Supreme Swordfiend

"There's a man coming down the hill Jack"

"I can see that Vincent, very fucking observant of you bud."

Fingers tightening around his spear, Jack chanced a look at Vincent- the gormless fool had stayed on his stool and merely looked surprised by the stranger.

"What do we do then?"

"We do what the Chain Lords pay us to do- we watch and when someone starts trouble we run for help. Guy hasn't started trouble, so we're staying put."

A glob of spit landed to the right of Jack's boot, flecks spraying the rough leather as Vincent disdainfully turned back to the hill.

"They don't pay us a damn thing."

"Yeah and they don't fucking whip us either, that's pay enough for me."

Each minute passed in agonising tension, broken only as the stranger drew nearer and they could make out details of his person.

Armour that drank light, a sword covered in strange script its steel blade gleaming in the morning light. A carefree grin on his face that sucked away what little heat the sun had seen fit to give.

He smiled with too many teeth and his eyes stayed dead.

Sweat broke along Jack's nape and armpits, his focus flicking to the side, only noticing now that Vincent had fled when he sought reassurance that he wouldn't face this monster alone.

Closer and closer, until Jack could hear the unfamiliar tune the swordsman whistled and close enough that he could feel the weight of his existence in the air around them.

He'd met the head of the slavers once. A creature with an aura that evoked the image of a gun jammed into your gut. Cold, merciless and all too ready to let loose a bullet if you gave it a slight reason.

Jack realised, as the malevolent aura of the stranger blasted against his mind, that he'd been naïve when he'd thought that the worst possible experience.

A knife already soaked in blood, warm and hungry. A drawn blade without scabbard or hilt pressing against his throat, his eyes, his brain. Bare metal, blood and a hungry violence deep enough to doom the world.

He shivered in his seat. His spear fell to the side and he waited for the executioner's march to end.

No sound dared follow the silence he left when he ceased his whistled tune. Not even the wind dared to blow until he spoke.

"You there! I see you're human- you from Earth or not?"

How he pushed the words past his lips he would never know.

"From Earth."

As his hand moved to the back of his head, Jack watched the metal ripple and recede at his touch, until once gauntleted fingers could scratch long brown hair.

With a click of his tongue, he spoke.

"Tch. Well, alright. Lucky you, you're the designated survivor now! Run up the hill, shout for the guys in camo and tell 'em Leon Knox sent you."

Jack the guard never got a chance to reply as Leon hefted his blade and broke down the wooden gate barring his path with a single slash.

A claxon wail sounded, an alarm that rang across the sprawling compound and his false smile slipped away, replaced by the genuine article.

As his first enemy emerged from a building, all faded.

The blade, the enemy and the self.

Peace amid carnage- and what carnage it became.

Like an observer, Leon watched himself slice through bodies. Micro adjustments to his form took place continuously as he sought to perfect his cut.

To that end, none of the slavers died with pierced hearts or crushed lungs.

Bisection in all its delicious flavours. Horizontal, vertical, diagonal. Three hundred and sixty starting points, each one tried and refined to optimise a single outcome.

Cutting down the enemy.

He tore through barracks, through mess halls and out into fields and none could stand against him. They died in their tens like bugs beneath his heel.

Rising through the blood lust, he looked upon the broken bodies and laughed as the slaves ran in his wake. To freedom or a swift death, he didn't care.

Breathing hard, he looked down at the gore dripping from his sword into the dead eyes of a slaver. The cadaver had sallow ashen skin and sported a single pale horn from its forehead.

Thick iron chains lay wrapped around its arms. Curious that the masters wore fetters but Leon had precious little time to inspect the dead weakling, arcing his body backwards to avoid the massive arrow that had attempted to pulp his ribcage.

Letting loose a low whistle as dirt showered him, Leon looked to the archer's location and saw a mountain of a man readying his next projectile from a watch tower overlooking the field he'd ended up in.

He could have moved, but he didn't need to.

At the last second, right before the giant bolt impacted the ground, he blurred and reappeared a meter to the left.

Wagging a finger at the archer he called out.

"Too slow! I'm in a good mood though! So I'll give you one more shot!"

Again the arrow flew true and again the fiend stepped to the side, easily evading its trajectory.

Only this arrow hadn't been aimed to kill but to obscure. White smoke poured from the cratered impact site, and Leon's perception distorted as the air faced a disruption.

Drawing forth a breath, he centred himself and waited.

The sounds of explosions in the distance, an overturning of the earth. Blondie and Octavia must have followed him down. His focus narrowed until he could hear the groans of the dying mere feet away.

He never heard the giant's approach and avoided the careening fist by reflex, flipping backwards and lashing back with a cut aimed at taking the opponent's fingers at worst and hand at best.

He cut only smoky mirages.

Chuckling, he firmed his stance anew and called out.

"Well, seems you've a trick up your sleeve. Leon Knox- or as an alien would know me, the Stormbound Swordsman. You got a name?"

He felt the smoke recoil slightly at his words, a curious sensation before it settled and Leon had to dodge a low kick aimed to sweep his legs.

