Some start clapping, thinking this is part of the event

"Ohh!"

"Interesting! Tolumn, I'll donate two gold coins to your orphanage if he's killed in a single attack, ten if you leave him alive!"

A two-and-a-half meter giant, in full plate armour with a two-handed sword that's at least as big as himself, walks towards me with a solemn expression. It doesn't look like he likes what is happening here.

[But he is here.]

I can see him mumbling a "sorry" as he attempts to make an over-head downwards chop. His body and armour split in two as his innards few out. My sword broke in a single strike, I throw it towards the nearest attacker, and leap to catch the falling two-handed sword.

Rage pills are a failed attempt to recreate a specific skill. Even if they are a failed product, they can bring out roughly fifteen percent of that skill, Blood Rage, some times called Berserk Rage, or just Berserker. It requires a lot of internal mana, and even more training. This was the only skill I could use, the only thing I had.

And I polished it to near perfection.

My last two yellow orbs had exploded into yellow-red anti-magic gas, filling about a third of the room. I won't be needing them anymore.

I will die, but in exchange I will erase their very existence.

...

Only after a half-dozen gruesome deaths of their Enforcers, did the nobles start to move. The door behind me is locked, and to get to it you need to go through me, so they went back to the rooms they came from under the protection of roughly a quarter of the Mages and Enforcers. The mages left in the room are very careful with their spells, as the room isn't big enough for large scale magic, and I'm too close to them and their allies. I don't feel my pulse, I'm not sure I'm even breathing. My world is covered in red as explosions of magic and blood fills the room.

They will all die.

...

There are less than half left, but I can barely walk. My burnt left hand stopped moving quite a while ago. The icicle lodged in my back restricts my movements even more, and the blood flowing from the wound is too severe to ignore. They're protect the path the nobles took, and the toddlers that the nobles took start coming back with their bodies changed, Demon pills.

The anti-magic gas has already dissipated, and I can see several mages gathering together to cast a powerful spell. I try to stop them, but a number skilled Enforcers with shields stop my advance. The two-hander requires too much strength, but if I try to swap weapons they'll use that against me.

...

The closer they come to finishing the spell, the more urgent it becomes that I deal with them as fast as possible. As I tried to reach them again, another Enforcer blocked my way, my sword split his head horizontally, the mages behind him yelp in fear. The lead ones were desperate and focused, but the others had faces of pure horror, the eyes of men knowing that they will die, and there is nothing they can do to stop it. As I made eye contact with one of the mages in the back, he shuddered and made an error, causing his spell to backfire, causing an explosion that threw everyone around him away. The explosion caused a chain of disrupted spells, in the end of the lead mages were consumed by the biggest spell, which destabilized into an enormous explosion.

...

White, I feel as if my skin and muscles are melting.

I see nothing, feel nothing, and the high-pitched buzzing in my ears won't stop.

I try to move or feel anything, but nothing happens.

I'm in a world of darkness.

[So we died huh? Isn't this what you wanted? Dying for the grand cause. In the epic fight for righteousness, for good, against the evil guys.]

[SAY SOMETHING!!]

[We are DEAD! What's next?]

[WHAT'S NEXT?]

[WILL SOMEONE TELL A TALE ABOUT US?!]

[WHO? WHO WILL? WE'RE DEAD!... Everyone we ever cared for is DEAD!]

[WE SAVED NO ONE! WE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING!!]

[TELL ME!!]

[COME ON, CONTINUE!]

[EVERYONE IS DEAD. WE. FULFILLED. NOTHING.]

[WE FAILED IN EVEN THE MOST BASIC TASKS!]

[TELL ME!!!]

[You changed nothing, everything was left the absolute fucking same. That hell will exist for all eternity.]

[Oh, you think you destroyed that cult? It was a small branch. You couldn't even destroy a fucking small BRANCH!]

[Change the world my ass.]

[Even in death I won't leave you, I'll make you into an evil spirit, I'll turn you into a vengeful ghost.]

[You'll never rest. You'll continue hunting them.]

[We will.]

[For all eternity, WE SHALL NOT REST!!]

[This isn't enough. It will never be enough.]

Through pure willpower, I return to the world of pain.

Pain, I am alive. I won't die, not just yet. NOT. YET.

Checking the internal status of my organs, I wince, eyes and lungs severely damaged, burns cover my body. I take the nutrition from my bones and begin healing the critical locations. I need to start moving as fast as I can. One eye will be enough for now. After what feels like an eternity my body starts moving and the ringing in my ears stopped. My nose is assaulted by the smell of burned meat, and my lungs can barely suck in enough air in this cramped room.

