Everything! So far...

I HIGHLY DON'T RECOMMEND READING IN THIS FORMAT, but if you want to read my story in a single file, without having to scroll, then here it is!

{Home, sweet home}

*Hunger and filth to the right, food made out of plastic and given flavour on the left. Yet they would rather look at me!*

*The world had descended into chaos when the creatures known commonly as nightmare beasts descended onto the world. They took over entire continents and pushed humanity to the brink of extinction before the main driving force behind it, the nightmare spell, decided to give the people a fighting chance and allowed them to obtain power and advance, so they could take on the corrupted beasts.*

*Such is the backstory of shadow slave, the world I have survived in for the past 15 years!*

In a slum of filth and degeneracy, a young man waddled through the street. His body swayed, as if he was drunk and was about to fall over any second. His muscles looked like nothing, they didn't even exist!

His skin clung directly to his bones and made it painfully obvious, that this young man had never eaten a proper meal in his life. If any qualified doctor saw him, they would immediately conclude his body had atrophied and he would never use his arms again. And they would be most right, he hadn't used them for months and even he doesn't know if he can use them anymore.

Every step, his knees gave out and some would say it is even a miracle he could take the next step, but the young man's eyes didn't look like someone of his disposition. His eyes had fire of anger and they burned of ambition! While the body they inhabited belonged to what can only be described as a malnourished child, the eyes, the gateway to the body's soul, were of a great evil.

The people of the slums were even lower than the ones of the outskirts. The slums was the place no one patrolled, no sane person would come here willingly. Some might think this would cause crime to be rampant, but no human wanted to come here, as once in, the only way out was as a dreamer, or as a soul descending.

The best way to describe it is to call it a Gu jar artificially created by humanity to turn those they deem worthless into useful. Those born in this area stay here and those from the outside are the only sustenance the ones in the slums receive, metaphorically and very literally. Those unwise enough to commit a "crime" against the legacies are sent here, but not without a cruel joke.

There are only 2 ways to acquire food in this hellish area, the expired goods, leftovers found in the trash, experimental food made of... Only titled with the mark "edible" the city dumps in the slums. The second method is all the new members sent there bringing in food.

Before being sentenced to the slums, you have the option of liquidating all of your assets and buying food with the money and the food you afford comes with you into the slums. Some are unwise and think they will be able to return and refuse, they fall into the latter category of food.

Those wise enough to do so usually are "convinced" to share said food and then join the rest of the scum. Those who don't share, well they usually go missing after a week of being unable to sleep.

In such a place, there is no strength, there is no law of the jungle, there is no anything. As no sane creature would willingly come here, there are no slum lords. No one rules anywhere and no one even has the strength to kill each other. The energy waste and risks associated with killing another is many times greater, than the scraps of flesh you would be left with, after others share in your food. Everyone is equally waiting for the other to die, so they can eat enough to not be the next to fall, an eternal standstill of whose will to live is stronger.

Surviving in such a place makes someone nothing but desperate and tempered. Such people are much more likely to survive in the nightmare spell's first trial... Or not! Most, if not all, die during the first nightmare and what follows that is a massacre and then a feast!

Throughout his life, Chiron has participated in countless such "events" and even had the pleasure of being a first responder to the invitation once. In such a place, the only way to survive is to feast on others and be consumed by the human Gu jar!

*And never have I stooped so low. Who said a human needs to do such things to survive?!*

Every step Chiron took was calculated in every way possible. From birth till now, he has made sure to not waste a single calorie in his body! Throughout the years, he has developed several body techniques to help maximize his metabolic efficiency. In the beginning, he failed more often than not and, luckily for him, his "clan" was betting on him awakening and they invested most of their "resources" into him. By the time the "clan" was massacred by his older childhood friend, his efficiency was nearing maximum and he had a decent amount to spare.

Every step he took was adjusted to make the best use of gravity and even the wind current at times to propel his momentum. He barely used his arms or even allowed his muscles to twitch to conserve energy. If Chiron said he was second best at movement efficiency, no one would dare to claim first place!

While some starved to death and still ate human meat and the "food", he survived purely off of the food brought in by occasional "new hire". Just the fact, that he would walk around without news of potential sustenance was enough to pull eyes from wherever he went, but Chiron cared naught!

His eyes were frozen in place, eyelids barely open enough to allow him to see where he was walking and his destination was "home".

Chiron approached a gigantic pit in the ground, a cursed place, where there was a construction site, that was never finished before the nightmare creatures attacked.

Inside the pit was a rotting and rotten corpses pile, a place so vile not even the "humans" in the slums would approach. Some spiteful slum men would rather commit suicide, than be eaten or starve to death and where they do that is commonly referred to as the "corrupted pit".

No one had the strength to spare to pull their bodies up and no one cared enough to do that either. Anyone who fell in, decayed there and never left the pit.

As the entire slum street stared at him, Chiron did the first out of character thing he has done in a decade. As he stood over the pit full of corpses, he turned around, wasting energy. His eyes opened as he smiled. Not a smile of a man resigned to death, but a crazed one, a smile promising chaos and, for the first time in nearly 6 years, he raised his hands.

Just this simple movement caused his blood to rush throughout his body and his heart beat at a normal pace for the first time in over a decade. His crazed face stared at the humans watching him and they all subconsciously averted their eyes, as Chiron's finally closed and he fell backwards into the corpse pile.

[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your first trial!]

{Guardian Corps}

After a day of waiting, the nightmare spell finally activated and slumber overtook Chiron, as he fainted and the world shifted around him.

...

When his eyes opened, all he could see was a wast nothingness, as if the world had forgotten it existed in the first place, but then it seems as if it remembered and the world began to be created... No, it was un-destroyed. The process was faster than he could comprehend, but it slowed gradually. The first thing he managed to see was a gigantic mountain, but before he knew it, it disappeared and what replaced it was a ruin covered in vegetation. In a tenth of a second it turned into a simple ruin, a single second later, it turned into a magnificent city and ten seconds later... Nothing happened.

Chiron stared at the city, but he didn't get even a good look, as he felt the world blur. He was violently dragged descending, as if something was dragging him down into hell itself and then he opened his eyes and regained his sight.

...

A small fortress city stood, surrounded by miles on miles of castle walls, as peasants entered through the main gates with wagons full of crop and even their farming equipment. Most came from the south, or was it the south? No one knows. The peasantry kept coming without an end in sight, as if death was mere minutes away from claiming them and they could only survive if they entered this one city.

Guards stood on the watchtowers and kept their bows and Anti-Siege weapons at the ready, prepared to act any second if someone... Or thing, went out of line. Beneath the watchtowers, in the catacombs, stood hundreds of guards, who were training or simply resting.

Under one of the watchtowers, a middle aged man laid on his back, snoring lowly, as his eyes suddenly sprang open and he sat up on the bed.

*Aspect*

Name: Shangrinn.

True Name: —

Rank: Aspirant.

Soul Core: Dormant.

Memories: —

Echoes: —

Attributes: [Hoarder], [Impatient], [Overdraft].

Aspect: [Guardian corpse].

Aspect rank: —

Aspect Description: [A snapping turtle is an immovable creature, that just waits and keeps waiting until it can strike and deliver the finishing blow! Being the greatest failure of the Guardian Corps, the shamed one dares not even utter his affiliation!]

Abilities: bunker down[Dormant]: Your body seems to condense and strengthen itself, gaining the durability equal to copper, maybe even greater!

*The f"ck? I mean, fair enough with the Failure part of the aspect, I don't care much for the description. The name I had in my last life was quite a surprise, but I have already forsaken it. Most in the slums don't have a name, so I guess it defaulted to my "old" name. I did spend potentially decades in my last life not moving, but that's after I got shot through the skull multiple times. The ability seems decent, but what's with the weird attributes? Why are my attributes being a hoarder, impatient and whatever the f"ck overdraft means!*

[Overdraft]: Pushing the limit over, and over, and over, and over...

*Okay, what even is this? I've been reading the description for half an hour already and it keeps saying "-and over, and over" for infinity basically. A "pit" attribute, if you will. I hope hoarder is something good at least.*

[Hoarder]: Unwilling to let go of anything this person considers theirs. The attachment to all things theirs is supernatural in levels.

*Understandable. So if I gain a memory, I can keep holding onto it and maybe use my attribute to make the memory or echo more "mine" than it already is. Somewhat useful, but no clear use yet. Need memories and such items to test with.*

*What is Impatient? Besides overdraft, it is the one I am most interested in. Impatient means hot-headed, act-before-you-think kind of thing, so what does that have to do with me?*

[Impatient]: Action, action and more action. It seems as if waiting is a foreign concept. The explosiveness of this creature's personality is unprecedented, as it rushes to the finish line.

