Cataclysm System (Completed) - Chapter 121：Return

The fields of mud behind them, coloured red by the blood, began to darken. Water began to rise from the soil: void-like and lifeless. Yet, in a twist of irony, it was this very water that was giving life to the corpses. Some of the Zombies had large swathes of flesh missing, while others were headless, and yet they all rose up all the same.

The violet-skinned Titans shook and trembled as they saw this. Unlike the humans on the walls, they had knowledge of what was happening, and that only elevated the terror. Eventually, one of the larger Titan’s barked out orders, his voice hasty and thick with worry.

In front, Stanis sprinted towards them, his blade dripping blood. He could see the terrible sight in front of him but he couldn’t care less; the only thing his body could do was follow his desires and, hopefully, drain the energy that fogged his mind.

Stepping forward, he used one hand to swing wide, his fractured armour open to attack. Seeing this opportunity, the Titan in front of him clenched its blood-stained teeth and pierced him with its spear. The sword struck the spear, cutting through its point and then through the Titan’s hand. It shrieked with its heart, the shed blood splattered over the side of its stomach. The spear tumbled onto the ground, landing with a clang. In the next second, the Titan followed, its body landing with a thud, a glimmering Ice crystal pierced through its neck.

Stanis then dashed to the next Titan, clashing with it, before felling it similarly. It was as his eyes hunted for his next prey that he realised that there were only 3 Titans in front of him, all of them standing defensively. He looked past them and saw various corpses crawling to the life, separated from him by a similarly sized team of Titans. Confused, he looked to the side and noticed the actual army of Titans retreating for their lives.

He opened his mouth and looked in disgust at the Titan’s left behind to stop him, contempt clear in his eyes. They glared back with loathing and even indignation on their faces. Sneering, Stanis threw the sword to his left hand and raised his right palm in front of the Titan trio. One of them finally broke under the pressure and moved to attack, sick of standing still while Stanis strutted around.

But before it could make contact, bolts of lightning stormed out of his palm, enveloping the trio. Their screams were drowned out by the thunder, their bodies hidden by the blinding light. When the lightning finally stopped spurting out of his palm, the trio came back into sight. At least what was left of them, torn strips of discoloured flesh…

The Titans that barred the Zombies from chasing the retreating army turned around in shock and fear. The Zombies, lacking any form of emotion or thought to be shocked, used this opportunity to take the Titans down, throwing them to the ground and scrambling over them. Stanis followed closely and used his longsword to behead the Titans, simultaneously rekilling the Zombies.

Despite the two teams of Titans trying to make time for the army to retreat, they had both failed. This was especially the case for the team that had tried to stop the Zombies as the Zombies had far outnumbered them, several of them opting to just run past the Titans instead of engaging in the fight. However, as Stanis murdered the zombies that had scrambled onto the Titans, the chasing ones mysteriously turned around and began to head towards him.

Stanis straightened to his full height and looked at the army of Zombies now rushing towards him. None of them wore any expressions, instead their faces sagged across their skulls like cheaply made Halloween masks. The change in enemy didn’t disturb Stanis, nor his voracious bloodlust. Instead he went about cutting and slicing to his desires, the fight almost too-easy, but at the same time, extremely enjoyable.

It was as he cut through another that an arrow smashed into his shoulder, penetrating his skin and throwing him backwards. He instantly sat up and looked at his shoulder, confused at the lack of shaft there. Instead, his skin was stained black and seemed to be deconstructing. Casting Light healing, he looked up and noticed a volley of Dark shots coming his way. Gritting his teeth, he spun onto his sides and then pushed himself up and away from the volley. They struck the ground like missiles, bloody mud exploding out as collateral.

Cocking his head towards the direction of fire, he looked past the Zombies and saw a lone woman walking in between all the muddy and broken Zombies. She had strawberry blonde hair, and piercing blue eyes that he could see despite how far away she was. And she was angry, very angry. Her face was scrunched up and her eyebrows angled, her gritted teeth on show.

At that moment, Stanis recognised her and took back control of his body. He had drained quite a bit of his energy and was now in a safer spot. He no longer attacked recklessly or grinned as he shed blood, instead opting to stand there still. He ignored the attacking Zombies and took off his helmet, throwing it to his side. His cheekbones stuck out despite his chubby cheeks due to his clenched teeth. There were bags under his eyes, and his patchy, black facial hair littered his chin like that of a 16-year-old’s. Most striking, however, were his eyes, fatigued but alive, exhausted but smouldering.

