Chapter 46: The Wild Hunt Cometh

“Take the Demon and run!”

Ymir roared out that lone command to Lune before he charged forth to meet the horde, the earth shaking under the weight of his steps as he ripped out the iron pillar and called upon the wind.

The reaping frost was coming, heralded by eighteen spectral riders with their silver-blue lances dipped low for the harvest. At the head, larger than the horde of freezing darkness, was the King of the Wild Hunt, charging straight for Axel with his greatsword raised.

The King would not reach him before Ymir did.

The Giant cast a spell, both hands blooming with wild magic as he blasted a gout of iridescent flames forth. The gnashing sea of killing lances parted to avoid the flames, but one unfortunate rider was too slow. The purple-green fire caught his cloak. In an instant, the knight and his steed were set ablaze in rainbow light, screaming in haunting moans as they dissolved into glowing ash.

The King raised his greatsword. Above, the clouds churned like boiling ink, caught in the storm-born grip of a god. Wind howled, and lightning came down — vast, roaring, and alive with hunger. 

Ymir raised his iron pillar and slammed it into the ground before ducking beneath its apex.

The bolts of silver lightning struck the raised pillar rather than the Giant. The flashes were blinding, illuminating the shadows over the land cast by the storm.

Reflecting off the black ice, Axel saw the ghoulish faces of alien dead haunting the grounds and mists.

From the dying light, a contingent broke off and charged at Ymir — more than a dozen spectral knights, cloaks trailing frost and rot. Undead steeds scraped hooves against frozen stone, their dead eyes glowed like dying stars as the excitement of the kill seized the horde.

Faced with their numbers, the Sky Titan did not flinch.

With one swing, Ymir hurled the iron pillar — a phantom layer of wind imbued upon it. The weapon tore through the front ranks of the Hunt, shattering spectral mounts like glass and flattening black armour into paste. The rank of the horde convulsed. Two knights evaporated into bloody frost.

Still, the Hunt pressed on, re-forming like a wave into a triangular formation. The iron pillar Ymir tossed returned to his hand right as the horde collided into him.

They struck from all angles — stabbing, slashing, harrying — but the Titan was a fortress of motion, sweeping his pillar in wide arcs that turned air into hurricane gales. Wind coiled at his feet, protecting him from the worst of blows as boulders were lifted into the air and crashing into knights with ear-crushing intensity.

Then the King came, appearing from the mist like a spectral wraith. His monstrous steed erupted forward, racing through the eye of the storm. 

Ymir swung, but the iron pillar simply swirled past both the King and steed. Their bodies burst apart into icy wisps, coating the iron pillar with heavy frost.

From behind Ymir, the King appeared once more. The King’s greatsword sang as it struck Ymir’s flank — a glancing blow, for the Giant had moved with impossible agility to avoid the slash. Yet the wound upon Ymir instantly began festering with black rot, and the Giant was visibly slowed.

The knights, seeing their King’s wounding valour, continued their assault with renewed bloodlust.

All of it was happening in the span of seconds. Axel was frozen, star-struck at the violent display of power. It was far greater than any Ymir or the Great Game had ever displayed to him before. 

A hand urgently gripped his shoulder, shaking him from his stupor.

“We need to go!” Lune screamed. “We cannot stay here!”

Axel wanted to retort, to charge towards the horde of shadow knights and add his blade to the Giant’s aid.

But before he could do so, from the sudden heavy mist behind Lune, he saw movement.

“Duck!” Axel shouted as he manifested his halberd and swung.

To Lune’s credit, she did not hesitate, immediately crouching into a roll just as a frostbitten lance struck the space where her head had been and collided with the halberd.

From the mists came the towering armoured form of a skull-faced rider upon a shadowy, monstrous steed. He was flanked by two other lesser knights, though their spectral frames exuded no small amount of lethal intent.

[Warning!]

[Level 36 ‘Wild Knight Vice-Commander’ Encountered!] [Title: ‘Sixth Lance of the Hunt’’]

[Leader Entity detected!]

[Level 32 ‘Knights of the Final Hoarfrost’! Encountered!]

Three in total, with the leading Commander alone being a match for Axel if he counted level alone. Lune could barely match them in direct combat.

The Commander looked towards the Eldarin Princess, skull helm blazing with frost fire. 

