The human commander, still basking in the glow of his perceived victory, noticed the lone figure walking towards his army.
He squinted, trying to make out the details of the approaching figure. When he finally realized it was the same...creature he had seen in the temple, his laughter boomed across the battlefield.
"By the gods!" He roared, wiping tears from his eyes. "They're sending that to fight us? A single...undead? Are they that desperate? Have they truly lost their minds?" He gestured towards Luca with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Look at him! He's practically going to lose all his limbs himself! He's more likely to trip over his own feet than pose a threat to my men!"
Luca, hearing the commander's taunts, stopped walking. His earlier nonchalance vanished, replaced by a flicker of irritation.
"Hey, fat bitch!" He yelled back, his voice surprisingly strong and clear despite his injuries. "I'm not undead! I'm just...a little overcooked, okay? And I'm getting really, really tired of everyone calling me and undead! I'm sick of it!"
"...So, listen up, you overgrown sack of lard! If I hear that word again, I swear, I'll personally make sure you understand what it feels like to be undead!"
The human soldiers, who had been watching the exchange with a mixture of amusement and confusion, erupted in laughter. Their commander, however, simply narrowed his eyes, a cruel smile playing on his lips.
"Undead, eh?" He sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. He gestured towards Luca with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "And just how, pray tell...." He asked, his voice laced with mocking curiosity. "...are you planning to turn us into...undead?" He leaned forward slightly, his eyes gleaming with a predatory glint. "I'm quite curious to see this process."
Luca, hearing the commander's mocking question, simply smiled. It wasn't a friendly smile, not a reassuring smile, not even a slightly menacing smile.
It was something else entirely. It was a slow, creeping, eerie smile that stretched across his disfigured face, a smile that sent a shiver of unease down the spines of even the most battle-hardened mercenaries.
His dark eyes, normally shadowed and enigmatic, gleamed with an unsettling light, reflecting something cold and calculating. Even the commander, a man who had seen countless horrors on the battlefield, felt a prickle of apprehension at the sight of that smile.
"How am I going to turn you all into undead?" Luca mused, his voice low, as if he were discussing the weather. He then tilted his head slightly, his smile widening, and his gaze drifted over the assembled army, lingering on each individual soldier for a brief, unsettling moment.
"Well..." He began, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't really know much about the undead in this world. I'm new here, you see. Haven't had a chance to do any research on the local necromantic practices."
He paused, as if considering the question for the first time.
"But..." He continued, his voice regaining its casual tone. "Judging by the name...'undead'... it implies someone who has...stopped living, yes? A rather permanent condition, I'd imagine." He chuckled softly, a dry, humorless sound.
"...And what is more essential to life, to vitality, than the human heart?" He asked, his gaze lifting to meet the commander's.
He then straightened up, his eerie smile turning predatory, his eyes gleaming with a chilling light that made the bravest warriors among the human army shift uncomfortably in their saddles.
"So..." He said, his voice casual, almost bored. "I suppose I'll just have to.. pluck out the hearts of everyone here." He paused, as if considering the logistics of the task. "It might take a while..." He mused. "There are rather a lot of you and it also might be really messy with all the blood that will splatter out. But..." He added, his smile widening. "...once that's done, you'll all be an undead just like me. An undead army created by yours truly."
Luca's words, delivered with such chilling nonchalance, sent a shiver down the commander's spine. A prickle of unease, a feeling he hadn't experienced in years of leading men into battle, washed over him. He couldn't explain it, but something about this...creature...this undead... unnerved him.
He decided not to take any chances.
"Charge!" He roared, his voice cracking slightly. "Kill him! Kill the undead! Make him your priority and kill him before anyone else!"
But unfortunately for him, before the soldiers could react, before a single muscle could twitch, before a single horse could take a step, something...unexpected happened.
Luca, who had been standing calmly before them just a moment ago, vanished.
One moment he was there, the next he was gone, as if he had been swallowed by the earth.
A gust of wind swept through the ruined temple, the only evidence of his passing.
Then, the screams began.
"Ahhh!~"
"Noooo!~"
"Aghhhh!~"
Over a dozen soldiers, scattered throughout the ranks, suddenly clutched at their chests, their faces contorted in agony.
They let out cries of pain, their voices echoing through the temple grounds, their bodies convulsing.
Finally, they fell to the ground, their limbs twitching, their eyes wide with terror. And as they lay on the stone floor, already dead, something truly horrifying became apparent.
Each of the fallen soldiers had a gaping hole in their chest.
A perfectly circular hole, as if something had...punched through their armor, their flesh, their bones, and ripped out a chunk of their flesh.
