Chapter 141: Worry

"Hyyyaaah!" With a grunt I plant my mace into the unfortunate skull of one of my enemies.

The man has his head instantly squashed and reduced to a paste as my momentum pulls through him unperturbed. My mace, stained with the man's innards slams not for the first time into the wall.

The result is a splintering attack of ice shards erupting and impaling all the unfortunate foe close enough to be impaled by the blood crystals.

I huff, finally having a small breather to think and check my surroundings after that devastating attack. Over the wall and far ahead the lights keep multiplying, on the wall men still scramble about, some of them heading towards me and others try to attempt a sneak attack on my comrade.

My comrade Asher.

The red shirted man with long impossibly silky hair walks through his enemies. 

And yet I worry for him. Perhaps even more than he worries for me with the strange, accusing way he looks at me these days.

He holds a strong grudge and distrust towards the Goddess that gifted me these devasting powers of frost, powers that now wreak chaos on his enemies, and sustains me even more than before.

Whatever reason he has fathomed to hold misgivings against her glory, he has yet to present them. He argues that my reasoning has been distorted and alerted by the Goddess, that my behaviour and thinking are not the same as before.

Though I am certain this is not true, my heart begins to harbour doubts. Would Kaylin believe the same thing, would Aren confess the same feelings as well?

I fear that if they do, my faith in the Goddess will be shaken. 

But Asher is not one to talk. Another bit of reality that keeps me far grounded is the fact that he spent an entire week under the Wolf's influence, he wandered about the wild eating and biting into anything he came across.

And now, after meeting him with his wits once more his own, I belief he is far more bloodthirsty than ever.

He holds no more reluctance to kill a man, he holds no remorse to tear out a soul if those glowing orbs around him are truly what he says they are. He has yet to give the pile of bodies that grow behind him as he walks forth a second thought

I breath and get ready for the next wave of knaves that come my way, pikes, swords and bows in hand.

Perhaps I am simply crying wolf. Perhaps there's nothing to worry about, the lower Deity that struck him with hunger for a week could have no real influence over him to make him remorseless of his actions.

Afterall, since our journey began the only living things he has attacked are the ones that attack him, the goblin creeps in the cave, the Cult and the foul bandits who thought to strip us of our belongings.

And each time he never stopped to think about the lives. He understands perfectly that it's one or the other, my enemy or myself. 

One must die, one must fall on the sword.

Perhaps this is so.

But…if that were the case why would he be ripping out the souls and draining the life out of the cowardly men who throw themselves on his mercies in this battle, in this assault.

Why is he deaf to their pleas? Why is he unwilling to leave them alive?

Why is he turning their bodies into corpses that explode, ghouls that kill even more and use their bones to form the twirling shield of six that protect him from assault?

"Stop right there! B-by order of t-he…" the foe leading his comrades towards my chaos stammers. Unable to reconcile that the group sent ahead are all dead now.

I turn my eyes away from my calmly strolling friend and put my worries of his state of mind aside. 

"Do you wish to die?"

"W-what?" the man stutters, already, behind him the men and women he's led over here look shattered. Their morale has been lost to the wind, their eyes dart between I and the ground below.

"There is no escape from death if you choose to face me, you will be ended by my frost or you shall fall to your demise at the hands of your untamed fear…for me." I begin to explain, "But if you wish to live, you simply need to turn around and spread the word of surrender."

"But, the city." A woman speaks, her voice far clearer than their leaders, "We are to defend it!" She pushes forward, short sword raised up in rebellion, rebellion of her fate and her lack of strength.

I shake my head solemnly, "The city is already his." I simply point down to the scene of gore, death and decay Asher has been creating. All the dead have risen and the numbers under his control begin to reach the hundreds.

"We are here to redeem the elves from their oppression, we are here to rule justly, with no concern for race or blood or appearance, simply creed and fairness."

"Rule? Elves? You want to give the elves power so they can kill and rape and oppress us instead? No!" She readies herself, "I will fight to protect my freedom!"

Charging at me head first, a war cry screeching inspires and spurs on her comrades and they too follow and march towards me. However, it is all for naught.

"Hurh!" with an upward wave of my mace, the power of the Goddess Frozia orders all moisture, blood, urine, water, all of it becomes an instrument of my destruction and the weapon of the valiant woman, as well as many of her comrades' deaths.

Impaled by a frozen mixture of blood and water the woman dies not a coward, but a warrior.

Seeing their group cut down within seconds the remainder, the survivors begin to back away, including their leader.

I shift my gaze to the man and once more order, "No more men should die pointlessly at my hands on this wall this beautiful day, the sun is shining and the wind blows, your families await you, don't they?"

Softly, the man nods as do the rest of his surviving men.

"Then, go, tell the others that they should all fall on their knees and beg the mercy of the man down there, for he is the new Mayor of this place…perhaps, the new Marquess of this March."