Chapter 374: Surrounded
Kian was still riding high on that discovery, but he hadn't noticed something crucial: the small pocket of green defenders he was fighting alongside, a few hundred strong, was on the verge of being surrounded by the red tide.
The green line had been retreating steadily, some stretches falling back faster than others, mostly dictated by pressure.
The forty-meter stretch Kian happened to be holding had seen its pressure drop off sharply, thanks entirely to him single-handedly gutting anything that came near.
Lower pressure meant a slower retreat. But everywhere else along the line, the pressure was normal, and the retreat kept pace.
Neither Kian nor the soldiers around him realized their little pocket had turned into a salient, jutting forward while the rest of the line pulled back, and the red army was closing in to cut it off entirely.
Another hour passed, and Kian finally caught the sound of panicked shouting from the men around him. Words like we're surrounded and we're dead started spreading through the group.
That snapped him back to attention. He looked around at the battlefield and felt a cold sweat break out.
Their little pocket, four or five hundred green defenders, had been completely swallowed by the red tide.
The main body of the green army had already fallen back over two hundred meters.
Red-cloaked enemies surrounded them on every side, screaming and jeering.
The hearts of those four or five hundred green soldiers sank. One misstep, cut off from the main force, and they were dead men.
Another half hour of brutal fighting followed, and the isolated pocket was slaughtered down to almost nothing.
Enemies pressed in from every direction, weapons hacking at them from all sides, and the defenders fought back with everything they had left.
Shields shattered. Spears snapped. Their stamina melted away like ice under a summer sun.
In that half hour, a hundred men dropped to double digits.
A few more minutes, and only a handful remained, standing atop a hill of corpses, fighting for their lives.
Kian dragged the last few survivors together, standing on that hill of bodies, facing down a sea of enemies pressing in like a mountain range on the move.
"My lord! My lord!"
Kian was mid-swing, cutting through the enemy in front of him like it was some kind of shooting gallery.
He heard someone calling out behind him and shouted back, "What is it?!"
"My lord! It's been an honor to fight beside you!"
"Huh?"
Kian turned to get a look at the man's face, memorize it.
But the instant he turned, he saw one of the green defenders, completely spent, being dragged into the crowd by a dozen red hands.
The next second, the man was torn apart.
Something in Kian snapped.
He let out a furious roar and started swinging with wild, unrestrained abandon.
No longer worried about hitting his own men, he cut loose completely, blade tearing through the enemy in huge, brutal arcs, blood and meat flying everywhere.
But as he kept cutting, he noticed something: the enemies pressing in around him were thinning out.
The cultists surrounding him began pulling back, further and further, until they'd retreated more than thirty meters, leaving a wide circular clearing behind.
Around that circle, a solid wall of red cultists watched him with something like amusement.
Kian stood on that nearly two-meter-tall pile of corpses he'd carved himself, and turned to check on his allies. Only seven were left.
The seven remaining green defenders, drenched in blood, stared out at the retreating enemy line, dazed and uncomprehending.
"Plus me makes eight. What the hell kind of game are these Chaos scum trying to run?"
Kian muttered, pulling off his helmet, and bellowed out at the mountain of enemies before him.
"CHAOS SCUM! What's this little stunt supposed to be?!"
The wall of cultists parted, and a two-meter warrior stepped forward, greataxe in hand, radiating raw menace.
"Heh. You're a strong one. Only by killing someone like you can I prove my valor."
Kian understood immediately. This mob was using them as fodder for their own advancement.
Khorne ran a fairly clear-cut promotion system. Pit two strong fighters against each other, whoever wins gets the credit, whoever wins gets the blessing.
Normally, Khorne's forces sought out that promotion on the battlefield itself, fighting the enemy, killing the enemy, earning his attention that way. When no enemy was available, they'd even turn on each other.
Here, they'd whittled this cut-off pocket of green troops down to exactly eight survivors. In their logic, those final eight had to be the toughest of the bunch, worth culling into eight strong champions of their own.
And since Kian's group had already been cut off this far from the main line, staging an impromptu arena right here wouldn't disrupt the larger battle at all. Might as well have some fun with it.
The axe-wielding cultist gave a twisted grin, pointing his weapon straight at the eight figures atop the corpse hill.
"Come on then! Send me a good one! My axe doesn't cut down cowards!"
"Screw you and your whole bloodline! Sold your soul to Chaos and now you think you're hot shit!"
Kian roared, dropped straight off the pile of corpses, and charged, sword raised.
The cultist grinned wider and charged back to meet him, axe raised in kind.
The instant their weapons crossed, the cultist never even saw Kian's blade move. Both his hands came off, the axe clattering to the ground.
The cultist stared at his own severed stumps, frozen, unable to process it for a moment.
Eighty-seven trials survived, and it ends like this? He'd only needed one more win, just one more, and then—
Before he could finish the thought, sharp pain shot through both his legs, and he collapsed. Kian had cut those off too.
Missing all four limbs, the man was reduced to a torso.
He let out a shrieking wail of agony, and Kian hauled him up one-handed, grabbed a discarded spear off the ground, and drove it through his stomach.
He planted the other end of the spear into the dirt, leaving the man impaled and dangling in the air.
The cultist screamed and screamed, a mix of unbearable pain and something close to shame, rage building in him until it felt almost physical.
"Kill me! KILL me!!"
Kian spat on him.
"Scum like you deserve to bleed out nice and slow!"
He turned to face the mass of cultists watching and bellowed.
"Send me another one! A good one! My blade doesn't cut down cowards!"
The crowd went grim and silent for a moment, before another powerful warrior stepped forward.
"I'll go!"
The man charged, a massive two-handed axe raised high.
Kian glanced around, grabbed another discarded spear, and hurled it.
THWACK!
"AGH!!"
The spear punched straight through the cultist's throat. His eyes bulged, he dropped his weapon and collapsed to his knees, clutching at his neck.
Kian rushed in, a few quick cuts taking off his hands and feet, then pulled the spear free and drove it back through his gut, pinning him to the ground.
With both cultists impaled behind him, Kian turned back to face the massed enemy ahead and roared.
"You're all a bunch of jokes!! NEXT!!"
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