Chapter 36: A Bloody Dance

There was a common consensus about horror movies: the protagonists were idiots.

The protagonists could have done this. They should have done that. They always messed up simple tasks, like unlocking a door, in the direst of moments.

Peace now knew that judging those slip-ups... meant committing the Armchair Fallacy.

When absolute dread and fear entered the equation, one’s mind didn’t tend to obey every command to a tee.

Watching the Blood Beasts mindlessly shuffle was one thing...

Watching them rush at him full tilt, with the spear thrower of certain death taking aim at his back, was another. Not exactly the most thrilling prospect, to say the least.

’Move...’

Peace tried to take another step forward, but his twitching leg refused to listen. The moment they all locked onto him, it felt like his body had been petrified.

Fighting was easier when he hadn’t had a choice in the matter. But now, he’d chosen to fight — and with the memory of how close he’d come to dying on the Maw of Hell still fresh in his mind — his instincts were screaming that there was nothing he could do when he saw not five or six rushing him, but over thirty.

His body had decided its best chance at survival was praying for mercy.

’Move, damn it!’

But unlike his body, his mind knew the only mercy granted to one within the dungeon was a swift death.

’Just move!’

In a low voice, Dita called out from behind him:

"Don’t wimp out now, Peace. I’m counting on you."

Finally, Peace forced his leg forward and completed one shaky step.

After the first, he shuffled forward slowly... lifting one foot and planting it, then doing the same with the other. Again and again. Each step came a little easier until his stumbling walk finally broke into a run.

Straight toward the mob scrambling over one another to reach him — a churning sea of crimson.

Just before he reached the front ranks, for reasons even he didn’t understand, he shouted:

"Let’s dance, freaks!"

No sooner had the last word left his mouth than he swung the mace upward, cracking it into the skull of a Skeleton Warrior.

Blood sprayed through the air as the beast reeled backward. Before it could fall, a Ravager bounded through its dissolving body, scattering its bloody remnants over Peace.

A bit of warm blood splattered across his lips and slipped into his mouth.

’Nasty...’

But as nasty as it was, he could feel his body fire up, a small shot of vitality flooding through him.

He carried the mace’s upward momentum into a spin, bringing it around with both hands before smashing it down onto the bone wolf’s bloody excuse for a head.

A Bone Sword flashed toward his face.

Peace sprang backward, the blade passing inches from his nose, then drove a spear kick into the sternum of a Skeleton Warrior thrall. The thick coat of blood burst apart as his foot punched through it and slammed into the creature’s spine.

"Duck!"

’Already?!’

With no time to tear his foot free from its bloody prison, Peace threw his body backward and planted his hands on the ground, letting the mace fall from his grip.

A breath later, a spear shrieked overhead, obliterating several thralls.

’Phew!’

A second Skeleton Warrior thrall raised its sword to carve into his thigh.

Still balanced awkwardly on both hands, Peace kicked his leg upward. He dragged the kick along the skewered Skeleton Warrior’s spine until his foot smashed through the base of its bloody skull, popping the head free. ℴ

Using the momentum from his kick, Peace pushed off the ground and threw himself into a backward somersault.

’Am I some sort of gymnast?!’

Peace then promptly landed flat on his face.

’Definitely not!’

There was no time to wallow in the failed flamboyant display. Peace snatched up the mace and rolled to the side.

Rolling onto his back, he found himself surrounded, several Bone Swords thrusting toward his face and a few Bone Ravager thralls lunging at him with their jaws spread wide or scythes slashing down at him.

Yet, despite finding himself in quite the familiar shitty situation, Peace smiled.

His smile stretched wide as a gleeful light burned in his red eyes.

"Close..."

With a manic look, Peace pushed off the ground into a crouch, then zipped to his side, straight into the waiting scythes of a Bone Ravager.

Knocking one of the scythes aside with the mace, he grabbed the other in his bare hand.

"If only any of you could see."

’Then I’d be screwed!’

Holding it still, he drew the mace back and slammed it into the thrall’s face.

Of course, killing one did nothing to improve his position. He was still surrounded on all sides.

Not that Peace was going to complain.

He was exactly where he wanted to be. From his fights on the Maw of Hell and against the Bone Ravagers, he’d learned just how oddly dexterous, flexible, and lithe his body was. Since the thralls’ attacks weren’t all that precise or powerful, he could dip and dodge even while fully surrounded.

And, right now, their bodies formed a wall between him and the Skeleton Archers, denying them a clean shot. Better yet, the arrows they fired blindly into the horde were slowly thinning out the thralls for him; the melee thralls themselves were also smacking and killing one another by accident.

"Duck!"

’Wait...’

The sudden scream disrupted Peace’s flow.

After all, he knew Dita’s warnings would only come after a spear was already launched. It always aimed at head height. Ducking too early was a death sentence, as it would merely change its trajectory in advance.

However...

’Shit!’

Peace was already crouched.

’This one better be aimed at her, not me!’

Peace flicked his head toward Dita’s voice, then sprang for a small opening to his side.

A Bone Ravager slammed into him before he could clear the gap. Its skull caught Peace square in the chest, throwing him backward — straight into the space he’d been trying to escape.

"Where—"

Something struck his shoulder.

A brutal impact that snapped his upper body backward before carrying him off the ground.

’Ah—’

The Stalker’s spear had driven straight through his shoulder.

And it didn’t stop there.

Still carrying all the force of the throw, the spear took Peace with it, hurling him backward through the mob like a body skewered to the front of a battering ram.

His back crashed into one Blood Beast, then another.

Their bloody bodies collapsed around him before being flung aside, a few even bursting apart on impact as he was carried farther and farther from where he’d been.

"Aragh!"

Pain exploded from his left side as Peace shot out the other side of the mob and crashed onto his back, the spear still buried in his shoulder.

For one dazed second, he stared upward at the open, red sky.

Then a wet, heavy sound came from nearby.

His eyes shifted.

The Blood Warden towered beside him, its bloody tendrils writhing, its unblinking eye staring straight at him.

[Your health has dropped below 25%]

[You’re bleeding!]

There was a common consensus about horror movies: the only real mistake the protagonists made was not fleeing when they had the chance.