Chapter 78: The Rampage [Part-2]

The voices in my head didn’t stop. If anything, they grew louder, drowning out every rational thought until there was nothing left but a single, burning need.

Fight... Kill and ...Survive.

I clutched my head, nails digging into my own scalp, the pain barely registering through the storm raging inside me. For one terrifying second, I felt my grip on myself slipping entirely, like I was watching my own body from somewhere far away, a passenger rather than the driver.

’No... not yet. I’m still me. I can still control myself.’

I forced my eyes to open. The world had changed, not actually but for my own imagination.

Colors sharpened into something almost too vivid to look at directly. Every heartbeat around me thundered in my ears, every breath from the guards still standing nearby sounded like a roaring wind. My overall senses had sharpened to an almost unbearable degree. My own pulse hammered through my body in a steady, violent rhythm, and with every beat, I could feel my strength climbing higher.

A guard lunged at my exposed side.

I didn’t even think. My hand shot out and caught his blade mid-swing, bare fingers wrapping around sharpened blade. The metal groaned, then snapped clean in half between my fingers like a dry twig. The guard’s eyes went wide with horror right before my other fist crashed into his jaw, the impact sending him flying backward into three of his companions, all four of them crumpling in a tangled heap.

I turned, already moving toward the next one.

Ice erupted beneath my feet with every step now, thick spikes bursting up from the frozen ground, impaling guards who hadn’t managed to scramble back in time. Screams rose and cut off in quick succession as I moved through them, barely even registering each kill as anything more than another obstacle to cleared.

The captain recovered his footing just in time to see me coming.

He swung his greatsword in a wide arc meant to cleave me in half. I didn’t bother dodging. My fist met the flat of the blade head-on, and the sheer force of the impact sent him skidding backward several meters, carving two deep furrows into the frozen earth beneath his boots.

His eyes widened in shocked, shaking and trembling by the sudden intensity in my gaze.

"What in the—"

I didn’t give him time to finish the thought. I was already gone, vanishing from where I stood and reappearing directly in front of the last cluster of guards still foolish enough to stand their ground.

What followed wasn’t really a fight anymore.

It was a massacre.

Ice spikes tore upward in wide, sweeping patterns, catching men mid-stride, mid-scream, mid-retreat. Those who tried running found themselves simply unable to outpace whatever had taken hold of me, my body moving faster than it had any right to, gravity bending and twisting around me with every step, making me lighter than air one moment and heavier than a falling mountain the next.

By the time the last guard dropped, the courtyard had become something unrecognizable.

Blood soaked into the cracked ice beneath my boots, pooling in the grooves and crevices carved into the ground by my own attacks. Bodies lay scattered everywhere, some in pieces, others simply crumpled where they’d fallen, their armor shattered and useless.

I stood in the middle of it all, swaying slightly, my vision tinged with a strange, dark red haze at the edges. A low, unsteady laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest, completely unfamiliar, nothing like any sound I’d ever made before.

’What... what is this feeling?’

A wide, unnatural grin spread across my face as I stumbled forward, stepping over a fallen body without a shred of hesitation, my bloodshot eyes scanning the wreckage around me with something close to satisfaction.

Then, the air shifted as i felt someone’s presence moved before him from the distance.

The captain appeared directly in front of me, his greatsword already swinging downward in a brutal, decisive arc meant to split me clean in half.

But I didn’t move. I simply stood there, calm and still, letting the attack swing toward me.

The blade connected, and dust and debris exploded outward from the force of the impact, obscuring everything for a brief, suspended moment.

When it cleared, I was still standing.

My palm had caught the massive blade dead center, wrapped in a swirling coat of azure flame, the soulfire. The fire licking hungrily along the sword, thin cracks spread rapidly along the length of the greatsword, spreading faster and faster until, with a final, resounding crack, the entire blade shattered into a hundred glittering pieces, raining down around us like broken glass.

The captain’s face went pale as he stared at his shattered sword with only hilt left to be held.

"That’s impossible. I’m Peak Master Rank. You shouldn’t—"

I didn’t let him finish his words.

My fist slammed into his stomach, folding him over instantly, the air driven violently from his lungs. Before he could even collapse, I was already behind him, a second strike catching him squarely in the spine, sending him crashing hard into the frozen ground.

He tried to rise.

And I let him. Not because I was showing mercy, but for the exact opposite reason.

The moment he staggered back onto his feet, I appeared in front of him again, driving my knee straight into his chest. I heard something crack, deep and satisfying, and he folded forward with a strangled gasp, blood spraying from his lips.

I grabbed him by the collar before he could fall, hauling him back upright.

"Please," he croaked, his earlier arrogance completely gone, replaced by raw, naked fear. "Please, just—"

But I wasn’t in any state to listen to anyone as I threw him aside.

He sailed through the air and crashed into the fortress’s inner wall hard enough to crack the stone. Before the dust even settled, I was there again, pulling him back out by his hair and slamming my fist into his face, again, and again, each impact echoing loudly through the otherwise silent courtyard.

Somewhere, deep beneath the roar and scream filling my mind, a small, quiet part of me watched in growing horror.

’Enough. He’s already done. This is getting out of hand. Stop... just stop.’

But that voice felt distant now, muffled beneath the wild, consuming pleasure coursing through every inch of me. A dark satisfaction unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

Every crack of bone, every broken breath beneath my fists, every scream that tore from the man’s mouth only fed it further.

Blood coated my knuckles, warm and slick, but I barely registered it at all.

The captain had long since stopped fighting back. His once-proud, commanding presence had collapsed into something small and broken, his consciousness finally slipping away entirely beneath the relentless barrage.

Still, I didn’t stop. Not immediately.

My fist rose and fell, again and again, the dull, wet sound of impact echoing across the empty, blood-soaked courtyard, the only sound left in a fortress that had spent years ruling over fear, now finally drowning in a terror entirely its own.