Chiron stared at the screen for several minutes, but he still couldn't understand anything about it. *I don't get it. It seems to directly contradict everything else, that is "me". My aspect is a defensive one, One attribute is waiting and gathering, my aspect is about being so durable I can stall for the time needed to gather, but Impatient? What does that add? I'm not even that impatient of a person. Guess this is another "Pit" attribute, although I might find a use for it later down the line*

*Sigh, why did I have to get 2 nonsense attributes. Even Sunny didn't have such dumb luck. Well, he did get screwed over with his aspect, though, so at least mine is decent with a good ability. Now, what is my nightmare about?*

Chiron spent an unusual amount of time just thinking and looking at his aspect. Considering the fact, that he had no idea of his identity or how to proceed, it was a wise decision, but his identity wasn't so simple as to allow him such luxury.

"Recruit Chiron, when was your last guard duty?"

The angry yelling voice sounded out, as Chiron concentrated on his environment. *Shit! I wasted too long on reading that "pit" attributes description and didn't have enough time to orient myself.*

The middle aged man quickly stood up and said "I apologize sir, I must have fallen asleep! I spent yesterday training a bit too hard."

The muscular man with a sword looked at the middle aged teenager weirdly. The man was taller than him, so he had to look up, but the fat the teenager was sporting didn't leave the impression of a hard worker "You don't look any newer than when I last saw you. Hell, you old f"ck, I can barely understand how someone your age can be on PATROL, as a RECRUIT much less, and still be unreliable! Last chance, old timer! Get to your post! NOW!"

The middle aged man smiled. "*Am I an elder in this nightmare? Is it adding up my soul's and my body's ages? Weird spell. Guess I'll play along.* Sir yes sir!"

Not wanting to provoke the muscular man, he quickly left and walked up the stairs and oriented himself. Without much wait, he looked back down and said "Sir, which way, sir!"

The muscular man looked up, his rage reignited as he yelled up "FIND CHARLIE BEFORE I WRING YOUR NECK!" With understanding, Chiron nodded his head and ran away before the man made good on his promise. *He is most certainly an awakened, so if I kill him, I should get something resembling a reward. Or not! I will ignore him for now and find this Charlie.*

Without much wait, Chiron stepped outside the barracks and saw a couple of guards training, clashing blunt edge metal swords. Chiron walked towards them and waved them down. "Fellas, any idea of where Charlie is?"

The left one looks at him and says with a smirk "Old man, why don't you go on a walk and find him." He chuckles as the other one sighs and says "He is at the archery range. Try not to get US in trouble, Chiron."

Chiron nodded his head and turned left and right, not seeing any archery range, so he looked at the sword wielder with confusion. The swordsman understood what Chiron was hinting at and looked down before answering "That way!" And pointed to his left.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he turned left and ran to find said archery range and his source of information, Charlie.

{Out of your league}

As soon as he received his instructions, Chiron got to work. He followed the simple direction. The watchtower wasn't something gigantic in the first place and neither were the grounds allocated to it. Even without the directions, it would only take 10 or so minutes to find your way around it.

And after several minutes of looking, Chiron finally heard the sound of what was probably someone yelling and something flying through the air and the archery range finally came into view. He rushed as much as he could. "Charlie! Charlie!" Hearing his voice, one of the archers turned around and looks at him. He narrows his eyes and sighs.

Chiron interpreted that as him being Charlie and quickly approached him. The muscular man was wielding a large great bow and shot his knocked arrow, hitting a bullseye with great ease and looked back at Chiron with a great deal of annoyances. Said man seemed to not even realize this fact and walked up to him in a friendly manner.

He stopped his running and walked up to the archer and said "Hey, you know where Charlie is at?!" The archer's eye twitches, as he smacked his bow's top onto Chiron's head, bonking him surprisingly hard.

Chiron rubbed his head with an awkward smile and Charlie told him "Follow me for a bit, old man. Apologies instructor, I need to help this incompetent old timer." The man leading the archery group nodded his head, while looking at Chiron skeptically and off the two of them went.

Charlie guided Chiron to the watchtower and they walked at a slow pace, as Chiron tried to slow their approach as much as poss by pretending to be tired out from the run, even though the body of the middle-aged man he took over seemed to be quite in good shape. He used the time to ask questions and Charlie, surprisingly, kept answering. He seemed to not even be fazed Chiron was asking him such basic questions, which helped him greatly.

The first thing he explained were the Awakened in the fortress. "Morning and night time are watchmen hours, when specialized Awakened were assigned to guard the horizon and watch out for an enemy attack. Those watchmen are the top authority. An order from a watchman is directly and swiftly executed!"

He cut his word to wait for Chiron's confirmation and waited till he nodded his head with a smile "Yes yes, sir!"

"I am one such watchman of this watchtower. Each has 2 watchmen. Your duty is to patrol the city in daily shifts. What you do on off-days is your own business. We have 3 patrol units of 30 guards each. Other towers have different amounts. Your unit moved out today, before you woke up. You can take any map off the wall and choose it as your route. Make sure to put your name card in the map's slot, so we know who is on that route and can hold them accountable. Are we clear?"

Chiron nodded furiously and said "Won't forget it no matter what!" He quickly got his name card from the guard roster and went to receive his route. He was, unsurprisingly, the last to take a route and his was through the slums. An obvious "late comer" loss. Without much of a choice, Chiron took the map of the slums and began his duty *back to home, I guess. Let's hope my rent hasn't gone up.*

But, not even a half hour later, he realized why no one chose the slums. Well, he knew just by the name in reality. The city, that looked so alive and bustling had turned into a smelly, disgusting bundle of socks cramped into one tight basket. Chiron breathed in deeply and exhaled "Home sweet Home!"

Some would call it a horror or a filthy region, but knowing what the true worst of the world had to offer, this place didn't even have an effect on him. *Compared to where I used to "live", this is basically a paradise!*

"AAAah!"

*Minus that. I just had to think and Jinx it! Next time, just shut the f"ck up and do your damn job. Sigh, we didn't have crime back home and now it's my job to fix this! At least give me some memories for this effort!*

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Chiron jumped at the opportunity to fight. He ran towards the noise and quickly approached it. *Remain vigilant.*

As soon as he arrived, he saw a man with his face covered in green cloth holding a younger teenager by the mouth to silence him. On a closer look, his other arm was around the boy's neck and a bit of redness was spreading on the boy's white top.

Chiron kept his hand on his sword and his height at 7 feet tall. He was confident he wouldn't be in much danger, as this assassin-like person was attacking the boy. If he was a serious threat, they would have been apprehended by the watchmen.

*Unless he is REALLY good at hiding or faster than eyes can see, but that isn't happening in my first nightmare.* With a false sense of bravado, Chiron stepped out and looked at the assassin "We can talk this over. You can let go of the boy and hand yourself in for questioning. If you coopera-"

The green man's hand seemed to flicker and a *whoosh* Sound was heard. Chiron barely managed to move away, as something grazed his head. The dagger cut a bit of his hair and hit the house behind him.

*Crap, I can't move with this stiffness. And what was that knife throwing?! Throwing knives aren't a thing! Since when can a thrown knife just fly directly forward. It's attached to a rope! That's possible.*

He watched the human in front of him and made sure to keep track of the knife as well, so he didn't suffer any unnecessary loss, as he unsheathed his sword. "You're an awakened. Guess taking this boy alive isn't a possibility."

Before Chiron could say anything, the assassin swung his hand down and the boy's spine was directly cut open and with a small dagger from that back of his neck out of his eye ended his life on the spot. *Oh no he's good!*

Chiron condensed his body. This was an actual awakened, unlike him, who could pass himself off as an awakened due to having an initial ability, but was most definitely not on his level. Fighting him, as a weaker, less skilled and lower rank meant almost certain death. *Heh, I'm a turtle. He can't kill me. I'm invincible!* The looney thought to himself, but he wasn't exactly wrong, he was, theoretically, more than durable enough to survive.

The assassin quickly swung his hand and threw another dagger at him. Not wanting to be on the defense for the entire time, Chiron decided to make use of his ability for the first time and his body shrunk down. His original towering height of 7 feet was condensed into 6'6" and he looked at the man standing before him with a smirk, as the dagger hit his arm and barely drew blood.

The assassin noticed his ability and smugly said "You're ability is to condense and become more durable, but you become slower and less agile. In short, the more you condense, the slower you become. Quite interesting. You're almost an opposite of me, how unfortunate for you! I wanted this boy to bring back alive, but killing an enemy awakened will earn me more than some farm boy with his inferior information."

Chiron analyzed the speech and came to one conclusion from all the information he had gathered *The fight's already over!* And he was completely right.

