Chapter 5: Woodface
Far away from any political strife or from clash between two giants, an adventurer with a peculiar hair color was tracking what he strongly believed to be another human.
Briam, unlike many, was actually searching for the source of the disappearances near Sht'ole, in his quest to find the culprit, he found out that travelers, especially those with no links to anyone in the country or those that went too far into the wilderness, had been disappearing at an increased rate for a while now, it had suddenly spiked a few years ago and had gone down before stabilising again but it was still higher than initially.
The most logical and sensical thing to believe was that it was due to the revolution and war with Mawlique but Briam couldn't help but think otherwise, it was nothing but a gut instinct but it had still led him on the track of someone.
Following his only lead made him traverse one of the forests surrounding Sht'ole, he believed that he was about opposite to where the good but slightly bizarre doctor lived, he had barely considered the possibility that it could have been the doctor, perhaps it was because he couldn't possibly suspect the man who had healed him back up when he was wounded or because this man had saved his little sister, in truth, he had never even truly entertained that thought.
The track led him to a rather large house, it had been pierced in its center by a large tree, vines covered it, the soil had started swallowing it and other younger trees could be seen sticking out of the structure, piercing the body of the house easily.
Even if adventurers barely explored the forests around and only went through them using the same paths, it was strange that this place had remained unknown until now, maybe just like he had, others had discovered it but had been unable to share their findings, it wasn't unusual for adventurers to go missing, no one would question it deeply.
He suppressed the urge to barge in and confront whoever it was that was in there but thinking of what would happen to his sister was he to go missing, he backed down and went to get some reainforcement, even if people weren't too keen on investigating, they would certainly get behind the idea of dispensing some justice, such a prolific kidnapper or murderer would also fetch quite sum.
Briam managed to get quite a lot of people to come with him, adventurers, mercenaries and even some city guards had joined along.
They surrounded the house and with the most experienced of them soon noticed that there were no presence or anything in the house.
Before anyone could communicate their displeasure at being led astray, a shape dropped down from a tree, completely silent until it touched the ground, soon followed by the two sliced part a mercenary, cleaved in half from head to his crotch, he would have regretted not wearing any armor was he still alive after that.
A tall and large man stood above the bloody pieces, dressed in some weird clothes that appeared to be of high quality but also completely different from anything anyone would be wearing.
A greenish jacket that only had one button at neck level, one of the sides that should be joined with the other to close the jacket was serrated and mettalic, his trousers were bluish and equally as bizarre, just like his shoes but the strangest thing in the eyes of Briam was his white shirt with some red-orange shape on it.
The man's hair were a bright brown, on his face, a wooden, cracked mask with the crude shape of a smile on it, carved directly into it, the whole thing was held together by barbed wires, they must have been taken from the city, some had been put on the wall after the doctor had proposed for them to be installed during a council meeting, to 'test them' he had said.
Everyone was frozen for a few moments, the sudden and brutal death played into it but it appeared that they were stuck in their movements by the man's apparition.
They only managed to move, all at once, when the masked man raised his machete, the bladed edge was rusty, it was a wonder how this thing had managed to cleave through a whole person without breaking.
He moved with haste, heading for the least armored first, easily slashing through them, low, beastial grunts could be heard from him during each of his deadly movements, slightly changing every time he cut down a new person.
When Briam was rushing toward him and got closer, he was able to hear that the grunts weren't senseless, he was counting, he was counting how many people he was killing and it was higher than the number of people he had struck down here, much higher.
Briam thrusted his spear at the back of the man as he was hacking down an adventurer but at the last moment, he moved out of the way, let go of his machete which was embedded in his latest victim, he turned to look at who seemed would soon be his new latest and threw a punch at his chest.
The force of the blow was enormous but Briam was smart enough to wear a breastplate and other pieces of protection, the air was expelled out of his lungs and he was sent back, rolling on the ground like a miserable ragdoll but without any serious injuries.
This left him slightly light headed and confused but he was able to gather himself back up at the right time to see the masked man stepping on someones head, splattering blood and brain bits everywhere.
The moment the murderer turned to look at him, he realised that he must have been out for longer that he thought as he was the only one left, all of the other were dead, not even a single one had been able to even flee, it was like no one even tried for some reason.
