Lineage

If there was one thing I’d learned whilst I was here, it was that this city was unsalvageable. There was no one; no king, no queen, no priest, bishop, or prophet that could turn Falketurm away from the only thing it had ever been: a cesspool of crime, violence, and brutality. I’d been kept mostly safe, spending seventeen hours a day training in a tower with Luna and Advalia, growing from a child barely able to handle two men with knives into a warrior that could handle an army by himself, but the people that lived in the city, on the streets, were subjected to the harshest conditions I’d ever seen outside of a war.

This was the case today: seeing a mother and her eight year old daughter being slapped around and mugged by the militia that ran this city. The people that were supposed to be the guards and soldiers that kept this place safe. Luna had warned me how toxic this place was, how rotten to the core and irredeemable the people here were. She’d told me that no vigilantism would change anything, killing assholes like this would only cause the militia to become angry and punish the innocents in response.

She’d told me the man that ran this city, Baron Vondarken, was a man so steeped in bile and evil that there was no humanity left inside him. I’d seen it first hand, executions of civilians; women and children, just to prove he was serious about punishment if anyone broke the law. He butchered and strung up innocent civilians just to prove a point about his ruthlessness. I’d kept my head down, kept my face hidden under my hood for five years, and kept my eyes low to avoid seeing the turmoil that went on in this city.

But today? Something in me snapped today, seeing the sight of four grown men beating an eight year old girl, a girl who was barely older than the children I had out in this world without the security of my crown and title, sparked off a rage inside me like the pits of hell itself. I’d taken to my hooded robes rather well in time, the grey cloth clinging to my body with swords belted to my back, knives on the back of my belt, and a new hidden blade tucked away under my wrist. Weapons I’d been trained to use better than ever before. Weapons that had become natural extensions of my body due to my familiarity.

And weapons I wasn’t going to bother scuffing on scum like this. This event, this brutality, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was what pushed me over the edge to purge this city of it’s evil and burn this militia to the ground, starting with the cunts attacking a woman and her daughter. Throwing my beaked hood over my face, I dropped the box I was carrying and made a beeline straight for the soldiers slapping the two around.

One of the guards ‘keeping watch’ spotted me approaching, holding out a hand and telling me to fuck off, only to fall to the ground in a heap as I pushed his hand aside and elbowed him in the throat, crushing his larynx, before slamming the palm of my hand into his nose, crushing the bone and sending it up into his brain, killing him there and then. Another one of the guards noticed me kill their comrade, yelling at his other fellow guards, and having the other two draw their swords.

Two of them rushed at me, one of them slashing at me, aiming for my neck. I was able to catch his wrist with my hand, wrenching it at a sharp angle and causing him to drop his blade. My other hand caught the hilt of the sword, driving it into the man’s chest, hearing him breathe his last guttural gasp, before I threw the dying guard at the third guard, knocking them both into a heap before I killed the third guard by stamping on and snapping his neck at the base of his skull.

The fourth and final guard trembled in fear, gripping his sword tightly with both hands as I walked towards him. He swung wildly, his amateur strikes more than easily dodged as he wound up a final one that left him more than exposed, both arms far out to his side. I reached forward and snapped his neck with a violent twist of my hands before tossing the body aside. I studied the scene carefully, the dead bodies lying in too good a condition for what they deserved. I turned around to the beaten and bloodied mother and daughter, pulling my hood down and crouching next to them.

“You’re safe now, okay?” I asked them, giving a gentle smile, trying to remember the way to move my facial muscles to form the boyish charm I hadn’t used in such a long time. “Go home as fast as you can and don’t talk to anyone.”

“T-Thank you,” she nodded, grabbing her sobbing child and picking her up, both running away from the scene as fast as possible. With them gone and hopefully safe, I started the second part of my plan: Killing our dear Baron. Luna had told me a few days after we’d arrived that it would be useless killing the Baron, as someone else, possibly even worse would come and take his place. At the time I’d seen no way to combat that, but now? Five years stronger and five years wiser? I decided that I’d just keep killing the figure heads until they became smart enough to know not to assume control.

I knew that Baron Vondarken was holding a ‘parade’ in the city square to celebrate himself and his tyrannical rule. He’d be there, completely exposed, with only a few men to guard his life. The arrogant bastard didn’t expect anyone to be stupid enough to try and kill him, and that arrogance was going to lead to his downfall. I pulled my hood back up, walking past the terrified citizens staring at me as they saw the bodies, navigating the city in my mind before climbing up onto the rooftops, my climbing and traversal skills being as improved as my fighting, making travel no problem in this city.

I could see lines of the ‘attendees’ for the parade being forced into the square for the Baron’s enjoyment. They were always forced to watch his sick, twisted games, usually involving public executions, torture of prisoners, or just having random people he didn’t like the look of to be dragged up to the stage for him to beat to death. He’d of course have his men step in if the person he picked was able to fight better than him, and because of that he’d be given an even worse death than the others.