“Heiress, you have chosen poorly,” the leader rasped, his voice like the grinding of bone. “Surrender, and we might persuade your father to give you a kinder fate.”

Lune summoned grenades into her hands. “Father never grants mercy.”

She tossed them. The twin riders by the Commander leapt into the mists, laughing and disappearing like ghosts as the grenades detonated at their feet.

Axel was already rushing forth, golden halberd whistling as the killing edge screamed for the Commander’s neck.

The Commander expertly manoeuvred his steed into position as he raised a heavy shield to block Axel’s attack. The metal clanged against each other with a haunting echo.

The Commander looked down. Somehow, the skull helmet was twisted into a rigid grin, framed by razor ice. “The Demon. I have been looking forward to this.”

“Funny,” Axel smiled back, eyes wide and mad. “Your Prince said the same time before I fucked his skull open.”

The barbed steed snarled and tried to bite Axel’s head off. The soldier disengaged and slammed the butt of his polearm hard into the undead horse’s armoured face.

The metal dented into the steed’s skull and repelled the beast for a moment. The rider thrust his lance towards Axel with impossible precision and speed, too fast and close for the soldier to bring his weapon up to block it.

The soldier despawned his halberd and summoned a shorter iron axe to hand, parrying the thrust just in time. The weight of the blow was heavy. Axel gritted his teeth in pain as he felt his arms nearly break.

My limbs… They feel heavier than they should. I’m slower as well. Why?

That debuff from before, coming from the mist… Frost-Terror. It is weakening me!

The iron blade of the axe shattered. Axel tried dodging back, but the horse had already recovered and was pouncing on his retreat.

“Duck!” Lune shouted from behind him.

Axel forced himself to fall backwards, giving the Alchemist behind him space to throw two glowing rune-strewn daggers straight into the giant steed’s eyes.

Both daggers landed true. The horse reared back in pain. The Commander’s lance thrust, aimed for Axel’s head, missed.

Then the head of the eye-struck horse glowed bright from within before exploding.

Axel had no time to register this development. He sensed a murderous presence coming from his side and summoned his halberd once more.

Holding the polearm right at the very edge of the butt, Axel leapt back and swung wide with a roar. His muscles tightened into steel cords as the halberd whistled and ate into flesh. The greater reach he afforded himself by his grip allowed him to strike the flanking spectral knight subordinate before his ghostly lance could impale Axel.

The Knight of the Final Hoarfrost grunted in pain, but did not die. The halberd had slammed into the armoured rider’s shoulder, crippling an arm but failing to kill.

Another presence behind him. This time, however, the second Knight was intercepted by a grenade from Lune. Both rider and steed were set alight by an incendiary grenade before being set upon by the blade-wielding alchemist, who leapt off a boulder and sank her shortsword into the knight’s neck.

Axel’s breathing was calm. The tempo of battle was upon him. He tried to finish off the injured knight, but the Commander came once more, surprising Axel.

The Commander’s steed, with the upper half of its head blown apart, was still alive. It neighed bloodily and charged Axel, giving its rider ample speed for his thrust.

Axel barely had time to curse before he raised his halberd awkwardly in a hilt-parry. His attempt barely deflected the lance from his heart, but the freezing steel slammed into his shoulder and lifted him bodily up into the air.

[Warning! Health below 10%!]

[‘Last Stand’ Activated!]

Shit, shit, SHIT! Axel was screaming bloody murder as a horrid agony claimed his impaled shoulder. He couldn’t even bleed properly from the wound; the lance was lodged deep, and its magic was freezing his blood.

The Commander was still galloping forward with Axel impaled on his lance. The polearm was raised higher still, causing Axel’s weight to kill him as gravity was dragging his body further down the weapon’s shaft.

Snarling with crazed eyes, the soldier forced himself to raise his legs and kick hard against the weapon’s shaft with all his might.

Once. Twice. On the third kick, a crack was heard. The fourth kick broke the wooden shaft of the lance, causing Axel to fall heavily to the side as the rider galloped past on his headless steed.

The soldier rolled hard, jumping to his feet just in time to duck another lance jab from a knight subordinate. He leapt back and back, until his feet landed near a panting Lune, who was cradling a broken arm.