"...kill him..."

Shit, my eye isn't ready. By the sound of footsteps I determine how far the attacker is from me. The moment the footsteps get too close, and I feel the strike coming, I leap with all the possible strength in my right hand and leg. My left side still isn't operational. Together we fall to the ground, I hear the sound of metal armour clanging against stone. A burning feeling in my left side tells me something has been embedded there.

FUCK.

Can I even damage someone in plate armour right now?

My palm somehow finds something warm, exposed flesh. My instincts scream to attack the exposed part with everything I have. But I have nothing, teeth it is then, my teeth clench with enormous strength at the exposed area, at least my jaw muscles are still working. The screech I hear under my left ear tells me the attack is a woman, sliding my right hand between us, I push her away. A large chunk of meat come out, stuck between my teeth, a unison of screams tell me there are still many enemies to deal with, as the sound of gurgling and warm liquid flowing out can be heard from under me.

I swallow the chunk hoping to get as much nutrition and mana as I can for what's too come. It starts dissolving the moment it enters my stomach. I notice that my left eye has started to see again, but sometimes I wish it hadn't. The floor is littered with dozens of charcoal bodies and parts mixed with the bones that lay on the ground before. And to top it all off, at least a dozen mages have spells ready to fire. Not waiting for the actual casting, I lift the body under me to protect against the coming rain of spells. In the next instant, an explosion of fire engulfs the body and throws me back several meters.

No time to whine or rest. I stand up as feeling returns to my left side, something is still stuck in there. I pull a short sword out of my side, noticing several Enforcers are near me, I starting circulating mana in the last few seconds before death approaches. With an inhuman bellow, I leap at the new target. By the looks of it, they didn't expect me to be so agile. One by one I evade their attacks and jam the sword into the gaps of their armour. At the same time evading any spells I could, or at least, put someone into the firing line for me. The Mages switch to curses, but they're useless against me. A few of them hit the people around me, they crumple as blood flows from their ears and eyes, some just fall down not taking another breath. The Mages may have offensive skill, but they're not Battle Mages.

With each dead, my body slows down. I cut, slice, and stab until all the Enforcers are dead and I'm covered in their blood. Some of the Mages run into the backroom, others fall to the ground, exhausted by their non-stop casting. Others even have the audacity to pray for salvation. My body is about to give up. I lick the blood from my face and sword to get even the tiniest boost.

Not yet. NOT. YET.

After everyone is the room is neutralized, I go around and start carving them apart, Making it as painful as possible. They beg for mercy as I rip them into pieces one after another, each more brutal than the previous. Dislocating arms, and legs. Ripping their genitals from their bodies and stuffing them into their own mouths, plugging their eyes with fingers as they scream, strangle them with their own guts. I wish less of them had turned into charcoal when the explosion happened. Their wails fill the room, but I'm not finished, not yet at least.

The sight in my right eye has returned, and my body has stabilized. Taking a new sword and several daggers laying on the ground, I start towards the backroom.

Time for the main dish.

Limping through another hall, I walk towards a large door, engraved with skulls and enchantments. A huge fireball flies in my direction, jumping aside as the fireball hits the wall, and the force pushes me even further. The moment a face looks out I embed a dagger into his skull. As he drops, screams flow from the backroom.

I return the large room and grab a shield. Shield in my left hand, and a dagger in the other I jump into the back room. A quick scan of the room tells me that the most dangerous one is in the center. As she sends a sharp icicle at me, shattering against my shield, I throw my dagger into her neck. A quarter of the nobles have swords in their hands, and nearly everyone else is bombarding me with spells. With a few dagger throws, and bashes of the shield the elemental attacks stop. They continue to throw curses at me, smiling as if I'm about to drop dead. I throw my shield to the side, which brings a confident grin to their faces.

"Curses don't work on me."

A few faces showed confusion, some didn't comprehend what was happening, nor what was about to happen. The rest looked at me in horror.

Truly "dark" magic works a bit differently. They overpower the internal mana of enemies in pin-point locations, causing significant internal damage. Coughing lungs out, bleeding from the eyes and ears, dropping dead from a damaged heart or brain, that is "dark" magic. Because of that most of their spells are invisible, and because of that, the "dark" class of spell is considered one of the most dangerous in offensive power.

But they're useless if the amount of mana at the point of attack is more than the amount used in the spell. Basic math. That's why they prey on the weak. One of the leaders tries to say something, but I stop him.