“YOU FUCKING BITCH,” he spat through his clenched teeth.

She didn’t respond through words but rather through her Zombies, who moved faster and attacked him with a previously unseen ferocity.

Squinting his eyes further, he finally lifted his chin and looked away from her, towards the now blue sky. It was calm, and he was calm, mostly. He blinked with weights under his eyelids, before sighing. In the next moment, just before the Zombies clawed off his head, raucous lightning escaped his whole body, spreading like a disease from undead to undead, biting with a spine-snapping force.

Next, he split his mind into two parts, then three, and finally four. He cast Blueshot spitfire with each of them, the bullets of blue machine-gunning down the corpses. The noise was cacophonous, repeatedly ringing with vehement vigour. Following this, glimmering crystals the size of cars began to form around him. Before the Zombies could even react, all of the crystals hurtled towards Jen, falling like asteroids onto Earth.

Each of the crystals clashed with her Barrier and shattered, sending shards upon shards onto the crowds of undead. She motioned towards him, and the surviving Zombies moved to block his path. A whistle came from the sky as one of the night’s stars began to fall. Stanis looked up, before gripping his sword and moving onward. Jen cast Dark shot after shot, occasionally morphing the ground into leeching dead-zones in order to slow him down.

But he moved forward nevertheless, slashing through Zombie after Zombie while also nimbly dodging projectiles, occasionally getting hit and hurtling backwards. The whistling sound in the sky had only gotten louder as time had passed, the bright star becoming an awful asteroid in the sky.

He used his skills extravagantly, throwing them around like a magnate with pennies. Only that they were far more than pennies, in fact, under normal conditions, he would have never fought like this. Currently, he was fighting as if there was no tomorrow, wasting all the energy he could into every strike he threw.

This was also the reason why the Zombies melted in front of him; the bane of the Titans was nothing but melted butter in front of him. But each strike they did make, each shot Jen did hit caused him to cringe and heave until he was doing so religiously. Also, as he spent his energy, he began to notice a growing pain from seemingly nowhere. The more energy he spent, the more apparent it became and harder to resist it …

His mind now almost lost in the pain that plagued him and the terrors that barred him from the Devil incarnate, Stanis took in one last breath. Setting his mind, he looked up one last time. The previously distant asteroid was now like a falling aeroplane in the sky. Blue flames ate away at its edges; its landing would be devastating.

He released another bout of lightning and felt the biting pain increase. It was almost as if his body had been poisoned or something, just that the surplus of energy had been hiding away the true extent of damage. The Zombies around him fell but more just moved forward to take their place. Losing himself to his lust, Stanis began to swim through the blood, corpses falling to his sword all the while. Jen shot another Bomb of darkness that exploded right next to him, pushing him almost to the ground.

Struggling up, he gave up trying to cut through the crowd. Trusting his armour, he sprinted through the Zombies, his limbs taking hits each second. His organs felt as if they were being torn apart but he kept running, finally reaching the mana barrier. Knowing that there was no way he could cut it open with his strength, Stanis chose to risk what he had hoped to never do with Jen; he created a link with her.

Straight away, she burst a vicious amount of mana through the link. Stanis broke the link the next second, causing Jen to break her focus and let down the barrier, allowing him to slip inside. But just before this, the mana she had sent barrelled into him, causing him to collapse inside the barrier, powerless.

Powerless…

He could hear what sounded like laughter from her. His head hurt and his mind was already torn apart. He sensed her standing next to him, building up a Dark shot right next to his body. Closing his eyes, he made another link with her. This caught her off guard and caused her to break focus. Stanis pushed himself up and pierced her with his hidden dagger. It penetrated her skin and bit into her stomach, causing her to scream.

But before the two of them could carry on, the asteroid crashed into Earth. Jen reduced the range of her shield to exclude him, and Stanis created a hastily made one in the last second.

He woke up seconds later, hundreds of metres away from where he had been. He couldn’t turn his head, but he could see Jen running away in the distance. She was retreating like a weakling, like a coward. Stanis wanted to shout to the villagers to chase and kill her but he found himself unable to speak. Not least because of the pain, but more so because he physically couldn’t. He was stripped of almost all flesh, his bones ivory white…