Chapter 81 - I Am Vengeance (1)

Sand and dirt blew between the two forces as if even the land itself had gotten restless, waiting for them to fight. But the land wasn't alone. Soon the skies were shrouded with dark impenetrable clouds. Winds started to blow at a frightening speed, and yet for the opponents, it felt as if the time had been frozen. 

Naalnish was confused. The trap was strong enough that even the aberrated beasts could not put a scratch on it. Yet this kid broke it apart as if it was made with twigs. There was something... weird about the kid. Enough to make Naalnish's skin crawl.

'I have just met this bastard and I hate him already... the look in his eyes, his stance, his smell... everything about him makes me want to kill him.'

He then looked around and saw the corpse of three of his underlings. Blood was still oozing out of their bodies and staining the soil beneath them. It was a sight naalnish had not expected to see out there, not after such a long time.

His underlings might not have been as strong as him, but killing them just like that was not a joke as they were much stronger than any average Occunian. This made the Shamanka's prediction about the boy true.

'He is already on his way to becoming a 'reclaimer'...' Naalnish thought to himself, 'If I fail to put an end to this bastard here, it'll be the end of for all of us. Decades worth of planning and effort would get vanished just like that. I can not allow this to happen.'

Zok was, on the other hand, facing nine enemies alone yet he was as calm as the winds before a storm. He could take most of them down with ease but not their leader. Something was telling him to be aware of that man specifically.

[It is I who is telling you to beware of that man dingus! Stop ignoring me!]

'Could you shut it for once?' Zok was getting annoyed at the system's continuous ringing voice in his head.

He was trying to concentrate on the fight for fck's sake. And the continuous distraction was not helping him at all. 

[You are really ungrateful, you know that? If it wasn't for my warning, you would still be stuck inside that stinking cage of theirs.]

'I already thanked you for that. Now stay quiet.'

None of the enemies spoke to one another, yet all of them dashed towards each other as if they had a prior agreement to do so. All of them but Naalnish and Tsula. It was as if naalnish was sending his pawns in to figure out Zok's weakness. 

Too bad his pawns were too weak to even do that. They were sent flying as quickly as they had attacked him. Most of them landed right next to Naalnish. While some could not even stop there.

Zok was not holding back at all. These fckers had not only dared to attack him but also had the audacity to hurt his pets? He was going to make sure they died by his hands right then and there. 

Naalnish looked at his feet. His people were hurt but they were still alive. 

"You lazy bastards! Get back to your feet and attack him till your last breath!"

Naalnish's roar seemed to fill them with rage and power as those who could not even support themselves anymore were back on their feet. They were hurt pretty bad as all of them were wobbling towards Zok. But there was something different about them.

Their eyes had turned crimson from white. Much like how Shira's eyes were when the first time he met her. 

'This bastard...'

It looked like the shamans behaved the same way even amongst themselves. At the end of the day, the weaker ones were just cannon fodder for the ones sitting at the top. Zok didn't know why but this infuriated him to no limit.

Why the hell were the shamans like this? They prayed for the safety of every being living on their planet and yet readily abused them to get their way? Something was seriously wrong with them and the planet as a whole. 

Zok was planning to gauge their leader's reaction after hurting them and see if he could torture him through them. But it didn't seem like Naalnish gave a crap about his comrades either way. So it was better to thin the crowd as much as he could. 

__

Hoard counter = 10 attacks.

The next attacks will do cumulative damage of 11 attacks. 

__

Though Zok wasn't complaining. Because thanks to his [Hoard] skill, the more attacks he did, the higher damage he would do. To be honest, this skill was a bit too overpowered in hands of Zok as he loved to thoroughly beat the shit out of his opponents. Especially if they were his sworn enemies. 

'Maybe I should start collecting blood as well. It would be a waste to not do that after killing them.'

The following moment one of the Shamans jumped at him. However, Zok could feel something wasn't right and immediately jumped away from him. A second later, he was both glad and shocked that he did something like that.

Why? Because the man exploded into pieces right after Zok jumped out of harm's way. But to say that he was shocked was an understatement. How the hell did a man, a living and thriving man, explode in front of him just like that?

But he didn't have much time to think about it all. As the rest of them started charging towards him as well. In an attempt to kill them before they could explode, Zok hit one of them with his spear, severing the head and killing the person in an instant. 

However, that didn't work as he had expected. The corpse of the man still exploded just like the one before him. But this time, something crawled out of his corpse. It was a ten-legged black insect that was about the size of Zok's fist. 

Zok thought the creature would attack him, instead, it cracked towards the corpse of one of the people whom Zok had killed before and to Zok's horror... the headless corpse was brought back to life!

'The hell is going on here!?'