EVerything! So far...

{Chiron VS Freaks}

The 4 awakened and the ascended stared down Chiron, as looked scared sh"tless on the outside, but within he felt nothing but how it felt to be scared sh"tless. *whbahsgajsha WHYYYYYY?! Can't I just go home?! I'll respawn as a nightmare creature! Just let meh ghooo!*

But no amount of loathing his current situation would be enough to stop his mind from analyzing the situation and finding a way out! This couple of minutes the awakened spent talking allowed him to finish condensing and digesting enough coffee to to forcefully alleviate his condition.

With enough food in his body to accommodate it, Chiron impatiently forced his heart to pump blood faster by manually simulating a heartbeat using his ability. With his heightened blood pressure and beats delivering all the resources he digested to rapidly recover some stamina and let his body rest slightly.

With the nearly animalistic instincts he developed from the numerous near-death scenarios he has face, If not for his sleeplessness and crippled right ear and left eye, he would most likely be at the peak of his physical fitness and current potential.

Chiron even made enough time to scan through the rest the memories he recently acquired and found an extra useful one.

Memory: [Hilt strong].

Memory Rank: dormant.

Memory Type: weapon

Weapon attributes: [copper], [Barbed hilt]

Memory Description: [A copper greatsword. No one knows for what reason, but it has a spiked hilt, injuring the wielder, but giving a neigh unbreakable grip!]

He equiped said sword discretely and got ready to fight. The awakened noticed the new sword Chiron held and shrugged,, they finally decided to approach him and finish off the thorn in their sides. The swordsman, Elbaf and the rogue were the one coming towards him and they seemed to be on a leisurely stroll. They didn't make the slightest of effort to approach him.

*A stupid powerplay! I am already freaking out and I am still 100* down to fight! They can't keep underestimating me with this sh"t! Tha-* But before he could even finish his thought process, his consciousness began to fade away. He felt a burning sensation from the back of his head, ans heard the loud sound of a bomb exploding.

Chiron's vision blurred and his senses nearly went blank, as his brain went flying back and forth inside his skull. With barely any sense of balance left, he had to use his sword as a cane to not fall over. This was the first and last mistake Chiron was allowed to make.

Before he could even regain his bearings, a hammer hit him directly on the left side of his face, caving in his cheek and eye socket... But they didn't stop there! He felt several piercing stabs in his sensitive region, a massive wound suddenly open on the back of his neck, nearly severing his spinal brain and the final blow was an arrow shot at said wound, barely not leaving him crippled due to Elbaf knocking his face back too much.

Within a second, he had sustained enough injuries to kill a man several times over and his body was nothing if not a normal human's. He fell onto the ground without even a chance. He rapidly did damage control by condensing his body, but he knew his ability wouldn't be fast enough to fix all the damage from the 3 prong Strack. *FHUCK!*

The thing holding Chiron back now was no longer his mastery over his ability, but his limited mind. He used his impatient attribute's effect to speed up his body condensing, but he suddenly felt something weird.

And that was when he felt it snap inside of him! In his torso, he felt it deep within, his stomach had torn open and all the food in his body was about to rush out into his body. Vomit rushed up his throat and almost out of his mouth, as it flooded his lungs and he now had 5 targets he needed to delicately condense. *BUNKER DOWN!*

Luckily he manged to force that area of his torso to condense and keep the food inside his stomach, then forcefully condense said stomach. *The fuck? Why haven't I been attacked yet?* For some reason, Chiron felt like several seconds had passed, but no attack had reached him. He felt his eye pulsating in agony, as vision began to return, but before that he needed to fix everything.

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Chiron quickly fixed his open wounds and grabbed his sword even tighter, as he rolled backwards, barely in time to dodge a gigantic hammer about to cave in his heart.

Chiron stood up, as the left half of his face was being forcefully healed and stood staring at death itself, with his sword pointed at it!

Elbaf looked surprised, as he gazed at Chiron. *How did he move that fast? Isn't his body extremely rigid? His dexterity should be cut by 50%, at least!* Almost everyone on the battlefield had a similar thought as him and no one knew the answer.

Chiron had barely moved at all during the previous weeks. After he was confident he had stalled for long enough, he just bunkered down and fought, barely ever changing location, as the battlefield he stood on right now was still littered with some corpses and was completely dyed red.

His ability made him stiff and made controlling his body twice as hard, that was an undeniable fact and a necessity. This was as obvious as daylight, but here it was, the turtle had moved as fast as a hare and none understood how that happened.

While they wore surprise on their faces, Chiron kept observing them all. Slowly becoming more and more prepared to fight! The awakened got out of their stupor soon enough and decided to end this once and for all. They became serious, as some activated their abilities. They regarded Chiron as a threat, one of the most serious threats they have faced so far.

*Why are they moving slower?* Elbaf and the other two rushed at Chiron, they put their all into it, as Elbaf seemed to become smaller and faster, while the swordsman had a projected purple aura around his body and the shorter rogue with the sais didn't change, but Chiron could see his veins bulge and the sais tremble for a couple seconds along with everything else... Slowly.

