Annihilation
Annihilation. Corpses strewn across the battlefield.
In battle, an opponent is most vulnerable the moment they are ambushed. Leos knew this well, which was precisely why he had lured them into complacency and deliberately stepped outside to talk.
He killed the man standing in the single most efficient position to die. What remained now were Feredin and the eight members of the Imperial Shadow Group clad in shadow attire. Though they held an overwhelming numerical advantage, they began to falter the instant one of their own dropped dead.
“You… are you insane?”
“The insane ones are you. I can see the daggers hidden in your coats clear as day, yet you keep spouting nonsense about conversation and cooperation.”
“No more talk. Kill him.”
At Feredin’s command, the eight men in shadow attire charged as one. To fully exploit numerical superiority, they knew they could not attack in sequence; they had to herd their target into the center and strike from every direction at once.
These were men forged by the Imperial Shadow Group’s brutal training. They understood that principle perfectly and began to encircle Leos in the space of a breath. But Leos did not flinch. He simply sprinted forward.
“…!”
They had expected him to dig in and defend at the center. Instead, the man charged straight ahead, punching a hole through their formation. One of the shadow agents shouted,
“Don’t let him break through—brace for his attack!”
The moment Leos bolted, the circular cordon collapsed. The very shape that had trapped him now worked against them; the men on the far side found themselves suddenly too far away.
“You should’ve come at me two at a time instead of surrounding me like idiots.”
Leos whispered the words and drove his dagger straight into the throat of the man in front of him. A wet shunk sounded; the man crumpled without even a scream.
Seven shadow agents and Feredin left—eight in total.
The two men ahead of him yanked daggers from their coats and hurled them. Leos did not parry. He twisted his body, letting the blades whistle past, then scooped a handful of gravel from the ground and flung it into their faces.
Their vision vanished for a heartbeat. He stepped in and buried his daggers in both their hearts.
Two wet impacts. Two more bodies hit the dirt.
Six remaining.
“What the hell is this nonsense…?”
Feredin muttered in stunned disbelief from the rear. His reaction was understandable. Fighting monsters and fighting humans were utterly different things. No matter how often a man had butchered beasts inside Red Gates, that was still combat against brute muscle and dim intelligence. Humans used weapons with cunning, adapted endlessly, and employed real tactics. And if those humans had been trained specifically for slaughter?
Killing five people could be far harder than killing ten monsters. That was why Feredin could not comprehend what was happening. How could a man who had only ever walked through gates—who had spent three years rotting in a cell without a single real fight—be cutting them down like this?
“Snap out of it! Put even one wound on that bastard’s body!”
At Feredin’s roar the shadow agents’ posture changed. Until now they had balanced offense and defense. Now they discarded defense entirely. Blades in both hands, they charged in a frenzy, willing to lose their own heads if it meant driving a single thrust into their target.
“Haa…”
Blood began to flow, and with it came the memories. The copper stench of blood made his body move on its own.
Slash!
He severed the arm of the man charging him, then rammed his blade through the man’s throat. The moment that one fell, the next hurled both of his daggers at once.
Clang-clang!
One sweep of Leos’s sword knocked both daggers aside. In the same motion he flung one of his own; the man dropped.
Four left.
On the battlefields where he had once stood, no one fought while fretting over death. That was how you stayed alive. Wars you could never win if you prioritized your own safety. Always outnumbered. Always short on supplies and weapons. A relentless succession of those situations.
Compared to that, this was almost comfortable.
Not a single scratch, and he had already killed six of them.
Four remaining. A single cut from their blades could mean death. Once wounded, once slowed, a knife through the heart would follow in an instant. Conversely, if he simply refused to take even one hit, it was over.
He was confident. Confident he could slip every swing they threw.
“Uaaaaaah!”
Feredin bellowed from behind. Three shadow agents charged. Leos felt a strange energy coil around their bodies.
Artifacts.
He immediately hoisted the corpse of a fallen enemy.
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
Poison needles spat from the artifact in one agent’s hand. Leos blocked every one of them with the body, then hurled his sword at the man’s throat.
Thud.
The moment the man collapsed, Leos drew another dagger from his coat and buried it in the artifact itself.
Crackle… crackle…
The mana stone inside shattered with a grotesque sound. Two shadow agents and Feredin left. Realizing they had no other choice, each of them pulled out an artifact of their own.
“Fuck… I didn’t want to use these. They’re too valuable. But you just had to force my hand.”
Long-range attack artifacts almost always had a fixed number of charges. After a few uses they became scrap, and their price was astronomical. Even when clearing Red Gates, almost no one wasted them.
