Chapter 54: And Hell Followed Him Home

All immediately felt his return.

The realisation went far beyond the mere notification that suddenly appeared on everyone’s user interface. Even before reading the words, even before registering the blue screen that popped up before their faces, they felt it.

That feeling in the air: a pervasive, primordial dread that stalked the hearts of every living creature since the birth of life.

A recognition of the end, inescapable and impossible to deny.

Death had arrived.

The closest knights were mere metres away from the crucified corpse when it began to twitch. A wave of hollowing dread flooded the valley, a presence equalled only by the black storm heralded by the King’s aura.

The corpse on the altar raised its head. 

The knights turned around in stiff, disbelieving motion. They looked behind them, staring at the bisected, guts-spilt creature upon the throne of lance and spears. The lower half of its torso was gone. Its skin was pale as death and peeling from electric burns and abuse. 

Yet the life in its silver gaze was unmistakable. As was the horrifying smile on its face.

Woden, King of the Wild Hunt, turned away from his open portal. The eyes of the Tyrant were seized by silver.

“How?” he whispered, half in wonder.

A single bell tolled: a piercing, pale note that tore through the weight of the storm.

[THE DEMON OF DEATH HAS ARRIVED IN THE ZONE]

[NEW OBJECTIVE UPDATED FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS IN THE ZONE: SURVIVE]

The corpse of the demon emitted a nightmarish laugh of hellish triumph. The next moment, the outstretched arms of the crucified carapace shuddered and pulled, tearing itself from its impalement in a sight of breathtaking violence.

The entire body of the Demon erupted into a bloom of fetid flesh.

Something birthed itself free from within the corpse — a creature of pale marble and balefire.

Twin feathered wings of stone rose from its back. A halo of haunting light glowed above its head.

The hearts of the Wild Hunt recoiled as one.

The Great Game drew upon all sentient life across countless universes. The Participants were as myriad as they were violent. However, though the cultures and species were infinitely unique across space and time, certain concepts remained curiously familiar even in distant stars.

Of Dragons. Of Gods. Of Heaven. Of Hell. Of Demons.

Of Angels. And of Death.

The figure rose from a shower of blood. Faceless, with a burning crown of thorns and wax. Wings of stone and marble. Armoured in plates of purest white, granite plates curving and moulded together like an insect's carapace. A bale-wreathed scythe, lit heft to edge in leaping flames; brighter than stars, deeper than the void. The ringed halo over its head was a collapsing hole, roaring in its emptiness. 

Paleness exploded outward, unrestrained, unleashed, paralysing the senses of all who gazed into its vastness, spellbound in terror.

The sheer, immense dominance radiating off it. Nothing should command that much presence. Nothing.

For the first time in aeons, Woden remembered fear.

Axel Rouken, Dread Consort of the Reaper, raised his scythe in salute.

“Hail to you, Woden of the Wild Hunt,” the Pale Angel spoke. “Death calls your name.”

The sheer insolence of its words… Rage took over fear, and Woden rose to order.

“KILL HIM!” the King roared.

The Knights of the Wild Hunt broke free from their stupor, spurred forth by the murderous intensity of their King’s command.

The closest knight charged in a blur of motion, driven by fear and greed alike to secure the kill. An incoherent motion seized the air around the Angel. The shifting echoes of movements lingered, after-images of pale pyrotechnic arcs left by the scythe's blistering speed.

In an eyeblink, the knight was bisected in two from head to groin, its severed halves splattering the Angel in burning gore.

The knights of the Wild Hunt could not compare to their King, but in their circle of the Great Game, they were some of the strongest opponents one could face. Their nightmarish figures haunt the dreams of countless species and Zones. Their power could not be denied.

To see one of their numbers killed in a single stroke…

Woden’s howl broke the stunned combatants from their fear. With a great roar of rage, the storm overhead stirred in violent motion.

Lightning rained down in a torrent of blinding pillars. The ground shook from the impact, but the Angel was already gone. A sudden clash rang out as Woden raised his greatsword in time to parry the heavy blade of Death’s scythe. The Fae Tyrant snarled as he pushed against the leaping figure of marble, whose wings granted it flight and speed.