I set down in an alley, seeing three guards blocking the entrance to the plaza as they’d already let their entire ‘guest list’ through. Normally I’d feel bad about slaughtering innocent men, but those that joined this militia were as innocent as sin itself, corrupted by the life the guards lived over the peasants in this city. One of them spotted me, laughing to his fellow guards about my ‘grandmother’s coat’ before walking towards me.

“Listen, fuckboy,” he chuckled. “You can take your little dress and your rusty fucking sword and jump off a bridge. Cause there’s no way in fuck you’re gettin’ in he-”

He was cut off by a brutal right hook, breaking his jaw and sending him spinning around. He drew his sword as fast as he could, clumsily swinging at me as his friends rushed towards me. They drew their weapons, attempting to surround me, but to no avail. I stepped forward, glancing a sword strike off the much more armoured hidden blade I wore before booting him into his friend, catching the wrist of the third guard and tearing his blade from his grip, and ramming it into his eye socket.

He screamed in agony before I gripped the blade with my gloved hands, wrenching it down and splitting his skull open wide before kicking him over, finishing him off by stamping on the crossguard and piercing his brain, the man going limp immediately. The first guard lunged at me with a staggered stab, trying his best to run me through. I managed to grab his shoulders and drag him around in a circle and right back into the overhead swing from the final guard, the man in my grip releasing a drowning gurgle as the sword cleaved into his skull, throwing the body at the fourth guard and sending them both tumbling, catching the sword he dropped in mid-air and stabbing it into his throat as I walked into the square.

I spotted a higher number of guards than I’d anticipated, men wielding axes, maces, pikes, and spears. They weren’t a threat, they were instead fodder to keep me from getting to the Baron, seeing the ageing man slicing the throat of a young man, no older than nineteen, on stage in front of what I presumed was his mother, the older woman sobbing loudly as the son gurgled and coughed out his own blood. I felt the anger rise in my stomach again, walking towards the large, empty space where the Baron stood.

Several guards with pikes were positioned around, keeping the crowd at bay and keeping a riot suppressed. I walked towards them, both of them noticing me and holding a hand up, as many had done before, but they were both silenced by my armoured hidden blade… and the second one I’d been given a year into my training. I plunged the metal deep into their throats, driving the bodies into the floor whilst making no attempts to be stealthy. Another set of guards noticed me, grabbing their spears and preparing to rush towards me only.

I took two daggers from my belt, throwing them directly into their barely-armoured chests in stride, watching them stagger and fall to the ground as I fully announced my presence, using the new, much gravellier voice I’d developed as a grown man to get the Baron’s attention.

“Augustus!” I barked at him. The Baron looked up with a disgusted expression, staring at me with anger as he cast the body of the boy aside, gesturing for his men with swords to surround me.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

“I’m the one that’s going to kill you,” I responded in a cold tone. There was silence from the Baron for a second, the older man looking around with a questioning, arrogant expression before laughing loudly, his men following his lead and laughing as well, but in a much more nervous manner.

“I’m not afraid of one man dressed like a twat,” he said, pointing at me with his ring finger.

“I extend the same sentiment to you, Augustus,” I responded, clearly irking him further.

“I know you’re already a dopey enough cunt as it is, what with killing my fucking men and challenging me like this,” he growled, pointing at me and then circling his hand around several of his men. “But if you’re even thicker than that, I’ll tell you that there’s a lot more here than one fucking man.”

“I agree,” I nodded. “There’s a coward of a man hiding behind a wall of ten men. And ten men don’t scare me, Augustus.”

“Then what about a hundred?” he asked loudly, snapping his fingers to signal his guards, another ninety, semi-armoured militia men coming out of the woodwork with an array of weapons, each surrounding me further. I sized each of them up before going back to staring at Augustus, keeping my face as relaxed and my voice as confident as I was when giving me reply.

“One hundred?” I asked. “That just makes the effort I put into getting here worth it.”

“Kill this prick, will you?” August asked. “He’s really fucking annoying.”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

Four men lunged towards me, three blades aimed straight for my throat and three blades that missed due to me ducking down low, rising up to the fourth blade, snapping the wrist that held it, and taking it for myself, knocking aside guards and defenses, using quick, precise movements to cut down the three swordsmen before launching the blade through the skull of the fourth, then turning my attention to the other six who then began to rush me.

The first of which rushed at me like a bellowing madman, going down easy after being kneed in the stomach and having his face caved in by a follow-up knee strike, shoving his body aside and causing the second of six to stumble over the corpse, allowing me to grab hold of his collar and wrench him towards me, kneeing him in the groin before headbutting him, throwing him at a wide angle that knocked over two more of the other six swordsman, leaving two more standing at present. They swung wildly, like untrained children, having their blades glanced off my armoured blade, my strong fingers catching the crossguard of one blade, twisting it down and then slamming my elbow into his jaw, breaking it loudly.

As he spun around with a roar of pain, I managed to duck under a wide swing from the sixth of six, bringing my fist up in a brutal uppercut that made him bite through his tongue and knocking him clean out. Three and four of six had now managed to get themselves back up, one after another swinging, with three not expecting me to duck aside, but follow his hand as he brought it behind his back, allowing me to grip the blade, snap his arm whilst angling it to block another strike from the fourth of six before kicking him to the floor. I then twisted the blade around and ran it through his back, hearing him gasp loudly before his lungs filled with blood.

