Chapter 192: Thin, Tired, Terrible Smile

{Fear Points: ???}

—

Malik had killed to many.

This was the system telling him not to worry.

That he could go all out purchasing more and more Soul Glyphs without any hesitation.

And so…

‘Shop.’

The shop glowed in front of his eyes.

He did not hesitate.

—

[Ember’s Touch (Peak) — Purchased]

[Scorpion’s Sting (Peak) — Purchased]

[Goliath’s Fall (Peak) — Purchased]

[Devil’s Footsteps (Peak) — Purchased]

[Zephyr’s Kiss (Peak) — Purchased]

[Shifting Ground (Peak) — Purchased]

—

This many Fear Points were meant for climbing classes. Spending them on glyphs set him back many thousands with each one.

But a Class Ascention was no use to a man facing the Order, their millions of soldiers Hellbent on his end.

That thought did not please him.

He pushed it away and went forth.

Malik wasn’t alone.

There was line before him.

It was was made of six hundred soldiers and a handful of wounded Faraja officers.

They stood across the road in three ranks, shield on shield, behind a row of overturned carts, a pitiful barrier against what was coming.

He had seen men turn back armies with less.

Malik walked to the front without a word and planted himself between the first rank and the dust.

The war-beasts arrived first.

They broke over the ridge in a dark wave, hundreds of them, tusked and armored, charging down the slope with blue light streaming from their chains. The first rank of the Guard lifted their shields.

“Shifting Ground.”

The earth answered.

It was a quiet Rune, despite its effect.

He dragged his palm across the air and the ground obeyed.

A long crack opened a hundred paces ahead of the line, widening as the beasts reached it, and the front rank of the charge plunged into it with a chorus of screams.

The rest could not stop in time.

They piled into the trench, one on top of another, until the crack was a ditch of tangled bodies and chains.

“Fire.”

That word was soft.

The Soul Glyph burned out at once.

Peak Ember’s Touch did not behave like a single flame. It rolled out of his body in a golden flood, spreading across the ditch, burning all that crossed its path.

The beasts at the bottom burned. The beasts above them burned. The fire climbed the slope and leapt from corpse to corpse until the whole trench was a sheet of gold, roaring.

The rest of the wave came through the smoke, soldiers as far as the mortal eye could see.

They poured over the dead beasts, weapons level, pale armor shining, and the first rank of the Guard met them with a crash that shook the earth.

“Zephyr’s Kiss.”

Wind tore from Malik’s blade, flying straight.

A crescent of air cut through the front of the enemy ranks and left a lane of bodies behind it, perfectly parted, falling in neat rows.

Malik swung again and again, and the land ahead of him filled with white armor and red.

It was not enough.

For every row he cut down, ten more came over the ridge, shield after shield, after shield.

‘I can’t hold this place for long.’

Malik watched the ranks behind the ridge.

They were different from the front ranks, moving slowly in tight formations of twelve.

Each formation carried a banner of white fire.

He had seen those banners before, and he knew what they meant.

Angels.

Dozens of Angels, walking behind their army like shepherds behind a flock, unhurried, waiting for the line to break so they could finish it.

He could not fight dozens.

He could not fight them here, with six hundred soldiers at his back and a river full of civilians behind them.

But if he fought them somewhere else.

If he drew them away.

‘I must.’

The thought arrived whole and cold, with no argument left in it.

“My men.”

Stunned at being called, the exhausted men below snapped their heads up towards their Sultan.

“Y-Yes, my Sultan!”

Their leader responded.

“Leave this place and join the stragglers. Take the rest through the last circle. Don’t wait for me.”

The leader did not answer.

At least for a moment.

“As you command.”

“If anyone asks, tell them I went ahead.”

“They will not believe it.”

“Hm, yes, likely not.”

The leader bowed, deeper than he had ever bowed before, and Malik turned away before he could see how long he stayed that way.

He went into the fray, cutting across the burning ditch with Devil’s Footsteps blazing under his boots, golden hoofprints scorching the earth behind him.

Soldiers on both sides of the ridge looked up as he passed.

He didn’t see their faces.

The Order’s ranks parted around him, because no one had expected a man to run towards an army.

‘Death has been decreed by the tyrant of tyrants,’

The pale ranks turned. Spears swung towards him. War-beasts lunged out of the smoke.

‘And just as you died defending your children,’

Malik cut them all in half without slowing.

‘I, too, shall die defending mine.’

An Angel dropped from the sky ahead of him, intent on stopping, and Malik went straight through them with Spine Splitter’s edge wrapped in black fire.

‘”Never to humiliation”—so said you, my commander.’

His Rukh was far too overwhelming.

‘Your eyes will meet mine, and they will see,’

The wind roared around him. The dust of the army rose in a long brown wall, and he plunged into it with his sword raised high.

‘They will be pleased when I rise and the enemies flee,’

Behind him, the convoy grew small.

‘And the fiercest of them retreat from my blade.’

He did not look back.

‘I have warned them of the greater danger,’

Ahead of him, the ranks of the Order stretched to the edge of the world, and every one of them was turning to face him.

‘And he who warns has done his duty, O brother.’

Malik smiled.

It was a thin, tired, terrible smile.

“You will all die.”

And he ran into the army alone.