They were all strong awakened with powerful abilities, but it looked like they were barely moving and reminded Chiron of helpless children. *What is going on?* He stared at the turtles, who rushed at him at the speed of smell.

It took them nearly 13 seconds to approach him and the first to do so was the short rogue. He ran up to Chiron, intending to repeat what he did, but his weapon seemed to be frozen in time, as he suddenly became even slower. All Chiron had to do was just step to the side and he kicked the hand with the sai to redirect the attack and take no damage.

*Okay, what's up? I know I haven't become faster and I know none of my physical stats have increased. Did I pull a Futurama Fry thing and overdose on caffeine so much I entered hyper speed? This most definitely isn't originating from my body, it's still stiff and clunky as ever and I don't feel any different.* Chiron couldn't understand what was going on, how could anyone?

His body was still stiff and he still moved as fast as a snail, like his body does and nothing changed, but the swordsman's swing at his neck and Chiron just easily ducked under the swing and kicked him over, feeling the prickly stabs of the man's aura.

*Okay, I know nothing about ME has changed, but what about them? Everybody else has slowed down and they are moving way slower than me.* They were moving at half, maybe even a quarter of their maximum speed and he could follow their movements with much greater ease *Is this what people mean when they say you perceive time slower moments before death?! Heh, no way. I'm not moments away from death!*

Elbaf swung his massive hammer at Chiron's head, but that didn't mean anything! Chiron ducked under Elbaf and dived left, so he lands in a squared position, as he decides to do something *FUN* before this unexplainable phenomenon ended for him. He smiles, as he looks at the gremlin rogue near him and stares deeply into his soul.

His spine tingled and his scalp went numb, as the shorter man felt like death itself had decided he had lived enough. He stared into Chiron's eyes and his instincts screamed one thing at him *RUN!*, but that didn't mean anything.

To Chiron, him running was the same as a casual walk. His body expanded to its maximum size to give him the edge in movement speed and he rushed at the little man. His grin widened up to his ears, as he easily caught up to the tiny man, who turned around fast and swung his wolverine arms at him, but why should Chiron care?

His blood pumped, as his body accelerated even more and he jumped straight at the gremlin. His body stretched back as much as it could when he jumped. He rotated in midair, until his body was diving towards the gremlin, before a sudden fierce caused his body to rivet backwards, but his perception was too strong for that to cause any problems.

Without any warning, as if he were a spring finally being let loose, his body instantly expanded to its original size and did a 360⁰ spin, as his gigantic sword came down on top of the short rogue's shoulder.

When he suddenly swung down the sword, the speedy gremlin of Elbaf's Cohort couldn't react. The only thing he managed to do was stab Chiron in the liver, as his body was split diagonally, starting from his left shoulder, going through his lungs, heart and coming out passing through the liver.

The 10 seconds between Chiron barely surviving imminent death and him dying were nowhere near enough for such a powerful human to accept this outcome. He died right then and there, trying to process how till his last moment.

Chiron's sword landed on the ground, and he felt something weird. His sword was stiffer than normal. It felt... Slower?! Slower to the point Chiron easily used it as a vaulting tool to flip himself and land back on his two legs, ready to fight!

He stared at the two, who had barely even moved. Elbaf was still just making a running motion, while the swordsman was fighting in lower case. Chiron's eyes lit up and his toothy grin stared at them, as he seemed to finally realize what was going on.

His eyes dilated, as his body condensed down at an unprecedented speed! Elbaf watched, as Chiron's expression warped into a demonic one and his eyes dilated to the point where they seemed like a black hole. He felt fear, as he stared into the abyss... But the abyss cared naught for him!

Chiron's face snapped over behind him and he saw the woman in cloak. *I'm feeling... HYPER!*

The rest of them watched as Chiron did that and suddenly snapped right back towards them with an even more demonic smile.

His lacerated left eye, several gaping wounds, that were torn open forcefully after being shut forcefully and the metal sticking out of where his ear used to be did nothing to hinder the dread the awakened felt at the sight of his smile.

Especially the female, who was stared down by said abyss a second ago. Her heart pounded, as she flinched and subconsciously turned away, looking backwards, only to see...

[ You have slain an awakened human, unknown human]

[ You have slain an awakened human, unknown human]

[You have received a memory: Blazing Glory]

Chiron's smile was as broad as ever, when he saw that notification and the female saw a spear impale her through her head. *Preparation is half the battle and what has killed half of the freaks!*

The echo he hid long before the awakened even came onto the field finally paid off. This was the first gamble he had won. Chiron was willing to bet the cloak wasn't much of a defensive tool, but he was fortunate enough to startle her into facing down her death, not even having to worry about if the cloak was good defense or not, as his Echo ended the awakened instantly.

"Run away!" Chiron ordered quickly and the echo disappeared into the crowd just as fast eventually disappearing literally and returning to being an Echo in Chiron's soul sea. Those who tried to apprehend it, never even stood a chance, as before they even realized it was near them, it disappeared.

