Cedric’s blade fell upon the raised shield of the man in front of him. The shield didn’t cut easily, but it dented under the force of his swing, and he was able to follow through with the motion. The man who had raised his shield to block the attack got flattened like an insect. Blood splattered from the sides of the shield. The sound of things breaking could be heard loudly as the shield was pressed down. Even without being able to see the body, he knew the man was dead. The shield had been pushed into the ground; it didn’t even feel like someone was holding it up.

The soldiers retaliated, stabbing with their spears. It was interesting seeing spears made entirely of metal, but it didn’t make the people wielding them strong enough to pierce his body. Only one spear had managed to penetrate his skin, the rest of them didn’t even manage that much. He shrugged off the attacks, and just focused on his job. He didn’t need to kill these people, they weren’t chanters. However, he needed to get to the wall and swung his blade again.

This time he swung upwards while stepping forwards. The shield was bent as he stepped on it, but he was able to find enough footing and swung properly. The next man didn’t have a shield and had been one of those who held a long metal spear. He attempted to block the blow, but the spear didn’t have the same strength as the shield. The metal got cut with his swing, and the man himself had been flung into the air. He was dead from the swing alone as the blade had cut him from the center of his chest and up through his head. Blood sprayed across the nearby people.

Cedric focused on his feet and movements, taking another step. He brought the blade down, repeating the swing as he stepped forward. He truly felt like an unstoppable force, moving in a straight line, and completely ignoring every attempt to slow him down. The process didn’t make him feel strong or superior as he had believed it would. Instead, each step sickened him, and every man that died from his swing bothered him. Every person he killed was done directly, his own hand swinging the blade. The carnage kept increasing as he stepped.

A trail of corpses was laid out behind him, and he eventually heard the remains of his army crash into the enemies. The shouts of alarm and the clang of metal spread across the air. He swung his blade again and was surprised to find that there was no one there to block him. In fact, there was a space around him. The soldiers had given up trying to stop him, and Cedric was able to pick up his pace. As he got closer to the wall, one of those enormous burning boulders was aimed directly at him. That was something he wasn’t expecting as it would kill hundreds of their own soldiers too.

It came towards him, and he leaped forward rolling as it landed. Honestly, he didn’t know if it would be able to kill him, but he didn’t want to be buried under that much stone. Even if it didn’t seriously harm him, it would still take a while to get out from. It crashed behind him, the ground shaking under the force. Even without looking around, he knew that many soldiers would have died. How could they kill their own?

With the soldiers choosing to avoid him, Cedric had nothing to stop him as he headed towards where he saw fires raining down from the walls. The chanters’ locations were obvious, and he just needed to climb the wall. Sir L had taught him how to scale a wall and ignore things like attacks or distractions. This was also something that they had practiced.

During practice, Sir L had made him climb the wall on the inside of the mountain. He was strong enough that he could dig his hands and feet into stone, and he had been given two daggers for it. The blades would make it easier to find proper holds as he climbed. He remembered climbing up the mountain, reaching the top, and staring out over the kingdom. At that height, everything had seemed small. Cities seemed like small toys, and it felt like he could grab the whole world in his hand. In the far distance, he had seen another mountain that seemed to climb even higher. One day he would find and climb the tallest mountain.

Now, he needed to climb this wall. As he got closer to the wall, he put his sword away, grabbing the daggers from his belt. In one motion he jumped towards the structure, his daggers digging into it. He didn’t know exactly how high his jump had carried him, but he was far above the range of the army below. Instead of climbing as a normal person would, he simply used his inhuman strength to kick off the wall.

The next leap took him maybe half as far as before, but it was still far faster than a normal climb. Preparing for his next leap, he saw some rocks being thrown down the wall. One came close to him, and he batted it out of the way with one of his hands. He probably didn’t need to do it but wasn’t sure. After feeling the weight of the rock as he batted it away, he knew that he could have just ignored it. He leaped again and felt something crash into him as he did so. It didn’t stop his jump in the slightest, and he realized that it was oil. The substance felt strange as it slicked his hands and stung his eyes. He didn’t stop though, leaping again even after seeing the burning embers being dumped at him.

He almost wanted to laugh as the oil on his skin turned into a burning inferno. The fire didn’t even compare to the heat of the normal elixir. Honestly, it felt relaxing as he continued to jump. He crested the top, his final jump carrying him well over the lip of the wall. For a second, he was concerned that his jump would take him too far, but he managed to control himself at the last moment.

