Chapter 315 (1/2)

Aemont turned around, and Randidly was immediately surprised by how similar he looked to Shal, aside from the skin color. His eyes, too were different, were bland and empty, which was very different from Shal’s lively, often angry, eyes. But Randidly could not fault Aemont for this; the man had sold his heart in exchange for power.

A heart that Randidly now carried in his chest.

After a small hesitation, Randidly focused and drew those disparate feelings that had embedded themselves within him out and tried to collect them all together, to return. It was a difficult process, one that did involve Randidly weakening himself as those emotions were extracted. But before Randidly had accomplished much, Aemont raised his hand.

“Keep it. I no longer live, boy. What strength you can draw from those feelings… consider it a gift.”

Frowning, Randidly ceased gathering the emotions, allowing them to return to their current locations in his soul space. “...So now you test me?”

Aemont shrugged, looking at his hands. “It is a curious thing, this ash of yours. I truly feel as though I have been revived… and I sense that afterwards, I will cease to be. Here, I can create anything I want. It is.. .curious that of all things, I find myself here. I chose to recreate this moment in my life...”

After a minute of moving his fingers, Aemont seemed to return to himself, and looked up sharply at Randidly. “Ah, that is to say, I am in no hurry, but I also do not mean to tarry here long. Just reminiscing, as well as I can with my hollow soul.”

A strong wind arose, rustling the ground. Before Randidly’s very eyes, time seemed to reverse, and some of the fighters that littered the ground stood, removing their weapons from the bodies of their enemies. Then they walked back away from each other, and more and more bodies rose from the ground. To his horror, Randidly realized that the ground was covered with a layer 3 bodies thick. More and more rose, their gore flowing creepily back into their bodies, making themselves whole.

“Follow me.” Aemont said, producing a spear and handing it to Randidly. Gingerly, he took it, and followed the other man as he walked to the center point, in the valley between the armies.

The wind ceased, and now noise and time returned to normal, and the armies were shouting and bellowing, rushing towards each other, with Aemont and Randidly standing in the middle of them.

Although they were both strong individuals, it was one thing to to fight against a bunch of people, it was quite another to simply be crushed by the force of the bodies rushing towards them, foaming at the mouth. The blood lust was a thick, palpable thing in the air around them. Everything seemed to shimmer, charged with emotion.

With the armies charging towards them, Aemont led Randidly out and into the middle of the group. A dull roar filled the air, and suddenly the fighters had arrived, thrashing and attacking, striking every which way, the bodies crashing together.

Aemont, for his part, just seemed to move his spear and a path opened in the bodies as they fell away around him. The wounds were small and precise, barely noticeable, but instantly the other’s lives fled their bodies, under the guidance of Aemont’s spear.

Meanwhile, after Randidly realized that his mana was suppressed somehow, he had to struggle to use his spear to protect against the attacks that came from every angle, and began to wade through the enemies as best he could. What surprised him was that while the bodies of the monsters here were powerful, their spear skills were abysmal. Not just the spear skills either, but all of their moves were clumsy and full of holes.

After finding his footing, Randidly began to move with more confidence, catching up with Aemont, who spared him a glance.

“Simply recruits… these only have held a spear for a week at best. It is a dishonor to struggle like this, boy…”

Randidly frowned, but said nothing, and he began to look more closely at those that fought around him. Although some had strange, monstrous forms, he could see how wild their eyes were, how thick the madness, how powerful the fervor. These were not true zealots, elite warriors, Randidly could instantly see, but instead just conscripts with a basic amount of training. The subsisted solely on ideals. And yet they gladly rushed forward, throwing their lives away in this brutal meat grinder.

Although Randidly had been very quickly disabused of his innocence with the arrival of the System, it was still somewhat disorienting to see all these people throwing their lives away. They didn’t have the strength to win here, and yet they threw themselves forward anyway. Why….?

But Randidly knew. He knew since seeing them. Because they believed in something greater than them. And it gave them courage, and…

Randidly watched as one bold individual bellowed a furious rejection, smashing aside another’s spear, throwing himself onto a stomach wound in order to kill 5 of his opponents. As they all fell, he raised his head and screamed, squeezing his hand on the shaft that penetrated him, then slowly removing it, blood running down shaft and mixing with the churned up muck and grime beneath the fighters.

As the spear was removed, he could only pant, and then he straightened, wading deeper into the melee, looking for more opponents.