He too was surprised at his lack of will to run away, the only two choices that appeared in his mind was to grovel in fear or fight back, unable to question his condition any further, he dodge a machete swing, picking his spear back up at the same time.
The two of them stood at a standstill for a few moments, he was able to gaze into the human eyes that laid behind the mask, they were full of conflicting emotions but two were much stronger than any of the others, suppressing them all like two tyrants.
Bloodlust and adoration.
The masked man was strong but he hadn't come out unscathed from the brawl, blood was seeping from his side and trickling from beneath his mask, he wasn't invincible nor was he overwhelmingly stonger than Briam, as long as he didn't let himself be struck again, he should be able to come out of here alive.
He needed to keep him at bay.
However, it was easier said than done, this maniac wasn't exactly afraid of getting stabbed, he stood his ground and took swing at the spear itself, forcing Briam to take steps back to avoid having his weapon shattered by the still operational rusty machete.
He at least hoped that he would weaken as blood poured out of his body but nothing seemed to impair him in the slightest, he was purely focused on killing and nothing else.
Deciding to try something risky, Briam held his spear as if he was going to swing a sword, starting from his bottom left side, the attack ascended and as expected was met with the machete, Briam held his ground, only swinging it with his arms, allowing the masked man to cleave right through his spear as if was a brittle twig but with his feet well anchored on the ground, he wasn't thrown off balance at all and thanks to the angle his spear was at, he thrust the sharp point of his broken spear into the stomach of the murderer, it went right in, causing blood to leak out at a fast pace and more blood to drop from beneath the mask.
A gurgling sound was heard from the masked man but he wasn't distracted from his objective still, he grabbed Briam's hand, preventing him from getting away as he raised his machete.
Desperate and determined to not forfeit his life yet, Briam pushed the spear handle deeper and twisted it at the last moment, disrupting the machete strike and allowing him to free himself from his opponent's iron grasp.
The wrist he had grabbed was cracked but not quite unusable yet, the adrenaline rushing through Briam's veins allowed him to still make use of it.
Still, in the action of pushing away the masked man, he was also thrown down, as he stood back up, he saw the man pulling the piece of wood out of his stomach, he had dropped his machete to do that, removing it went against logic but Briam didn't dwelled on it as he rushed in to grab the fallen rusty weapon.
Swinging it at the killer, expecting it to be able to hit hard, this weapon must have been special in some way to be so strong while in such a bad shape after all, it must have been enchanted or enhanced through some way.
The truth was cruel however and the machete broke like it should have since the start when striking agains the man, only leaving a shallow cut.
removing the stake at last, the masked man didn't even bother to use it to attack and instead tackled Briam down the the ground, wrapping his calloused hands around his neck, strangling him with all of the strength he could muster at the moment.
Briam could feel himself losing consciousness, he couldn't breath at all and was unable to move the masked man off of him, uselessly striking against him with his weakening strength.
Life always finds a way however and without even realising it, he reached for something on the ground, he had no idea what exactly it was but he stabbed it through the man's neck nonetheless, this caused him to let go immediately, stumbling to the side as he immediately attempted to remove it.
The half-dead Briam finally regained his will to flee and immediately, pushed himself to his feet, making his way to the city, he took a look behind and saw that even with blood flowing out with no end out of his neck, the man was still standing and still inclined to kill him.
He rushed toward him, Briam supported his weight on against a tree and bent down to pick something up, turning around and bringing it down on the man's head, he stumbled back again.
This time an axe was stuck in his head, having cut through a part of his mask and the rest sunk in his skull.
For a few moments, it seemed like he was going to continue moving still but suddenly fell on his back, the full weight of his body falling on the ground caused him to bounce off of it a bit.
Briam turned around and continued to make his way back to safety.
Only, he noticed that he hadn't heard to soulless voice of the system telling him he had killed something or that he had received XP, he turned around again.
It was missing.
The body wasn't here.
He didn't see it coming, the axe sliced through the air, cutting through his neck and digging in the tree behind it.
The masked man, his mask and clothes covered in the blood of many people, including his own looked at the rolling head, his thoughts hidden behind his mask, he didn't have time to lose and he immediately started gathering the bodies.
"142" he muttered in a gargled tone.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone