The next day, the deployment marched forth again, their boots pounding against the cracked earth as they advanced into the battlefield. The horizon was lined with shadows, each one moving, shifting—another horde, surging forth from the depths of the abyss.
Kalem had expected as much.
He twirled his chained sickle, feeling the pull of the weighted chain as he severed the head of one of the smaller creatures in a single fluid motion. The battlefield was a storm of flashing steel and roars of pain, warriors clashing with the abyssal horrors that refused to stay dead.
Before the battle had begun, Garron sat with a group of other Gehenna warriors, idly sharpening his sword.
"Alright, place your bets!" he grinned, leaning forward. "We all know Kalem is a freak, but I'm saying he can take out half the horde in one go."
One of the veterans, a scarred man named Rokas, scoffed. "Half? You're delusional. Kid's strong, yeah, but he ain't that strong."
"I'd say he can take out a good quarter, no more," another warrior, Veyna, chimed in, adjusting her gauntlets.
A younger recruit hesitated. "But... he did wipe out a huge group last time."
Rokas waved him off. "Not half of an entire deployment's worth of enemies."
"So, what's the pool?" Garron smirked, tapping his sword against his boot.
"Losers pay up in gold or resources," Veyna stated. "Winner takes the pot."
"Fine by me," Garron said confidently. "Now watch and learn."
"What?" Kalem muttered, distracted by the absurdity of Garron's words. He had to make sure he heard him right.
"I said, can you do it?" Garron called back, his greatsword cleaving through one of the larger monsters, black ichor spraying through the air.
Kalem barely had time to process the conversation before he ducked, narrowly avoiding the jaws of a beast lunging at him. With a flick of his wrist, his chained sickle wrapped around the creature's neck. A sharp pull—and its head separated cleanly from its shoulders.
He exhaled and repositioned himself, glancing at Garron. "Let me get this straight."
Kalem twisted his body, swinging his sickle in a wide arc—"Sickle Style—Violent Wind"—sending the weapon spinning through multiple enemies, cutting through flesh and bone. The sickle circled back into his grasp, dripping with fresh abyssal gore.
"You made a bet… that I can kill half the horde in one swoop?" Kalem's tone was flat, unimpressed.
"Yeah," Garron admitted, his voice carrying the slight nervousness of a man who might be about to lose money.
Kalem sighed, raising a hand just in time to catch the heavy steel maul flying toward him from his weapon crate. He spun around, bringing the weapon down with crushing force, obliterating the skull of a beast that had leaped toward him.
The battlefield momentarily shook from the impact.
"Well," Garron grinned, "you could do that thing where you use that fire sword of yours."
Kalem arched a brow. "Or…" He swung the maul again, sending three more creatures flying, "I don't… and you suffer."
Garron winced. "C'mon, I'll buy you drinks?"
"I don't drink." Kalem pivoted, hurling the maul into another monster's skull, pulverizing it on impact.
"Fine," Garron huffed. "How about metal? There's a good batch of obsidian on sale."
Kalem's fingers twitched at the mention of rare materials. "Two kilograms."
Garron gritted his teeth, hesitating for only a second before sighing. "Deal."
As soon as the words left Garron's mouth, a sheathed blade flew toward Kalem, summoned from his floating arsenal. He released his sickle, letting it retract back to his crate, and caught the sword mid-air.
A familiar weight settled into his hands.
"It's been a while since I've used this," Kalem murmured, a slight grin tugging at the corner of his lips. He unsheathed the weapon, revealing a long, thin, curved, single-edged blade—its polished steel gleaming under the battlefield's eerie light.
The Resonance Blade.
The monsters seemed to sense the shift. The air around Kalem grew cold, not from fear—but from the sheer intent radiating from him. His stance changed, a controlled stillness washing over him as he gripped the sword with both hands.
Garron took a step back. "Oh, hell. You're really doing it."
Kalem exhaled.
"Resonance Blade Style—Sleet Storm."
He vanished.
Or at least, to the untrained eye, it seemed like he had. In reality, he had moved faster than perception could catch, his blade striking from multiple angles at once.
The air was filled with shimmering arcs of steel, slashes cutting in every direction—but they weren't random. They were precise, cutting at the weakest points of the creatures. Limbs severed, bodies split, heads rolling in perfect, fluid strokes.
Some monsters didn't even register their deaths until their bodies collapsed apart in pieces.
A dozen fell instantly.
Another dozen crumbled the next second.
Garron watched, wide-eyed, as Kalem effortlessly cut down the battlefield like a force of nature.
By the time Kalem stopped, the entire battlefield had shifted.
A heavy silence hung over the area, the remaining monsters hesitating, some even turning to flee. The once unstoppable horde had been reduced to nearly half in the span of a minute.
Kalem exhaled, slowly lowering his blade, watching as the remaining horrors staggered away in fear.
"That's half." He flicked the blood off his blade before sheathing it with practiced ease.
In the background, Garron's friends were staring in disbelief.
Rokas folded his arms. "…Okay. That was insane."
Veyna groaned. "Damn it. Fine. I'll pay up."
The younger recruit just looked starstruck.
Garron, smirking like a man who had just won big, held out his hand. "I'll be collecting my winnings now."
Kalem walked past him. "Two kilograms."
Garron sighed, shaking his head. "Yeah, yeah. I'll get your damn metal."
The remaining Gehenna warriors charged forward, mopping up the few survivors left. The battle was effectively over.
Kalem took a slow breath, rolling his shoulders. He would need to refine his technique further. The Sleet Storm was powerful, but it still drained too much mana. He could feel the familiar fatigue creeping into his muscles.
"More efficiency, more refinement."
For now, though, he had earned his obsidian—and more importantly, he had proven a point.