Elbaf grit his teeth and looked at Chiron with undisguised anger "Damn it! To think we had even more traitors! Find me who ever that was and bring me his head! You, Chiron the bastard, prepare to die!"

The two awakened he had been facing suddenly rushed towards him... *Shit! Guess whatever that was is no longer active! But it no longer matters, I can fight now!*

The arrows rained down, as the tall man kept shooting him. Chiron quickly condensed back to 6 feet and shut his wounds again. The arrows left small piercing points and superficial cuts, but that was that. He turned his back toward the archer, who now could no longer see Chiron's eyes, so his sight was safe and no other senses mattered to him.

Elbaf descended his hammer with greater force than any awakened could ever dream of, but that meant nothing, as Chiron simply took a step back and Elbaf's slow self couldn't reach him. While he countered every attack Elbaf threw at him, the swordsman was completely ignoring the defense part of his aura and concentrated it all on the sword.

Chiron wanted to attempt to endure it, but he knew he wouldn't be able to take another hit from Elbaf or the swordsman, the only chump he could tank was the archer now. But the situation was miles better now! There were no bombimancers to ambush him and only physical attackers to combat were peft, the original 4 awakened and 1 ascended VS Chiron had been effectively reduced to a 2v1 between Chiron and Elbaf and his sword!

One side had 2 awakened and 1 ascended, while the other was a simply dormant man. Any sane person would say it is obvious who would be winning, but reality is often not so straight forward.

The soldiers watched incredulously, as a mighty ascended general and his elite cohort were being fought off by 1 man. Their faces wore expressions of horror, as they could only watch Chiron randomly explode with bursts of speed and accumulate wound after wound on the head of Elbaf, dodging the masterful swordsmanship displayed by the man and paying no attention to the archer.

Even Elbaf himself could only watch in horror. Chiron's strikes weren't even powerful, they were as weak as ever. This mysterious acceleration added no strength to him, but, for someone, who doesn't have Chiron's unique mindset, cuts accumulate and the bleeding gets only worse! "Eeeelbaf! Deeeeth is nir!" His voice distorted along with his unpredictable bursts of speed. Sometimes sounding extremely fast, but the next moment stopping at a single note.

Slash

Clank

Clank

Clank

Slash!

Chiron kept his eye only on Elbaf, attacking him without giving recovery time... But that was as far from the truth as it could be. Not for a second has Chiron even stopped keeping tabs on the archer, much less the swordsman, but they didn't know that.

Chiron swung the greatsword at Elbaf with a wide arc, but his speed decreased, almost returning to normal. "NOW!" screamed Elbaf, as his sword rushed at Chiron, all the aura once again focused in the sword, while Elbaf himself brought his shield up to block.

Chiron chuckled in super Speed, as he once again accelerated, easily hitting Elbaf and turning around to counter the swordsman, but the speed he went was far greater now than even before! He parried the swordsman and instantly swung for his neck!

*Sh"t! My aura can't make it in time!* The aura traveled up the sword to the body of the swordsman, but how could his speed compare to Chiron? Sadly, just like the awakened faced the harsh reality of life, so did Chiron.

Running on nothing but caffeine and willpower took its toll on him, as the caffeine crash hit him all at once, causing his concentration to falter and distracted him from keeping this state up, giving the aura enough time to cover the swordsman, saving his life, but Chiron was no fool!

*If I can't have your life, I will take what your friend also took from me!* His concentration slipped for only a half second, as he instantly forced himself to recover and used the aura to bounce his sword upwards, towards the swordsman's ear, directly severing it!

*F"ck! I was careless with my aura! I can't keep my aura only on my blade and active with such intensity, my soul essence is running out and I will exhaust it soon, then I will be nothing but dead weight to sir Elbaf... Or just dead! I need to decrease my intensity or I will also face the same fate as the others!*

Chiron's smile got wider and wider when he saw the aura stop flaring and decreasing. He was ready to charge the swordsman down, but arrows rushed at his face. He was no fool to trade his life for the swordsman's, so Chiron turned back and ignored the arrows and the weaker swordsman's strike attempts.

He simply didn't care about the "weaklings" any longer. His one eye only watched Elbaf, as his body shrunk, expanded, pulsated along with his speed and voice "EEEeeeelbaffff!"

His haunting and distorted voice boomed across the entire battlefield, as Elbaf kept taking steps back from the now intensified onslaught. It seemed as if... Chiron was moving faster and faster!

Everyone watched in horror, as their beloved ascended was being pushed back, while his men couldn't even do anything. The swordsman swung, but it accomplished nothing. The archer shot arrows, but every arrow had the exact same result...

Whoosh!

An arrows was shot toward Chiron by the archer one again. It was no different from all the others he had shot, the same material, same arrow head, same tail end and the same spin. The only slight difference was, that he had reposition himself to Chiron's side... and used his true awakened power for the first time throughout this fight!

