Return of the Fallen Volume 9 Chapter 5
“DIE!”
Seeing the knight slashing down at Grek while he was distracted, the villagers were horrified.
Grek on the other hand was as calm as still water.
He didn’t even glance at the incoming blade and with a simple movement, he swung the stick in his hand upward to meet the knight’s blade.
*Chink*
*Whoosh*
Before everyone’s stunned eyes. The stick and Grek were not cleaved in two but instead, the opposite occurred. The knight’s sword not only snapped in half at the moment of impact but also the broken part of the blade shot backward past the knight’s face and flying somewhere into the dark forest unseen.
All of the other knights that just witnessed this, were left gobsmacked.
The knight leading them as well was frozen in place. Across the right side of his cheek, a deep laceration was cut out as the broken blade had shot directly past his face. Blood began to pour from that side and he finally realized what happened. Gripping the wound he tried to stop the bleeding but it was not easy.
Still kind of out of it, the knight stammered.
“Wh…what did you just do?”
Grek shrugged.
“What did I just do? I just won the duel or are you not going to admit defeat?”
The knight was lost at first. He looked at the stick in Grek’s hand and after it had destroyed his sword, the stick had crumbled and fallen apart.
(What was that sword strike just now? It felt as if he was swinging a thousand-pound hammer instead of that small stick. No, that is impossible. A stick can not beat a sword, it must have been a trick of some kind.)
Thinking up to here, the knight was losing reason and his mind spiraled. Fueled by humiliation and rage, the man could not believe that Grek had beat him fairly and had instead conspired and used some underhanded trick. Knowing the consequences he would encounter once he went back and told his master what had happened and how he failed, it would not be strange for him to lose his head for incompetence. That, he could not allow.
This time Grek was now without a weapon. His tricks would not work this time. The knight leading the others grew confident and made a rash decision.
“This man has used petty tricks and has already forfeited the duel due to his underhanded methods. The lord will not want a devious miscreant such as he under his service. KILL HIM!”
The knights, at first were stunned. Their leader had said this would be a fair duel and they had all just seen him lose but at the same time, this was their leader’s direct command. The leader rushed forward once more, this time with half a broken sword. All of his men felt encouraged seeing this and followed his orders, rushing along with him with their swords and spears drawn.
The villagers thought the knights had gone mad and assumed they would be next and in a panic they all scattered like roaches, leaving only Grek, Zephris off to the side and the attacking knights.
Zephris saw these knights going after his father and for not even a split second did he fear for his father’s life. Instead, he felt slight pity for the men running straight toward his father as he knew they were literally running into death’s embrace.
(Those fools really think they can kill my mean stubborn father. They have eyes but can not recognize when death is right in front of them.)
All at once, swords strikes and spears fell upon Grek but instead of avoiding them, Grek decided to show them a bit of his true power.
*CHink Schink schink shinck chk*
Every blade landing upon Grek’s body rang out as if it had struck metal. The blades stopped on his head, on his shoulder at his waist and ribs. All of these knights had gone for fatal strikes and blows but none of their weapons managed to penetrate Grek in any way shape or form.
One of the knights couldn’t help but blurt out.
“So…So tough!”
Grek nodded.
“Yes, with strength like yours, these blades will never pierce through my flesh. Now that every single one of you attacked me, there is no longer a reason to hold back. Let the demons in the 7th realm of hell feast on you for an eternity.”
Grek’s words were eerie and left nothing to the imagination. The moment he said them, everyone here knew they had underestimated him terribly so.
The leader of these knights realized his mistake. His head cooled in an instant as if someone had dumped an ice-cold bucket of water over the top of his head. His anger and humiliation withdrew and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He shouted and tried to leap backward in retreat.
“RUN!”
After trying to kill him and enslave his family, how could Grek ever let such people escape from him. His foot raised a few inches off the ground before he drove it down with a mighty stomp.
*BAM*
The ground beneath his feet and surrounding him for around 30 feet in diameter, all exploded and collapsed downward creating a crater.
All of the knights lurched forward uncontrollably as the ground beneath them shifted so suddenly and violently that they had no way of avoiding getting thrown off their feet.
Grek’s moved forward like a phantom. His hand reached out and gripped one of the knights by the helmet. Putting strength into his grip, Grek squeezed the helmet with a good deal of force.
*Crrrruh*
The sound of metal being warped followed by skull crunching rang out and then a slop of blood raining down from within the helmet soaking Grek’s hand in blood. The man died instantly. The other knights all watched this with absolute horror.
“Monster!”
Grek licked the blood from his hand before smirking.
“You realized it far too late.”
Grek then threw the dead knight into another one with such brute force that the man was crushed then and there. After that he proceeded to grab at these men and rip them from limb to limb, squash them beneath his feet and punch holes straight through their metal armor, destroying their bodies with ease. Within seconds, the only knight left was the leader.
The man had collapsed to his knees due to fear and he could no longer move.
“Please…Don’t!”
“Thee is no such word as please…not when it comes to death.”
Grek then raised his hand up flat like a blade before slicing downward, splitting the man in half. Licking the blood from his hand, Grek shuddered as he remembered the feeling and taste of death.
(It’s been so long, yet this feeling, I can never forget it.)
A fiendish smile covered his face and he stood there still as a tree. The exhilaration he felt was something not many things could compare to. As he was lost in the afterglow, something flew down from up above and struck Grek in the head.
*Whack*
The object then fell to the ground and was surprisingly a large wooden ladle. Following this, a familiar voice shouted from up above.
“OY! Dearest husband, come home right now! We need to have a word.”
Grek snapped out of it and nodded. Just she was about to leap up into the tree, Zephris’s mom called out once more.
“And don’t forget to bring my ladle back up here.”
Grek sighed before grabbing the ladle. Before he left, he turned to his son.
“Boy, go fetch the village chief and tell him I sent you, go.”
“But father the wolf. If I just leave it something may come or
“Silence! Do as I say or I’ll turn your hide bright red, NOW GO!”
Grek’s shout was like electricity in the air. It scared Zephris shitless and he dropped the wolf’s corpse on the ground before running ahead as fast as he could toward the center of the village.
By the time he had reached the chief and brought him back, the bodies that had been left behind and even the wolf Zephris had defeated, all of them were gone and properly dealt with. Zephris felt a little annoyed. He didn’t care much about the dead knights and was used to death by this time but the wolf was different. Usually, they were in packs and it was a lot more difficult to hunt them. Not only that, when one fought against a group of them, attacks would fly wildly and their furs and bodies would get mangled, destroying their value.
Zephris though managed to kill a wolf and had gotten a pretty well-preserved corpse with no damage. The only thing it was missing was its head but other than that, the fur and body were perfectly intact. Seeing his prize gone, he felt he had lost some gifts he was going to give his mother and sister.
Still, he diligently fetched the old chief, and the two entered Zephris’s home.
“Father, I’ve brought the ch…
Before he could finish his sentence, Zephris stopped in his tracks as he was staring face to face with a large blood-red blade that was well over 5 feet in length and had a deep curve. As soon as he saw it, his first thought was.
(A crescent blood moon.)
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