The man's figure in front of him blurred and appeared to the left of him within a second. Chiron smirked, as he swung his sword at the assassin and what he received was a sharp pain in his right shoulder, while his sword hit nothing but air!

----

A.N. Next chapter a BANGER, one of the best I have written so far, so hope you lot love what's coming

{What can a man do?}

Within the few seconds of the fight, the painfully obvious became excruciatingly obvious. This assassin countered him perfectly and Chiron was completely out of his league! He is too fast to catch and even if caught, his base form isn't strong enough to keep the assassin captive. In a battle of strength against an agility class, he had lost. Simply put, he stood no chance! *Think, Chiron, how do you do this? How do you win? No, Not win, how do I survive this?*

The cut on his right shoulder would be debilitating, if he wasn't ambidextrous in the first place, but he still wielded the sword with both hands and slowly began condensing himself. As he did so, his injury seemed to be forced shut and the bleeding on both arms stopped. The assassin laughed as he watched what Chiron was doing "Desperate, are we? You're hoping for reinforcement? Haha! What a great plan! How about I help you out? Good news, I killed the 2 recruits, that were on this route. A few recruits won't change the outcome of our battle anyway. No matter the situation, you will still die! Time to finish the job!"

Having had his fill of mocking him, the assassin's laugh suddenly cut out and, without stalling anymore, the assassin rushed Chiron and went directly for his heart. Within a second, the sound of metal hitting metal was heard. The assassin stared in amazement at what Chiron had done.

He had done nothing! He couldn't even see, that the assassin was coming at him. But all the proof of his attack was the barely visible scar on Chiron's chest, that was left by the dagger. He had condensed his 7 feet tall body into 6 and was finally at the level of the copper his ability mentioned.

Attaining his promised invincibility, Chiron smirked and swung at the assassin, who's face went from neutral to a demonic expression.

The attacks from Chiron were easily getting dodged. Even if it wasn't, it would have bounced off harmlessly and done nothing to the assassin.

The demonic expression on the assassin's face didn't change one bit. His smile was as broad as the Joker's. He stared directly at Chiron, as if he was a child, that was given a self regenerating lollipop and he could infinitely enjoy the experience. Chiron shuddered when he heard that thing mutter "Interesting".

*Aaaaaahh!*

And so the onslaught began. The assassin seemed to have become twice as fast. Before, if he didn't stand a chance, now he was certain of his death. His daggers cut deeper and faster. The cuts went up to 10 within 3 seconds. Then a hundred, two hundred. And after 5 minutes of cutting, the assassin made a deep enough wound to draw blood.

The crazed smile on his face couldn't even be hidden by the cloth he wore. He danced around Chiron and kept cutting him and cutting him and cutting him, all over his body, seemingly enjoying the training exercise in cutting precision and seeing how many times and how fast he could cut within a second.

*F"ck! An awakened is wailing on me, I can't move my body and I'm 90% sure he isn't even going all out! What is this freak?! What am I supposed to do? Am I really going to die in this shitty nightmare? Me? The guy, who refused to die with 5 bullet holes in his skull. he guy, who survived the outskirts? No, I won't die!*

His body once again shrunk, now at 5'10" and his durability once again increased, along with his cuts being forcefully closed.

Now the cuts the assassin made were almost twice as shallow, but his crazed smile only got wider, as the cuts once again widened and he began using more of his strength.

*F"ck! Endurance isn't working! My only thing right now is endurance! What f"cking else do I have?! What else can I do? I can feel my body and it is most definitely not able to hold up! I can barely move due to how stiff condensing so much made me! I can attract attention! YES! I can try and get someone to get help! I can last long, maybe not forever, but most definitely a while. I can scream to get help! This slum isn't like my old home, they can go get the army and help me!*

"CA-"

Before he could even get a single word out, he felt a dagger collide with his teeth and he knew why. *Luck! Nothing but sheer, dumb luck! He was aiming to shove the dagger down my throat and cut up my insides, but me not being used to this body caused my speech to skew, throwing off his aim! HE PLANNED THIS AND WAITED FOR ME TO FALL FOR IT! The only reason I am alive is because this body is clumsy!*

And Chiron was completely right. Had he not stopped and shut his mouth, he would have most definitely died right then and there! His eyes were shut to the point where he could barely see anything, his lips were sealed completely. The only reason his ears were intact is because the assassin cared little for his sense of hearing. He would rather keep the opportunity to verbally demoralize Chiron.

The sheer desperation of his situation was something no one would be able to understand. What can a man do against an opponent stronger, faster, smarter, better equipped and skilled than him? There is only one outcome in such a situation...

*What can I do? Hoarder isn't helping and my other attributes are useless pitfalls! What can impa-*

But there is one thing any man can do in any situation with 100% certainty! And, as if a lightning bolt just struck him, Chiron's mind came to that conclusion. His eyes didn't open, but he stared at the runes of his attributes, as he re-read the descriptions again.

He had closed his eyes entirely to avoid being blinded by the assassin while doing so, but he seemed to not care about blinding him and kept only cutting his body, not even neck or his head, only his back, tendons and the cut on his chest. *Keep calm. Concentrate! And BUNKER DOWN!*

The fight kept going for nearly two hours. Chiron watched and endured, as his body was cut tens of thousands of times, nearing a hundred thousand times. The assassin having swapped out nearly 10 daggers due to his toughness, but not without a price!

Blood flowed rom everywhere, as if he was a water sprinkler loaded with blood. He endured and kept watching the assassin's movement. His height now at 5'3". The crazed smile on the assassin was as wide as before, as if he wasn't even remotely tired.

*Not yet! Not yet!* Chiron kept chanting, as his eyes, the only part of his body still of original size, moved rapidly and kept watching the assassin, who was barely a perceivable blur. "This isn't even a workout for me, tortoise. I can keep going till you bleed out completely. Actually, how about we turn the difficulty up a bit."

And within seconds, 5 cuts appeared on Chiron's body and blood sprayed out. He grit his teeth, as he slowly condensed down to 5 feet, over a minute, as over 200 cuts appeared on his body.

Chiron could feel every cut on his body. He could tell the assassin got serious and was actually going all out, finally tired of their fight, as he already learned all he wanted after the one hundred thousandth cut. He was moving in circles around him, almost like his legs were on autopilot, circling him, while he fully concentrated on cutting him. He wass confident and knew Chiron wouldn't be able to do anything, so he ignores his surroundings and focused solely on Chiron... and Chiron realized that.

Within second suddenly, the opportunity presented itself. *NOW!* Chiron's left arm, almost magically, returned to its normal size and he quickly stretched it out so fast it was beyond what any normal human should be able to do. The assassin, not expecting such quick movement from the blood fountain of a soldier and his body being on autopilot, collided into the bloody and cut up arm, which, to his absolute surprise, didn't move even slightly.

Chiron gritted his teeth, as his right arm also returned to normal and quickly joined his arms together and embraced the assassin in a bloody hug before he regained his bearings and within the same breath, his hands began condensing. His body condensed so fast, the assassin only had time to get his left arm free in his panic.

*Bunker down!*

His arms condensed, slowly, pushing the assassin into Chiron's bear hug, squeezing the life out of him.

"Aaaaaahh!" The assassin groaned as his expression finally changed. What could a man do against a stronger, faster, smarter, better equipped and skilled than him? In such a situation, a man can only do one thing, ambush and surprise said opponent!

The crazed look the assassin had was gone and his face finally showed panic, before it went passive and he swung his dagger down. He directly hit Chiron's scalp, but it only left a shallow dent, rather than piercing it, as he expected it to happen. With his mobility limited, he had so space to use proper technique, greatly weakening His strength. His screams of pain continued, as the assassin now aimed for Chiron's eyes.

Once he realized he couldn't penetrate his skull, he decided to go for the other avenue of death and he stabbed. His left arm thrust relentlessly. He stabbed 5 times every second directly into Chiron's left eye.

Ding

Ding

Ding

Ding

Ding

Constant sounds of metal hitting metal were heard. The assassin used so much force his dagger's tip dulled and he had to throw it away and grab a new one and keep stabbing, but his body was too durable, cutting into it quickly is impossible.

The attacks kept coming and Chiron kept becoming smaller and smaller, squeezing the assassin with both his physical strength and durability, becoming a human hydraulic press. His height kept decreasing. From 5 to 4'11", then 4'8", 4'7"and when he reached 4'5"-

*Crunch*

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH"

A blood curdling crunch sound was heard by the slum dwellers, followed by an even worse scream, as Chiron's arms finally gave out and broke apart his fingers.

The assassin didn't let this opportunity go, but he made a mistake. He got his right arm free, rather than stabbing his mouth. This was the second mistake he made throughout the fight and Chiron would not give him such an opportunity again.

