Book 6: Chapter 23 - The Reaper (RAW)

Tears block the path that the departed must take on their path to Heaven.

- A saying among the Nas Al-Rimal.

“Get up,” I commanded, my voice cold as cut stone. “Get up, if your so-called murdered kin ever meant anything to you. Though I suspect that tale is a lie, like everything else that drips from your mouth. And if not, then let me say it plain—I spit on their memory.”

His hand went to the long dagger at his waist. With a cry, he rushed at me. But there was something wrong in his stride—no longer sharp, no longer precise. He moved like a man half-drowned, staggering across the sands like a new born foal. His eyes were unfocused, his balance that of a child lost in the woods.

I swatted the blade from his hand with idle ease. It sailed end over end before landing in the bone-white sand, far from reach.

“No,” I said, smiling, almost pitying. “No blades. That would be cheating.”

Behind me, the mercenaries howled with bloodlust. They loved every moment of it; the mockery, the spectacle, the ritual of dominance.

“Guard up,” I instructed, almost gently. Then slapped him across the face with a gauntleted hand. A light blow, but it was enough to send him staggering.

I laughed uncontrollably. “I did tell you to guard.”

This… this was perfection. The light was leaving his eyes now, the fire guttering low. Fighting a man in full plate was a fool’s errand, and he knew it. What could he possibly do? Bleed on me? Break his hand against Adamantine alloy?

Out of the corner of my vision, I glimpsed Nassain. He stood at ease, arms folded, before giving me a wry salute. I returned it, amused—just as Khalid, in a pique of foolish desperation, lunged for him.

Improved Dash. I moved impossibly fast, stepping between them before breath could fill a lung. My knee rose and caught him in the stomach, precise and deliberate. Enough to fold him in half. Not enough to kill him.

“You break the rules of honor,” I said calmly, watching him writhe in the sand like a wounded dog. “Bear witness, all of you. See what becomes of such a lowlife.”

I raised my voice for the crowd, letting it carry with grandeur.

“This man is no longer worthy of regard. A coward. A cur. May the ghosts of his kin wander in purgatory for the shame he has brought upon their name. Let it be known—vengeance brings only ash and ruin.”

“Why…” he wheezed. “Why do you protect such scum?”

“Why did you raise your blade against me?” I asked, my voice low and laced with scorn. “Was it because you thought you could? Because some half-learned technique made you invincible? Because you believed, in your small and broken way, that might makes right?”

I took a step closer, each word landing like a hammer.

“I did not see you petition a court, did not hear you speak your grievances before your peers like a civilized man. No. You chose threats. You chose to endanger every man behind me because of your misguided vengeance. You chose the blade. You chose blood. You chose this barbarity.”

I let the silence stretch, let the weight of it settle like a noose.

“And now, when the blade turns against you, when you are found wanting by the very rules you embraced, you dare to weep and wail like a wounded child? You, filth, are a hypocrite of the lowest order,” I said, my smile slow and cruel, savoring every word.

It is so very easy to twist the truth when you are the one holding the sword.

I drank in the silence that followed, head held high. This was to be no mere execution. It was the best of theater. And I would play my role to perfection.

Then, timing it to the beat of a quiet drum in my chest, I brought my heel down upon his skull. It gave way like rotten fruit, and the wet sound of it echoed through the air. 

This was my judgment, a mandate of heaven.

Some of the women and weaker men looked away, their faces pale. Good. Let them remember.

Damien sauntered up, his grin rakish as ever. “Well done, Gilgamesh,” he said lightly. “I’d say it’s about time we started moving.”

“I would recommend that we set camp,” I replied. “Defensive formation. We should not march forward with an enemy at our back.”

His brow furrowed slightly, thoughtful.

“An enemy?” he asked.

“Those peons who dared to threaten us,” I said, my gaze fixed on the distant line of desert tribesmen who had borne witness to the duel. “I shall teach them the error of their ways—personally.”

Damien frowned. “We are in no position to mount an assault.”

“One man in ten,” I replied. “That is all it will take to shatter their courage. I will go alone. Stay here. I will return shortly... trust in me. We cannot afford to have those curs hounding us all the way to Narilmu and beyond.”

“If you can truly do it,” he said with a sigh, “then I won’t stand in your way. I do not even think I can. Be my guest, Gilgamesh.”

“Very well. If they do not disperse within the hour, I shall fall upon them. They shall become stains upon my blade.”

I turned to the two dark elven girls, their expressions brittle with tension.

“You two. Behave yourselves. You are under oath now. If you have any shred of respect for the one who feeds the sands with his blood, you will honor his memory and keep your word. You will not harm Nassain. Nor any soul in this company.”

Their eyes, still bright with fear and pride, met mine. A flicker of defiance lingered there, but it faded like mist under the sun. They nodded in silence.

“Larynda,” I said, voice softening.

“That was cruel, Gil,” she answered at once, arms crossed. “Cruel and unnecessary.”

“Cruel? Yes. But necessary. A message, plain and loud. Not just to the enemy beyond the dunes, but to the men within this camp, who whisper behind their hands about my exile from Al-Lazar, who question my place here. Better one brutal truth in daylight than a hundred blades in the dark when my back is turned. I did this as much for you as I did it for myself.”

“It’s your way,” she said with a shrug. “What do I know?”

“One day you’ll see,” I said, almost wistfully. “I move by the rules of the game, as it is. I cannot change the nature of the world.”

Then I turned once more to the elven women.

“Still,” I added, “see to them in my absence. Protect them.”

“We need no protection,” one of them hissed.