I tossed the body aside before stamping on the knee and then the nose of four, killing him along with his friend.

Ninety.

The pikeman came next, jabbing and swinging, the jabs being knocked aside by elbow strikes and redirection with wrists, brutal punches crushing faces and throats as one, two, three, four more guards fell to the ground, unconscious and beaten, barely giving me enough time to duck underneath a powerful swing from a larger guard, getting back up and stepping forward, gripping his helmeted head and wrenching it, snapping his neck with a loud crack, slamming the body into the floor and turning to a sixth pikeman, now backed up by a man with a mace.

Gripping the shaft and stepping forward, smashing my palm into the pikeman’s nose and causing him to stagger back, I wrenched the weapon from his hands, spinning around and plunging the pike through the chest of the man with a mace, taking the weapon from his loosening grip and taking the pikeman’s knee cap and face off with powerful swings of the mace, eventually launching it into the crotch of an approaching halberd-wielding knight, causing him to buckle over and have the back of his head crushed by a devastating elbow attack from myself, his body slamming hard into the ground.

Another two, wielding war axes, came rushing with large swings that were able to be dodged through a mix of footwork and body positioning, literally catching the man’s hand as he brought the axe above his head, head-butting him on the nose before wrenching the axe from his grip and burying the blade in his throat, turning to the second one and catching his arm mid-swing, snapping it at the elbow joint with a twist and an elbow attack, taking the axe and cleaving his face open.

Eighty.

This was when larger men with larger axes came rushing, their smaller friends taking a further-back line in combat, and also when I decided that it would take too long to kill them all with fists and that I’d have to sully at least my hidden blades with their blood. Extending the weapons with thrusts of my arms, I prepared myself for the heavy weapon attacks. Dodging aside from the cleaving axe allowed me to plunge on of my blades into the shoulder joint of the wielder, and then one into his neck, blood spraying everywhere as I kicked the heavy corpse to the ground.

Two more rushed, and two more were taken down just as easily, this fight requiring no more skills than a gyroball-equipped dummy with an axe, as I merely poked them until they fell over, cutting easily through six more of the large axemen before a speedy-looking rogue with a cleaver rushed towards me. His unconventional weapon provided no bonuses, as its blade was deflected with precise movements of my own blades, eventually flicking the blade out of his hands entirely before plunging one into his eye sockets, killing him quickly and watching as his body stumbled back and fell to the ground.

Seventy.

This was when the men began to look slightly worried, taking more time with their swings, grouping up with buddies, and trying to poke me with their weapons rather than rush in wildly. It proved to be an even worse strategy as their lack of offense allowed me to go on an offensive myself, cleaving through necks, wrists, legs, and tendons in all of them with my blades, easily hacking down soldier after soldier, allowing their screams of anguish and pain to fall on deaf ears, as they chose this death when they signed up. I was merely delivering it.

Fifty.

With over half of this group lying dead at my feet, the fear began to run wild with them, men fleeing en masse while others merely unleashed panicked swings, jabs, and slashes, the effort put into taking them down draining me as much as carrying a sack of grain up the castle staircases, needing to fill my lungs with heavier breaths due the exertion I felt. The thuds and impacts of weapons, be it on each other or on human flesh, had made my arms tingle briefly, the back part of my mind slightly bewildered by how many of them I’d slaughtered at this point. Though the main part of my mind focussed on the most efficient way to butcher the lambs that walked so eagerly to the slaughter.

Twenty-five.

This was when the true terror set in, seventy-five men slaughtered by a man in a grey robe who hadn’t so much as grunted during this brutal slaughter. This ruthless killing machine painting the square red with blood that showed no signs tiring was not something these men wished to contend with, throwing down their weapons and bolting away as fast as their legs would carry them, the thought of taking on this one-man apocalypse being a thought they trembled at.

Twelve.

And the twelve fell just like all the others, their corpses hitting the piles at my feet, turning around to find the Baron had taken off long ago, leaving no trace to the normal human. While this would’ve served as a waste of time to anyone else, this was phenomenal exercise for me. I not only got to flex my combat muscles, but would also be able to use the new mutations I’d gained since I began my training.

I inhaled briefly, using the bloodhound scent mutation to smell for the scent of old coward, picking it up immediately and following it, not bothering to run as I knew the Baron would think himself safe now that he was away from the square, away from the Demon in Grey. I made my way to his mansion cutting through his guards in a quick and ruthless manner, kicking the door down and finally deciding to rush him, leaping over a table and plunging my blade into the neck of the ageing tyrant.

As I withdrew my blade from his neck, I looked into his dying eyes and spat a vicious sentence at him:

“May the sin you have lived in welcome you to the sin you will burn in,” I snarled. “Sleep forever, bastard.”

With that, I stood up, retracted my blade, and took my leave of the mansion this bastard had stolen for himself, taking a torch from the wall and throwing it into a stack of books, igniting the pages and beginning the razing of the Baron’s legacy, in more ways than one.