“Hey, hey, hey, hey! C’mon, Warlord! Don’t tell me that that’s the best ya can do, or has age finally kicked in?”

“Pah! Age has nothing to do with my fighting!”

Pugar taunts his opponent as Gunther swings his warhammer, but every strike he tries to land a hit, his attacks keep getting blocked by the reptilian man’s metal arm, acting as a shield, while he wields a sword in a backhand grip.

“Pugar! Stop procrastinating him and fight for real!”

“And end the fight already? But that wouldn’t be any fun! Besides, ain’t ya busy on yer end?”

While they were mouthing at each other, the beast-man raised his shield in an attempt to get a hit on him, but before he could, the elven man quickly casted a small barrier that is the same size of the beast-man’s shield and protected him.

The elf man pushed his hand in front of the beastman and shouted “Sadun”, firing a jolt of lightning from his hands. That attack pushed him away from the elf man and the beast-man with the crossbow fired some arrows at him as he rushed towards his comrade, but he raised a barrier and the arrows bounced off in front of him and landed on the ground.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah! This guy ain’t easy for just the two of us.”

“Perhaps you two should’ve reconsider your options. Should you surrender and walk away freely, join us, or die in this very place.”

“Tch! There’s no way in hell that we’re ever gonna die! Not by you freaks!”

“That’s too bad. I guess you will have to die then.”

The elf raised his hand in front of them and chanted “Valun” and fireballs fired from the palms of his hands. The beastman quickly reacted and raised both of his shields to defend both him and his partner and pitch-black smoke surrounded them. From the smoke, several bolts fired at him, but a barrier casted in front of him, defending himself. As he was guarding, the beastman with the shields lept out from the smoke and lunged at the elf man with his shields like a meteor coming down at him. The elf man extends his other hand at the attacking man and summons a second shield above him.

Two magical shields that he summoned—one in each hand—had protected him; one at the beastman with the crossbow, constantly firing at him as he ran around him as he is trying to find a weak point, and one at the beastman with the shields above him, strong enough that he might be able to break his shield. But the question is, how long? How long must he defend? How long must survive facing the two beastmen? Luckily for him, Pugar was busy fighting against Gunther. If he hadn’t joined with him to fight against the oppressors, he would have had a hard time fighting against the three of them all by himself.

“Is that all you can do? Shields are meant for defending, not attacking. What can you possibly do to hurt me with the weapons you have?”

“…By doing this! Breakamalggo!”

The moment he called it out, the shields suddenly gave an orange glow around them between the elf’s magic shield and the beastman. But then, it broke. The elf’s magic barrier suddenly broke. The elf couldn’t believe his eyes that his shield was actually broken.

But it wasn’t just his shield that broke, the beastman’s shields broke along with it. That is the cost of using this ability; by using the ability, Breakamalggo, you’ll be not only breaking one’s defences, but also breaking your own weapons, leaving you wide open. That is the sacrifice that he is willing to take.

“Now!”

To his call, the beastman fired his crossbow at the elf man. The bolt hit him, on his back. He can feel the pain coursing through him. But he wasn’t done yet. Two more arrow bolts fired at him and pierced his body, then one more bolt, only this time, to the neck.

It was done for him. His body dropped forward, drowning in his own pool of blood.

“Lince!!”

Pugar looked and called at his fallen alley. Unfortunately, there was no life in him anymore. All there is left is a lifeless corpse.

“You bastard!”

He returned to his eyes towards Gunther, but only this time, he was furious. He was not the same man with a laid back roundabout expression, playfully teasing and provoking Gunther. His mind is now clouded with rage. He will not stand by and let these people, who killed his partner, live to tell the tale.

He charged in at Gunther and arm to punch him square in the face without warning, sending him dragging across the docks. Luckily he had used his flesh arm. If he had used his metal arm, it would be an instant knockout for sure, or even death.

“I will kill you… I WILL KILL YOU!!”

His fight tactic has now changed; he won’t evade or even come up with a provoking quip to make fun at, he is now using his brute strength not to survive, but to avenge his fallen comrade, his friend, his brother.

Pugar, fueled with rage, unleashed a fury of punches towards Gunther. Gunther tries to block each punch using his warhammer, but they were so fast, so powerful, he couldn’t defend all of them and he was blown back from the attack.

Before he could continue forward, three arrows were shot at him, stopping his tracks. However, the arrows didn’t fully pierced his body. His rigid reptilian skin prevented the arrows from deepening any further. That is one of the plus sides of being born as a lizardman.

Lizardmen are known for their incredible strength and their powerful scaly hide, ranging from various strengths and colors passed down from their descendants. When a lizardman was born, they start to grow scales at the age of three, and then harden by the age of five. They can withstand such various attacks such as getting shot by arrows or getting hit by magic. Even some lizardmen can breath out fire from their mouth, so much so that they could be considered as dragons themselves, but that chances of that happening are one-in-a-million.

Pugar grabbed the three arrows that were stuck on his body and took them out without any hesitation. He then looked at the attacker with his bloodshot reptilian eyes.

“Grr… You will pay for killin’ him, you bastard!”

He heads towards the attacker, but not on twos, but on fours, and instead of using his fists, he attempts to use his sharp teeth to bite him.

“Get away from him!”

In his way, the beastman used his arm to shove him away from the attack, defending his friend. But at the same time, his left arm was caught in the crossfire as the lizardman’s fangs and bites him. The beastman cried out as each individual tooth pierced through his arm until he felt his arm numb. Holding on to his arm using his teeth, Pugar violently shook his head, flailing the poor beastman in the air for a couple of seconds until his arm was ripped apart from his body. He would’ve saved himself if he still had his shields on him, but unfortunately, they were destroyed when he casted Breakamalggo on the elf man, so as a result, he becomes the shield and defends his friend from harm.

He gnawed on the arm with his teeth, down to the bone, until he bit it apart, leaving remains of what it was on the floor. This is unordinary than anything else; he isn’t the same person when they first fought.

“Rrrooooaaa!!”

He is on a whole completely another level. His mind is not in the right place anymore. His mind was consumed by anger and killer instincts. He is nothing but a wild, savage animal.

The wild and berserk Pugar turns towards the other beastman, who has his crossbow aimed at him, and charges towards him. The beastman fires his arrows from his crossbow, but the moment the arrows impacted the skin, they didn’t penetrate his skin. Instead, it just bounced off from his body. The scales of his skin had reached the point that arrows couldn’t do much damage on him.

He wanted to run away, he wanted to get out of the way from the attack, he wanted to go and help his fallen friend who was bleeding out from his missing appendage. But he couldn’t. In truth, his legs are frozen out of fear that he couldn’t control them. But despite that, he decides to stand his ground.

This is the end for him…at least, that’s what he thought.

“—!”

Before he could sink his teeth on the beastman, a sudden hit struck Pugar and smacked him away from the beastman, crashing to a warehouse. It was a warhammer; grand as the eye can see.

“—Hey now! I won’t let you eat another soldier!”

The beastman turned and the one who saved him was Gunther. Thankfully he stayed with them when they were fighting. If it was just the two beastmen against both Lince and Pugar, the situation would’ve been a different outcome.

“Go help out your friend. I’ll take care of him.”

“How are you gonna pull this off? My arrows couldn’t even pierce him.”

“I’ve got a plan, now go!”

Listening to Gunther’s command, he headed towards his bleeding friend. Pugar, after the hit that he received from Gunther’s warhammer, quickly got up and was able to stand. His scales can withstand any physical attacks, including a warhammer. So to him, it was nothing but a scratch.

Pugar starts to charge at him full speed on all fours and Gunther is on standby as he draws closer, waiting for the perfect time to attack. He gets closer and closer. Then…

“Haaa!!”

Roaring with pride, Gunther jumped over the attack that was coming towards him and held onto the lizardman’s back. The savage lizardman shakes his body, trying to escape his clutches, but Gunther didn’t give up, he still held on.