Blood gushed from the wounds, pooling beneath the bodies, staining the earth a deep crimson.
The sight of their comrades, struck down so suddenly, so inexplicably, so brutally, sent a wave of sheer terror through the human ranks. The soldiers, their earlier bravado evaporated, recoiled in horror, their eyes wide with fear, their voices rising in a cacophony of panicked shouts and desperate cries.
"Gods above, what happened?!"
"What was that?! What hit them?!"
"Where did it come from?!"
"I didn't see anything!"
"They're dead! They're all dead!"
"Their hearts...They're gone!"
"But how?! Who did this?!"
"What kind of weapon could do that?!"
"Is it magic?! But there's no magic anymore!"
"We're all going to die! We have to get out of here!"
The air, once thick with the anticipation of a quick and easy victory, was now heavy with the metallic tang of blood and the chilling weight of fear.
The soldiers, their discipline shattered, their courage failing, began to mill about in confusion, their eyes darting around frantically, searching for any sign of the unseen attacker, their hearts pounding in their chests like trapped birds.
The commander, his face pale and his voice trembling, also stared in horror at the carnage unfolding before him. He had witnessed countless battles, seen men die in every imaginable way, but nothing, nothing, could have prepared him for this.
The sheer brutality, the inexplicable nature of the attack, the chilling precision with which the hearts had been ripped from his men's chests...It was unlike anything he had ever seen.
"Magic!" He sputtered, his voice laced with fear and accusation. "They're using magic! Those treacherous demi-humans! They've tricked us! They still have magic!"
But even as he spoke, a flicker of doubt crept into his mind. He had heard of magic before and heard about it in great detail. He knew what it looked like, felt like.
This...This was different.
There were no incantations, no glowing runes, no telltale shimmer of magical energy. Just...a sudden, inexplicable disappearance, followed by screams and...holes.
Holes where hearts should be.
The demi-human elders, just as baffled and horrified as the human soldiers, exchanged bewildered glances.
They, too, had witnessed the carnage, but they had no explanation for it. They had no magic left.
But the elf elder on the other hand, her eyesight sharper than the others, thought she had glimpsed something...something impossible...something absurd.
But she dismissed it as a trick of the light, a figment of her fear-addled imagination.
It couldn't be true. It simply couldn't.
But even that perspective changed when, just as the chaos and confusion reached its peak, Luca reappeared.
He suddenly came back to the same spot where he had been standing moments before, as if he had never left. But this time, he wasn't empty-handed.
He was holding...things. Red, glistening things. Sacks, perhaps? Or some kind of strange, fleshy fruit? They were wet, dripping, staining his hands and arms and chest a deep crimson.
The soldiers, their fear momentarily forgotten in their confusion, stared at the objects in Luca's hands. And then, as the realization of what they were truly seeing dawned on them, a collective gasp of horror escaped their lips.
They weren't sacks. They weren't fruits. They were...hearts. Human hearts. Still beating. Still dripping blood.
About a dozen of them, clutched in Luca's hands, their rhythmic pulsations a grotesque counterpoint to the stunned silence that had fallen over the battlefield.
The sight was too much for many of the soldiers. They stumbled back, their faces pale, their stomachs churning. Some retched, vomiting onto the bloodstained ground. Others simply stared, their eyes wide with horror, their minds unable to comprehend the scene unfolding before them.
"It's him!"
"He's the one!"
"He's the one who took their hearts!"
"Demon!"
"Monster!"
"He's not human!"
The cries of fear and accusation echoed through the ruined temple, mingling with the panicked snorting of the horses and the sickening thud of hearts hitting the blood-soaked ground.
They stumbled back, desperate to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the... the thing...the monster...that stood before them, holding the still-beating hearts of their comrades.
Luca, seemingly oblivious to the terror he had inspired, glanced down at the pulsating hearts in his hands, his brow furrowed in mild concentration.
"Hmm." He murmured to himself, as if he were assessing the weight of a particularly ripe melon. "Looks like I can probably only manage about a dozen at a time. Any more than that, and they start slipping...Too messy."
He then casually dropped the handful of hearts onto the growing pile at his feet, the wet, fleshy thuds echoing through the ruined temple. He looked up at the remaining soldiers, his eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger, a calm but bloodthirsty glint that sent chills down their spines.
"Well..." He said, his voice almost cheerful. "Looks like I'll have to make a few more...trips. Gotta keep the inventory stocked, you know? Wouldn't want anyone to feel left out."