They came prepared.
Each one cost as much as a luxury car back on Earth. Their firepower was too weak for monsters; they were tools built purely to kill humans. The fact that they had brought such weapons proved they had intended from the start to either kill him outright or drag him away half-dead.
No need for guilt anymore.
If someone tried to kill him, he killed them first—no matter who they were. That was how he had survived the battlefield, the only rule that had kept him from becoming a monster in that hell. Unprovoked slaughter made you a monster. Acting according to your own convictions, at least, let you look yourself in the mirror.
Still, he was human. There had been a flicker of hesitation at the thought of killing a former disciple. A foolish, faint hope that maybe—just maybe—the boy had truly believed in him. Even after learning he belonged to the Imperial Shadow Group…
Looking back, the fact that he had invented reasons not to ambush and slaughter them all from the start might simply have been because he wanted to hear what his old disciple had to say.
That’s how much I trusted my disciples. Not just Feredin… all of them.
The doubt vanished as quickly as it came. He erased the title of “former disciple” from his mind. Feredin was an enemy—plain and simple. A man who had tried to kill him, and a man he now had to kill.
I’ve gotten soft.
Back on Earth he had never entertained such weak thoughts. Living among people here, building bonds, he had grown dull and stupid. He forced himself to remember: this place was not overflowing with romance and hope.
Because of his former disciple Belin he had been locked away for three years without cause, enduring endless mockery and contempt. Not one of his disciples had believed him—not a single petition, not even a letter. They had abandoned him. And among them had been people like Feredin, who had infiltrated with impure motives from the very beginning.
He recognized it. He accepted it. And he vowed never to grow soft again.
Once his heart settled, his body moved freer than before.
“…”
The moment he raised his sword into a ready stance, the remaining enemies froze—even with long-range artifacts in hand. The reason was simple. The instant they poured mana into those devices, one of his daggers would already be buried in their throats.
He had thrown daggers from a distance multiple times already, and his accuracy had been perfect. To them, those daggers might as well have been bullets.
“Fire! All of you at once!”
The two remaining shadow agents and Feredin poured mana into their artifacts. Magic bullets screamed toward him. Leos did not watch the projectiles. He felt their mana instead.
The flow of mana rising through their bodies and into the artifacts. Only when the mana fully saturated the device would it fire.
Now.
He hurled himself aside. A deafening blast tore through the space he had just occupied.
Whoosh!
Before his body even hit the ground he flung three daggers. Both shadow agents died on the spot. Feredin managed to bat the third dagger aside—but in doing so he dropped his artifact.
Leos rose slowly and began to walk toward him.
“You’re alone now. What are you going to do? All those fine subordinates of yours left you behind and died first.”
“…I never needed those pieces of trash to begin with. I was told not to kill you, so I held back as long as I could. But enough. I’ll finish you here, Leos.”
As Leos closed the distance without a word, Feredin began to scream like a cornered animal.
“Leos! Struggling now won’t change anything! Your life is over! You’re nothing but a filthy criminal! You’ll carry a permanent record that can never be erased! Disciples? Not a single one of those idiots believes in you! The press, the papers, the whole world sees you as a worm! Just serve the Empire! Dedicate yourself to the Empire and they’ll clear your name and put everything back the way it was!”
“The Empire? Don’t make me laugh. How is the Empire supposed to clean up what’s already been done?”
“Because the Empire was the one who started it in the first place! Belin is one of ours! Work for us like a dog and we’ll restore everything! She’ll recant her testimony and your name will be cleared! We don’t have to fight! I’ll overlook the ones you just killed. Just shut your eyes and seal a few Red Gates for us, and—”
Shing—
Leos flicked a dagger. It grazed past Feredin’s cheek. Feredin swallowed hard and shut his mouth.
“Ah… so Belin was Imperial Shadow Group as well. And the ones who moved her were the Shadow Group and the Empire.”
Leos looked at him with empty eyes.
“I devoted myself to the Empire, and this is how you discard me.”
“You… what do you think you can do alone? I told you all this so you’d understand that thrashing around is pointless! Fear the Empire! Serve under the Empire for the glory of the Empire—”
Slash!
Leos shot forward in a blur and severed Feredin’s arm at the shoulder.
“Ghk… GAAAAAAAH!”
Feredin screamed. Leos looked down at the man writhing on the ground and spoke in a voice colder than ice.
“Why should I fear the Empire? A pack of worms who can do nothing but sit on their asses and bark orders? From now on, the Empire will fear me. Starting with you, I’m going to kill every last one of them.”