Blow the Gate

When Lintos, Gore, and their whole entourage of followers finally arrived at the castle, horns were quickly sounded on the walls. Gore walked forwards calmly amidst Lintos warnings of oncoming enemy arrows.

Gore simply took the ring from his finger as he approached the gate. When he was a hundred yards off, and arrows were slamming down all around him, he transformed his ring into a sword and aimed it at the gate. 

The first fireball smashed into the gate and broke a small hole that was blackened around the edges. Gore charged his sword with Mana and then fired again, again, again, and again. He made a hole large enough in the gate for two men to fit through and just large enough for him. 

Gore did not fall back, even as an arrow sunk into his thigh. Nor did he wait for the men-at-arms. With a violent roar of pure malevolence, he took off towards the gate with a fury burning inside his very soul. Another arrow flew straight for his face, but he raised his sword in a blur. A normal person would not have been able to see the arrow much less react to it with a sword that weighed half a ton.

Gore burst through the gate at a dead sprint. The flames from his fireballs still licked at the walls, but the flames were nothing compared to the burning rage that had taken hold of him completely. 

There were dozens upon dozens of men-at-arms waiting for him on the other side with pikes that were designed to be longer than swords that aura knights carried, but they were not as long as the one that Gore carried.

Gore swung left and right, severing the shafts of spears as smoothly as the necks caught up in the arcs of his swings. Blood, heads, arms, slices of meat, and spear shafts fell to the ground in a soup of gore. The men-at-arms that had been waiting for him all died within a minute, and they did not even leave a scratch on Gore that they could boast of in Hell.

Gore continued towards the gates of the castle where there were two Aura knights waiting for him. Before he could even get there, men-at-arms swarmed down from the walls towards him. He turned around towards them and he amped his legs with Mana before dashing at them like a bowling ball heading toward pins.

Within minutes, their bodies were sliced and diced. The armor they wore did not help them at all. Gore turned around and looked at the Aura knights. They still stood like frozen statues in front of the gates. 

Across the courtyard, there were other men-at-arms and also enemy soldiers with crossbows. As arrows began to fly at him, he ducked around the flimsy wooden structure of a peasant hovel. Arrows slammed against the wood frame and the structure shivered from the impacts. Gore could hear women and children crying inside, but he didn't care.

Within minutes hundreds of friendly men-at-arms had poured through the ruined gate and ran towards the men-at-arms that had been rushing Gore.

Now free to do as he willed, Gore headed towards the two Aura knights who were still in the same spot. The knights pointed their blades towards Gore, and one of them spoke through his helmet. "Savage giant. Know that you will be killed by my blade. My name is Zayn, son of Fran."

Gore approached the man lazily with a nasty grin spread across his lips. "Ask the devil my name when you get to hell."

With that, he amped his superhuman body with Mana. Gore became a blur and moved faster than the Aura knights could react to. Their heads fell to the ground, then their swords, and lastly their bodies as they grew limp. 

Behind Gore, Lintos walked up. "Gore, you have far exceeded my expectations… You are simply a monster. After this siege I want to talk to you about permanent hire!"

Gore whirled around. "Did my Warband follow with the other men-at-arms?"

Lintos nodded. "They all did."

"Good."

With that, Gore pointed his sword towards the gate of the castle, and he charged it with Mana. With a single blast, the much smaller and less fortified door was blown off its hinges with a single blast.

Inside the castle, there were men-at-arms waiting. The heavy door flew on top of them and crushed several. Through the smoke of the fireball, Gore jumped on the men-at-arms like a huge devil bent upon slaughter. 

The men-at-arms screamed as he jumped towards them, and then they died; slaughtered like sheep without any defense.

Gore licked his lips as blood flowed down his face. A maniacal expression that would have curdled the conviction of any normal man stretched across the entirety of his face. "What a lovely time."

Behind Gore, Lintos was horrified. He had never seen anything so gruesome or one sided. From the very depth of his soul, he felt sorry for the men-at-arms Gore had just slaughtered, but above that, he was glad he was not one of them.

Gore continued down the corridors of the castle like a juggernaut of death that could not be stopped. He was a nightmare and the only way the men who faced him could escape from it was through death. Every single one of the Men-at-arms in that castle leading to the throne room escaped from Gore's nightmare within the span of minutes. 

 As Gore strode into the throne room, Lintos and his knights came behind him with expressions that betrayed the hell they had seen. They all saw Gore as a demon, and that would not change.

The castle was similar to the other one that Gore had seen, but there were no steps leading to the throne room. At the very center of the room, there was a throne. Surrounding the throne were pillars which had bracketed torches flaring and waving in the air as if to welcome the destruction that Gore had brought. 

Upon the throne, there was a man in full armor that shined, but it was not as bright as some of the armor that Gore had seen. The Viscount was clearly poor. Around the Viscount, there were four Aura knights.

Gore swung around to Lintos. "Can I just kill them all?"

Lintos looked at the Viscount as if gouging how much he could ransom him off for. Lintos shrugged. "Go ahead, kill them."

Without further ado, Gore raised his blade and fired a fireball from it. The fireball hit the Viscount dead on, and the explosion from it scattered smoldering limbs and melted pieces of armor all around. 

As the Aura knights turned to their liege, purely shocked, Gore was upon them. Gore's massive blade flickered four times in the torchlight, and they were all headless upon the ground.

Gore walked back over to Lintos. "Let's head to the treasure room, shall we?"

Lintos nodded slowly as if in awe and terror of what had just transpired under his nose, even if he had already seen Gore slaughter and fire his fireballs. It was just a scene that was so nonsensical to him. 

Lintos blinked twice as his lost gaze snapped over to Gore. "Yes, let's go see what the Viscount was hoarding."