Hey Folks,
Belated Diwali Wishes to all!!!
After having no updates last week, I am sure most of you are eager to know the reasons behind it. The reason behind the miss in the schedule is that I was busy with the festivities and entirely forgot about this in all the hubbub.
As for the constant updates my other book has been receiving, I enrolled it in the Win-Win program at the start of the month and scheduled the updates for the entire month for it. So, it didn't suffer from the same fate as this one.
I know saying this doesn't make it better or change anything, but I wanted to be upfront with you. Moreover, I have come to a sobering realization that this rate of one-chapter update a day is not realistically sustainable for me.
And looking back, the entire first volume hasn't turned out exactly as I envisioned. I had rushed in a few places and had not taken care of the pacing properly as I should have. While this helped me grow as an author, as a reader, you too bore the hardships of enduring my learning curve.
Now that I have had a week off and had some time to digest these learnings, I have decided to cut down on the rate of updates for both books possibly. Know that, in no way am I abandoning these books as I am very much interested in telling both these stories.
But, I don't want to rush it and capsize the entire boat too. I am also planning to have a good pile of backlogs in store so that such a situation like last week doesn't occur again.
If any of you are disappointed, I apologize and I promise to deliver quality content on a consistent basis from now.
And that's it from me...
Once again, belated Diwali wishes to all...
*****
Duncan slashed with his sword at the pack of hyenas. He knew that showing any kind of fear at this point would mean his doom. So, he stepped forward and slashed with his sword.
The lead hyena backed away while howling at him.
Duncan swung the sword at the hyena beside the first one, making it back up as well. As he moved forward, his eyes swiveled trying to find an escape route. But, the hyena pack had covered all his exits. He knew that fighting was the only way left.
So, Duncan doubled down on making threatening swings at the hyenas. One of the hyenas tried to go around him, but Duncan was smart enough to realize that he couldn't allow it.
So he swung at it viciously.
The sword found purchase and cleaved into the hyena's front leg. The hyena howled in pain. However, the others sensed that the sword was struck and tried to attack him at that moment.
Duncan immediately backed a bit and once more made threatening swings at the approaching hyenas. As his whole mind concentrated on killing these hyenas, the black aura which had been absent on him started emanating again.
Duncan was as usual unaware of it. But, he did notice when his sword took on a red hue this time. However, his mind wasn't in the right place to wonder about it. But, he did notice that the hyenas seemed to fear and avoid this red hue.
Emboldened by the change in the situation, Duncan bravely advanced planning to be dealt with the hyena pack before some other beast came hearing this ruckus. Now that he was near the cave entrance and was a bit more aware of his surroundings, Duncan realized that the beast tide hasn't yet abated.
And he was in the fucking middle of it.
So, with urgency in his steps, Duncan for the first time since he began this fight, took the fight to the hyenas. The hyenas were under the thrall of the beast tide. While they feared Duncan's sword and were aware enough to realize the danger, they didn't have the sense to run.
When they saw Duncan stepping out to attack them, they all immediately pounced toward Duncan. Duncan was ready for it and swung his sword in a wide arc.
The arc cleaved into the midsection of one hyena and sent another flying sideways. The hyena that was sent sideways crashed into yet another creating a cascade effect.
Thus the simultaneous attack of the hyenas was equalized. But, Duncan already paid the price too. One of the hyenas was smart enough to entirely avoid the sword by going low.
It had caught onto Duncan's foot and was trying to rip it off. Duncan put an end to it by bashing it right in the head with his free hand. With the black aura supporting it, his hand went through the hyena's skull like it was a clay figurine.
Even Duncan was surprised by the strength he was putting out. But, he didn't have the luxury to marvel at it. Now that the hyenas were attacking in groups, Duncan began to wildly swing his sword, kick them away and even punch occasionally.
The meager swordsmanship lessons he had learned from others were no use now. It was clearly a full-on chaotic melee with the bodies of hyenas flying around. The ruckus caused already started drawing other animals toward their location.
Duncan wasn't in a position to care about all this.
He was swinging his sword, bashing the heads of hyenas and kicking them away with wild abandon. The only thing he cared about was killing these animals. He didn't even have an ounce of self-preservation instinct in him at this moment.
Pretty soon, a chaotic scene began to emerge just out of the entrance to the cave. Duncan had advanced way beyond the cave's entrance by this point and he was killing the hyenas left and right with no regard for the damage that he was being dealt with.
The other animals that came over hearing the commotion, joined the melee willingly and started attacking Duncan as well. Luckily there was no coordination between the beasts. Otherwise, Duncan would have been killed by now.
