properly ascertained their strength. "Each man is about three to four times stronger than the average person, and if I had to guess their strongest would be five to maybe seven times at the most." He thought.
"I'm well beyond any single individual here. Even if there are a few hundred of them it won't matter, this will be a slaughter like any other." He kicked up one of the black steel blades, catching it with his left hand.
Then he took a stance, his blades held slightly up just level with the top of his hips and arms angled out so that his knuckles were in line with his shoulders.
It was his true style, dual wielding. Though rarely did he have the chance to use it, as there was never anyone strong enough to make him use it, and even more rarely did he encounter other dual wielders. So he preferred to keep it hidden as a sort of trump card.
He leapt into the heart of the black guard now more well formed in a whirl of blades as he parried with the shorter blade and slashed with his curved sword. While he didn't have as much cutting power fighting like this the speed in which he could attack and counter was ludicrous.
Arteries were cut and blood spewed, heads rolled and hearts punctured with well angled thrusts through the armpit. Arms, and legs went flying but still The black guard still did not break, even as they charged over their comrades bodies, or as some pissed themselves in fear.
"Truly the black guard is quite amazing." The mage Gwalch stated from faraway in the tree line looking out at the ensuing battle. "Sir Gwalch… the battle does not seem to be going favorably." One of his assistant mages said.
"Have faith in them, Atticus. Though it looks bad now losses are both unavoidable and factored into my plan" Gwalch replied reassuringly. The young mage bowed "Sire!" He answered. Gwalch smiled at this.
"In that youngsters mind the great imperial mage Gwalch must be nothing short of a hero. That the plan to use the villagers as bait and then teleport them out at the same time we sent the black guard to ambush the Azure Eyes going awry was simply due to their errors rather than his." He thought, looking at the other assistants that had begun seizing out due to mana deprivation from teleporting so many troops.
"Though I knew full well it'd be a slaughter." Gwalch thought. "I knew the villagers would die as well. So that's truly no fault of theirs." He focused back towards the ensuing battle, enhancing his vision to see in better detail. He witnessed a soldier being used like a human flail getting flung around by his own intestines.
He had to stifle his laughter at seeing such a thing, ever since that day seven years ago his sense of humor, or really everything about him had become wretched.
The day he watched his long time friends butchered by the Azure Eyes, unable to do anything despite being the great genius Gwalch Gwyer.
"Really, I've become despicable." He thought. "My comrades would hate the man I've become, undoubtedly. Olmin especially " He smiled, once again recalling his overly honorable warrior friend, who was as stout as a tree and wielded a mace that practically was one having his helmed head smashed in with his own weapon. "But I don't care, I will kill that wretch. Either by way of the black guard or with the magic circle I crafted under the village."
The battle raged on becoming a sea of blood and black steel. Not a single soldier managed to land a hit on the Azure Eyes.
"I see… so it's time to make use of that." Gwalch announced feigning a somber attitude. "My lord are you sure?" Atticus asked, clearly shaken. "We have no other choice, Atticus. It appears I've miscalculated." He said a glum expression on his face.
"Y-yes. It was an honor then to serve both under and alongside you Lord Gwlach, I'm sure we'll be remembered as heroes, you most of all." Gwalch smiled.
"Ah how touching my boy but I'll only be supplying half the mana. The rest I'll use to teleport the surviving assistant mages back to the capital." He thought slyly.
The spell they were about to activate was tied to a massive magic circle they'd inscribed weeks prior.
It'd turn the whole of the village into a swirling inferno with an unmatched intensity capable of incinerating everything caught inside from bodies to buildings, not even ashes would remain.
The trade off was that it would take a massive amount of mana to activate. While mages were rare, mages with large amounts of mana like Gwalch were rarer. The drain from casting it will kill the assistant mages involved.
"Yes truly I was fortunate to have such splendid mages to help me." He said, as they began to channel their mana toward the magic circle.