The knights moved to assist their liege, but the ground around them suddenly blazed with pale fire. The black frost cracked and shattered as fiery limbs and infernal torsos crawled free from the burning earth and stood.

An army of hellish trolls rose from the earth, the ethereal bodies of silver fire wielding clubs and axes. At their head, an enormous figure of renowned terror, hefting a golden halberd with a crimson edge.

The Troll King and his army had returned from the dead.

From there, the carnage truly began.

In a tidal surge of undeath, the resurrected beasts surged towards the remaining knights, bellowing in monstrous clamour. Wordlessly, the remaining riders of the Wild Hunt strode to meet them, lance dipped and skull helms grim in wordless fury.

The toll was heavy on the undead. Though the Knights were few, their superior skills and levels could not be denied, especially against such brutish beasts. 

One of the knights lifted a skull-topped stave, wintery light glowing from his helm, before a frothing wave of frost swallowed an entire troll whole. The icy mist entered through its roaring maw, causing the undead creature to fold into itself and implode into a crumpled mass of silver-burning flesh. Another knight contemptuously parried the broad swipe of a troll’s mace and countered with a titanic cleave from his greataxe, severing the troll’s head with effortless grace.

The swarm of undead broke upon the lance of the Wild Hunt, each rider displaying feats of martial excellence that reduced the horde to mangled meat. In mere seconds, easily twice the knights’ number in troll corpses lay scattered across the ground, their burning bodies already dissipating as they were swallowed by the black frost once more.

The Hunt’s victory over the undead was far from assured, however, as an eviscerating mass of whistling death came for them.

Unlike its clumsier brethren, the resurrected Troll King moved with purpose, feinting and slashing with accurate blows. The mighty beast swung his halberd in a punishing arc, hammering the back spike up through his opponent’s guard and catching a knight square under the jaw. The skull helm exploded into a mist of steel and pinkish meat, his corpse falling limp like a puppet with its strings cut. 

A cold horror settled upon the riders, but to their credit, they did not falter, fighting on to their last breath as they slaughtered troll after troll, even as their own numbers dwindled. 

They knew their purpose was to buy time. Depraved nightmares they might be, but even the depraved held a sliver of fae honour and nobility in their hearts as they died to buy their liege even another second alone to counter the Angel.

