Chapter 13
The remaining nine guards gritted their teeth, locking their shields into a desperate, overlapping wall of iron and wood in a fierce bid to hold back the screaming, bloodthirsty tide.
And then, death arrived without a sound.
"H-Huh?! What the—?!"
A hulking raider at the front of the charge froze mid-swing, his eyes bulging in sheer, unadulterated incomprehension as his comrade's head suddenly detached from its shoulders in a high-pressure geyser of crimson. The severed head spun wildly through the air, hitting the dirt with a sickening thud, its expression permanently frozen in shock.
In the next heartbeat, another raider was decapitated before he could even register the motion. A blinding streak of white light tore through the clearing—impossibly fast, utterly merciless, and completely silent.
"W-What is that?!" another raider shrieked, stumbling backward in blind terror as three of his allies were butchered in the blink of an eye. Warm, arterial spray hit his face like sudden rain, but he never even saw the blade that caused it.
"Aaarghhh!!!" a burly cutthroat howled as the man beside him was beheaded so cleanly that his headless torso kept running for two full paces before collapsing into the dirt.
Panic spread through the ambushers like wildfire through dry brush.
"M-Monster… It's a fucking monster!!" a raider wailed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched squeak. Before he could turn to flee, the white blur flashed past him. His head spun upward into the night sky, his final scream dying instantly in his throat.
The ten royal guards—now fueled by a sudden, fanatical surge of hope—watched in stunned awe as the invisible force carved through the raider ranks like a reaper's scythe. The attackers' fierce battle cries had already twisted into raw, animalistic shrieks of dread.
One of the guards, chest heaving and eyes wide, finally broke the stunned silence.
"Count Damnern…?" he whispered, barely believing the carnage unfolding before him.
The battlefield had transformed into a slaughterhouse. And the white light showed zero mercy.
Further back, the seven raider archers in the rear line trembled violently as they watched all eight front-line fighters slaughtered like cattle in mere seconds. They could only track a frantic, erratic flash of brilliance moving at terrifying speeds across the clearing, extinguishing lives one by one until no resistance remained.
"What's happening?!" one of the archers shouted, panic overriding his senses as he witnessed their vanguard vanish into a nightmare made real.
"Stay calm—we're positioned much farther back!" another archer barked, his knuckles white as he gripped his bow, though his voice shook uncontrollably. "He won't be able to spot us in this darkness."
He raised his voice into a frantic command. "Fall back! Everyone, retreat!"
Suddenly, the archer beside him—who had just tried to step backward—had his head cleanly severed from his neck. It hit the moss with a dull, hollow thud.
"I can see every single one of you with my Judgement Eyes, you fools," Damnern's voice cut through the dark, cold and predatory like a winter gale.
He stood in the center of the blood-soaked clearing with only his bare hands. Both palms were glowing with a faint, ethereal brilliance, completely drenched in fresh gore.
The Judgement Eyes worked by allowing him to lock onto a target, instantly manifesting a faint, glowing red thread wrapped securely around the individual's neck. Once anchored, that thread sealed the enemy's fate, making it effortless to precision-strike and sever the throat using any weapon—or even empty hands. The only limitation was that the thread would snap if the prey managed to escape his zone of dominance.
Damnern vanished once more, dissolving into a streak of light so blindingly fast that the human eye could scarcely process the trajectory.
He's doing this... completely unarmed? a surviving raider thought, his mind fracturing under the disbelief.
His entire body shook uncontrollably as he watched his comrades fall one by one. There was nothing he could do—absolutely nothing. Every single time that terrifying white streak flickered into existence, another life was snuffed out.
The raider's eyes widened in sudden, horrifying recollection as he stared at the radiant glow coating Damnern's hands.
A warrior wielding Light Dominance Fue...? he whispered, the thought freezing the blood in his veins.
A realization hit him like a physical blow, draining every drop of color from his face.
No...
He took an involuntary, stumbling step backward.
"There's only one monster on this continent capable of something like this..." His voice cracked into a dry rattle.
The Fifth Strongest Warrior...
Another flash of light tore through the shadows, accompanied by a wet, echoing crunch. The raider's pupils dilated to pinpricks.
"T-The Pillar of Dominance!"
The title slipped from his lips like an irrevocable death sentence. In that instant, the terror clutching his heart surpassed even the fear of death itself, because he finally understood the absolute horror of who was hunting them.
No prey had ever escaped the Pillar of Dominance.
Beside him, another archer let out a gurgling shriek as his throat parted without warning.
"Arghhh!"
"What do we do?! What do we do?!" another screamed, his voice shattering in despair.
Chaos consumed the remaining ranks. The archers who had attempted to flee to the treeline were systematically hunted down, their heads flying through the air in a continuous, grim rain of crimson as their bodies crumpled mid-draw. What had begun as a coordinated, meticulous ambush had dissolved into absolute, blood-soaked pandemonium.
And then, the forest fell dead silent.
The screams had ceased. The slaughter was complete.
Every single raider lay motionless across the dirt—save for one.
Surrounded by the mutilated corpses of his comrades, the lone survivor stood completely frozen, his legs trembling so violently that he could barely support his own weight.
Before him stood Damnern.
Bathed in the faint, residual glow of light and freshly spilled blood, he looked less like a mortal man and more like an ancient deity of absolute execution.
"P-Please... have mercy, my lord..." the raider stammered, his voice dissolving into a pathetic, uncontrollable whine. "W-We didn't know... We had no idea that carriage belonged to you!"
The moment the plea left his lips, Damnern took a step forward. Then another—slow, deliberate, unhurried. Yet each footfall sounded heavier than the drop of an anvil.
The raider's knees finally buckled. He collapsed hard into the dirt, frantically scrambling backward like a cornered animal, clawing at the mud with trembling fingers.
"P-Please..."
Another step.
Damnern's expression remained carved from glacial, unyielding stone. The distance between them shrank with agonizing inevitability.
"P-Please spare me!" The raider's voice cracked into a tearful sob as hot tracks cut through the grime on his face. "I'll never do it again! I swear to the gods!"
Another step closer.
The raider could feel his heart hammering frantically against his ribs, every biological instinct screaming at him to flee—yet his limbs refused to obey. The crushing weight of Damnern's ambient aura alone had paralyzed him, stripping away every ounce of willpower.
"T-There has to be something I can offer! Information, gold—anything!" he wept, pressing his palms flat against the dirt. "Please... don't kill me..."
Damnern finally stopped, standing directly over the broken man.
The raider slowly tilted his head upward, and for the first time, he found himself staring directly into the silver eyes of the man feared across the realm as the Fifth Strongest Warrior.
In that terrifying silence, a final, unyielding truth settled into his marrow: death had already claimed him; it was merely pausing to watch him beg.
Damnern's overwhelming presence alone—manifested without even needing to invoke the terrifying, partial wing of his Semi-Angel transformation—had effortlessly swept away the entire ambush party.
Looking down at the whimpering wreck beneath him, Damnern's gaze narrowed into a piercing glare.
"Who sent you?"
To be Continued...