It seemed as if it was an ordinary arrow, but it was rotating and the archer was shifting his fingers in a weird twitchy ways. The arrow approached Chiron's back and it looked like there would be no effect, just like the rest of them, but when it was a few meters away from hitting, the arrow drifted. It arced 80⁰ around Chiron and went directly for Chiron's one good eye!

The arrow arced so fast, by the time it entered its true trajectory, it was only a few centimeters away from Chiron's eye, it was half a second away from making contact and that would be the death of Chiron. Without sight, he would stand no chance.

All of that, only to eventually cause no damage once again, like the rest of the arrows. Unlike everyone else's, from Chiron's perspective something else happened.

His head spun around unnaturally fast, the fastest he has moved yet and he caught the arrow between his teeth! His smile reached all the war to his ears, as he bit down and broke the arrow's shaft and spat out the head. His full concentration was now on the archer, his one good eye, wide as a beholder's, looked directly into both of the archer's at the same time and seemed to even peer into his soul.

The archer saw the madman concentrate on him and shuddered. The only things keeping him safe from this unlikable beast was the distance between them and his teammates. And, as if a cruel joke by fate itself, the distance became nothing but a joke.

The short and clumsy man blurred, he ran so fast! Within 2 seconds, he covered the entire distance and swung his sword down onto the archer. Before anyone even realized what was going on, a third awakened had died!

Chiron took a deep breath, as his body suddenly stopped pulsating and his voice was no longer distorted "So, that's how my attribute works. Hehe!" His body turned around, slowly this time and stared at Elbaf now, his smile was gone now.

He looked as if he had achieved zen, as if the world around him didn't mean anything to him and all Elbaf could see was... Pity? As if he had ascended and the army surrounding him was no threat!

As if to rove this theory right, Chiron hit the ground with his sword and it instantly caught on fire! The blazing greatsword was at the ready to reap lives, as Chiron's one good eye stared into the depth of Elbaf's soul. His calm expression nothing, if not unnerving, as if his crazed persona before was nothing but an act and now he considered them so far below him acting was no longer needed.

"ATTACK HIM! EVERYONE! ATTACK! WE MUST KILL THIS CREATURE TODAY BEFORE HE HAS ANY CHANCE TO AWAKEN FURTHER!"

*Ah fuck, I think I oversold that. Now I scared the awakened too much for them to send more men at me and give me easy awakened kills.*

The soldiers rushed at Chiron, but he was in no hurry to fight back, he had plenty of time to think.

*So, these thousands of idiots want to fight me. What are my options? I can escape for starters. I finally figured out the impatient attribute, I'd say I'm at 99% mastery of it and how to use it in conjecture with my ability, but now I can't use much. If I use it, sure, I could TRY escaping, but what's the point in escaping? I can gathering so many dormant memories, hundreds maybe, and having as many memories as possible for my blazing glory is a good thing. With that huge bonus, how could I stop killing and say no?*

*Plus, if I use it, I will still have to fight my way through the encirclement, which will be easy, but a waste of good training time and no amount of time I compress will allow me to overcome the exhaustion of staying awake for over half a month. The coffee's effect will eventually run out. When the crash happens again, I don't want the crash to hit me at 10 times speed! If that happens, my concentration will slip and I'm as good as dead meat. I already made this mistake and cost me an awakened kill, so no more!*

That's right, Chiron's first attribute and the one he regarded as useless had an ability related to time.

This attribute of his allowed him to condense time, allowing him to do what he could only do in 10 seconds in 1. He would live 10 secondshimself, while only 1 would pass for everyone else.

Unlike If such a powerful ability was given by an aspect, it would have minimal flaws and consume plenty of soul essence, but this was a powr his real body used itself through an innate attribute. He could theoretically keep using it indefinitely, but living 10 times faster means in a single years, you would have to consume 10 years worth of food and your lifespan will decrease by 10 years.

*Such a power should only be used when absolutely necessary. I don't want to die a 20 year old 65 year old! Well, I don't care much about this illusionary body, so it matters not what happens to it! Hell, I want to constantly be in this state. The downside of 10 times lowered lifespan is nothing compared to potential years of combat experience I will gain from this nightmare!*

And so the final decision was made. Chiron decided to let this play out. He had a plan to get himself out of this situation now that he had awakened this power. He had enough food and water to ladt him several months and that's what he planned to do. He was going to bunker down, hoard all the items and eventually escape back to... What country was he fighting on the side of again?

It didn't matter, all he needed to do was survive! Chiron swung his flaming sword as he reaped lives every couple of swings. His enemies were numerous, but his ability allowed him to erupt with great speed suddenly and kill a few of them every couple of swings, but for each swung he made, 10 swords and arrows it his body, accomplishing the bare minimum.

Day after day, night after night, he kept fighting. He made sure to occasionally remind everyone of his ability and every hour burst out with unimaginable speed to kill several soldiers, who were trading positions due to exhaustion.

And so time went, weeks passed by. Week after week, humans were sent to the meat grinder to slowly whittle away at Chiron, never letting him rest. Sadly for them, Chiron figure out long ago how to take power naps during the battlefield.