*BUNKER DOWN! CONDENSE! CONDENSE! CONDENSEEEEE!*

His ability went into overdrive, as he ignored the pain of his fingers breaking and locked his own joints up. *Even with broken fingers, all.*4'4" *I* 4'3" *need.* 4'2" "*IS* 4'1" *This* 4'0.5" *SOUND!* 4 feet

*Splat*

*Crunch*

The assassin's arms stopped moving, his daggers fell out of his palms and his upper body's flailing stopped. His torso fell backwards in an unnatural limp position.

The assassin was on the smaller side, so the hug was around his torso, meaning this bear hug directly broke his spine, ribcage and caused all the broken bones to cut apart his lungs and heart. This can even be considered bad luck for him, as was he even a bit taller, the hug would have only squeezed his kidneys and his spine, which would still be acceptable to him. He could have lived, but his ribcage endured the compression from all around it, causing the entire thing to break down at once, leaving him no chance at all!

With a completely broken body and every immediately vital organ damaged, the assassin couldn't move, but the same was for Chiron. If he left his form ease, his wounds would burst open and he would bleed out. All he could do was keep the form and wait, hoping his absence would be noticed and he would be rescued.

He stood there, embracing the dying assassin and waited. His left eye bleeding, while his fingers were most definitely broken and his wrists dislocated.

Hours passed. He stood there, waiting and bleeding out a few drops every minute, but it would add up eventually. He kept himself condensed, not moving at all, not even attempting to move, as he knew exactly what would happen the moment he did.

His ability forced the wounds shut, it didn't forcefully close them. They were tightly packed together, so blood was forcefully traveling through his veins, as everything around it was similar in durability to bronze. His left eye bleeding was even a boon, as it gradually lowered his blood amount, guaranteeing he would never coagulate enough blood for it to seep out of the forceful mend.

Hours went by and soon night came. He could tell, as his right eye was open and looking around, but he couldn't say anything, as his throat was too condensed to allow his vocal chords to vibrate and make sound. Even if he tried to speak, he would only end up breathing and if he let up even a little bit, over 200 wounds would open up and his body would collapse, leaving him with no hold over the rest of his ability and he would die.

*Can't. Let. Go!* Chiron struggled. His muscles screaming to be released, crying in pain, but he knew the moment he did, his wounds would burst open and death would embrace him, not the sandman. *Hold! On! Someone, call the guards!*

The night quickly came and went. The people of the slums didn't care for the military and would rather die than even meet a soldier, much less help one or risk going to a watchtower to help a soldier, as they were mostly criminals or held a grudge due to where they were settled. Help wasn't coming and Chiron felt faint from the blood-loss. *Keep! going!*

And in this fashion, night came once again and went. Not allowed to rest even a bit, Chiron stood. His bleed rate decreased significantly, as the wound on his eye shut, permanently taking it away from him, but at least he wasn't bleeding anymore. He wasn't gaining any nutrition to make more blood cells and his energy reserves kept going lower and lower. *Bunker down! Bunker down! Bunker down! Bunker down! Bunker do...*

He chanted the sentence in his mind and waited. Another day came and went. The assassin's corpse in his hands had began to rot at this point and maggots gathered around Chiron, eating said assassin. He was losing his mind, as he kept chanting the name of his ability and kept going, but he kept going.

{Allen of Destiny}

Today was a rather ordinary day, as a young man suddenly awakened. His name is Allen and he could be considered quite special. Allen is the newest recruit for Assai's military, that was called in to replace the 3 that were lost. Yesterday was a heavy day, as Allan had to go all out and prove he belonged in the army.

Allan slowly awakened from yesterday and the fatigue along with drowsiness kept attacking him. The smell of sewage doing wonders to help overcome those conditions. He had been finally recruited into the watchmen corps, after fighting tooth and nail for it. He had been training since birth, wanting to be a swordsman, but he had no talent for it. He worked on his father's farm, so his physique wasn't so bad and this allowed him to swing a sword better, but when he finally gained the opportunity to, when 3 of the 3 guards assigned to the slums mysteriously went missing and they began recruiting.

He had great hopes for himself and, surprisingly, his chance came during wartime due to several unfortunate circumstances. He was tested rigorously and failed his swordsmanship, but the recruiter didn't let him stay down for too long and assigned him directly to be a watchman trainee, but that is in the future. Right now, as is tradition, he was assigned the slums, as was expected of a Newbie, who doesn't know it's first come first serve in the shifts.

The newbie called Allan hated every second of being there. It smelled like shit, dirty clothes, peasants, blood... Allen suddenly stopped in his tracks, when his powerful nose smelt the distinctive oder of crime.

"Wait! Blood?!"

He felt a distant whiff of dried and wet iron. It was dried blood, irony and extremely sharp. Allen sighed and decided to investigate. This being the slums, he assumed he would find a murdered dweller, killed for his debt by loan sharks or a prostitute, killed and dumped by the customer to avoid paying her fee or maybe a scenario even more deplorable, than his slightly naive mind could conjure.

What he would never expect though was what stood before him. Allen quickly approached the remote alley and his eyes widened as soon as he turned the corner. In front of him stood a statue, a beautiful scene of blood pooling all around and over said statue played out, as a corpse dangled from said statue's arms, as if the corpse was an offering to it.

There stood Chiron, hugging the lifeless corpse of the assassin, blood having dried up over his ears, head and body. A pool of blood below his feet and dried blood all over his body. "What the fuck!" was the only thing Allen could say at this sight.

As soon as Chiron heard that, even if involuntary, his body subconsciously relaxed slightly and that was when his body seemed to give out. The moment of relaxation was nothing but the worst mistake he could have made. His body expanded to his original size. The wounds he had forcefully shut had mended themselves together and expanding meant tearing up his entire body and reopening nearly thousands of bleeding wound.

Chiron collapsed onto the dried blood and maggots, as He let go of the assassin's corpse and it fell down on top of him. He was delirious and too tired to even move, but his eyes still burned with ambition, as he looked at Allen and said "Hhhhheeeeellppp!"

He opened his one good eye, his wound tore open on their own. His body bled all over, which was, luckily for him, the one thing keeping him conscious. If not for the pain, he would have long gone to sleep and died, a miserable mess.

The guard rushed at him and quickly took everything off of him. He picked Chiron up and dragged him towards the nearest watchtower. Due to some miracle of tenacity and the pain not allowing him rest, he had barely stayed conscious and gradually condensed his body in isolated locations to stop some of the major bleeding.

He didn't know he could do that, but the miracle of wanting to live was enough of a motivation for his learning. By the time Chiron was brought in, his biggest wounds were forced shut once again and the smaller ones were bandaged and tended to with herbs, while he slowly rested, the pain not allowing him any rest.

{Ron the Ascended}

Chiron's eyes finally opened, as he groggily tried to stand up, but he only managed to lift his torso up and barely survive the vertigo. His eyes opened as he saw the message

[You have slain an ascended human: Ron Arkum]

[You have received a memory: Assassin's Rags.]

Chiron's mind went blank and his brain heard the sound of a mirror breaking when he read that. After a few seconds of recovering, Chiron laughed!

"Heh. Heheh! Haha! HHHAAAHAHAHAAH!" he broke into a maniacal laughter, as he condensed his finger and then moved on to his muscles. He kept laughing, as he used his aspect ability all over his body. His muscles, fingers and even entire limbs pulsated and twitched from the control he exerted on said body parts.

*An ascended! I killed an ascended! A dormant little me! Killing an ascended! How truly wonderful! Marvelous! Glorious! After what I went through, this better be good.*

Memory: [Assassin's Rags].

Memory Rank: ascended.

Memory Type: Charm

Charm attributes: [Medicinal], [Long], [Stealth]

Memory Description: [This specific green can only be seen by a handful of creatures and appears black to most eyes. There is enough of this long cloth to cover a person twice over!]

*Huh. So I could have bandaged myself and survived without needing someone else's help the moment the assassin died. Sigh, it doesn't matter. Even with his organs done in and his body broken, he survived a few hours. By then, I was too tired to spare enough mental strength to do anything besides keep living. Even if I could have checked this memory, I would still be a bit too under the weather to use it.*

*Anyway WHAT THE F""CK! Isn't this a bit too underwhelming?! Bandages? Rags? I killed a fucking ascended! A rank 3! I'm rank 0 aspirant! I have a single ability! Shouldn't I get something, that's not f"cking bandages! Calm down, you haven't tested it out yet. Let's Let's test it and see what it can do.*

With a simple thought, Chiron summoned said bandages and they appeared and completely wrapped his torso twice over. Rather than a cloth you put on yourself, it's better to say the memory is a long bandage, that wraps a person completely. It was long enough to cover every inch of Chiron's upper body twice, as the description promised, but Chiron soon realized the benefit of this being a charm, rather than armour.

He took the bandage off easily and rolled it up to a long circle of bandages. He tried to tear a piece off, but it was surprisingly durable. Chiron took off his other bandages and directly applied the assassin's rags as a substitute and put his shirt back on.

*Sigh. It's a 2 star item. Not the worst, but most definitely not that good. Though it is useful if I don't have a healer to mend my wounds. Infinite bandages, that are of the ascended rank and can circle my entire body tightly is a decent charm. Plus, it's not an armour, so I can wear it under my clothes at all times.*

*Right, now, why am I still here? Technically a f"ucking aspirant or whatever I'm called killing an awakened is achievement enough, what more does this shit show of a nightmare want from me? End already?! I literally did the ultimate turtle strategy. Just let me out! I don't want some idiot randomly falling on my body and injuring me IRL!*

"You're awake!" The sound of a clueless recruit just screaming something out bothered Chiron a lot and he looked over with a gruff look. The recruit quickly apologized "Sorry, sir awakened. I'll call over your watchman right away! Charlie, right? Or is it Holmo?" Chiron nodded and said "Charlie." as he had never met this Holmo, so he didn't wish to waste any time. The recruit sped off to get Charlie to Chiron.

Chiron sat there and inspected his body. *F"ck! It feels like I did the plank for multiple days in a row, which isn't inaccurate to be fair. I'll keep the rags on me underneath my clothes, so I have at least some decent protection. Worst case scenario, I have a pre-bandaged body for next time!*

Chiron tried to stand up and get back control over his body, while Charlie came after a couple minutes. He drank some of the water he found in a jug and ate 20 apples to fix his iron deficiency, in the most headstrong way imaginable, he was recovering.

After nearly 30 minutes, Charlie came through the door and saw Chiron happily eating his 21st apple. "Good to see you up and cheerful. To think an untrained, uncultured, fat, old, ugly, son of a-"

"Alright! I get it! Move on!"

Charlie smiled and coughed into his hand " You managed to kill an assassin, that sneaked into our city underneath our Watchmen's gaze. An awakened or maybe even an ascended assassin at that! You're really something, aren't you? Care to say what happened?"

Chiron noticed the sudden change in attitude. The watchman was talking to him as if they were long time friends, or true equals. *So, I have been recognized.* He sighed and recounted what happened and gave as much information he could on the assassin, so questions about his ability weren't asked.

Charlie nodded and said "Take the week off. Get back into shape and recover." Chiron nodded, but inwardly he scoffed *This isn't my real body! What shape?! I'll torture this body, until I know every single weapon skill under the sun!*

And that's exactly what Chiron did. He picked a sword and spent every waking moment sparring. Sparring so much he became the default opponent of all the other recruits and lines formed for people to challenge him. He lost nearly every fight, as he wasn't allowed to use his "awakened" powers and his swordplay was worse than a child's, but he kept going.

The passive increase in his skin toughness and him condensing himself to 6 feet gave the recruits the needed freedom to go all out against him, using deadly force during training, henceforth why he lost almost every battle and also why he was the most popular training dummy around.

After a week, he got somewhat used to the stiffness and could move his body at a decent speed, even when condensed to 6 feet, but under 6 feet, the stiffness was too much to move as it was, making it nearly impossible to train control needed for compression under 6 feet. But he had nothing but time. He had never heard of anyone starving to death in the slums during their nightmare, so Chiron wished for nothing more than to stay there and train.

Time passed, as he kept doing his guard duty, training during downtime and learning to fight. And with that a month went by without him finding any way of leaving this spell.

{The war for Assai}

*How long is this nightmare? Isn't it a one and done deal? What's going on at this point?! I've been here a day off a month and I personally killed an ascended! What else am I to do? Should I go to the f"cking dream realm as an aspirant, while inside this nightmare and beat the forgotten shore? When will this end?!*

Ever since the dawn of time, there have been several universal laws. Death favours none, and Karma is a bitch with a sense of irony instead of humour. As if answering his plea, a loud horn was sounded. *Oh fuck!* And he knew exactly what the horn meant, as it had been drilled into him by Charlie multiple times.

*Enemy attack!*

Ii it was an enemy raid, then that would be okay. He has faced some before and even killed 3 enemy soldiers, during such events. That was his duty as a guard. They were normal humans, so he didn't get much of a reward from them, or any reward at all, only the confirmation, that he did indeed kill them and they were dormant.

His standing was already high, due to having the kill of an ascended assassin under his belt and being the best training partner in the entire city garrison of 1.4 thousand, so his reputation couldn't be higher. Some random skirmishes wouldn't reward him much in this simulation and neither was he that insistent on getting into random fights. And even if he did get a reward, a normal human wouldn't give anything substantial in terms of memory quality.

With the war horn sounded, he quickly climbed up a ladder onto the castle walls to get a better look and decided if he was going to take part in this one or not and his eye popped while his mind blanked and those around him pissed themselves.

Chiron finally standing still allowed him to feel what was going on, rather than just see it. The tower trembled, as did his body with each step he saw on the horizon. His fingers had long since recovered, but his left eye had long since decayed, as it had been too long before he received any medical help, so it could not be saved. This was the main wedge stopping him from being promoted or receiving watchmen training, but that made no difference to anything, as you don't need two eyes to see your demise marching at you.

An Aranai group is usually refered to a group of 5-10 people, a unit usually refers to a team of hundreds of soldiers, while a troop is usually around 1 thousand men strong.

What they saw on the horizon was an army. Not a troop or garrison, a gathering of multiple troops, an army was marching toward them. This wasn't a small amount of gathered Aranai garrisons of a couple thousand. This was a full army of tens of thousands. An army is referred to not an organized march, but a tsunami of soldiers.

It was plain and simple to all. They weren't planning a fight, they were planning a slaughter. Even if the entire fortress city's population went out to fight the incoming army, they would have to, in the best case scenario, compete in a 1 on 1. Which means every man, woman, child, soldier, noble, awakened, commanded and general would have to kill 1 enemy soldier each to avoid being massacred. Such a scenario... Would never happen!

Chiron took a cold breath, as he went into panic mode instantly *F"ck! Am I supposed to defend this city from them?! What the hell is going on? Since when are nightmares this difficult?! I've KILLED an ascended, who countered my 'build'! I've done enough!*

He held his head, as his single eye trembled *I'm a tank, a turtle, but that doesn't mean I'm f"cking EVERYBODY's meat shield! Nor does it mean I can defend against THAT! How does this ruddy spell expect me to take tens of thousands of hits and not die?! Like, WTF?!*

"Men, gather in your watchtower's training grounds!" The shout of Charlie was heard and Chiron rushed over... Rushed out of the window and fell down. Even as an awakened, he was still Charlie's underling and one who did not want to die! He stood there and waited, as Charlie nodded at him in a knowing way, with some pity in his eyes. *F"ck! I'm getting left behind, aren't I?*

The 93 people of the Charlie-Holmo tower gathered, as Charlie began his speech, while the less sociable Holmo kept watch on the tower. "Fellow brave men." *Oh No! This isn't a good sign!* thought Chiron, as soon as he heard and saw the red flag being raised.

"The enemy kingdom is invading and, to put it lightly, we can't stop them. To say it in a more frank way, we are only waiting to be slaughtered. They have an army of 27 thousand strong, as an estimate. We have 14 hundred strong warriors, but it isn't enough. We cannot win. That's all there is to it, but we can help the civilians retreat. They are slow and will take a couple hours to get here and we can stall them. A delegation was sent to slow them down with pea- "

"They're dead!" Said Holmo, with an emotionless voice, while looking at the incoming army from on top of the watchtower.

"F"ck! Guess they mean business and we have even less time, so I will cut the bullshit, Charlie. Arnold, Dolby, Charlie*Oh thank God! I thought he said Chi* and Chiron *Fuck!* Go to the general's courtyard. The rest of you, follow me!"

With no choice left, Chiron went to where he was assigned. *Why the fuck am I not running away? The nightmare is basically ordering me to kill 27 thousand people, who are all probably stronger than me. How am I supposed to do that?! I'm a fucking turtle! And being an impatient one can't save me this time! Hell, what can a burst of speed do against 27 thousand strong soldiers? Jack shit! Maybe the answer is in my other attribute? But how can a single attribute help me win this? Especially a pitfall like Overdraft? Hoarder? Maybe?! I don't f"cking know!*

Chiron pondered on his last attribute, trying to figure out what exactly it did and how he could exploit it, but no idea came to mind. The description did nothing and even the name didn't give any hints *Overdraft, what am I overdraft-ing exactly? My power? My attributes? Can I overdraft overdraft?! It says break the limit over, and over, but how and what limit? What limit is it breaking? All limits? But there are biological limits, like acceleration, energy, foo-*

He felt his brain explode, as if lightning suddenly struck him. He looked down and saw the belly fat he had a month ago gone, replaced by a decent figure and he felt enlightened.