As he landed, he could easily make out who the chanters were. They were wearing robes of some kind, each of them adorned with layered sheets of metal. It didn’t look like proper armor to Cedric, but he accepted that it was a matter of taste. He counted five chanters here and realized that there were maybe thirty of them in total. Not sparing a glance for his surroundings or the battlefield, he ran at the chanters.

The chanter closest to him was a man with deep blond hair. He was surprisingly young-looking, and he raised his hand at Cedric. The motion felt so slow that it actually startled him. Cedric moved beneath his arm and slammed a fist against his chest. The metal he was wearing glowed faintly, and he saw a barrier of some kind appear in front of his hand. It didn’t matter as his fist went through it like a sheet of paper, and his whole hand went all the way through the man’s body. The man slumped over immediately, and Cedric charged towards the next.

Similarly rushed, the next person was speaking quickly, but the chant was never completed. Before they even realized it, Cedric had drawn his sword in a fluid swing. The blade slashed down into them, cutting them in half. He never even got a good look at them. Cedric stopped at that thought and stared at the bisected body. He couldn’t stop himself and vomited as spears of stone crashed into him. They were slow enough that he could dodge, but he didn’t think that stone could hurt him. It crashed into him but hadn’t even managed to shove him in the slightest.

It did shake him from staring at the corpse, and he caught one of the stone spears as it flew towards him. Curling his fingers around the projectile it slid across his hands for a second. He managed to stop it and throw it back at the chanter. It flew faster than an arrow and tunneled through the first chanter and even crashed against one of the ones behind him. The one it hit was a girl who looked abnormally young, and the spear struck her head and carried her body over the wall and into the city. He didn’t think she was alive, but it wasn’t his job to check either. There was only one chanter left and he jumped at her swinging again.

The final chanter didn’t even try to fight back anymore, she just stared at him. She had red hair, and it was tied into a long braid. It was so long that she wrapped it around her waist. Her raised arm fell to her side, and Cedric stepped to her slowly. The normal soldiers were to be spared, and children were never to be harmed. These were the only people he needed to deal with, it was, in a way, the reason he was made. Everything he had gained had been for dealing with chanters. With that in mind, he walked over to the last girl.

A few of the soldiers seemed to have shaken themselves from the shock of the battle, and they fired a few arrows at him. They didn’t even get through his skin, and he completely ignored it as he took the next step. The girl fell to her knees, she just stared at corpses behind him. As he stood over her, he couldn’t bring himself to kill her. He knew those eyes and felt like she wouldn’t be able to fight back anymore. It was still his duty, right? This was everything to him, these people were evil, and he was supposed to kill them. None of that seemed to matter as he stared at the fallen girl.

He thought about what he needed to do and found his mind swirling. Within a few seconds, he was overwhelmed, and he remembered something important.

“If you ever feel overwhelmed, just take a seat, and collect yourself. It’s not like anyone could do anything to you either way.”

Speaking the words aloud, he reminded himself of Sir L’s words. Sitting down, he could feel the soldiers continue to shoot him with arrows. A few even grew daring enough to try and stab him. Nothing they could do mattered, and he closed his eyes focusing on what to do about the chanter girl. He knew that they were dangerous and seeing them kill their own soldiers reminded him of that. However, was this girl dangerous anymore? She had lost the will to fight, and he doubted that she would ever fight back again. Honestly, this was too much for him to process. He knew that he wasn’t the smartest person around and wished that either Steven or Sam was here. Both of them would know what to do.

Slowly, his mind wandered away from the battle to his own past. He remembered how he had been treated. The beatings, insults, and pain of his past helped make his decision. That was how he was treated for being a worthless decrip, and he understood that a chanter would only receive worse. Their existence was even more problematic than his own, not to mention she had fought against their kingdom. With her current state, sparing her would not help either of them.

Slowly, he rose to his feet and opened his eyes. However, he didn’t get the opportunity to deal with her. She was already dead, her neck slit, and blood poured from the cut. He looked at her finding no weapons and realized that it must have been one of the soldiers. Looking around he found the man and realized that most of the soldiers were looking at her corpse hatefully. The soldiers that had been stabbing him had stopped and just stared at him awkwardly. Although, he also had no idea what to do and chose to ignore them and run towards the next group of chanters.