It took a couple of minute for the exhausted troops to switch out with less tired one and those few minutes every once in a while were enough for Chiron to take a short power nap of 15-30 minutes and revitalize his mind, if just a small bit. These bits of rest added up over time and the charm memory in his arsenal supported his mind just barely enough to avid his mentality collapsing and, gradually, he got better and better.

His plan was such, keep fighting till he is out of food and then some, until he can no longer continue and collapses. And a month of continuous fighting went by. Then another, then another and so forth until it had been nearly 6 months since Chiron came to this world and 5 months since his rampage began! But for him it had been much longer. His mind had spent over a year in his body, if the corpse he now occupied could even be called that.

He had killed more men than he could remember and has amassed countless memories. Of course, he has lost countless more to wear and tear from the constant fighting, having had 20 weapon memories destroyed in total.

Mostly due to the flame he himself used as a crutch when Elbaf thought he could sneak an awakened opponent into the battle and forcing the weapon to exert 120% of its potential. His body long since weakened.

Most people could barely even recognize Chiron at this point. The once mighty calamity had been reduced to a skinny "thing", that's sole purpose was killing. His original towering 7 feet height had been compressed to barely not over 3 feet. Most of his "2 handed weapons" were standard 1 handed swords he was too small to use one handed now and his muscles had been cut and withered down to look skinny on his smaller body

After the initial 3 months, no one considered him much of a threat anymore and Aranai decided to use him, rather than kill him directly. He had run out of steam to continue his slaughter, but he had kept going out if sheer willpower. He fought for 2 months while starving, his only source of drink being the occasional rain.

He was used as a whetstone to weed out the weak and train the strong by his enemies, as Elbaf had completely given up on killing him and he himself was too fearful to attempt to kill Chiron, thinking the weak exterior was nothing but a facade, that he was pretending to get him to lower his guard, allowing a fetal strike.

And, to a certain extent he was right. The first month of Chiron appearing weakened was a trick, but later on he had truly weakened too much to escape. By then, Elbaf was given direct orders to not have any awakened approach Chiron and he has to listen to what he considered the greatest mistake Aranai had ever made.

After the continuous fighting, his body gradually acclimated to becoming smaller. Chiron had to chip away at his own heart to support his constant shrinking and this was damage he would never be able to recover from. He was indeed too weakened now to do anything and on this fateful day, he finally collapsed.

He didn't collapse out of exhaustion, not from injury, not from an enemy attack. His heart simply stopped and he fell down. He no longer held a weapon and neither did he have enough strength to walk or even move. He returned his time back to normal, curled up into a fetal position and died.

{End of Chiron}

"I think the dummy finally exhausted itself to death." The soldier who said this out loud lowered his sword and let it rest back into his sheath. He approached the "child's" corpse. It looked wretched, dried, sunburnt to the point of it developing several black epidermis, needed to be shed like a lizard.

The man was a lot more wary of the corpse than he should be, but he didn't think his cautiousness was a mistake. He slowly approached and, as soon as he determined himself to be within reach, he swung his sword straight down.

His sword hit the corpse's forehead and exposed bone, but there was no blood left in the body to bleed and so nothing came out. The man nodded at this confirmation and turned to the other soldiers near him. "Inform General Elbaf, that the 'creature' has been dealt with."

The 6 of the soldiers nodded their heads and 3 of them yelled to confirm the order. Their leader nodded back and the six of the soldiers looked back at the 3, obviously voting them as the ones, who would be reporting to Elbaf. They scoffed, one of them even saying "of course we'll do this, you mute f"cks! Not like you idiots can do anything besides listen."

They furrowed their brows, but didn't say anything, as they apparently could not. The three gathered up, as they went together to meet their fortress's highest authority, the ascended Elbaf.

Even though he fell out of grace several months ago due to his inability to deal with Chiron with the cohort he had cultivated himself, he was still an ascended Guardian of Aranai. A mountain of a man, who can crush any lesser through the sheer weight of the armour he wears, much less his actual physical might, or the violence of his hammer.

With such qualifications, they couldn't afford to completely cut him off from the war, so the only thing the queen and her advisors could do was confine Elbaf to this fortress under the pretense of "guarding" it.

... And Elbaf, being the loyalist he truly is, expedited their plot by suggesting himself to be put in charge of Assai to contain the threat, that is Chiron. That is why the 3 soldiers in front of him felt nothing but complete scrutiny after reporting what had happened with the utmost diligence possible.

His gaze made them feel nothing but dread, as he searched for ANY nconsistency in their story. ANY suspicion of this being a plot. ANY reason to not have to go there and see Chiron, but the long time that passed was enough to make people forget the terror of an actual demon, much less a simple human. Even Elbaf had become complacent and was convinced to go back and confirm his death himself.

They arrived at the training grounds within 10 minutes after departing. The soldiers panted, as they had to keep up with an ascended rushing from sheer determination... And what they saw was rather normal.

Their team's leader was swinging his sword and training, while the 6 of their comrades were away. Elbaf furrowed his brows, as he looked at the now sweating leader and the soldiers, who felt unnaturally revitalized and quickly fell in line behind their leader.

