Slash!
The sound of flesh splitting rang through the tavern.
Driven by its own crushing weight, the massive axe cut down as easily as if it were slicing through tofu, cleaving straight into Clifin's shoulder before crashing into the floor.
Blood sprayed in all directions. Warm liquid and the sharp stench of gore filled the air.
The sudden scene stunned everyone watching. Only the fast, feverish music kept pounding through the tavern.
"What are you standing around for?! Kill him!"
It was Renni, hardened by half a lifetime of clawing her way up, who snapped out of it first. She lunged forward, grabbed the railing, and screamed herself hoarse.
Her shout broke the frozen tension.
One by one, the gang's enforcers came back to their senses. They had been badly shaken by the sight, but they were still old hands of the Undercity. They gripped their weapons and surged forward.
"All of you! He's just one man!"
The music kept raging on. The electric guitar's heavy-metal howl made Van's blood pound and his body tremble.
He tore the giant axe free from Clifin's split corpse and held it across his body, the blade pointed toward the men rushing him.
"Come on!"
Van twisted through the hips and swept the heavy axe again, the blade whistling like a storm wind. A crimson spray burst out with it. Flesh split, bones snapped, blood flew, and screams rose from every side.
"Surround him!"
These thugs knew what they were doing. They wanted to use their numbers properly, striking from all sides like a pack of hyenas, bleeding him little by little and grinding down his stamina.
But Van had not made a name for himself this young by accident. And the sheer brutality of the way he fought was enough to make even these men hesitate.
The heavy cast-iron axe seemed weightless in his hands, reaping lives at will. Between overturned chairs and broken tables, he moved with shocking speed for a man wielding something so huge. Every strike was soaked in blood. Every hit maimed or killed.
Slash!
After one swing too many to count, pain suddenly stabbed into his back.
Van glanced down and saw a blood-slick blade protruding from his side.
There were simply too many enemies, and his strength was not endless. Fighting on like this, mistakes were bound to happen sooner or later.
Van did not even hesitate. He did not bother to look back. He swung the axe behind him, and another body was hacked into ruin.
The flash of pain distracted him for only an instant, but that was enough. The thugs descended on him like vultures scenting blood. In the span of moments, several more wounds opened across his body, and he was already drenched red from head to toe.
"Damn it!"
Realizing the situation was turning bad, Van planted both hands on the axe and spun with all his strength, sweeping it in a brutal circle.
The savage strike drove everyone around him back at once.
And the ones too slow to retreat were cut clean through at the waist.
Van completed the turn and had not even managed to draw breath when he heard an engine roaring behind him.
A heavyset brute came charging at him, gripping a massive chemtech chainsaw in both hands.
Van had spent his momentum and had no fresh strength yet. He did not even have time to breathe, only enough to jam the axe haft against the spinning saw. Even so, the force of the impact bowled him over and slammed him hard against a table.
Bzzzzzz—
The brute leaned all his weight down on the saw, trying to split Van's skull open. Van fought with everything he had, but the roaring chain still crept closer and closer to his head.
Then flesh burst.
The screaming saw bit deep into Van's brow ridge.
The pain was so violent it made every drop of blood in his body feel like it boiled at once. A fresh surge of strength exploded out of him. He forced the axe haft sideways with all his might, and the saw scraped past his ear before chewing straight into the table.
Van seized the opening and drove a heavy punch into the brute's face.
The force was monstrous. The big man's whole body went limp, and he dropped to his knees.
"Hah... hah..."
Van slammed the axe down against the floor and leaned on the handle. Blood running from his brow had glued one eye shut. Pain and exhaustion left him dragging in great, heavy breaths.
"Heh... I made... the new axe... too damn heavy..."
Then he bared his teeth, raised the axe high again, and brought the flat crashing down, smashing the kneeling brute into a mangled mess.
After that, Van lifted his one remaining eye and fixed it on Renni upstairs.
If he wanted to end this faster, there was only one way.
Take the leader.
Under the stare of that blood-bright eye, Renni felt her heart jolt. She turned to flee—
Then stopped dead.
Van had no intention of letting her escape.
Dragging the axe behind him, he charged toward the stairs. Everyone who tried to block him was hacked down along the way. He knocked over oil lamps as he passed, and the spilled liquor on the floor caught fire at once, leaving a trail of flame in his wake.
"My son!"
Renni stopped and looked toward the staircase.
Her little boy was standing there in a daze, frozen by everything happening around him.
Renni shoved the people in front of her aside and ran for the stairs.
By then, Van had already reached them too. The axe blade screeched across the steel steps, throwing off a long trail of sparks. He flew past the child and closed the distance to Renni in an instant.
He had no idea why she had suddenly run back toward him.
But he was not about to waste an opening delivered right to his hands.
"Hah!"
Van swung the axe up.
Under the horrified stares of everyone present, and the sheer terror in Renni's own eyes, he brought it crashing down.
Slash!
Warm blood splashed across Van's face. The smell of it forced its way into his nose, thick and choking, and the stench made his head sway.
For a moment, the whole place fell silent again.
Only the pounding beat of the heavy music still filled the tavern.
"Is it over...?"
"Kill him!"
With Renni dead, more than a few people had already started slipping away.
But this was still her home ground, and she still had plenty of loyal core men who were willing to avenge her.
"Heh..."
Van let out a cold laugh and wrung a little more strength from his exhausted body, forcing the axe to move again.
The melody pounded on. The rhythm drove forward. Blood spread across the floor. Hearts shook.
The flames rampaging through the tavern seemed to catch the stored liquor too, and the small fire quickly grew into a roaring inferno.
In that bright, savage blaze, Van kept killing.
Smoke poured into his one open eye until it streamed with tears. Again and again came the sound of flesh being cut open, but by then Van could no longer tell whether he was the one cutting others apart, or whether others were carving him up in return.
Exhaustion and pain were dragging him close to the edge of losing control of his own body.
Only instinct and sheer will kept him moving, cutting down anyone who came near.
Whoosh—
The axe tore through the air yet again.
But this time, it stopped.
Slowly. Steadily.
The blade hovered at the throat of the figure standing before him.
Van panted hard, and the red haze in his lone eye began to clear.
Through the blur, he saw only a small child standing there in a daze.
[End of chapter]