Chapter 46: Moment of Doubt
I'd been training for four weeks. Four weeks of running, lifting, mental sparring, pushing myself until I could barely stand. I thought that would be enough. Enough to make me ready for anything the System threw my way.
Turns out, it wasn't shit.
I wasn't ready. Not for this. Not for what was coming.
I clenched my fists, pressing them into the ground. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch something until my knuckles split. But all I could do was kneel there, tasting dust and blood, and admit it to myself I was scared.
Really, fucking scared.
And the countdown was still ticking.
My eyes stayed on the stone beneath me until the flickering red digits burned themselves into my vision again.
[57:12:33]… 32… 31…
Fuck.
That meant I'd been out for damn over half an hour. Half an hour of lying on the ground while the city bled.
Freya.
The thought slammed through my skull harder than the boulder had.
I was on my feet before I even knew I'd moved, and then I was sprinting. No time to think. No time to second-guess. My Ki flared through me as I kicked the Acceleration Loop into overdrive. The world blurred, air tearing past my face, my heart punching against my ribs.
Streets became streaks. Bodies, human and beast, flashed past me. The stink of blood and smoke filled my lungs. In seconds, the empty backstreets opened up to chaos again.
The edge of the city was a fucking warzone.
Dozens of creatures were pouring through the gap in the wall, hulking, twisted shapes with matted fur, jagged horns, and eyes like pits of tar. Soldiers and adventurers were holding the line as best they could, hacking, stabbing, screaming.
I didn't have a weapon. My sword was gone, probably lying somewhere under a pile of rubble after that boulder sent me flying.
Didn't matter.
A few steps to my left, an adventurer's corpse was sprawled face-down in the dirt, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of a longsword. I pried it from his stiffening fingers without hesitation. The steel was chipped and blood-slick, but it would do.
I didn't stop running.
The first beast in my path lunged, an oversized wolf-thing with a jaw big enough to snap my torso in two. I dropped low and drove the blade upward, straight through its gullet. Warm blood sprayed over my arms and face as it howled and collapsed, but I was already moving.
Another came at me from the right, a boar with tusks like scythes. I sidestepped, planting my foot in its flank, and used the momentum to twist the blade deep into its ribcage. The steel grated against bone before I ripped it free, spinning into the next target.
A pair of smaller beasts, doglike, with skin stretched too tight over their skulls, snapped at me. I met the first with a slash across the face, splitting its eye and cheek in one motion. The second leapt, and I rammed the sword point-first through its chest, feeling the shudder of muscle and bone as it died.
The Acceleration Loop thrummed in my veins, keeping me a half-step ahead of every strike. Claws swiped at me, teeth snapped inches from my neck, but I was already gone, already cutting, already moving on.
A horned thing, some kind of twisted goat on two legs, brought its club down hard enough to shatter the cobblestones. I ducked under the swing, slashed across its thigh, and then drove my sword up into its gut before yanking it out in a spray of blackish blood.
Another wolf charged. I met it head-on, my blade punching straight through its throat before its momentum carried it past me, gurgling as it bled out.
I didn't count the kills, but the ground around me was filling with bodies fast. Blood pooled thick and dark, running between the cracks in the stone. My lungs burned, my arms ached, but the rush kept me going, boosted strength tearing through them faster than they could swarm me.
One tried to flank me from behind a catlike beast with claws like hooked knives. I caught the movement in the corner of my eye, spun, and let its own leap impale it on my sword. The weight dragged the blade down, and I kicked the corpse free.
Another boar. A mangy wolf. A bear-like thing with a jaw full of too many teeth. I cut them down one after another, the clang of steel and the screams of dying beasts blending into one endless, ugly sound.
The line around me began to hold again. The adventurers nearby were rallying, pressing forward, their weapons finding gaps in the beasts' hides. We weren't winning but for the moment, we weren't dying either.
And I wasn't stopping.
I didn't know how long I kept swinging. Could've been minutes, could've been an hour. All I knew was eventually the last beast in my reach hit the ground with a wet thud, its spine nearly severed from the force of my swing.
I stood there for a second, panting hard, blood dripping from my hair, the sword heavy in my hands. Around me, the surviving soldiers and adventurers were shouting, herding the stragglers toward the main breach where the fighting still raged. The air was a mess of smoke, burnt fur, and that coppery tang of blood that sticks to your tongue.
I spotted a gap in the chaos, stepped over a carcass, and grabbed the arm of a soldier who was running past.
"Where's Freya?" I demanded.
He looked at me like he'd just been asked where the fuck the sun went at night. "Haven't you heard? She fell from the wall."
The words hit me like another boulder to the chest. "What?"
"Outside the city," he said quickly, already half turning to keep moving. "Happened maybe half an hour ago. She…" He hesitated, and I caught the flicker of pity in his eyes. "She's probably dead by now."
The din of battle felt like it went quiet for just a second.
Half an hour.
Half an hour while I'd been here killing everything in reach.
The sword in my hand suddenly felt too light, like I could throw it and it would just drift away. My jaw clenched so tight I could feel my teeth grind together.
Dead?
No.
Not while I was still breathing.
I let go of the soldier and turned toward the breach in the wall, my heart already hammering for a different reason.
If Freya was outside…
If she was still alive…
I wasn't letting the clock run out on her.
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