I smiled sharply, coldly. “Perhaps not. Perhaps the fear of me will suffice. More than seven hundred men saw me kill a bearer of the Mantis Mark. Seven hundred will see me kill many more. That is your protection.”

I nodded toward Larynda. “And she will ensure no harm comes to you, so long as you behave.”

***

I borrowed a large, but perfectly balanced, Zweihander, resting its weight upon my shoulder as I strode into the wastes, the bone-white sands crunching beneath my boots. I smiled behind my heavy helm, already tasting the slaughter to come.

A small knot of desert tribesmen stepped forward to meet me. Their leader raised a hand in greeting. “Peace be upon you. I am—”

“Peace be upon me, my left foot,” I interrupted, and before the fool could finish his sentence, I brought the sword down and lopped his head from his shoulders.

A paltry amount of experience for a kill, but satisfying nonetheless.

You have slain a human. 3 experience gained.

His escort froze, stunned by the sheer violence of it—the casual, unprovoked savagery. They had not expected this.

“You dared to oppose me?” I said, voice ringing out across the dunes. “Then know this: I accept apologies only in blood.”

They surrounded me, their weapons drawn. I did not move. I did not need to. Their blades and bludgeons struck against my armor like hail against castle stone—loud, but meaningless. I felt a dull thud as a man with a polemace landed a solid strike to my helm. It rang like a bell. A whole twenty-three points off my Health bar. A truly commendable effort, all things considered.

“But the world does not reward effort,” I sighed. Then I swept the borrowed sword in a wide arc, cutting two of them down like wheat before the scythe.

“Frenzied Strikes,” I murmured, and the Berserk’s haze took me.

In that moment, I understood the essence of it—not just a technique, but an echo of something older, something purer. My world narrowed to two kinds of things: me, and that which must be cut down. The sword became my breath, the rhythm of my heartbeat. Still too slow. I needed more.

More came to me—more fools converging, clinging to their delusions of vengeance. I activated Improved Entropic Aura. Waves of it rippled from me, gray waves of a silent end. They did not even notice. Caught in their fury, they could not feel their doom washing over them.

I warned them before, didn’t I? That vengeance brings only ash and ruin?

The voice called to me. The voices assisted as I triggered Overboost. Then Greater Drain.

The spell changed with the Overboost. It became a solid horizontal pillar of void black and drained more Mana than it gave, but I welcomed it. The cost was steep, yes—but oh, the reward. Around me, men wilted, their lifeforce drawn out in visible currents, their vitality pouring out of them like wine from a shattered cask.

It was my greatest spell I could use against the living.

More fell. Dozens. And with every death, I grew stronger as experience filled me.

When I hovered just above ten Mana, I forced the spell to end, reining it in like an unruly beast. It resisted. Heavens, how it wanted to stay on this plane. But I was master, not servant, and it obeyed.

Still hungry, I called to Greater Drain again—this time without the Overboost. The black tendrils surged from me, seeking flesh, anchoring to men who dared to believe numbers could fell a god. The spell filled me with its glory.

Fools. Not one among them could hear the song of Mana. Not one could stand against me. They would all pay for their misplaced hubris.

Axes, spears, swords, arrows—all bounced uselessly from my midnight-and-gold plate. A man with a gray beard, well past his prime, caught my eye. I seized him and simply ripped his arm away. His blood sprayed across my armor like paint on a canvas before turning to dust.

Others tried to topple me, dragging at my limbs, swinging wildly. I crushed them beneath my boots, turning their bones to powder, their screams into gurgles. The desert drank deep of their life essence.

But still they did not break. Still, they came.

“Djinn!” someone screamed. “He is a Djinn!”

I smiled behind my helm. So they name me a demon? They call me Djinn? Then I would give them one. 

I backhanded a man in desert robes, snapping his neck as he flew into his own comrades like a sack of meat. While they recoiled, I summoned Zariyah. The dagger shrieked into my hand. With a flick, I hurled her into the throng.

She spun like a possessed thing, keening as she sliced through them—neck, eye, hand, thigh—each strike precise, surgical, and cruel.

Still, they did not yield.

Ah. So this was why Cordelia chose to spread the word among these people. They made for fine fodder when given purpose.

My Mana reserves, bolstered by so much death, were filling again. For variety, I called upon Freezing Aura. The voices whispered, and the spell answered. The warmth fled the air as my spell drained Entropy itself, leeching the heat from the world around me. The desert turned to frost and fear.

Now they broke.

They turned and ran, finally realizing they had not faced a man, but a judgment from on high. I roared after them, chasing them across the sands with a speed that mocked their efforts at flight.

Hack. Slash. Stab. Rend.

Those I did not slay with blade, the lingering Greater Drain and Improved Entropic Aura finished.

Mana near full, I cast Rust. Those who wore hidden steel beneath their robes were punished—armor burst into flames, weapons searing oranges and blues.

The experience ticked upward, slow and steady. Ones and twos, but they added up. Each death another offering. Each life extinguished another step forward.

I laughed, full-throated and mad with joy. They had dared to threaten me.

They scattered. The rhythm of the slaughter broke. I let them flee.

Zariyah the Dancing Blade, I summoned home. She hummed unquietly as she slid into her sheath.

Time for one last indulgence.

I drew my great bow, the one forged to fell titans of the deep. I nocked a steel bolt and let it fly. It struck a man atop a Lirkud, center mass. He exploded in a mist of red.

Again and again, I loosed bolt after bolt, watching them burst like ripe fruit across the dunes, sometimes two or three at a time, until all that remained were specks on the horizon—and then nothing at all.

Then I summoned the shades of the dead, sending the phantoms of the recent dead after them. The best of ironies.

They would tell stories of this day.

And I would remember it as a pleasant afternoon.