"Holmo, sir, we need to go and meet the general faster! I think I know how we can survive this!"

Hearing the "youngest" awakened of the group speak, Holmo was surprised and looked at him with an angry expression, but then he saw the look in Chiron's eyes and instantly knew he shouldn't talk to the madman and sped up their path even faster.

Without wasting a second, he directly went up to the general's office and stormed in. Such audacity was unimaginable by the others. The general, being an ascended, was shocked at this disrespectful action and nearly executed Holmo on the spot for it, being saved by Chiron just in time. He quickly blocked in front of Holmo with both his hands and only got a small bruise. If he wasn't a defense specialist, his arms would have rolled on the floor.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! General! Please listen to me! I know how to stop the army! I know how to let you all escape! I have a plan!"

This most definitely intrigued the general. He scratched his stubbled chin and evaluated Chiron "You're that new awakened guy I heard about, Chiron the thick-skinned, that killed an assassin after my life." The voice didn't seem pleased and the frown on his face was too deep. "Well now, BOY, spit it out. How can YOU stop an army of 27 thousand!"

Chiron gulped as he decided to come completely clean and tell them all about his ability "Sir. My ability allows me to "bunker down" and defend myself and I can bunker down to half my height. I am already in such a state, so I can get smaller and more dense than even this defense!" the general frowned, he had seen this defense, but he didn't see where Chiron was going explaining his rather plain ability "Enough of this! You're wasting valuable evacuation time!"

Chiron nodded hastily "My ability can also condense my organs and make them tougher. This allows me to basically squeeze down on food and other resources inside my body, such as air."

The impatience grew on the general's face "Sir, the city will fall no matter what and we won't be able to get all the food out in time. If you allow me to eat it all, I can condense it in my digestive tract and have days, maybe even weeks or MONTHS worth of food stockpiled in my stomach, that along with the enemy army being only regular soldiers of huge quantity and my unique ability, I can withstand their onslaught almost indefinitely. Well, at least long enough for everyone else to escape and then I will either die a hero, or use the energy and my own powers to escape alive! With this plan, EVERYONE will be able to retreat and live!"

The general actually widened his eyes *This kid is a complete lunatic!* is what he thought. The plan was completely absurd and idiotic, hell, it wasn't even a good one. What Chiron suggested was, to let the enemy keep trying to kill him while everyone else went away. *This might actually work! They can't kill him and can't immediately deploy one of their awakened or ascended to kill him and an awakened rampaging across their unit won't do them any good, so he can stall the frontline almost indefinitely. But I need to test his insight.*

It had nothing to do with a heroic power up or his incomprehensible third or the useless secondary attribute or anything like that for the matter. It was a complete brute force method, that was basically the same as someone declaring 'I bet they'll get tired of beating my ass before I get tired of getting my ass beat' to the general and swearing to the gods it was a good plan!

It was reckless beyond belief and boiled down to one thought Chiron had *The nightmare will end before I die from wounds*. It was the ultimate gamble. Chiron bet his life on this being the ultimate condition to clearing his nightmare. Even if his plan succeeded, but this wasn't enough to end the nightmare, he would die a hero's death, hero to a bunch of illusions. That's if his plan could even remotely work, but something deep in his gut told him this was the was a gamble worth taking!

But the general didn't think about any of that, he barely even cared if Chiron survived. He had only 1 thought *good enough.* and he directly nodded and sent the 50 soldiers, that remained to somewhat maintain the gates, while the citizens and the garrison retreated up and the feast began.

Raw wheat, fruits, vegetables were brought before Chiron. He ate and ate and ate and ate until his weight increased by a kilo of raw cow and pig meat. Then he shrunk to 4'11" and went back up to 6'1" impatiently.

This repeated itself with tens of food groups. Chiron kept going. Eating and eating and eating and eating and eating, until he felt like he was about to explode. He had put on over 80kg of food and was finally obese at a height of 5'8". He had been eating for hours and could barely stand or move, but something deep inside him made him move.

He, even with the massive stiffness and weighing 150+ kilos from the amount of food being digested, stood up and walked... More like waddled his way to the battle. He grabbed his Zweihändler and walked towards the western gate, where the army was only half an hour away from beginning the siege. He didn't stop. The gates were opened to let him through and he kept walking, waddling like a penguin would be a more accurate description. His eyes seemingly blank and lifeless, but his fire never went out.

Struggling to keep his mouth shut to not throw up or let anything from his stomach and throat leave his body. He had used his ability to tightly shut his throat right below his lungs, so he could increase his food capacity even a slight bit. He had wrapped the greatsword in his hands with the bandages surrounding his bloated body, that further helped contain his bursting form.

The enemy soldiers dismissed him as another peace delegation or a moron. His idiotic visage brought them to tears from laughing before arrows flew. Nearly a thousand arrows hit him, but they just bounced off. The man didn't slow down and kept walking, as the army and their siege weapons neared. The gates closed and shut, as the last of the entire garrison left.

The city of Assai was left with only a single defender, against an entire army. The immortal of Assai was the one and only defender it needed! As the army saw Chiron take a stance with his bloated visage, their expressions changed drastically.

They weren't fools. The fact, that thousands of arrows didn't wound the ridiculous man in front of them was proof enough, that he was an "awakened", at least. The soldiers quickly spread out to surround Chiron and keep him occupied, while the rest of the battalion split up to go conquer the walls using their ladders.

"Men, ignore this fool! Even if he is an awakened, so what? We are MANY! We can EASILY defeat him! Middle unit, surround him and keep him at a distance with your encirclement. Literally EVERYONE else, go around him! Bust that door down and set up ladders near the edges of the towers, so we can get better grip and climb over!"

*F"ck! Forgot these were ACTUAL humans, with intelligence and the ability to adapt and overcome... LoL, even these illusionary humans don't know, that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer! Well, I'm not called overconfidence, but good old Chiron is a QUICK and insidious killer!*

The men did as they were told and over 200 men formed a spearmen encirclement around Chiron, intending to keep him at bay, rather than kill him, while . Chiron kept staring at the army and completely ignored the hundreds of hoplites slowly coming closer and closer to him, tightening the knock bit by bit, while the other continued their way to the wall.

"..."

Chiron dared not open his mouth, as he feared his mouth's content would spill out if he released even a bit of his body's pressure, so the just stared at the hoplites silently and waited.

Siege ladders were set up and the army finally rolled their ramming columns towards the door. Without any soldiers to reinforce from the other side, only a couple hits would be needed to bust the door down.

Blop

Chiron's belly jiggles slightly, as he finally finished compressing it down decently and let some of the pressure off of his joints, giving him back a bit of his mobility, unnoticed the the encirclement.

*Hmm. Guess it's time to go ham!* Chiron didn't even hesitate, as his body directly rushed back toward the gate, aiming for the siege equipment. *Transporting these giant siege items is a huge pain in the ass and without them, getting in within a 24 hour timeframe will be impossible! And at that point, it would be faster to split the army in two and go around!*

That was Chiron's true goal and the potential the ascended general saw. Assai is an elite fortress, with the express goal of training and nurturing awakenings, so they had a low soldier count, but the fortress was nearly impenetrable to those below ascended rank and these were normal humans in the army.

Aranai was planning a slaughter! Their goal was to overwhelm Analand's elite using numbers and then use their quality advantage to take over the rest of the territories, but that all would be impossible if the column was gone and they

All I need to do is destroy these two and keep breaking their ladders and all the Assai people will be able to survive! The elites will make it back home! *With this, I will be able to clear this nightmare with a glorious evaluation, as I have served my purpose to the extreme! I protected the weak from the evil and strong, while also protecting all those I am duty bound by!*

Chiron turning and rushing at them was a bit unexpected by the hoplites, but they were trained soldiers and were ready to fight Chiron, but what can a barely 2kg piece of junk spear do, when a juggernaut is rushing at it, not intending to stop? The answer is quite obvious, bend!

Before the soldiers even knew what was going on, Chiron's joints felt like they were on fire, as he ran at them with speeds completely unimaginable for someone of his stature! He hoisted his sword above his head, as he ran into the spears stomach first. All the weapons did was absolutely nothing! His bandages stopped them from going further than a few millimeters. Even if they did go Further, what could crude spears do to Chiron the immortal?

They bent, as Chiron crashed into the soldiers. His weight of nearly 200 kilograms was already too much and could crush them, but his sword was the final death sentence.

[You have slain...]

Several notifications of him slaying the dormant humans sounded out, but there was only 1 that attracted his attention.

[You have received an Echo: Common soldierly.]