Gunther could try to beat him in his blindspot, but due to his scales being hard, it’ll only do minimal damage to him.

Instead, he did the alternative.

“Here it is! Hah!”

Using the butt of his warhammer, he lodged it in-between the gaps of the lizardman’s mechanical arm and the flesh of his body. And with his absurd strength, he pulled it and tore the arm from Pugar, leaving nothing but pieces of metal landing on the floor and having nothing to defend himself.

“Guuuaaaaa!!”

“Don’t worry, I’m not done yet!”

Still using his warhammer, he used the handle side, placed it on the lizardman’s mouth, and pulled his head back with it. Pugar tries to shake him off again, even as much as slamming him to the wall, but no matter how hard he tried, Gunther wouldn’t let go. He attempts to reach him with his remaining arm, but before he could, the hammer-wielding Gunther twists his head to the side, pulling him to the ground, with Pugar on top of him.

But they are not done yet. Gunther continues to hold on to the warhammer as the handle is still in the lizardman’s mouth and twists his head to the left at a ninety degree angle. Pugar tries to free himself and get the warhammer off of him, but with just the one arm that he has, it isn’t enough to break himself free. Gunther continues to twist him hard enough until eventually, he can hear the bones of the lizardman’s neck cracked and his arm flopped on the ground.

That was it, his rampage had stopped and the beast was defeated.

Gunther crawled out of the paralized lizardman’s body as he stood himself from the ground, proud and exhausted of his victory against the mad beast. He walked towards the two beastmen; one treated the other beastman’s wound by stopping the bleeding from where his missing arm was. It was already proven that his arm was unrecoverable since Pugar destroyed it. All it is now is a stump bleeding from the bandages. His friend helps him up and carries him with his arm—his remaining arm—on his shoulder.

“Are you two okay?”

“It’s okay, sir. Right now, he’s unconscious from the bleeding.”

“Good. But I wished I could’ve saved your friend more quickly…”

“H-Hey! It’s not your fault, sir! It’s my fault that I got him like this. Damn, it’s even my fault to agreeing to his stupid plan!”

He looks down on the ground, frustrated and blames himself that his friend is in a situation like this. If he hadn’t destroyed his shield to manage to kill the elf man, or if he hadn’t saved his friend from his death, the result would’ve ended differently.

Now they have to live with the outcome that they’ve got.

“Hey now, soldier, it’s no one’s fault!”

“But…”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself because of this. You two are alive, and that’s all that matters. Don’t forget, we are soldiers. We are used to things like this. You should take his actions by heart.”

The beastmen took a small amount of time to think about Gunther’s words. Even though he blames himself for turning his friend the way he is now, he takes his words into consideration and gives him an affirming nod.

“Alright. Now carry him to the exit!”

“Yes sir! But what about you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch up. I’m gonna help out the boys. Now go!”

With his command, the beastman helps out his friend in an attempt to escape from the city. While that’s being done, Gunther heads to where both Shouya and Gin were and hopefully gets there in time to help them.

But before he could go there and help them…

“—”

Gunther walks up and looks down to see the defeated Pugar, body twitching and his mouth frothing. That is the result of having his rage getting through to his head. The thought of avenging his friend’s death that he didn’t even consider to save his own life. His mind was corrupted by vengeance.

Even though he had defeated him, all he sees in him now is pity.

“…What you did was commendable. Helping out to avenge your friend and your friend would’ve been pleased if he was alive.”

“—”

“However, I couldn’t forgive the actions that you, your leader, or even the people that were with you, did to this city or my men.”

“—”

“So for the sake of Aluema, may you find peace. So please, forgive me. Until then, we would soon meet each other in the afterlife.”

Pugar couldn’t hear or respond to what Gunther had said. But if he did, he would’ve said “thank you” to him.

Gunther gripped tightly to his warhammer and he high in the sky and bash it onto the lizardman’s head and the shell of his skin cracked. He kept bashing, and bashing and bashing, until…he stopped, and he slowly drew back weapon to him.

Bits of his brain is now stuck on the head of his warhammer.