"There's no need to speak, I know who you are."

They were always good with their tongues, lying all their lives.

"Slaves of Moloch and Minerva."

They stopped breathing, Finally they truly looked at me, not as a beast, but something more, as if finally realising that their curses had no effect.

"I know exactly what you are, and what you were doing here."

"I have hunted your kind for a long time"

I smile.

"The funny thing of this all, is that you truly believe that you're some kind of higher race. That everyone else is just cattle created for you."

Their faces morph from grins into rage.

"You steal and breed children as cattle. You rape and torture them, gathering that dark energy into black crystals for future use. You swap children between yourselves as if they're furniture. And when they reach a specific point, you kill them. Bathe in their blood, and drink it as if it's a fine wine, eat their bodies to extend you own wretched lives. Use them in dark rituals that contribute to your objective. Rinse, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat."

"And it works, it has worked for millenniums, I won't deny it. Your kind has evaded judgement for your actions for a very long time."

"Did you truly believe that it would never come to and end?"

After a shout from the lord, several of them, some with swords and some barehanded, leap at me, attempting to subdue me. As I rip their arms and legs from their sockets, their screams echo in the enclosed chamber. The blood pools as I move towards them.

"This is your reality now. Now, I'm your god."

...

I don't know how much time has passed. No one has come down. There's only one exit from this place. The way I came. maybe everyone was told to never come down here. To protect their secrets, or at least it should have.

I tried to extend their suffering as much as possible.

But it's not enough.

They deserved more, much more.

Even though they look relatively young, most of them are old, very old. Dark magic, and the blood of children can make you look half your age.

They've tortured and consumed countless lives.

One lifetime isn't enough to punish them. So I did a little something more.

Old magic is strange. It behaves a bit differently, and there are different requirements. Many cults have tried to use it, but nearly everyone failed. But fot the few successful ones, you have to prepare, learn. If you know how they work, you know where to hit them. Even though I can't use mana, it doesn't mean there isn't enough mana around, for a very special, very old ritual. There's plenty, just not mine.

I dragged all the bodies, except for the morphed toddlers, into the circle. The abundance of blood will help, I'm not sure if the ritual worked. How can you check the state of a soul?

It's said that the soul lingers for forty days in this world, it's also said if the soul is in an unnatural state, it will be in "pain". I hope it's true . The circle should hold the marked souls in the center, prevent them from entering the afterlife. The vortex will continue to grow for years, centuries, perhaps millennium, until someone closes the vortex. The only entrance to this place is the way I came in. I have to make sure no one will be able to enter easily and disrupt the circle. Easiest way, crumble the entrance. Explosion? No, I don't have any explosives with me. Getting some would take at least a day, and someone might find this place.

Looking through the room, I find nothing. Torture devices, tools, a lot of dark crystals. Some of the nobles have jewelry, not coin, but I can use them too. My body still looks like an burnt piece of meat, my clothes were in tatters.

I guess I have no other option.

...

I looked out and saw the late dawn, hard to believe that I only spent one day there. I waited till it was dark to leave the castle. It's still hard for me to comprehend that there isn't a constant patrol. Well, with a constant patrol, it makes it hard to keep stuff hidden. Dressed in one of the nobles, I limp to the inn, it was closed but I got in through an open window. I collapse on the bed, falling asleep in moments.

...

Waking up I find it's already past noon, my body is in a better state than yesterday, still look like a failed piece of steak.

...

"I need decent explosives."

"Friend, you look like someone who should never touch an explosive."

"Well, you see, the last merchant sold me some bad quality product. I'll pay decent coin for decent goods. But, if something goes wrong, and lets hope it doesn't, because some say that merchant disappeared."

"Yes sir." The merchant starts to sweat at my threat.

I find out that the caravan left in the morning, I can still catch up though. I buy a good horse using one of the noble's trinkets, greed does horrible things to merchants. I return to the basement at night, placing the explosives near the weakest pillars are, igniting the cord, I get out of the city as fast as I can.

Sitting on my horse outside of the city, I wait the explosion. Maybe the fire didn't reach, too little explosives? Maybe the merchant screwed me in the end? After thinking of returning and punishing the merchant for a few minutes, a huge explosion levels a quarter of the castle. Ok, maybe I overdid it with the explosives, anyway I'm still roughly a day behind the caravan, I should hurry. As I travel to catch up to the caravan, it finally hits me. I am alive. Yes, an overcooked piece of steak, but alive none the less.

[But the kids aren't.]

The kids aren't.

One more day, please. One more day.