World Awakening: The Legendary Player-Chapter 116: Failed

Kenchi’s laid-back posture was gone, replaced by a low, combat-ready crouch. The air around Fena was not just heavy; it was a physical weight, a suffocating pressure that promised death. The black lines on her skin pulsed with a sickly green light, a visible manifestation of her life force burning away.

’Plan A, wait her out, that’s a bust,’ he thought, his hand now gripping the handle of the massive axe on his back. ’She’s running on a timer, but the power output is insane. This isn’t a fight anymore; it’s a disaster zone. One hit from whatever she’s cooking up, and I’m a red smear on the floorboards.’

Fena raised a hand, and the wood of the house itself screamed. The floorboards warped and twisted, a dozen massive, sharpened splinters the size of spears shooting up toward him. They were not just wood; they were coated in that same black-green energy, a physical form of her rage.

Kenchi stomped his foot down hard, shattering the floorboard beneath him and using the momentum to push himself backward, right through the weakened wall of the house. He landed outside on the balcony in a shower of splintered wood.

The spears of corrupted wood shot past where he had been and slammed into the ceiling, turning the wood black and rotten on contact.

"You can’t run, filth!"

"Not running," he called back, pulling the huge, double-bladed axe from his back with a loud shing. The weapon was absurdly large, a slab of polished, dark metal that looked like it could split a mountain. "Just getting some breathing room. Your house is a mess, by the way. You should really get that looked at."

’Keep her talking. Keep her angry.’

Her rage was so intense it was a visible, shimmering heat haze around her. She didn’t bother with the door. She walked straight through the wall of her house as if it were made of paper, stepping out onto the balcony. The black-green energy swirled around her, lifting her a few inches off the ground.

"I will shatter your bones and use them as chimes to sing of my people’s sorrow!"

She thrust both hands forward. Two thick, writhing vines, not of wood, but of pure, solidified life-force energy, shot from her palms. They moved like angry serpents, twisting through the air as they came for him.

’Too direct,’ Kenchi analyzed, his eyes tracking their movement. ’She’s just throwing raw power at me.’

He swung his axe. It was not a wild chop; it was a precise, spinning cleave. The massive blade met the energy-vines head-on. The impact was a deafening explosion of green light and splintered air. The force of it threw him back a step, his arms vibrating from the sheer power, but the vines were severed, dissipating into nothing.

He landed, the heavy axe feeling perfectly balanced in his hands. "Nice trick, grandma. You got any others, or was that the whole show?"

"I will show you a universe of pain," she hissed, her feet touching the ground.

She clapped her hands together, and the air itself seemed to curdle. He felt it before he saw it, a drop in temperature, the scent of damp earth and decay. The bodies of the dead elves down in the village square began to stir.

’Oh, you have got to be kidding me.’

Their limbs jerked and twisted, pulled by invisible strings of dark energy. They got to their feet, their eyes empty, their movements clumsy. She was turning her own slaughtered people into a puppet army.

"You see, child?" she said, a horrific, triumphant smile twisting her face. "My grief has given me an army. They will hold you down while I peel the flesh from your body."

The reanimated corpses began to shamble toward the Elder’s house, their intent clear.

Kenchi stared down at the grotesque scene, then back at Fena, and he just started to laugh. It wasn’t a nervous laugh; it was a genuine, deep-bellied laugh of pure absurdity.

"An army?" he choked out, wiping a tear from his eye. "Lady, that’s not an army. That’s a speed bump."

Her smile faltered, replaced by confusion. "You find your own demise amusing?"

"No, I find you amusing," he replied, his laughter dying down as he hefted his axe. "You’re throwing everything you have at me, burning your own life away, for what? To kill one guy?" He shook his head. "It’s a waste."

He planted his feet, the massive axe held in a low guard. "You’re right about one thing, though. This fight needs to end."

He took a deep breath, and the casual, laid-back energy around him vanished, replaced by the cold focus of a professional killer. The air around his own body began to distort, a faint shimmer of contained power.