"Sir, Elbaf sir! Leader of team 37 reporting! What brings you to our training, general?! *F*ck! Why did he come personally? I never expected him to come here right away. Doesn't he have more important things to do, than check on the training dummy?*"

Elbaf couldn't care less about his surroundings. He looked at the team's leader and said a simple question "Where is Chiron!" Rather than a question, it was a demand. And if he wasn't given the answer he wanted, someone would suffer.

The team leader gulped and averted his gaze from Elbaf's face and looked towards the left. "Sir! I had my 6 underlings throw him into the corpse pit to be burned, sir!" His eyes narrowed in anger.

He turned his gaze towards the soldier, who had provided him with the full report previously and said "You are from now on the temporary leader of team 37. This decision is based on the previous leader's inability to follow proper procedure. If there is any complaint, hold it in till the temporary leader takes us to the nearest designated burning pit and you better have prayed to the queen almighty, as if there is a corpse more than 1 in that pit... or less than 6 valiant and 1 vile corpses burning, you won't have a head on your shoulders to ask for redemption!"

The temporary leader gulped, as he didn't even acknowledge his new promotion and directly went to where the pit is, his exhaustion completely forgotten and replaced by wanting to sh"t his pants.

They were there within 5 minutes and saw a single guard near the edge... Which wasn't a good sign. The said guard nearly fell down when he saw the mountain of a general and quickly saluted and stood at attention. Elbaf didn't mince any words and got directly to the point "how many men came here to burn a corpse within the last hour?!"

The man calmed down and said "Sir, Elbaf sir! There have been no visit- " "at ease!" Elbaf directly cut the reporting soldier off, as he turned towards the ex-leader, who was sweating buckets and sh''tting bricks already.

His voice turned stern, as he held the man's shoulder. "According to the wartime policy, you, leader of the 37th team, are to be tried for insubordination of a direct order given by an official several times your superior and higher rank. By the authority given to me by her grace the queen you are to be tried by me. Tell me, how do you plead?!"

The man breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn't believe his luck! Elbaf turned out to be a stickler for the rules and would try him as an insubordinate, rather than direct execution. Even if inhumane, a medieval dungeon is much better than execution. He directly bowed his head, as he was being held by Elbaf and couldn't bow his head. He, without any hesitation, pleaded "Guilty! I'll accept any punishment!"

Elbaf nodded. "Commendable. According to the military law of conduct you are to be labeled and tried based on the severity and consequences of your insubordination." The soldier's complexion got paler suddenly . "As your actions of insubordination have led to a supremely dangerous war criminal and highest class threat to go Missing in Action, you are to be tried as his accomplice and be liable to be tried for half of his crimes, along with being tried as a traitor due to the status of your accomplice. By the authority given to me by her divine grace the queen I sentence you to immediate capture and to be executed with impunity!"

The soldier began sweating buckets, as he saw his life flashing before his very eyes, as Elbaf's grip tightened and his shoulder directly broke apart into bone fragments. He was going to scream in pain, but within a second a fist passed through his left cheek and out of his right temple.

He was killed on the spot. Elbaf used the "cavity" he had created to tightly hold the corpse, as he threw it into the pit and shook the blood and brain matter off of his hand. He looked at the other three and said "go to your commander minor and tell then to reassign you three!"

He clenched his fists and breathed out to calm himself before continuing "And inform him, that all 6 of your teammates have gone missing in action, your previous leader has been tried, found guilty and punished as a traitor and to create several wanted posters detailing Chiron's appearance. I will personally take the person, who brings me the head of Chiron as a retainer and guarantee a lesser position in my personal troops or a reward of equal value to anyone with information on his location!" They quickly nodded and ran off.

Elbaf turned back to the only remaining person at the scene "Burn the traitor with fiend fire and extinguish his vile bloodline if he has any relatives who dare to live on the holy lands their kin betrayed!"

He finished the official part of his job and directly stormed back to his office, not willing to let work pile up even at the expense of his psychological health. *I will get my hands on you, Chiron! No matter where you are or how long it will take! Your precious attachments will fall and I will make you watch!*

He sat down to finish up the paperwork and all the civil matters he had to attend to for the day, but one thought lived in his mind rent free, 'where the f"ck is Chiron?!'

{Rescue That Man!}

In a forest to the north of Assai six 'things' ran in the woods. One of them, who appeared to be the leader held a mummified corpse, wrapped in a black bandage. The most interesting part was, that the mummy's body wiggled in intervals and increased in size bit by bit.

*Ah, ah, ah, yeah, stayin alive! Stayin alive! Ah ah-* in Chiron's old world there was a special maneuver for when someone's heart stopped and the best suggestion was to time it in accorcande to a popular song, which Chiron now adopted the rhythm of, so that he could artificially pump his own blood. With this, he kept his own body barely alive, as he had nearly no nutrients left in his body to recover with.