Above the battlefield, the King of the Hunt duelled against Death itself.

~~~

“How? How?!” Woden roared as his lightning blade clashed against a balefire edge. “Impossible! What manner of absurdity is this?! Dispel this lie from my sight!”

Axel could not resist a chuckle, even if the situation did not really permit such levity. 

“No trickery. No lie. I’m afraid my struggle to live is nothing so empty as that.”

Woden snarled. “Begone!”

The roiling storm fired a pillar of electrifying light, slamming into Axel midair and smiting him with a million volts of fury.

It barely slowed the Angel as he slashed at Woden with his scythe once more, pale light radiant even in the darkness of the broiling skies.

[Damaged mitigated]

[Entropic Shields at 80%]

The two of them were in the heart of the storm. Lightning raged; the wind threatened to tear Axel asunder, but for the moment, the strange energy shield protecting him held firm.

Woden had a cloak of shadow granting him flight, while Axel’s marble wings somehow generated lift and motion even without much movement or flapping. Their battle within the clouds might have struck awe and terror to the onlookers below, had they the time to glance upwards — two titans of seemingly equal power duelling in the heavens, unable to gain the advantage over the other.

Alas for Axel, the battle was not as equal as it seemed. With each passing second, the odds were tilting against him.

His new ‘Angel’ form was undeniably powerful, but the soldier was entirely unused to winged aerial combat, and his motions were clumsy. Having extra appendages on his back that worked more like jet engines than limbs felt weird to control, and it didn’t help that his primary weapon — a scythe — was unaccustomed to him as a melee implement; awkward to swing and slash, despite the sheer power in the blade.

With enough practice, he could have easily overcome these deficiencies. But there was no time for him to adjust to the foreignness of his present battle. 

Meanwhile, Woden clearly had experience in aerial duelling and was using his martial superiority to maximum effect.

Another roaring overhead slash from Woden. The storm winds came and sealed Axel’s awkward movements, and the soldier swore as he had no choice but to take the blow head-on. The shaft of his scythe was brought up in a guard. 

Frost-blighted steel smashed into hallowed wood as Woden’s greatsword clashed against Axel’s scythe. The King howled with the fury of sundered worlds as Axel gritted his teeth and pushed against the blow.

The storm split. The sky cracked. And Axel was thrown from the Heavens and back down to the Earth.

[Damaged mitigated]

[Entropic Shields at 50%]

The impact tore a trench into the sunken ravine. Even as Axel was ripped across the ground, he struggled and lashed back, slashing his scythe in wide arcs to ward off the enraged King, who hounded him relentlessly with seemingly endless vigour.

The two parried, clashed, and fought on. Their stray slashes carried so much power that the surrounding ravine became torn and riddled with burning gnashes and frostbitten craters.

Paradoxically encumbered and bolstered by the otherworldly sensations of his foreign body, Axel nonetheless battled with everything he had. It was a form of combat beyond his meagre human comprehension, where even the lightest swing carried enough energy to devastate stone and render the environment unrecognisable after. 

It was madness. No single creature should possess so much raw power.

The euphoria of everything — each swing, each blow countered; the sheer weight of his existence at that moment — was mooring him from reality; driving his senses insane. There was nothing rational in the moment. Axel felt like he was trapped in a drug-fueled fantasy, even as his instincts informed him that the pain and bloodlust were very much real.

Dozens of blows were delivered and countered within mere seconds. The noise in his ears was at once muted and howling as the soldier moved faster than sound, his wings giving him speed beyond reason as he dodged, charged, and manoeuvred with blinding agility.

And still, despite all his power gifted to him by his patron of Death…

It was only barely enough for Axel to match the King of the Fae.

[Damaged mitigated]

[Entropic Shields at 30%]

So this is the strength of a Tyrant… As much hate as Axel held for Woden, a part of him could not stop marvelling at the Fae Tyrant’s near-unstoppable strength. A God in practically every sense of the word.

If my purpose is to hunt Tyrants… What other kind of monsters would I face in the future?

Such thoughts would have to wait. His present opponent was not one he could take lightly.

Lightning rained at the King’s command. The storm was as much a weapon for Woden to wield as was his accursed greatsword. Axel fought hard, but even he struggled to land a single blow while matched against his opponent’s masterful control over the storm and sword.

Soon, the projected outcome became increasingly undeniable: Axel was going to lose at this rate.

[Damaged mitigated]

[Entropic Shields at 20%]

However, the soldier did not despair or panic. Instead, he smiled.

Because he was not the one on a time limit.

Axel fought hard, but eventually he was driven into a corner. His powerful but clumsy scythe swings weren’t working against the King. Just as Woden parried another blow and prepared to drive the tip of his greatsword into Axel’s torso, a whistle pierced the air.

Woden barely evaded a fatal wound in time before the halberd of the Troll King came down upon his flank.

The Fae Tyrant snarled and tried to counter, but Axel pressed the attack once more. That minute distraction gave the soldier enough of an edge to finally land a blow. The scythe’s tip twisted and dug deep into Woden’s shoulder. Axel followed up by releasing one hand from the balefire heft and punching hard against Woden’s stomach.

The sound of the impact boomed like shattering concrete. The Fae King’s indignant roar was cut short as he choked, his torso caving in. Axel felt bones and metal break under his fists.

The silver-burning Troll King raised his halberd and tried to cut off Woden’s head, but the Tyrant used an ability to turn himself into black mist, reappearing some distance away.

Woden was breathing hard, clutching his wounds painfully. There was no sign of fear or defeat, however. Raw fury burned beneath the skull helm of the King as his eyes locked onto Axel.

“Kill you…” The King growled, almost half-mad in pitch. “I WILL KILL YOU!”

“No, you won’t,” Axel said, flexing his wings and readjusting his stance. 

All around Woden, the phantom bodies of trolls came, their burning bodies slicked with gore. 

Clutched between their fangs or gripped tight in bloodied fists were the mangled remains of Woden’s proud knights.

Axel lifted his blade. His words were intoned with final judgment. “This is the end for you.”