"Hurry up, Madds!" Richard urged. "A few of them might still be alive!"
"I'm going as fast as I can, all right?! You know I skip leg day!"
Madds and Richard hurried down the tunnel, their armor telling them where to go. It also informed them of the grave fact that their squad was dead. They held hopes that at least one of them was still alive, that the armor was faulty or the signal was disrupted by the miles of dirt and rock between them.
Even though they knew deep inside that the armor was flawless, they still held onto this hope.
"Whew. It's good to be young again," Fate said. "I didn't realize how much having a thirty-year-old body hurts until now. I mean, I was hurting when I was twenty, but now I feel fucking great. What do you think, buddy?" he asked, prodding an imp head with his feet.
"No answer? That's pretty rude, you know. Not like I can punish you, though," he chuckled.
Not a single imp remained. Many tried to run, but when they did he simply tossed this nifty new sword at them. It sliced the runners in half and returned to his hand like a boomerang without even needing his Divine Reach, its return path carved out with the blood of dozens of imps.
When he found out it could do that, he ended up spending a full thirty minutes of the fight just tossing the sword around, watching it pinwheel through the imps like a lawn mower cutting grass only to return dutifully to his hand. Now he stood in a cave of corpses, the crimson of the imps' bodies hopefully the closest he'll ever get to 'a sea of blood.'
A pulse spread out from deep within his mind, tampering down his happy mood. 'What?'
"It is not time for you to regain your memories," a woman's voice said. She sounded ethereal, angelical, as if she were a divine being passing down a mandate. He could hardly find the energy to respond, his thoughts freezing over. "I have great plans for you, ones that require 'you' to be locked away once more."
"Who are you? Where are you?"
"That is none of your concern, Null," the woman whispered. Fate realized that it was coming from within his head, sounding both miles away and right next to his ear. It was also somehow… familiar. He'd heard her voice before; he was sure of it. But where? "For now… return to ignorance."
"I think I'll stay awake, thank you," Fate mumbled, struggling to keep his eyes open. "You've made me an idiot. What kind of moron gets…detention on the first day of school? I blame you for that; there's no way… I'd be so gung-ho," he somehow managed to say with a straight face.
He snarled as his mind grew more muddled, continuing his rant. "Come here, you ghost. Woman? Figment of my...imagination? Quit hiding. What the hell could you…possibly gain from doing this to some random Avatar? I need…answers."
"I'm not here, young one. You are not prepared to see me just yet. Rest. We'll meet eventually." The voice faded, and with it, his mind grew heavier and heavier. Eventually, his thoughts halted entirely, and he fell flat on his face. For several minutes, he could do nothing but breathe, becoming a creature of basic needs.
After what could have been either hours or minutes, he blinked, his thoughts speeding up once more. As he got to his feet, he couldn't help but notice the thousands of imp corpses around him, and the familiar-feeling sword by his foot.
"Who did this?" he wondered aloud, his memories of his other life sealed once more, along with his Level. As he went to pick up the sword, it flew into his hands, startling him. "Woah!"
As he scrutinized the sword, he noticed the blood dripping down the blade, as well as the way its hilt conformed to his hand perfectly, as if it was made for him.
"Wait, did I do this?" he asked no one in particular as he lowered the sword, eyes swimming over the ocean of corpses at his feet. "But that can't be. Unless…" He returned his gaze to the sword, frowning.
He'd heard of 'berserk enchantments' that both strengthened the user drastically while driving them into a blind rage. This knowledge was based entirely on stories he heard in his childhood, so he had no clue if they held any truth to them, but that was the only plausible explanation.
Even that was filled with holes, however. Why wasn't it triggering now? Why was he entirely unharmed? Why hadn't Gorn used it when he was fighting the sergeant?
'The sergeant!' Fate shook himself out of his reverie upon remembering the sergeant and his subordinates. Fate started for the spot he remembered being in when the shaman had captured them, stepping over and around the sliced and diced remains of imps on his way.
His worst fears were confirmed when he found the bodies of Gus and Brent, their heads having imploded into bits of blood and gore that decorated the stone around their corpses. The sergeant's body wasn't far away, his corpse missing an arm and pale from blood loss. 'I'm the only one left.' A bitter pill to swallow, for sure.
'Wait, what about the other two? Madds and Richard?'
"Fate?" He heard behind him. He turned to find the aforementioned Guards staring at him from the tunnel, mouths agape and eyes wide as the surveyed the carnage. "What the hell happened here?"
"This thing," Fate said morosely, raising the sword. "I think it has some kind of berserk enchantment. The others were killed by the imps."
"Are berserk enchantments real?" Richard asked Madds. "I've never heard of a real one before."
"I don't see any other way the boy can be standing there surrounded by thousands of dead imps without a single damn scratch on him," Madds replied. "You're sure that enchantment won't activate again and make you come after us?" he asked Fate.
"I don't think so," Fate told him, lowering the sword. "For some reason, I can feel what this sword can do, and I can't find the berserk enchantment anywhere. I think it might have been a one-time thing."
One-use enchantments were far more common than permanent ones on Ziobrun, and cheap enough Mana-wise to be mass-produced. Old Man Travis often sold the farmers of Brergan a few one-use items around the spring that removed the rust from their tools.
"And is this all of the imps?"
"Yes," Fate replied instantly. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he was sure this was the truth.
"Then help us bring the bodies of sarge and everyone else out. Their families will want the remains." Fate nodded, and each of them carried two corpses out of the cave. Getting Bregg's body down was a hassle, but dealt with easily enough by the Skills of the two surviving Guards.
As they started the long trek down the long tunnel back to the surface, Fate decided not to tell the Guards about the traitorous ways of Gus and Bregg. They'd find out soon enough, if the sergeant's words were any indication, so he thought it best to not worsen their mood even further.