Chapter 155: Slaughter
Sebas watched it all unfold.
The bear-beastman warrior who had cut Grik down still had his blood-wet iron axe raised, roaring at his kinsmen: "Brothers! Avenge the chief!"
"Avenge the chief!"
"Kill this old human!"
More bear-beastman warriors shook off their shock. They tightened their grips on iron axes and bone spears. The dark fur across their bodies stood on end, and low, sustained growls rolled from their throats as they faced Sebas.
Several thousand bear-beastman warriors began to surge forward.
They trampled across Grik's hyena body where it had stopped moving and came on like a dark flood, pouring toward Sebas.
The ground trembled.
Sebas looked at the burning red in those bear-beastman eyes.
He could feel the resolve in it — the kind that charges forward even knowing the gap in strength is impossible to close.
"Truly loyal and courageous warriors." Sebas said it quietly, and something complicated moved across that lined face. "To risk death avenging a fallen chief as subordinates ought, and to stand before a stronger opponent without breaking as warriors ought — that deserves respect."
He let out a faint sigh.
"But I am sorry."
Sebas stepped forward.
"To carry out the will of Touch Me-sama, and achieve a true peace."
"And to fulfill Ainz-sama's mission, and repay Lord Lucian's trust."
"I have no choice but to strike you down."
The instant the words left him, Sebas's figure vanished from where he stood.
The bear-beastman warrior at the very front of the charge felt the world blur. The old man in the black tailcoat appeared directly in front of him.
He didn't even have time to raise his axe.
Sebas's fist had already landed in the center of his chest.
A dull, heavy impact — and the bear-beastman's body launched backward like a stone flung from a siege engine, bowling through seven or eight of his kinsmen behind him, carving a deep furrow through the dirt road.
His chest was caved in. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were wide open and had lost all focus.
Sebas didn't pause.
His figure threaded through the bear-beastman column, appearing and disappearing, each appearance paired with a precise, economical strike.
Sebas's fist came down on a bear-beastman's skull. The sound of bone fracturing was short and sharp.
The blade of his hand swept across another's neck. Blood surged from the wound.
To call this a battle would have been generous. It was a one-sided slaughter.
Sebas used no weapon. As a pure unarmed combat warrior built around the ki discipline — wrapping ki around his fists and his hands so that his blade-strike could become sharper than any edged weapon — he had no need of one.
The bear-beastman warriors kept coming.
An iron axe came down, and Sebas met the attacker's skull with a counter-punch, destroying both the axe and the head together.
A bone spear drove toward him, and Sebas took it without concern, letting it pass and driving through that bear-beastman's chest in return.
Blood ran along the dirt road and gathered into dark red streams.
Bodies piled.
But the bear-beastmen did not retreat.
The fighting went on for a time that was impossible to measure.
Sebas stood at the center of the bodies. Even surrounded by the piled dead and the blood spreading everywhere, the dignified old butler had moved with perfect precision — not one drop of it had touched him.
His breathing was steady. Not even the hem of his coat had been disturbed.
The surviving bear-beastman warriors finally began to waver.
Fear spread through the column like a sickness.
"Monster..."
A young bear-beastman warrior murmured it. His iron axe slipped from his hand and hit the ground. He looked at the bodies of his kinsmen covering the road, and at the utterly composed human old man standing at the center of them, and his legs began to shake.
"That's not a person... that's not human..."
Another bear-beastman warrior dropped his weapon.
When the first beastman turned and ran, fear finally overwhelmed hatred.
More followed.
Iron axes and bone spears were flung to the ground, landing in an uneven clatter. Those dark shapes ran for the hills without looking back and disappeared over the horizon.
Sebas chose not to pursue them. Letting some of the beastmen escape was a small private intention on his part.
Surely, the beastman king will hear what happened from the ones who fled, recognize the gap in strength clearly, and surrender peacefully — and agree to change the law.
Naive Sebas thought this to himself.
But there were also those who remained.
Roughly two hundred bear-beastman warriors had not run.
Some of them had thrown down their weapons of their own will and gone to their knees, their large bodies trembling before Sebas.
Others had fallen between the bodies, groaning, struggling to move.
They hadn't been struck directly by Sebas — they had been knocked down in the chaos by the force of their own kinsmen flying into them. Some had broken bones in their legs from the impact and had tried to stand several times without being able to, and now lay in the blood and rubble watching that approaching figure with nothing but terror in their eyes.
Those still capable of fighting could be counted on one hand.
Sebas looked around him.
He walked toward the bear-beastman warriors kneeling on the ground.
"Raise your heads."
The voice arrived like a whisper from something not of this world.
Several of the bear-beastman warriors raised their heads with visible difficulty, their bear eyes full of fear.
Sebas let his gaze pass across their faces. He confirmed there was no fight left in any of them.
He gave a slight nod.
He stepped in front of one of the bear-beastman warriors — a young one, whose body was shaking violently, his eyes squeezed shut, waiting for death to come.
Sebas reached out.
His hand came to rest gently on the bear-beastman warrior's neck.
Sebas applied a light, careful pressure.
The young warrior's body went soft. He didn't even have time to say goodnight before he slipped into unconsciousness, his body tilting forward and settling into the mud.
Sebas moved to the next one.
The same motion — and that bear-beastman warrior lost consciousness without managing to get out a single word of pleading.
Sebas worked through all of those who had surrendered on their own, then turned to the injured ones who had been knocked down by the fighting's aftermath.
Some of them could still move slightly. Seeing Sebas approach, they tried to shrink back — but their injuries made it impossible to move an inch.
Sebas crouched down and examined each wound in turn.
Their injuries ranged from serious to minor, but the eyes they fixed on Sebas held nothing but pure, undiluted fear.
Sebas said nothing more. He let them slip into unconsciousness as well.
When he had finished the last one, Sebas straightened up.
He looked around, confirming he had not missed anyone.
Then he reached into his coat and drew out the small copper disc.
The magic gemstone gave off its faint blue light, pulsing in his blood-stained palm.
Sebas looked at the disc, and his thoughts drifted for a moment.
Lord Lucian — the matter of taking in the prisoners, I leave to you.
He tucked the disc back into his coat and walked on toward the beastman nation's front lines.
He could have controlled them with [Puppet Palm], but their numbers were too large — and more beastman forces would certainly be coming from the front. So he had decided to knock them unconscious and leave them for Lucian to handle.
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