Panting. Frantic, rapid breaths. Running. Bodies strewn all over the floor, blood steadily pooling around them.
"Retreat! Get back! It's a fucking spirit!", the man yelled, beckoning those of his comrades still alive to try and escape as quickly as possible from the impending doom closing in on them from behind.
The man, not lacking in size in the slightest, always seemed to have an air of confidence around him matching that of a noble, even a king. His attitude, coupled with his incredible stature and supernatural prowess with the sword, made him the most respected warrior in the kingdom of Kinia and the most feared among common thieves and other criminals of the like. Coupled with his knowledge of battle, refined throughout his life after thousands of battles with those he considered to be stronger than him, he had become the unquestioned, unanimous pinnacle of human achievement.
Still, there were beings far beyond that level that humans had no hope of ever reaching. He and his men were currently in the presence of one.
"Keep going! Don't stop running! Or it'll kill you!"
Bounding over the countless bodies of his former allies on the ground as through they were just mere pebbles, the man sprinted for the exit from the cave just in front of him. 20 yards, 15, 10, 5....
"Where do you think you are going, I wonder?"
Just as the man had stretched his leg out of the mouth of the cave towards freedom the raspy voice belonging to the creature pursuing from behind grew remarkably closer, almost as if its "pursuit" was just a game it could have won whenever it wanted. Just as the man turned around, contemplating drawing his sword to buy his few remaining comrades time to escape, he saw it.
Although in "humanoid" form, you could never mistake a spirit for a human when you saw one. Usually possessing definitive features that would never be possible for anyone of actual human lineage, spirits also emitted an aura so intense it felt as though it physically crushed the air around oneself. And this spirit standing leisurely in front of him was no exception.
While his height was only around that of a preteen's, he had disgustingly long, thin arms that reached all the way to the ground even with just him standing there. His hair, greasy and caked with fresh blood, reached all the way to his shoulders and covered almost all of his face. Still, through the thick curtain of hair one could just barely make out his abnormally large mouth, which reached all the way from under his left ear to right.
He was, in every sense of the word, a monster.
But his appearance wasn't what made the man fall to his knees in despair.
It was the pile of bodies directly behind the spirit that fully caught the man's attention. All of the bodies throughout the cave, even the bodies of his allies that he foolishly thought were still running behind him, were all arranged into one heaping pile reaching all the way to the top of the cave, blood from all the collective men forming a small pond at the bottom.
"For the so-called 'strongest protectors of the kingdom', I find it rather amusing for me to be able to tell you with confidence that I have faced countless others that outclassed you all in power...heehee."
The man, shifting his gaze from the bodies to the spirit in front of him, felt his lips begin to quiver as he saw the spirit in front of him contort his mouth into a rather repulsive grin.
"And you...weren't you rumored to be 'the chosen one'? The one to end the war? The pinnacle of humanity? What happened to this so-called beacon of hope? Don't tell that was all a ruse as well?"
Of course the man's title wasn't a ruse. Becoming the kingdom's best sword wielder at the age of fifteen, he spent the next fifteen of his life dedicating himself to his craft. Fighting all sorts of monsters, undead, demihumans, other humans, at just the age of thirty he was arguably the greatest to have ever wielded a sword. Someone that all the people throughout the entire world looked up to as a source of hope, persuading them to keep going, keep fighting, encouraging them all, telling them that one day they could once and for all take back their world and rid it of the curse known as "spirits".
But he couldn't tell the spirit that. Because he and the spirit both knew that in the heat of battle, it wasn't about what you have previously done or what you might be able to do in the future. It was about what you could do in the moment, and whether those abilities would either lead you to become the killer, or the killed.
And right now, they both knew that the man was well on his way to becoming the latter.
"...You know of me?" the man asked, regaining his composure. He pushed himself up off one knee so that he could stand upright, unsheathing his blade and gripping it firmly with both hands. At this point, I pretty much have to counterattack or my death will have come from me running from my final opponent, the man thought, slowly approaching the spirit one step at a time.
"Why yes of course I do. You can't keep many things secret from a spirit, you know? Personally, I'm just curious about how much of your ability is actually truthful and how much of it is mere folklore."
The man half-smirked in reply to the spirit's statement, lifting his sword over his head in motion for his first attack. Even with his death imminent, the man never relinquished the opportunity to display his talent, instead opting to use it to inflict at least some damage to his enemy before his death in the hopes of earning posthumous respect from this unbeatable foe. As the man began to swing down and unleash his signature move, Split Slash, he heard the faint sound of a gust of wind slicing through the air like a blade.
"Uh-uh."
Following this sound along negative remark by the spirit, was the man screaming in pain, by far the worst pain he had felt in his life. He fell to the ground with a thud, clutching what was left of his right leg.
"AAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!"
The man, still screaming in agony, looked down at his lower body. His right leg had been cleanly severed at just above his kneecap, and blood steadily flowed out of the open wound. He bit his lip to prevent himself from screaming audibly any longer.
"My, it seems I was right. Those stories really were just stories after all. These sorts of dirty tricks really can be so disheartening, you know?"
The spirit began slowly walking forward, his hands dragging along the ground. In the spirit's right hand, the man could see his severed leg, the sight so horrifying he felt vomit rise in his throat and a cold shiver run down his spine. He tried to reach over and pick up his sword, determined to try and attack again, but the spirit merely kicked the sword out of his reach while looking down on him with an abhorrent open-mouth smile.
"I think we both know nothing would come out of that. It's obviously the better choice to just accept it at this point, honestly."
The man stared blankly at the spirit, feeling the back of his eyes growing hot with tears. Everything he had worked for, all the people he swore to protect, to save, the peace he swore to bring, all of it, crushed within the first few moments of meeting this monster. He felt his chest grow tight with rage, and his brow furrow into the fiercest snarl he had ever made in his life.
"I WON'T LET YOU-"
Win, the man was going to say, before his head was cleanly separated from his shoulders.