The Feast Hall

A week had passed since Luke had begun learning the Demonic language. Other than learning a few words and phrases, he hadn't made much progress in studying. He found that reading a whole new style of words, in a differing language with a different alphabet was a hard concept to wrap his mind around.

Luke didn't mind the struggle, in fact he found reading the book to be quite enjoyable after a long day of killing husks. He had also taken to spending some of his time in the "morning" to do some studying. Well, his equivalent to morning which was just when he woke up. As he'd woken up just moments before, he was reading the heavy book with his back to a tree.

"Seir ghasoon laerina cros", Luke said aloud, sure he had messed up the pronunciation of the ancient words.

The saying translated too "To survive means to kill", which he found more than a little accurate, if slightly melodramatic. After continuing to mispronounce and attempt to memorize some of the words, he moved on to going over the alphabet Aerin had told him. After doing this for some time, Luke closed the book, stretched and stood up.

A smile played across his lips as he went over the task he planned on completing before the day was through.

Today Luke would attempt to clear out the feast hall, and subsequently fight more enemies at once than he had ever attempted up until that point. It was a goal he'd had for a while, and now that he was an adept he felt a greater amount of confidence in his ability to complete said goal. There was a greater reason for his decision to clear out the hall as well, namely his dire need for soul points.

It had been nine days since he'd reached the adept rank and in that time his growth had seemed to slow to a crawl. Thinking on this, Luke pulled the soul points prompt up in his head.

Soul tempering until next rank: [270/10,000]

He'd killed another ghoul upon reaching the adept stage, finding the fight to be far easier than it had been before. In fact, he'd only taken three swings of his chain to kill the creature, his new efficiency with pushing energy into his chain proving quite deadly to the creatures. Atop of that he'd killed two more of the flying creatures, which similar to the ghouls had become more frequent upon his killing of the first, as well as a large number of adept husks.

In truth, it wasn't exactly his growth that had slowed down as he had in fact found far more creatures in the past week than he had the week before. Rather it was that his growth wasn't able to keep up with the higher number of soul points he needed to reach the elite stage. Atop of that, he had yet to reach the common stage, which only furthered his frustration at the lack of enemies to fight.

Luke knew that if he wanted to escape the castle in a reasonable amount of time, he would have to continue to grow stronger at the quick pace he'd been doing so. Which meant one thing, that he had to explore more parts of the castle. Namely, the large section of the castle Aerin had told him to lay behind the feast hall.

Even with being an adept, Luke knew the fight would be a challenging one, and that… excited him. Since reaching his new rank, he'd been cutting through enemies with ease and had begun to crave a challenge.

Stepping out of the Evergarden, Luke set off for his destination in a pleased mood, a smile on his lips.

Just like the first time Luke had been to the feast hall, the doors were closed. He opened them to look inside, only momentarily activating his veil to take in the view of the creatures inside.

A horde of creatures lay within, with many crawling on the ground or laying stationary at cots. The creature Luke, believed to be another knight wandered around the room in a large arc as if patrolling the area.

Luke was sure his chains would have no trouble cutting through the adept, novice, and unranked husks with ease. Yet considering his last fight with a husk of a knight, he severely doubted his chain would cut do as much damage, heated or not. For a moment Luke studied the scene before taking a deep breath and deactivating his veil.

Taking a deep breath, Luke savored the anticipation in his stomach before opening the door and running towards the horde in the center of the room. His guess was that there was around three-to-four hundred beasts, with only about forty to fifty of them in fighting shape. His goal was simple, lead the husks capable of chasing him away and deal with them first while retreating. Once those husks were finished, and the knight slain he would come back and dispatch the weaker assembly with ease.

Of course, the first part of the plan was getting the attention of the horde of husks and getting them to follow him while he retreated. Once he was in a range of ten feet, Luke used mana step to get within six feet of the nearest husk. Whipping out with a red-hot chain, Luke slammed the length of red metal links into the creature with a blur of motion.

The hot metal slammed into the creature's white skin and sheered right through with a hissing sound. Two halves of the creature topped to the stone ground, just as the other beasts noticed Luke's presence and began to charge. To his surprise, some of the creatures that were lying on the ground rose to their feet to join the charge. Though most of them stayed in place, at least most of the ones in the range of his omniscience.

A loud clanking sound came in quick successions as the knight husk began to head for him as well. Luke smiled at his success and swung out again in a spinning motion with his left chain. When he swung, he summoned the full length of his chain, shearing through not one but two of the creatures and knocking one clad in robes backwards.

'An elite', Luke noted, as he sensed the creature's body hadn't been sheered all the way through, and instead displayed a heavy mark of blackened skin.

It seemed as though his chains could only sheer through beings of his level, or lower than his level. He'd noted this with some of the other husks he'd fought but supposed it didn't make too much difference as his empowered chains still did some extra damage to the creatures.

A creature charged him from the right and had the top half of its head severed completely by one of his chains. Several more creatures, including the elite began to charge him from his front side. Slashing out with both of his chains in a x motion, Luke killed several of them and landed hard blows on the elite's chest.

A tight knit group of three husks were heading at him from his left, with one of them being pushed towards his backside.

'I can't let them get behind me, if they do, I won't be able to retreat', Luke reminded himself as he turned to throw a series of chain strikes at the group.

The whole point of his standing and fighting in the cafeteria was to ensure that the husks were grouped up enough that he could kill multiple per chain strike. That way when he began to retreat, he could kill several of them at a time while also recovering his stamina enough to use his mana step.

Of course, that plan became much more complicated if his retreat became cut off.

Luke killed two more husks, and landed another blow on the elite by the time the knight reached him. It was fast, perhaps slightly slower than the last one had been but still fast enough to make Luke wary.

As soon as the night was on him it lunged at him, with Luke attempting to swat it away with one of his chains. To his shock the chain barely knocked it off course, not slowing its charge at all, even with his adept strength. Cursing, Luke used mana step to get some distance, dodging the creatures strike completely.

Swinging out with his chain, Luke landed a hit on the creature's helmet, knocking off its bald head. Before he could follow up with a strike, Luke had to divert his attention to another husk charging him from his left. Slamming his red chain into the creature's head, Luke noted that it had been an elite husk, as its head exploded from force rather than being cut through.

Whipping around in the same motion, Luke built momentum into his swing as he turned all the way around in a circle and slammed both of his chains into the knight. The creature toppled to the side, slamming into the ground with a thud. It immediately began moving once more, and more of the husks had already reached Luke.

Mana stepping back once more, Luke flew through the open wooden door he'd entered from and found himself in the wide hallway. This was the part of the plan that mattered the most and was the central reasoning he'd chosen to retreat from the feast hall, rather than fight in the open space.

As the horde rushed into the hallway after him, the sides of the horde began getting slammed into the stone walls. While the husks at the front of the horde began getting trampled over or shoved by the husks behind them.

Smiling, Luke began to unleash a devastating series of blows on the horde, aiming all of his strikes around the height of the creatures' heads. Each strike of his chain slaughtered five or six of the creatures, all while they continued to be forced into one another, limiting their charge.

Luke estimated he killed at least forty before a figure began to trample through the husk horde, as the knight husk's armored form appeared once more. Adding in two more hurried strikes towards the creatures, Luke managed to kill one more husk but missed with his second strike.

Then the husks were on him, and he had to retreat once more, the physical labor of the fight already causing him to sweat. Just as he had hoped, the knight removed itself from the horde and began chasing after him, gaining a lead on the lesser ranked creatures.

The knight reached him quickly, with Luke lashing out with a series of strikes on the moving creature. Three of his strikes successfully hit the creatures' head, leaving a small crater of black gore in their wake. None of the blows were strong enough to cut through the creature, as Luke realized it was far sturdier than the last knight husks.

As Luke began to prepare another back step, the creature did something none of the other husks he'd seen had done so far. It used magic.

It was not external magic like his chains, or his ability to summon a single chain which he'd yet to use in battle. Rather it was a form of mana manipulation, as Luke could make out a cold dark mana spreading through the creature's body with his Daranthian.

The manipulation wasn't as precise as Luke's own mana step, as the mana only emanated throughout the husk's entire body, but the effects were none the less similar.

Mana empowering its body, the creature moved with speed faster than Luke's own mana step. Clearing the distance to Luke in an instant it lashed out with its claws in a stabbing motion unlike any of the sloppy moves the other husks had used so far. The creature's long black nails reached Luke's stomach and pierced through with ease.

Gut wrenching pain enveloped him, as Luke was skewered through, two of the creature's black fingernail tips piercing out his backside. A cough of blood escaped Luke's mouth, splattering on the dead creature's white face.

Acting on instinct, Luke mana stepped backwards, feeling another punch of pain as his body flew off the creature's arm. Slamming out with his right chain, he slammed it into the creature's head and left another crater. The beast didn't notice, as it sped towards him again and slashed out with a claw, Luke barely managed to mana step away, the movement causing him more pain as the claw reached him. Despite using mana step, Luke ended up with a thin cut across his chest, leading more blood to fall around him.

Coughing out again and fighting the pain that welled up from his stomach with each movement. Luke tried to swing his chain again only to be toppled over as the creature lunged into him, knocking him to his backside with the air escaping his lungs.

Covered in blood and gasping, Luke raised his arms as the creature lunged atop his prone form, its mouth open to dark rotted teeth. Pressing his palms against the creature's head, Luke let out a breathless grunt as he strained against its mana enforced strength. The creature was stronger than him, and Luke was still catching his lost breath.

'I-I'm going to die', Luke thought through his pain and struggling.

That didn't scare as much as he thought it should, rather it made him angry.

Forcing himself to focus, Luke used all of his will to activate the only ability he'd yet to use in the battle.

The creature head was jerked forwards, as the small chain spear slammed into the top of its head, killing it on impact.

Luke took no time to focus on his victory, throwing the corpse of him, ignoring the pain his movements caused, and scrambled to his feet. The horde was close as ever, his fight with the knight taking him far longer than he had originally thought it would.

Forcing himself to mana step back, Luke scrambled for the satchel on his back. Reaching into it and producing his metal canteen and ripping the tip off of it. Without wasting any time, Luke chugged the healing water inside as fast as he could. Then taking about half of it, he poured it over his stomach wound, allowing it to heal his skin.

The healing was slow, but the process had begun, smiling with bloody teeth. Luke looked at the approaching horde, feeling a rush of excitement, anger, and adrenaline course through his veins.

Holding out his hands to his side, he summoned both his chains and let their lengths fall to the floor.

Moments later, the chained man and the horde of soulless monsters met each other.