Chiron kept the manual pump going, as he stayed awake and kept watch over the six humans taking him somewhere. *Yes, my pretty little Echoes! Take me to a cave.* Hours passed, as Chiron and his team reacher a cave, where a mama bear and her cubs lived... Emphasis on lived. They were killed almost instantly by the W warriors escorting Chiron.

They passed her and finished off 4 cubs inside the passageway and placed Chiron against the wall. He was fully awake and could finally open his one good eye, which was somewhat blurry from not having seen direct lighting for weeks.

He lifted a finger and a large team of humanoids appeared in front of him. He looked around at his legion and grinned in his head, his body was too broken to do anything besides that. *20 humanoid echos! Now THAT is what I call reaping what you have sown!*

He had killed thousands of men on the battlefield over the months and amassed a massive amount of memories. His total amount is exactly 350 memories and 20 echos, which were all humanoid echos. After gathering so many examples, Chiron had learned something about Aranai human Echoes, that put into perspective the humanoid VS nightmare creature Echoes. Most of them were useless.

Some memories were destroyed due to his fighting, the main culprit being his new favorite memory, but he had survived and had hundreds of memories he could do anything he wanted with! His latest haul was truly the best!

Echo: 19

Utility: 130

Armour: 38

Weapon: 40

Charm: 81

If he ever left the nightmare spell and sold even just a fraction of his memories after, the amount of money he would get would be enough to fill up with soul cores and even buy some better memories... That is if any of them were useful! They were all dormant memories! While dormant memories can sell for good money, as he has nearly 100 weapon/armour memories, he can most definitely sell them and make enough money to live. A decent life. He only had 2 non dormant memories he would never give up and considered his own, the assassin's rags and the blazing glory bracelet.

Memory: [Blazing Glory]

Memory Rank: Awakened.

Memory Type: Charm

Charm attributes: [Spark], [Last]

Memory Description: [a bracelet of a long forgotten fire witch. She was known for her special pyromania, but what she is known for the most is the blazing glory she went out in]

It allowed him to create a small spart, that sat something on fire, which would last as long as the fuel did and said fuel was either the essence he would have in the future... Or the essence the memory contained itself!

The Spark Burner Soul Essence, that is the main effect of the fire, the blazing glory only creates said spark, so Chiron needed to be extra careful to never set the memory itself on fire. That's the main reason he had lost so many weapon memories.

His Echos on the other hand were mostly normal humans, with a variation in their attributes and appearances mainly. The specialization attribute being the only thing setting them apart, combat wise.

They were identical to the first echo he had gotten, all being simple common soldierly, with conscious being shared amongst all 20 and each having a variation of the spearman trait. Some swordman, some axeman, one Bowman and etc. some had a third attribute, such as the first common soldierly he had received, but in every group there is always one that stands out, even in a group of standouts.

Echo: [Talented Recruit].

Echo Type: monster.

Echo Core: dormant.

Echo Attributes: [Humane], [Spearman], [dormant].

Echo Description: [A talented young man, who was thrown at an unbreakable pillar he would call brother soon by the people he swore to protect previously, just to see if the pillar would crack eventually]

His description and attributes were different, his type was also different, but Chiron couldn't see anything special about him. The only observation he could make, was that he was more expressive then the other soldiers he had gotten... And he seemed to have been the primary caretaker of his along with being the one directing the others.

After processing everything quickly, Chiron devized a method to recover the fastest he possibly could and began with first step *As they say, a journey of 1 thousands steps starts with the first!*

Chiron's body gradually expanded, until he felt like his body was about to burst open and his blood vessels were left with thin and weak blood. He couldn't do more and his heart had long since restarted, as he gave it more than enough space to continue beating.

Chiron looked at his men and concentrated his one good eye on the Monaster one "Butcher the *cough* bear, find a set- *cough" -tlement to sell its fur to, find medical herbs and buy as many of each ty- *cough" -pe you can. Assign 3 of them to take care of m -*cough"- e, 2 to gathering wood, while you take the rest to hunt wild be- *cough" asts and bring them back here. You choose which ones to assign which t- *cough" -ask."

After Chiron said that, his eyes closed almost automatically, as he began toppling over and almost fell onto the hard ground.

Chiron nearly got knocked into a coma, but the special recruit he had gotten appeared next to him and held his head gently to ensure no damage happened. Said soldier tended to him, and the rest went out to hunt for food, per his instructions.

10 were sent to hunt animals, 4 were sent to pick grasses and leaves to create a temporary bed for Chiron to recover on, 2 of the 3 caretakers were assigned to skinning the bare and its cubs, while the third was tasked with being a temporary pillow for their master to rest on and take the load of pressure away from him, but the unexpected happened once again!

Chiron, having fallen unconscious, was unable to maintain his condensation, and his body began expanding rapidly. His muscles were the first to balloon up due to the sheer amount with which they had been compressed. His skin flew open, as the muscles burst out before the skin loosened up. His leg's skin was completely torn into patches of loose and gray skin.

