The aura of half a dozen Oakland warriors grew more intense the closer they got, their stench permeating the air with sinister presence. They were not powerful as such but they were still somewhat strong.
As they were drawing closer and closer, Kodesh finally slithered out the tomb, his short hair still brightly luminescent with an otherworldly whitish hue.
With the strength of Samson at his disposal, he knew the battle was a mismatch unless they had hidden aces up their sleeves.
In the next moment, he leapt up the air at terrifying speed, leaving a shockwave and a cloud of dust rippling in all directions.
Landing softly on a rock at the peak of the hill, he immediately summoned the Orion's bow. The majestical white bone manifested right in front him, beautiful and graceful as ever.
Drawing the hard and stubborn bow of the correlation of bright stars, Kodesh's eyes suddenly beamed with mirth as a large ghostly arrow appeared out of nothingness, cackling with delight as he was pulling the bow with his new preternatural strength.
Glancing down at the bow, he realized he had pulled it almost half its full stretch. The last time he pulled it, he managed only a quarter of its full length but now with the strength of Samson coursing through him, he had doubled that stretch.
And since he had stretched farthest than ever before, the ghostly arrows were now much bigger and radiating a more intense and pronounced otherworldly light.
With that, he locked his gaze on one of the man examining a dead leather armored warrior Kodesh had killed earlier with the long bow as they were trying to escape to the safety of the city.
In the next second, a ghostly arrow was explosively blasted off the Orion's bow like an ethereal torrent of mass destruction, flashing forward like a bolt of lightning.
The large ghostly arrow seemed to increase momentum as it was whizzing through the air, its arrowhead engulfed with a blue hue of electrical current and ambient heat.
In the next moment, the arrow struck and buried itself deep into the unsuspecting man's torso with harrowing precision and the exothermic combustion instantly charred him with an all-encompassing star light. In the next second the charred remains turned to ash borne in the wind and they were immediately scattered and dissipated by the passing breeze.
Immediately an angelic voice whispered softly in his ears, "The Orion's bow grows stronger."
"Huh?"
"Did I hear that right?"
Kodesh couldn't believe his ears yet again. The Orion's bow had struck many times before but never had it announced that it had grown stronger by any kill it made.
For a while now, he had come to a conclusion that the Orion's quiver was not limitless because he noticed that the more kills he made, the more the arrows became distinct and more defined.
It was more like a wear off pattern. When you buy a pair of shoes, they are both going to wear out differently, creating a distinct pattern from the other pair.
So he came to a conclusion that the soul devouring arrows were absorbing some fragments of souls, making them stronger and more distinct by each fragments they devoured.
But now the ghostly arrows were large enough to devour the entirety of a man's soul, cremating them under the ambient heat of the bright star light, that was why he got a notification for the kill, meaning that fragments don't count as soul damage even though they are just as deadly.
The air crackled with excitement as he was processing just how powerful he had become but now he found himself torn between testing the strength of Samson and killing with the white bow of the Orion.
In any case, he conveniently killed his enemies. Some in brutal close combat and some at the cruel wake of his long range attacks of cremating ghostly arrows.
A short while later, a figure of a young man with luminescent hair was the only one left standing, standing as tall as the ancient chain of hills.
Besides him were copses of mauled warriors who dared to stop him. But just like the chain of hills, he proved formidable.
Those who were fortunate enough to not find themselves in the way of the cremating ghostly arrows were viciously mutilated. They were only fortunate because they would get a proper burial.
The strength of Samson was too powerful beyond what Kodesh could've possibly fathomed. He could easily squeeze a skull and it would immediately crumble to paste like a cluster of grapes.
Stained with the blood of his enemies, Kodesh stripped water and clothes from one of the less mauled corpses.
Scrubbing and washing off the blood stains of his enemies, floods of memories also washed over him and all the horrible things he had shoved down into the depths of his psyche let loose in an all-encompassing deluge of trauma.
He did it all in self defense but it was an awful lot for a 16 year old boy to deal with.
Trying to not immensely ponder about how traumatized he was, he changed into new clothes. But before he did, he examined his chest wound. The shallow wound had already healed, it was almost fully convalescenct and mended.
Not allowing the traumatic thoughts to hover over his mind, he went back to the tomb of Samson and paid his respects to the legendary warrior whose sacrifice had brought the whole kingdom of Oakland to its knees.
The impartation was more like the passing of the torch. He was going to finish what Samson had started. And he was going muscle on through the trauma.
A way of war was chosen for him before he was even born, it is his inheritance and after imparting from the legendary warrior, that inheritance was now an oath of some sort.
A short while after paying heartfelt respects to the legend, Kodesh squeezed out the tomb and glanced at the boulder.
It had taken him everything and more to push that hill of a boulder but now he had the strength of Samson.
Standing on the other side of the carved stone, he pushed the colossal rock with the least of efforts and immediately the prodigious boulder rolled like it was a sliding door.
A gleeful grin spread across his face, a smug confidence that exuded from every syllable and glare as he was realizing just how strong he was.
With that, he grabbed a skin of water from one of the corpses and greedily quenched his thirst.
His eyes lingered around the hills for a bit, until they fixed on the noble knight and immediately kodesh was conscious stricken, a chill of horror washing over him.
The rush of such emotions had never enveloped him before especially when staring down a dead corpse. The noble prince was very dead but somehow Kodesh still felt threatened by just glancing at the deceased highborn knight.
Trying to put some distance between him and the blue-blooded aristocrat, Kodesh immediately left the hillsides and before long he was on the royal road, traversing towards the western gate of the city of Oakland.
The city of Oakland was about to celebrate the sounding victory over their sworn enemies so the security protocols and procedures weren't stringent.
There were as many people as the stars in the tapestry of cosmos, some coming from far away lands and the countryside so it was rather easy for Kodesh to slither through the city as multitudes were pouring in. What was going to be hard though, was finding his family. He had just under eight hours to find them.