The screams spilled through the halls as Laurence ran through the more populated areas of the base. Every person he came past, whether they were young or old, was cleft in two. Some into less, some into more, but no one got away. Originally, a lot of them fought with the masked beast that Laurence had become, but when it became clear that they would just die they began running.

No one was faster than the boy. No one could escape. It was like they were trying to run from the grim reaper himself, one with a form. The only thing that would slow Laurence down was when a large group of people bundled together in an intersection. Often they would mix together and some would be escaping, while others would be hunting down what was causing such a big reaction. When that happened the people still died in droves, but some could get away. The mass of bodies and pulped flesh would block him and he would have to swing, and swing, and swing to clear his way through the pile-up.

By the time Laurence got to the mess hall of the base, he was covered from head to toe in blood, chunks of flesh, cartilage and bone. He was a sight to behold. A red demon, closer in height to a meter than a meter and a half, with a great blue hammer and a pristine masked face. The people who saw Laurence could not help but feel their skin crawl; it was unsettling to say the least.

The mess hall of the Arrow’s base was a completely different beast in comparison to the one in Spring Street. Set on four floors of a cleaned out building, it was the nexus of everything the Arrows did. The floor was split, and wound up the building like a thick staircase littered with tables, chairs and pillows. The place was a zone of carousing and comfort rather than sustenance and planning, to the point that even through the fog of slaughter, Laurence could not help but think that the Spring Street mess hall was rather spartan.

Sitting in a mass of pillows on the floor above Laurence, there was a man who exuded an aura of opulence and power. Thin chains of gold and steel covered his bronze, muscular, hairless body. He smiled at the boy-come-demon as he entered the room, revealing a set of pearlescent platinum teeth, and picked up a goblet filled with wine from the table by his side. Taking a sip, his eyes closed slightly in reverie over the flavour before he placed the goblet back down and stood up.

“So you're the one who’s broken into my halls and caused a ruckus. Have you come to die Masked Man?” His rough lilt echoed through the room. The man had a commanding air about him that made even his most fervent of enemies want to capitulate. Orwell could dominate a room with wise words, clever rhetoric, and a certain flair with his speeches, but this man could dominate a room by existing. He was someone who was simply born to rule.

“Kill,” Laurence replied.

“You're not going to kill anyone. Your spree ends here.” The man walked to the edge of the floor he was on and jumped off, landing in front of Laurence. “From close up, you really are quite small. Are you a dwarf or a boy?” The man sneered. He assumed that he would be able to bait Laurence into attacking in anger. “Is this all Spring Street can send at me? Do they have so few men left?”

“Kill,” Laurence said again. He raised his hammer and swing it towards his combatant. The man moved back and the hammer ever-so-slightly grazed his chest, spitting the skin wide open. The man's eyes went wide and he moved back, out of Laurence’s immediate reach.

“Dwarf, you have some skill. I guess I will reward you with dying a noble death at the hands of Roy the Blade, or rather at the point of his sword.” The man, Roy, took off a pendant of his and held it in his hands. It twisted and writhed before transforming into a two finger wide blade. “This sword is one of the rare Saint weapons left in the city. I found it when I was younger, but I never found someone who was worthy of dying on it. Today that changes.”

Laurence swung his hammer once more. The air tore, and made a cracking sound as the weapon began picking up speed. With each swing, Laurence would move the hammer into the next attack. Left, right, up, down he swung, each time the head would be dodged by Roy, but the air pressure would leave a lasting mark. The berserk child would not stop, but as he kept swinging Roy began his counter attack. There was as much form in Roy’s combat as Laurence’s, but his weapon was just as special. Each strike would lead to a near miss, either clipping Laurence’s clothes or missing his bare skin by millimetres, but as Laurence kept going wounds began to spring up all over his body.

Roy thrust his sword at Laurence’s right, and the berserk child moved in response to that. The moment the blade was clear, Laurence once more felt a cut on his left side. This one had managed to puncture his Orik-leather armour, leaving a bloody gash that wept from his side. Laurence snarled at the pain but leapt forwards without dropping his pace at all. In response, Roy waved his blade in front of himself and pulled back quickly. There was a sick grin on his face as he watched Laurence slam into what was effectively a wall of invisible knives. The blades bit into his flesh and he could not help but scream out, more in rage than pain.

In his killing frenzy Laurence could feel very little pain, but could immediately tell when his battle prowess dipped. He was getting weaker with each strike, even if he could not see them.

That said, Roy was not holding out well either. Each swing of Laurence’s hammer was closer to hitting than the last, and Roy could tell that Laurence only needed to hit once to end his life. He had begun by mocking the dwarven warrior in front of him, but as the battle went on, he had less and less space to breathe, let alone talk. The masked character in front of him was highly powerful, albeit not skilled enough to make a difference, so each swing was full of holes yet contained a terrifying power. He had never thought that such great power could come from a body so small.

Laurence swung the hammer into the ground, spitting up a cloud of dust and a rain of stone shards. They spread towards Roy before he cut them down with his bizarre sword maneuvers. Unfortunately Laurence used this break in line of sight, and in Roy's momentum, to appear beside him and hammer home an attack. Roy swung his blade, deflecting the hammer from a straight blow, but was still sent flying away from Laurence. The bones in his arms jarred against each other and he nearly dropped his sword, however he kept hold.

Finally, Roy had had enough of walking the fine line of avoiding the hammer. He could tell that this masked warrior was going to win if they dragged this out much longer. He was simply taking more damage. He began pumping all the mana from his reservoir into the blade, letting it overflow and form a massive ethereal edge around the blade. Each strike that Roy had made contained a small amount of his mana, which allowed the sharpness of the weapon to persist in the air until Laurence collided with it. He would guide his adversary into each of his strikes, slowly constricting a net and then end them when they had no room to move. This new strike was that effect, but hundredfold stronger. The aura invisibly extended the length and width of the blade, making it far more deadly.

Laurence was frenzied, but he could still feel when a strike would be lethal to him. The baleful aura that the blade in Roy’s hand exuded was simply overwhelming. In the primal state Laurence was in he could clearly tell that this next strike was kill or be killed. He had no real way of avoiding it, he simply was not quick enough. He had to face it head on, but in doing so he could lose his life. His back was against the wall, and for the first time since he had begun to hear the voices there was silence in his mind. He could control himself again.

Swinging the lightning hammer round, he began building up momentum. With each rotation that he made, he forced mana into the hammer, allowing it to release snake after snake of lightning that quickly wrapped around the hammerhead. The blue light exuded from the hammer began changing as the hammer itself could not keep up with the power of the next strike. Laurence gritted his teeth, then as Roy began moving towards him, let the hammer fly out. What had looked like a sparking whirlwind quickly became a bolt of lightning over two metres in thickness. It crackled through Roy's blade, Roy, and then the path behind him, before making the entire far wall of the mess hall collapse.

Laurence sank to his knees. It was over, one way or the other. He had thrown everything into that last strike, and hoped it was enough to put Roy the Blade down for good. If he had succeeded, then the Arrows were dead. He just needed to sleep, and to find Damien.

On the far side of the room, there was a charred corpse of a man, with a warped and oversized slab of metal attached to his hand. Where the tip of the blade ended there was a tear in the rock that punctured around fifty metres into the ground. The sides of the tear were completely smooth, to the point where it was like the missing rock had been removed from the very fundamentals of reality.