"I can’t beat you. You’re too strong. Your power level is ridiculous." He admitted it freely. "But I don’t have to beat you."

He spun his axe once, the huge weapon whistling through the air. "I just have to survive you."

She screamed in fury and charged. The zombie elves were still shambling their way up the path. They were too slow. It was just him and her.

’She’s getting desperate. She’s burning through her life too fast. She knows she’s on a timer.’ His mind was a cold, calculating machine now. ’One more big attack. She’ll put everything she has left into one final shot.’

He was wrong.

She did not launch a single, final attack. That would have been too simple, too clean. Instead, the swirling black-green energy around her compressed, pulled inward, forming a single, razor-thin spear of solidified life force in her hand. The air around the spear warped, reality itself bending away from the sheer concentration of her burning life.

’Okay, here it comes,’ he thought, planting his feet firmly on the splintered balcony. ’The big one. Just gotta weather it, and she’ll be gassed.’

He held his massive axe in a low, defensive stance, ready for a wave of force, a blast of energy, anything wide and overwhelming.

He was completely wrong.

Fena didn’t throw the spear. She vanished.

In one instant she was across the balcony, a statue of incandescent rage. In the next, she was directly in front of him, her face inches from his, her eyes burning with the light of a dying star. The spear in her hand was not aimed for a wide, cleaving block. It was a thrust. A single, perfect, impossibly fast thrust aimed for the gap between his neck and his shoulder.

’Too fast—!’

He tried to bring the axe around, but it was like trying to block a bullet with a shield. The spear was already there. It struck him, not with a crash of force, but with a quiet, sickening hiss.

The tip pierced his armor, his muscle, his bone. An agony that was both ice-cold and burning hot exploded in his chest. It wasn’t just a physical wound; the life-force energy was a poison, a rot that began to spread through his veins, trying to snuff out his own life from the inside.

His right arm went numb. The massive axe felt impossibly heavy, slipping from his nerveless fingers and clattering to the floor. The force of the blow drove him backward, his knees buckling under the sudden, overwhelming pain.

He collapsed onto one knee, his head bowed, his breath coming in ragged, choking gasps.

She stood over him, her form haloed in the terrifying green-black light. The spear of energy dissipated from her hand, its job done. She looked down at him, her expression not one of triumph, but of cold, absolute finality.

"I promised you a universe of pain, human. This is but the first star."

’Damn it... she got me,’ his mind screamed through the haze of agony. ’This hurts. This really, really hurts. She wasn’t just throwing power, she was using it like a scalpel. She’s a real fighter.’ The black veins of the rot-poison were already crawling up his neck. ’Gotta go. Gotta bail. Gorok is definitely not paying me enough for this crap.’

Fena raised her hand, palm open, to deliver the final, crushing blow. "Now, you will join my people in the dust."

Just as her hand began to descend, Kenchi’s body dissolved.

It just lost cohesion, breaking apart into a swirling cloud of thick, black smoke. Fena’s hand passed through the last wisps of it, striking nothing but empty air.

The smoke shot off the balcony and across the village square, moving with an unnatural speed before vanishing into the treeline.

Fena stood frozen for a half-second, her hand still outstretched. The shock of his escape hit her, and her control finally, completely, shattered.

"NO!"

Her scream was not a sound; it was a wave of force. The last, potent dregs of her burning life force erupted from her body in an uncontrolled, omnidirectional blast. The Elder’s house didn’t just break; it atomized, the wood and stone turned to dust. The reanimated corpses of her people, who were just shambling onto the path below, were caught in the blast and vaporized instantly.

The wave of power washed over the entire glade, leaving a perfect circle of absolute destruction with her at its epicenter.

When the dust settled, she was alone, floating in the center of a barren crater where her home used to be. The black lines on her skin faded, the terrifying power gone, leaving only a deep, hollowing exhaustion. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed amidst the ruins, her body trembling not with power, but with weakness.

He was gone.

And she was alone, with nothing but the ghosts of her people and the bitter taste of failed vengeance.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