The beasts most often hindered other beasts and even attacked them in a frenzy, in a bid to get a shot at Duncan. This created a huge free for all with beasts going mad and Duncan starting a killing spree all around.
The entire place became a literal hell with dying beasts and roars all around. Duncan was in the middle of it hacking away one beast after the other. If he couldn't hack, he would punch them. If that was also not possible, he would kick them, slam his body into them.
In short, Duncan was also fighting wildly amidst the beast horde.
However, it would be untrue to say that Duncan was fighting. What Duncan was actually doing at this point was killing the wild beasts in droves. And the black aura that emanated from him was rising with each heartbeat.
The more beasts Duncan killed, the more the black aura rose in density surrounding him. The red hue now covered his entire body as Duncan was using his entire body as a weapon at this point.
And with it came a scene that was the embodiment of true carnage.
Duncan's sword in particular was chopping through the wild beasts like they were melons. With each of his swings, Duncan decapitated or dismembered a couple of beasts that were attacking him.
And the beasts weren't idle either. They were, in turn, ripping and biting Duncan with abandon. However, the problem was that they could never finish or truly injure Duncan with their strength.
Duncan's body was way too powerful for them to injure or rip apart in seconds. And by the time that second was done, Duncan would reap their lives easily. So, the massacre became one-sided as time moved on.
However, Duncan wasn't uninjured either.
His entire body was bleeding profusely as he fought like a savage beast killing its enemies. Multiple wounds were bleeding across his entire body. The wounds he had suffered prior to this were also reopened and they too started bleeding.
Duncan stood amidst the sea of beasts, bleeding all over and yet still killing left and right with reckless abandon. By this time, he was truly away from the cave as the fight had moved away from it.
With each beast joining in, the sea of beasts surrounding him only increased. It looked like the tide might overcome Duncan and drag him under at any moment. But, Duncan fought on like a lone vessel on the sea.
The more he killed, the more his black aura grew; the more his swings became proficient; the more he learned to use the energy he had proficiently; the more honed his instincts became; the more his desire to live grew.
The sheer number of beasts Duncan had slain in the past ten minutes was more than three times the ones he had killed all these months ever since setting off from the Starsinger Town.
Duncan never knew that he would be stuck in such a situation when he stepped out of his town. If he knew, he would have never stepped foot outside. But, fate makes fools of everyone and Duncan was now in this situation.
Duncan wode through blood and killed relentlessly. If it was normal time, the beasts would have fled by this time seeing the number of dead bodies piling up behind Duncan's advance.
Alas, it wasn't so. And this was when the beasts were in a frenzy. Opposition only gave them more madness. The madness in them increased further if there was some obstacle in their path.
And Duncan was proving to be one hard obstacle.
As more and more dead bodies piled up in his wake, something within Duncan changed for good. His heart became engulfed in the joy of killing and he started to truly enjoy the rush he felt at this moment of life and death.
Duncan's psyche had never been normal. He hadn't felt much when he made his first kill. He hadn't felt much when he killed his first human. While it was true that people wouldn't notice these things in the heat of the moment, the problem with Duncan was that he never felt any sympathy for the beings he killed.
While Duncan wasn't someone who enjoyed it, he wasn't also someone who wallowed in the fact that he had killed someone. To Duncan, it was just that. He killed someone or something. It wasn't a big deal for him.
This mindset that had existed previously, began to become more twisted as he started killing with abandon. If there was a reprieve during the killing and Duncan was allowed time to process what he did, mayhaps things could have been different.
But, Duncan didn't have that luxury. The more he killed, the less the meaning of life became to him. And even his life started losing meaning at this point. It can be seen how little self-preservation he was having at this point.
Duncan was willingly battling a group of wild beasts during a beast tide without thinking of a way to escape. He was killing them in droves and leaving their body behind with each step he took forward.
The more he killed, the more Duncan started enjoying the feeling too. With each kill, his confidence swelled. With each kill, the value of life lessened. With each kill, Duncan became a demon in all but his appearance.
The thick black aura was like a miasma that was floating behind him as he moved. And even the wild beasts that had gone crazy started to become a little hesitant to approach Duncan at this point.
However, Duncan didn't let them go. He took the fight to them willingly and started laughing loudly as he chopped off their heads with each swing of his sword.
This was the scene that the Vice-Sect Master of the Heavenly Demon Sect stumbled upon while searching for Hui Wanren.
*****
A/N: Hey folks!
Make sure to add this book to your collection and vote with your power stones to show your appreciation for this work.
You can also check out my other book [Booking Glory] and see if it is to your liking.
Reviews and comments are truly appreciated.
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