That single statement, delivered with such casual nonchalance, ignited a fire of pure, unadulterated fear in the hearts of the soldiers. They understood. They understood perfectly what he meant.
He wasn't just a monster. He wasn't just a demon.
He was a harvester. And they were the crop.
"Run!"
"Escape!"
"He's going to kill us all!"
"He's going to take our hearts!"
The soldiers, their terror overriding any semblance of discipline, broke ranks. They turned and fled, their screams echoing through the temple, a panicked stampede of men desperate to escape the unimaginable horror that had been unleashed upon them. They trampled over each other, clawing and scrambling, their fear-fueled flight turning into a chaotic rout.
But Luca, his movements a blur of terrifying speed, didn't let them get far.
He was everywhere at once, appearing and disappearing amongst the fleeing soldiers, a whirlwind of death and destruction.
In mere seconds, he was back in the same spot, another handful of still-beating hearts clutched in his hands, another dozen soldiers lying lifeless on the ground, their chests ripped open, their lifeblood staining the earth.
The sight of their comrades falling, the chilling regularity of Luca's return, the ever-growing pile of hearts...It was too much.
The remaining soldiers, their minds reeling with terror, their bodies trembling with fear, abandoned all pretense of fighting. They threw down their weapons, their faces contorted with desperation, their voices hoarse with screaming.
They just wanted to escape. To get away. To live.
But there was nowhere to run. There was no escape. Luca was relentless, a force of nature, a reaper of souls.
He moved among them, a silent, deadly predator, harvesting hearts with terrifying efficiency, his pile of gruesome trophies growing larger with each passing moment. The temple, once a place of worship, was now a slaughterhouse, and the screams of the dying echoed through the ruins, a testament to the horror that had been unleashed.
The demi-human elders, their faces a mixture of awe, horror, and morbid fascination, could scarcely believe what they were witnessing.
Just moments before, they had been facing certain annihilation, a seemingly unstoppable human army encroaching upon their sacred temple, their weapons glinting with murderous intent. Now...the scene was utterly transformed.
The hunters had become the hunted. The proud, disciplined army was now a scattering mob, their cries of fear and desperation echoing through the ruins.
And at the center of this chaos, a whirlwind of crimson and death, was Luca.
He moved with an almost supernatural speed, a blur of motion that defied the eye. He danced among the fleeing soldiers, his movements fluid and graceful, almost balletic, even as he plunged his hands into their chests, ripping out their still-beating hearts with a casual flick of his wrist.
Blood splattered everywhere, painting the ground, the walls, and even the air itself a gruesome shade of red. The screams of the dying mingled with the terrified shouts of those still trying to escape, creating a cacophony of horror that chilled the elders to the bone.
They watched, mesmerized and horrified, as their savior, the human they had initially doubted, single-handedly decimated the human army.
They gulped, their throats dry, their minds struggling to comprehend the sheer brutality, the sheer efficiency, the sheer power that he wielded.
What kind of being had they brought into their world? What kind of savior had the goddess chosen for them?
The vampire elder, her usually pale skin now tinged with a greenish hue, turned to the elf elder, her voice trembling slightly. "W-What...What is he?" She whispered, her eyes wide with apprehension. "Is he...is he truly our savior? Or...Or have we summoned a demon? A bringer of destruction?"
The elf elder, her gaze fixed on the carnage unfolding before them, let out a dry, humorless chuckle.
"Perhaps...He is both." She replied, her voice laced with a strange mixture of fear and admiration. "Perhaps he is the savior we need...and the demon our enemies deserve. It depends entirely, I suspect, on which side you're on." She paused, her eyes gleaming with a newfound understanding. "I think..." She continued, her voice gaining strength. "I am finally beginning to understand why the goddess sent us...him. She didn't send us an angel."
"...She sent us a force of nature. A whirlwind of vengeance. A harvester of live itself."
The other elders, their faces a mixture of awe, terror, and a strange sense of gratitude, nodded slowly in agreement.
They watched as Luca continued his gruesome work, their hearts pounding in their chests. They had been right to trust the goddess. They had been right to trust their savior.
He was terrifying, yes. He was brutal, yes.
But he was theirs. He was the one who was protecting them, the one who was delivering them from the human threat.
"Thank the gods." The salamander elder whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion. "Thank the gods we summoned him...and not the humans. Imagine..." she shuddered. "Imagine if they had summoned him. We would all be...well, we would all be in their place right now."
A collective shudder went through the group as they contemplated the horrifying alternative. They had been saved, not by an angel, but by something far more...potent.
Something far more terrifying.
Something that would even frighten the devil itself.