*Isn't that interesting!* That was an Aranai soldier, someone, who could blend into the crowd and be there, biding it's time.

The echo was summoned next to Chiron, as he pretended to push him down, leaving the instructions to steal equipment off of a corpse and blend in, which the echo promptly did, while Chiron promptly escaped the encirclement and ran at the siege weapon.

Chiron didn't intend to destroy it, his goal was to make it cumbersome to use and that's exactly what he did. His heavy body smashed thought the soldiers, as he barely even lost momentum and slammed the front side of the siege weapon.

The column swung, as the chains and rope used to hold it rattled, but Chiron wouldn't let it go so easily. He loosened some of the bandages on his left hand and threaded them throughout the chains and regained his grip. With the ascended level cloth now firmly gripping the chains, Chiron's Swing down on the rope, but couldn't quite cut it.

Clink

Bam

Smash

Hammers, spears, arrows and swords rained down on his legs and back, as he decisively gave up on his only weapon and directly bit down on the rope. His compressed fangs and front teeth more than thing enough and his jaw more than strong enough to make up for the lack of sharpness.

Chiron munched down on the rope, where his sword had cut it and it barely was held together by a thread.

Bam, bam, bam, bam

Several successive hammers landed on Chiron's body, as they kept denting his bones and muscles, but his organs were more than safe enough from the impacts, but his body wasn't immovable. He fell off the column, but he kept his hold on the bandages, which he used to swing the column side to side, allowing him to remount and push the other humans away!

Having gained a couple seconds to get to work and achieved part 1 of the plan, Chiron realized the biggest oversight of his current plan *How the h"ll AM I supposed to break these steel chains. Wait! Hehe! Chain is only as strong as it's weakest link you say?!*

With a quick analysis, Chiron found the most unlatched chain and condensed his arms to be thin enough to fit into said chain and the quickly reformed. Not to the maximum, but the pressure was enough, the chain bent enough to collapse and collapsed it did.

All Chiron had to do was rotate it and the entire column came undone and fell to the ground, along with Chiron, who promptly put the bent link of chain into his mouth to make sure no one would be able to fix the mess he made within a reasonable timeframe.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"How the f"ck did he ruin our entire operation within less than a minute?!"

The generals stared in complete confusion. The time taken between Chiron flattening the hoplites and the men operating the ramming column and taking down the column's support system was barely 30 seconds.

They simply couldn't comprehend how the fat joke they dismissed as a pathetic attempt at distracting them had actually managed to foil their entire plan so spectacularly.

But Chiron was no gentleman, he didn't wait for his enemies to regain their bearings, as he pushed the massive column with his entire body as hard as he could, making it collide with one of it's support beams, breaking it thoroughly and causing the entire siege weapon to collapse, making it completely unrecoverable... But he wasn't done!

Even if he now only had to pay attention to 1 ram, he still had an army of 27 thousand breathing down his neck and if they get on top of the walls with the ladders, then they would simply open it from the other side!

*The fight isn't over yet! Let the slaughter begin!*

They only had 1 column to ram with left and Chiron was confident that wouldn't be enough to break the gate down within 2 hours. By then, he would have destroyed all the ladders and be free to deal with it's operators.

Even if the enemy were numbered in the tens of thousands, a couple tens, at most, could attack Chiron at a time and he was no slouch! He quickly broke the 5 siege ladders already set up, causing the few on the walls to fall down and completely securing the safety of the gate!

"C-ugh-l-ome a-hn-d g-ugh!" Chiron heaved, as he kept expanding and compressing his lungs over and over, again and again to over oxygenate his already large lungs.

The general all looked at each other and they all came to the same conclusion "Tire him out!"X5

Soldiers rushed him. Swords were swung, arrows shot, but nothing seemed to hurt him. Hammers rained down on him, trying to break his skull or destroy his organs at least, but nothing worked, as he dodged any hammer strike and made sure he took out all the hammers available.

Chiron swung his greatsword till he couldn't and then switched to a spear and then to another sword and kept going. He would cut a soldier, then move on to the next.

Without interruptions, he kept swinging. And so went the fight. When he saw a siege ladder approaching, he rushed and destroyed it and killed the operators. A single obese idiot killed hundreds and stalled over 10 thousand soldiers by himself for several hours, till the generals realized they had been tricked by him the whole time and formulated plan B.

The general widened up and split the army into two 9 thousand men battalions and left only one general to lead the third army to finish Chiron. The others marched north and south, intending to go the long way to break the other gates and enter the fortress, as they stood no chance of catching up with the retreating enemies now.

They marched for hours, before they reached the other two gates and realized, that they weren't even fortified. The entire city was empty and all the defenses were left unmanned, all except the one west.

And with that, Assai fell in a day, but the fortress served its ultimate purpose and kept all of its residents alive. It was completely abandoned, not conquered. Say for a couple stragglers, everyone had left hours ago and were well on their way to the capital city to seek refuge.

Even if the Aranai army marched at full force now, it would take them several days to catch up and would exhaust them completely, turning them into sitting ducks for the elite Analand soldiers. That and considering they already pushed themselves to get the drop on Assai, they weren't going anywhere.

So the army reorganized and never decided to not go anywhere. Their original goal was to capture Assai, that is why they sent so many troops and they accomplished it.

The generals sat in Assai's Grand war room, as his commanders gathered around him. One of them finally decided to bring up the elephant in the room "Sir, what should we do with that awakened near west gate? We can't wound him much."

The general scoffed and said "gather the archers to shoot him dead. I don't believe he can resist infinite arrows!" One of the commanders leaned in and answered him "Sir, we have already tried this method, but it ends up doing barely any damage to it and breaks our arrows. It a gross waste of our war resources."

The other commanders looked at him with raised eyebrows, but one of them looked towards the general and came up with a brilliant solution "let's use siege weapons! I don't believe he is impervious to catapults! And ballistas!"

The general scoffed and looked at the commander as if he were an idiot "oh, and do tell, who is going to hit a single human with a siege weapon? Do YOU have such accuracy? Do you think you can aim a ballista to hit a non-stationary target? How about a catapult? Can YOU even operate a catapult, much less aim it?!" And WHERE do tell should we pull a catapult out of? Break and unmount the CRITICAL defenses to not do any damage to our main problem?!"

The commander went red at having to answer no to all of those questions and with that, no one dares to suggest any other methods and the general finally sighed and said "keep attacking him. He will need to sleep, eat and drink. Even if we send for an awakened, they will only arrive in a Fortnite, at the earliest. By then, he would already be dead from exhaustion."

"Just keep attacking and exhaust him to death. But I am warning you! If he lives to the day the awakened arrive, you will be eating my boots for breakfast!"

The commanders nodded frantically and sent for a messenger to deliver their news of Assai's capture and request a cohort of awakened to man said fortress.

And so time passed. Every second was nothing but constant battle, as Chiron fought for his life. Days, nights, weeks passed. The man kept Swinging his sword, and frantically running at the enemy, making sure he killed while he could and to gather as many memories as he could before the nightmare ended. And soon... His gambled didn't pay off

{Traitor of Assai}

*F"ck. Guess I am still stuck in the nightmare, even after a day. I'll keep them occupied until my food reserves run out, or I run out of brain numbing Coffein.*

Although Chiron could last nearly a year with the resources he has stored in his stomach, if he focuses on only defense. Though his mind needing rest is a whole other issue, but Chiron has never cared about this temporary body of his. He has regarded it as disposable from day one and he saw no need to change his perspective in the middle of a slaughter.

And so 3 weeks of constant fighting passed. Chiron's mind had long since collapsed, but he had no choice but to keep going. He could try escaping, but his aching muscles, his twitching body and the very bones inside his body kept itching. The amount of destructive stress placed on his bones would have crippled a lesser man, but Chiron doesn't even see an issue with what he is doing.

The enemy had set up a day and night combat orders to make sure he wouldn't escape into the night nor get any rest. He fought 24/7 for 3 weeks, before it all suddenly stopped.

Within that time frame, he had killed countless dormant humans. His own self-developed body technique helped him preserve as much energy as he could on movement. The only thing weary is his mind, which suddenly got a momentary respite. Tis allowed his body to realize its exhaustion, as his adrenaline suddenly dropped.

Chiron nearly collapsed, as his body leaned Forward and he caught himself on the weapon. But this wasn't enough to keep him down and he stood back right up.

He had eaten a kilogram of ground coffee beans, which would periodically enter his stomach and be digested, allowing him to dull his sense of fatigue. It has gotten him through the second and third week of fighting, but coffee was no substitute for sleep. The second of weakness wasn't missed by his enemies... but they didn't act upon it. Just this little fact made the hairs on the back of Chiron's neck stand up.