He didn't bother retaliating this time, sure his chance would come soon.

White tendrils of gas curled through the battleground and sound slipped forth from one that drifted near Leon's ear.

"You are not he. That man dwells halfway across this wretched world. We will take pleasure in breaking your deluded mind. Then your body. Last, your soul."

Anger coursed red hot at the mention of his soul and Leon struck back this time, dissipating a smoky dagger that had been aimed at his neck.

More smoke poured forth and again a tendril coalesced beside him.

"The Ethereal Chain will claim the honour of your defeat, interloper."

Half a second later, an arrow pierced the smoke and smashed into Leon's breastplate, rattling his ribcage and no doubt bruising flesh but it gave him an idea.

Channelling mana through his arm and into his blade, he willed a small portion to coat his sword's edge and baited an attack.

"Ethereal Chain? They'll call you Broken Chain when I'm done with you."

The fist came faster than before, so fast that Leon doubted its owner realised he'd severed it until a couple seconds passed and the smoke screamed.

Crushing the hand underfoot, Leon kept his eyes trained on the smoke, intercepting the next attack as it emerged from behind.

Only to find his blade phasing through the enemy's good arm, spiked knuckles smashing his chest and sending him sprawling back into an empty hole.

Smoke poured in and thrusts rained down as Leon fought and writhed to get free of this unfilled grave, determined it would not be his.

His armour held offering no exposed flesh for the fine needlepoint implement to sink into and so he rose, full of excitement for the battle to come- an opponent who could selectively materialise seemed sure to test his skills.

Yet the smoke stilled, despite the sounds of raucous battle across the compound and Leon tensed, focused on one enemy to the exclusion of all else. This combined with his impaired perception allowed an ambush to succeed.

A barbed chain shot through the haze, wrapping and cinching tight around his torso, binding his arms to his sides.

The squeal of metal on metal proved not loud enough to drown the conversation that followed as Leon thrashed against his constraints.

"Unnecessary aid, brother. This interloper remains well within my grasp."

"Forgive my intrusion, brother- but it seems unlikely you will grasp much with a single hand."

"Insolent cur."

"Calm yourself, brother. Remember Lord Menthal's words. We are-"

"-not to argue in front of the meat. This is known to me."

The slavers stayed wreathed in white smoke and just as Leon resolved to simply shift his armour to another form and loosen the chain that way, three blue arrows flew by his cheek and into a skull somewhere behind him.

As a body slumped to the floor and the smoke abruptly cleared, Leon used the moment to buck free, the chain falling as whatever force had bound him slackened.

The mountainous archer lay dead and a thinner wirier man stood near the corpse, same ashen skin and pale horn as the other slavers but notably he carried thick barbed chains around his arms and a pair of daggers in hand.

Cracking his neck, Leon stared the new enemy down, his aura informing him this one wasn't weak. Wasn't strong either, kinda middling at best but good enough for now.

Pointing with one hand and readying his blade with the other, Leon spoke with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

"Let me guess- Barbed Chain? No, wait- Sharp Chain or maybe Edged Chain. Am I close?"

Whipping his chains back and forth as the two combatants began circling each other, the yet unnamed slaver replied.

"This one is known as Chrdo."

"Seriously- thought you guys were doing a whole name scheme."

The slaver-Chrdo- shrugged.

"Brother Ethereal Chain was... perhaps too enamoured with his work."

Leon chose that moment to pounce, crossing the gap between them in a heartbeat and scything through the dark leather this gang favoured, gore spilling into the dirt.

Hobbled and kneeling, bleeding and screaming the slaver tried to stand and spilled more of his guts, forced to listen to Leon's reply.

"Yeah, but your name's even worse. Glass houses, throwing stones, yadda yadda, you get the idea."

Slamming the bulk of his blade through the slaver's forehead, Leon pulled back and watched the grey matter schlorp out into the open grave he'd been pinned in not a minute prior.

Knocking half the head up and batting it off into the distance with the flat of his sword, he received post-battle notifications he hadn't been expecting, not realising both slavers had apparently been within his level range.

"You have contributed to the slaying of a Level Fifty Smoke Slavemaster! Experience split according to contribution:

Mia Serrano- Eighty per cent

Leon Knox- Twenty per cent"

"You have slain a Level Fifty-Four Thorned Slavemaster!"

Another arrow whizzed by and slammed into the gut of a slaver who'd been playing dead as Leon dismissed the kill notifications, looting one corpse in its entirety sans half a head and tossing the other towards a dishevelled Mia, calling over his shoulder as he went in search of prey.

"Twenty percent's mine!"

A beat passed, with the archer poking the corpse with her boot before she shouted back.

"What?"

"The loot- I did twenty percent of the work, twenty percent of the loot's mine!"

Working his way deeper into the slaver compound, the next pack of cannon fodder rounded a corner and Leon once more let bloodlust take control of his body, his path towards the slaver leader paved with blood and bone.

Right before he cut four men in half with a single strike, he idly wondered if everyone else had found themselves having as much fun in this place as he had.