His bones didn't expand at the correct pace to sustain the muscles, so the muscles pushed against one another, but the bones were too short and small to completely maintain them. Most of his muscles uprooted themselves as they dangled in the air. His bones were held so forcefully tight for such a long time that new cartilages had formed, permanently disfiguring them and necessitating surgical intervention to fix the damage.

Even after his body had exploded on a localized, part-to-part basis, Chiron did not awaken. His body was pleading for death. Even if he himself was unwilling, this body gave up long ago and refused to register the pain to make sure Chiron wouldn't wake up to force it to keep going again.

This entire tribulation happened within a single second, but no one panicked. Chiron still had his assassin's rags on him. The talented spearman quickly got to his body and inspected it within a few seconds.

It instantly noticed the metallic object, that had flown out of its master's arms and picked up the small spear like charm. It knew what it was and had seen how its master had used it, so the Echo directly picked it up and stabbed the small spear charm into his ribcage. His willpower seemed to have strengthened, as he looked over at Chiron and picked the assassin rags up.

He tried to cut the bandages into sections to use with the sword he stole from Assai, but he failed to cut the fabric even a bit and decided it was going to take too long. He directly tied it at one end of Chiron's palm and tightly bound it around the rest of his body.

With the miniscule amount of blood Chiron had left in his body and with his muscles clogging up his veins, almost no bleeding was happening. The only positive thing was, that his heart had begun beating on its own again. On the other side, his body was completely covered in bandages, from feet to the eyes and head to toes. The only visible parts of his body were his nose and mouth.

The echo had barely any knowledge or medical skills, as it was one of the more recent ones and the only one capable of learning new information, but it had a weird feeling about what he should do. He picked up his sword and began carving out Chiron's body. Precise, careful, and professional were absolutely things he was not, but he managed to cut out enough of the muscles to make Chiron's body look properly balanced, and that was the best he could do.

He tightened the makeshift tourniquet around the torn skin patches on Chiron's legs. All the skin patches and wounds were shut through the sheer pressure of the tight and unbreakable assassin's rags.

The echo labored tirelessly for hours while also commanding his fellow soldiers on how to set up a fire and get water. Soon they had 75% burned charcoal and 25% burned meat, but it was enough. They fed it to Chiron and used their stolen helmets to give him water they didn't know was even remotely clean or not.

Chiron awoke after two days of being completely unconscious. He felt like he had indigestion, diarrhea, worms, and his body was screaming all over in pain, and he had lost mobility in all but his left arm, the arm he used as a shield the most.

He wanted to look, but he felt a huge strain on his eyelids and dared not even open them. "Sean. Get me, Sean. I need to pass down my orders." Sean heard his words and didn't even hesitate to come and stand at attention. He tapped his master on the chest to indicate he was there.

Chiron smiled at the gentle touch. "Food. I need the other to get food. You, Sean. You are the only one who can do this for me. Go back, go back to Assai. Use the meat or leather or anything and everything besides food here to bargain for a wound dresser and as many different herbs as possible from Assai. Don't bargain, just give them everything you have and take 10 of each herb and come back! I need my wounds to heal."

A conversation, that should have been over in a minute took Chiron 10 to barely finish. His echo didn't disappoint either, as he picked up everything they had thrown into the corner and left in a hurry. *I hope they don't recognize him and he can get me some herbs. Don't want to have to waste another soldier on such a stupid thing. I don't know what happened to my body, but from what I can tell my bones no longer have the option to expand. It's either this skeletal structure, or all of my bones break on an individual level.*

A sudden sting reminded Chiron of something *oh yeah. The spinal cord the archer c"not cut. If I ever go back to full size, I will probably never be able to move again. I ain't complaining. Several hundred memories, an Echo like Sean and 19 humanoid echoes and unlocking 99.9% of impatient's full potential, all for the price of a couple sensory nerves, some limbs, and a long recovery time... Of an illusionary body. I'd say I'm WAY up, bu"t F"ck does everything hurt!"

*Thank you once again, Ron. If not for you, I'd probably have died from my several moronic decisions. I REALLY should not be gambling as often as I do with my body. My enemies will be ready for me the next time and my muscle mass has probably been hacked and slashed down to 20% of what it used to be.*

Chiron began inspecting his body. A bit hard not to with the amount of pain feedback he was receiving *I'll need to force my skin shut and cut the loose parts, but I will survive. I might be unrecognizably disfigured, less than half my previous towering size, with barely any combat abilities and a lot of PTSD, but impatient is all I need! It doesn't matter how powerful Elbaf thinks he is, it doesn't matter how many enemies I have, it doesn't matter how weak I am!*

*I have an army now! We will march! We will destroy! And we will grow! I will end him and I will tell this nightmare spell to suck my knob, as I massacre the entire population, village by village, town by town, city by city, fortress by fortress and then march east! I will keep killing till I have an army of thousands of echoes! Till we can create a COUNTRY of our brother! YOU WILL ALL SUFFER ME NO-*

Chiron felt a bit lightheaded from riling himself up. *Calm yourself. This isn't vengeance, this is just business with pleasure on the side!*

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