"Ahem"

Chiron heard the sound of a fake cough. He was more than welcoming this bit of rest, so he turned his body as slowly as he could towards the source of the noise and saw a young man in plate armour carrying a rather long sword.

The young man's ferocious eyes stared at Chiron, as if he was a sworn enemy, that must be eliminated on the spot! *He is powerful! Nearly as intimidating of a presence as Ron!*

The man clenched his teeth and practically growled, as he decided to talk, rather than fight. "So, you are the infamous traitor! Such a wretched sight! To think a member of OUR Guardian Corps..."

The world seemed to have stood still, as that single sentence reverberated through Chiron's mind. *TF does he mean OUR?!*

While Chiron's mind was almost blankes out, the young warrior didn't stop. ",such a fine warrior OUR country trained would kill hundred of HIS countrymen! And for what? To defend a nation opposing his own! How pathetic of you, Chiron the bastard! You were supposed to help us rid this world of Aranai's enemies! You were supposed to sabotage THEIR forces, not your own! You dare betray your own men, for what? An enemy, that abandoned you here?! You should have stayed in the Guardian Corps, maybe then you wouldn't have such a half-developed copy of our prized skill! Or been scum!"

*...* Not a single thought went through Chiron's mind when he heard the young man's speech. It took him several seconds to come to the most obvious conclusion *Was I supposed to be an inside job?*

His eyes blew out of their sockets and he felt like punching himself and the nightmare spell. *AM I A FUCKING SPY?! HAVE I BEEN FIGHTING THE WRONG ENEMY THIS ENTIRE TIME?!*

The revelation almost made Chiron collapse onto the ground. The awakened watched as Chiron's body went weak and almost buckled and nearly fell after his speech.

He attributed that to Chiron regretting his decision, but "It is too late to regret now! Your crimes are unforgivable! I recommend you surrender, then you will at least die on your motherland's soil, rather than this pathetic wasteland of blood and limbs of YOUR brothers!"

Anger, pain, a collapsing mind and frustration boiled over, as his already limited patience was tested again. Chiron's body felt like exploding! He wanted to rush the young man, decapitate him, kill them all, but a strange serenity finally sat in a couple seconds later *It doesn't matter!*

Chiron cared not for the ridiculous situation he was in. He couldn't have known what Guardian Corpse meant, neither could he have known he was fighting for the enemy. To him, even if he was given a chance to do it once again, he would not hesitate to go through that assassination incident All over again, just for a chance to get assassin's rags once again.

All that mattered were his gains, which he finally managed to quickly inspect. He had killed over 600 of his countrymen and had gotten quite a few memories, 69 to be exact(A.N. not even joking, I made a RNG code and it came up 68 memories and I gave him an echo myself last chap.)

Echo: 1

Utility: 30

Armour: 6

Weapon: 13

Charm: 18

He had quite a few memories from his senseless slaughter, but all of them were exclusively dormant rank and were of no use to him at the moment. The only one he checked was the Echo he received and that was his ultimate trump card.

This was a humanoid Echo he had received from one of his kills. If Chiron even needs a distraction, some kind of disturbance of a means to move even when unconscious, the Echo can do so. It is an ultimate tool, that he will use to make sure he gets out of this alive.

The weapons and armour he received were nothing but copper items with a common attribute, [copper metal] and they would be instantly destroyed when attacked by awakened beings. Out of the 69 memories, only 2 were usable usable for him.

Echo: [Common soldiery].

Echo Type: beast.

Echo Core: dormant.

Echo Attributes: [Conscious], [Spearman], [Second Wind].

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

Memory: [Spear of the wanted].

Memory Rank: dormant.

Memory Type: charm

Charm attributes: [Motivation], [Gleam]

Memory Description: [A small pin needle forged out of copper in the shape of a spear. It is evident who ever made it never intended for its owner to lose it]

The motivation attribute of this charm was quite welcome by Chiron. It was one of the first memories he acquired and it now comfortable sat inside his right arm, motivating and helping him not collapse under the stress he is putting his body through.. He himself inserted it into the top of his right forearm and it did wonders to help him stay awake. Even without the motivation, a needle under their skin will keep anyone awake!

"I would like to please plead my case to the lord awakened!"

Hearing his words, the awakened's jaw fell at the sheer audacity to demand a trial by someone with Chiron's sins. His eye twitches "A TRIAL! You, a traitor with hundreds of your own brothers deaths on your hands want a fair trial? How about I just execute you right now for a fair trial!"

Chiron shook his head "I refuse the suggestion. I want a trial, a formal one to decide if I am guilty or not! You might be an awakened, but so am I! I, as an awakened of Aranai, deserve a fair trial!"

The swordsman could only stare l, as he could barely react to the audacity he was seeing. He sighed and said "Alright, you'll have your fair trial! I won't deny you that, but only if you are truly Chiron of the Guardian Corps and still hold loyalty to Aranai. Recite the sacred vows you took when you joined your corp and I will give you a fair trial! Swear your loyalty and have our lord judge your sins!"

*C"nt! I have no faking idea whose body I am in! Hell, I don't even know why they all call me Chiron! F"ck! Welp, can't say I didn't try. Guess it's fight time!*

And with that final bridge burned, Chiron assumed his battle stance and held his thrice replaced great axe at the ready to fight. The awakened sighed and drew his sword and watched Chiron... but he didn't make any attack, he hadn't even moved a bit.

Whoosh

Chiron heard the sound of something speeding through the air, and then the sound went away... permanently. *An awakened archer!*

An archer had aimed at his skull. The goal of this awakened was obvious, he was there to distract, while the perfect shot was aligned. His enemy was buying time as much as he was... But his enemies were going for the kill shot!

The arrow was meant to go through his ear and out of his skull... and it most definitely did! It pierced right into his ear, but he was more durable than they anticipated and the arrow's edge became too blunt to continue cutting into his skull, after it already wreaking havoc on his right ear canal and permanently took out half of his hearing capabilities and sense of balance.

Chiron's body moved unnaturally fast, as he broke the wooden part of the arrow off and removed the arrow from his skull. He then condensed dow all the way down to 5'4, so his bleeding stopped and the blunt arrow tip was now a makeshift "ear" plug. Just in time for when the next two arrows hit his skull!

This time, all Chiron felt was the impact of said arrows, they couldn't pierce any part of his body! "You are such a disappointment! If only you had shown this much promise during your training, you wouldn't be in the Guardian Corpses! You would be directly under me!"

Chiron's Heart sank, as he heard another unfamiliar voice. Unlike the young man, this voice sounded ancient, like an old relic of a person just spoke. It sounded tired, angry, but what Chiron felt was worse. His body seemed to begin trembling on instinct, before he forcefully subdued himself and looked towards the voice with a shaky gaze.

Clink

Clank

Clink

Clank

The knight walked slowly. No, not a knight, it would be more accurate to refer to him as a living mountain.

Next to the swordsman, an awakened arrived and stood. He glanced at Chiron, looking down on him figuratively and VERY literally. This giant of a man was even taller and grander than Chiron's body. He looked like Chiron, if his body's owner wasn't a wastrel.

A man over 7 feet tall, muscles on his arms bigger than most men have on their thighs and thighs wider than most men's torsos. A minotaur forcefully given the shape of a human is the most adapt way of describing him!

The swordsman bent the knee suddenly and said "Ascended Elbaf!"

{The Awakened are here}

*Oh come the fuck on! What is this dog shit?! Not one, but TWO ascended in an aspirants first nightmare! Who wrote this fklucking Script! Weaver, when I get my hands on you, I will wring your neck!*

Chiron sighed slightly, his voice seemed to have warped, as it got deeper and he stared at Elbaf with evident confusion "Sir, with all due disrespect, I have no fucking idea who you are! I don't know what is happening! I don't even know WHY I am doing this! All I know is this, I want to live! And you don't, so I will let you court lady death as much as you want... in hell!"

The mountain of a man stood there, not even paying attention to Chiron, as if his words were the equivalent of a summer breeze. Elbaf's eyes lazily looked over, as he stared at Chiron and laughed at him. "You half baked mongrel! Let us show you what a REAL Guardian is capable of!"

His voice boomed, as if his vocal chords have been trained to produce as deep of a voice possible. Elbaf wasn't angry or even feeling any emotion towards Chiron. His look was one of pity, nothing else.

"Positions!" As soon as the command was given, 3 more people appeared out of completely nowhere.

A shorter man with Sais at the ready in his hands, a Tall and long armed man with a bow taller than Elbaf himself and a woman wearing a cloak with no distinct equipment to give away who she and what her skillet was.

They appeared around the field, as the massive troop stood around them to firm a circle. The only one outside this circle were the archer and the female, which was reason enough to conclude Chiron would have to deal with 2 ranged classes and the superior user of his own aspect and two armour piercing combatants!