“Still think we can run?” Axel snarled as he downed a health potion.

[Health restored to 50%!]

[Cannot Heal further!]

“We have to break through,” Lune insisted as she drank her own potion. “There are only three of them. Ymir can’t buy us much more time!”

Goddamnit. Can I activate Reaper’s Piety to get us distractions?

Axel gave it a shot.

[Reaper’s Piety failed!]

[Insufficient Tithe!]

That figures. I have no idea how this ‘Tithe’ system works, but if it is like a currency, I ran out of it while fighting Ymir earlier.

Dammit, if only we had known this would happen… Is he even still alive?

There was no more time to ponder. The three knights appeared out of the mist and before the struggling pair once more. The trio suffered their share of wounds, and despite being in arguably worse shape than the pair, they appeared nonetheless unaffected.

One of the lesser knights — both steed and rider burned heavily from fire — still had Lune’s shortsword embedded from the left side of his neck and out of his right armpit. It did not appear to bother him much, save for a crooked neck. His hands awkwardly yanked the blade out, thick ichor dripping sluggishly from his wounds, before throwing it to the ground and breaking the blade with the butt of his lance.

The Commander himself sighed happily, patting the side of his horse's mangled head. “What wonderful spirits. Demon, I have known prey a thousand times your duration in the Great Game who could not even give me a fraction of this enjoyment. And you, Princess… Clearly, you were wasted on the King of Trolls. Your martial blood should be passed down upon the Knights instead of those reeking animals.”

“Perhaps an alternative arrangement might be made should we succeed in capturing you,” one of the subordinates hackled, his ruined arm swaying limply.

“Though a corpse suits the Wild Hunt fine as well,” the other burnt subordinate gurgled from his savaged throat.

Axel’s grip tightened on his halberd.

“Can you hold off the two perverts while I deal with the Commander?” he growled.

“That’s my line — don’t die to the Commander while I kill those two knights! I’ll help you butcher that arrogant shitstain after!” Lune hissed before summoning an entire boudalier of grenades and tossing them.

A myriad of explosions detonated above them. Acid, fire, and lightning fell upon the Knights, who disappeared back into the mists like wraiths. 

Axel did not wait for them to come upon them again. He needed to regain the initiative.

He wanted to save his best equipment and abilities for helping Ymir, but it was clear that any attempt to help the Giant would be hopeless. Axel was struggling with just these three knights, even with Lune’s help. The Giant was fighting at least a dozen of them alone at the moment, with the King of the Wild Hunt at the head of the horde.

There would be no saving the General. All Axel could do was try to make the sacrifice worthwhile.

[‘The General’s Oliphant’ activated!]

[Blizzard summoned!]

[All Stats boasted +6!]

Blowing the warhorn, a harsh winter gale began countering the eldritch frost brought by the Wild Hunt. For a moment, a heavy pressure was lifted off Axel’s shoulders, and he felt his movements become lighter.

[‘Frost-Terror’ Removed!]

His blizzard was temporarily negating the Wild Hunt’s mist. Axel grinned when he saw the silhouette of the Commander and his subordinates appear once more.

Halberd raised, Axel charged. Lune summoned blades and grenades into her hands right as the two lesser knights came for her.

She pulled their attention away from Axel as promised, leaving him to duel the Commander. Cloaked in armour black as wet stone, the Sixth Lance gripped their jagged lance of crackling black frost. His mount barrelled madly forward, mangled head neighing a broken warcry.

The killing lance came for Axel. The soldier pivoted on instinct, thin ice scattering underfoot. The halberd came up, haft braced and blade crimson. The rider thrust — Axel ducked low — and the steel shrieked past his scalp as he narrowly missed.

The soldier bared his teeth in a smile, wide and feral. 

I’m faster now, you fucker!

Axel twisted, let the inertia carry him, and drove the spike of the halberd violently into the steed’s foreleg.

He felt the bone splinter, and the beast buckled.

The rider tumbled hard — armour scrapping with sparks as he skidded across the icy ground — but soon rolled to his feet, as if he weighed nothing.

Axel barely had time to pull the halberd out and reset his stance. In a blink, the Commander was upon him, lance discarded for a strange rusty shortsword wrapped in rosy bramble.

Fast. Too fast. Axel blocked — barely — the halberd shivering under the force of the blow. They traded blows, swings and parries lightning quick. His skin was burning hot, his mind feverish as his instincts pushed themselves to the utmost.

Focus. Focus.

Axel struck, gave ground, repositioned — Not a single wasted motion. Not one step false or ill-made.

The balance was tilting in the soldier’s favour. Axel waited for the moment, feinted a sweep — and the Commander reacted to block.

The Demon snarled with delight. “Mistake.”

Axel reversed the haft, caught the Commander off-balance, and slammed the whistling axe-head right into his exposed flank. Black bile and frost burst from the wound. The rider stumbled.

Axel did not stop.

He stepped in, planted his heel, and drove the halberd’s back-spike into the visor of the knight’s helm — a crack like splitting ice, a burst as foul liquid poured from the helmet’s opening.

It was a fatal hit. Axel relaxed.

Then the arm of the Commander came up and gripped the soldier’s arm, trapping him in place.

Axel froze. The Commander laughed hollowly.

“Mistake,” it mimicked happily, voice a screech and a scream combined.

The bramble shortsword came up for Axel’s head, seeking to impale his skull from his exposed lower jaw. The soldier had no room to dodge.

I’m dead.

Then, right before the blade touched his skin, a flicker of steel came from the side and struck the Commander’s hand. 

Lune’s thrown dagger deflected the bramble blade, causing it to slash across Axel’s neck rather than stab into his head. A burning pain erupted across his vision as a rosy thorn crawled into the wound from the sword, but the soldier allowed his monstrous madness to take hold.

Axel retreated into his mind, and the Demon came forth.

Howling in pain and ecstasy, the Demon’s hand came up and gripped the Commander’s head from both sides. Muscles bulged and veins popped within his arms as they flexed with explosive motion.

A crack. A scream. And then the Commander’s head was pulverised under the crushing vicegrip of the Demon.

The metal of the skull helmet caved inwards like clay. The head erupted like an enclosed watermelon, spurting bile all over Axel’s face.

Then, finally, he saw the notification.

[Lv 36 ‘Wild Knight Vice-Commander’ slain!]

[Level Up! +4 Skill Points][Class Boon + Trait Bonus Combined!]

The madness retreated. Axel was choking. The sentient bramble was wrapped around his open neck and descending into his lungs.

Lune rushed over to steady him. Her hands poured a foul-smelling oil upon his neck wound and set it alight.

The bramble screamed, loosening its grip. Axel quickly grabbed it and tore the burning foreign matter free from his body. He tossed it to the ground and stomped it to death.

He summoned a potion, practically spilling him its contents to get the liquid down his open throat. His wound healed, and he coughed up burning blood before sighing in relief.

“That’s three times you interfered with my death,” he hoarsely said to Lune. “But I’m feeling generous, so I’ll let this one slide.”

The Eldarin weakly chuckled.

“Told you I would be faster… All that talk, and I still had to help you kill that arrogant shit right after I had dealt with those two perverts…” She was slumping against him, badly wounded. One of her eyes was missing. Her chest was pouring blood from a violent gash across her torso.

Axel quickly got a potion down her throat before she succumbed. He looked across the clearing, noting the two very dead knights she had fought earlier, as well as the many hissing plumes of green fire.

One of them was missing its head, as if it had been violently blown off. The other had its front split open from groin to neck, its insides being devoured by the haunting emerald flame.

Axel’s estimation of Lune rose significantly.

“You are one hell of a fighter,” Axel laughed tiredly as he supported Lune to stand up. He turned, letting her lean against his back. “Tell you what… Let’s have a spar after this mess. You and me. We haven’t had a proper fight yet.”

“Is this your species’s way of flirting?” she murmured, drawing her weapons up as she got into a half-hearted stance.

“It’s the cadre’s way.” Axel raised his halberd, his back still to Lune’s. “But that’s just step one. I’ll let you in on the rest when we get out of here.”

Lune chuckled brokenly. “‘When’, huh?”

Hoofsteps came from all around them. Axel counted the shadows before him.

One, two…seven, eight…

A total of nine riders had surrounded the pair.

And at their head… The King of the Wild Hunt himself, bearing down upon them. 

His greatsword drenched in a Giant’s blood.