Chapter 217 - 217)Sadistic

"You've grown…so…..so strong…" 

Blade's bloody hand dropped. Night felt the weight on his weapon change. It was now pointed lower. Blade's body was on its knees, bowing down to his junior, his martial brother. Even though this was a vision of sorts, in his last moments, Blade fulfilled the promise he had made when he first met Night.

"If you manage to slice even a single dummy by this month-end, I'll personally bow down to you and pledge to be your slave,"

The desperate words that Night mentioned moments before Blade died, came true in the most unfortunate of circumstances. A few seconds later, his entire body turned into golden particles, making the other end of the Glacial Balance fall to the ground.

Night stood there, with his weapon in his hand, one end covered with blood, the tears were finally starting to dry up. His eyes that looked like they were bleeding felt dry. He cursed himself. Just what did he do to deserve this?

'Should I be grateful? In some sadistic…no masochistic way…experiencing all this just makes me stronger right?', Unfortunately before his thoughts could wander any further. The notification from the system snapped him out of his daze.

[First trial cleared!]

[Moving to Trial 2]

[Defend the kingdom until reinforcements arrive or ensure that the enemies numbers drop to 0]

[Hardcore mode detected! Multiplying opponents!]

[Damage dealt by opponents increased]

"…..Gimme a break man," Night muttered, his voice was dry and deep. He looked around and noticed that the allied force only had around 5,000 soldiers, while the opponents, had an army that was well over 10,000. However, the good part was that the highest leveled soldier present on the battlefield was 200.

He stood at the forefront and behind him were soldiers in full silver armor. They were cheering and howling as they looked at Night. It seemed as if they looked to Night as their leader.

Night looked into the distance and noticed the enemies rushing towards them. He had to win this battle in a grand manner, not to mention he had to make the first move, in other words, he had to put on a show worthy of a leader.

"Fine…" Night gulped and pushed his feelings deeper inside. He summoned Dawn's bow and aimed it upwards. From the cuff's of his armor, black clouds crawled out, making all the soldiers take a step back. Slowly these clouds formed a giant arrow. Night took a huge breath and shot it high into the air, to the point where it wasn't visible for a few seconds.

The enemies on the other hand were barely 30 meters away. Until finally they seemed to slow down, they noticed how everyone on the allied army looked up and gulped. Unfortunately, they didn't have the opportunity to praise the attack. As soon as they looked up, the giant arrow exploded into thousands of tinier arrows. The attack pierced thousands of enemies, killing hundreds on the spot.

'Wow….normally I shouldn't be able to do that…..the mental stress would be too much to control something that big… but right now I feel like I can do it two more times….'

His soldiers on the other hand noticed the damage their leader had caused with a single attack. They were more than ecstatic, a small part of them even felt fear. Just as they were about to rush forward, Night raised his hand once again, stopping the entire army.

"I'm not done…" It was finally time to try the skill tree he wanted to. The Niflheim skill tree. Currently it had only one skill, but just that had the potential to eat away a huge bunch of enemies.

He summoned his Glacial Balance and pointed it at the confused enemies. They had no idea what just hit them, the ranks were in utter chaos, no one knew what that was, however, things were only going to get worse.

Two different colored threads appeared at the tip of his double edged sword. They were white and black, slowly but surely, these threads seemed to be forming into a huge sphere. The surroundings beings took a step back in awe of the death like smell the skill emanated.

"Winter's Malice…" he said as he watched the giant sphere eat away everything in front of it. The soldiers disappeared as if they had never existed, it was like dust that was sucked into a vacuum. The truth was that the opponents weren't exactly meant to take on attacks like that. Not to mention the fact that most of them were around level 80.

Winter's Malice created a huge gap in the enemy ranks, eating up a few hundred soldiers. In just a few seconds Night had managed to kill nearly a thousand players. The main purpose of this trial was to test whether or not he had the capability to take a life. While Night was close to taking a life before, the circumstances were different. He had a reason before. The Pope was evil and was hurting many. However, these soldiers could either be good or bad, the only thing he went on was the system's words.

After the previous trial, Night was in no mood to focus on reason and morals. He understood that the system wanted to see if he could take the lives of random soldiers he had never met before, and the unfortunate but dark truth was that he could. Easily so. It was gruesome, he wanted to get this over with, he wanted to slay everyone that stood in his path.

Night looked back and saw all his allies preparing to counter. "Archers, take aim," he calmly ordered. The best way to make sure the casualties were low or zero was to steadily reduce the enemy numbers from a safe distance. While normally it may seem slightly difficult to accomplish or see through. With Night blasting away the enemies left and right, it gave them absolutely no chance to fight back.

Any soldier that wanted to fight back was randomly killed. If he ever felt his mana dropping, Night would simply rely on his Umbrakinesis and hunt down hundreds again. The enemies that were only 30 meters away were now pushed back completely. The allied forces were no longer defending the walls, they were hunting down the ruffians that desperately tried to escape.

Bloody clouds covered the battle field, burning banners, walls broken down, trenches completely destroyed. "It's kind of rare to see a trench used while attacking…" even Night found it weird, but nevertheless, he didn't stick around for more than a few seconds. Everywhere he looked dead bodies were scattered. Every step he took the enemies backed up in fear. There were now only a few hundred left.

At this point, he didn't even have to command the archers to fire. No matter how much the opponents tried to escape, they were immediately killed by the archers. However, before  the archers shot another round, Night raised his fist bringing everyone to halt.

"I'll take things from here…" he commented as he summoned his Glacial Balance. He rotated it and passed it between his hands as he walked towards the enemies. "Fight me. Beat me and you have a chance to escape. I give you my word," the remaining soldiers were all around level 170. However, in his eyes, they seemed like mere pawns.

The allied forces had no doubt that their leader was capable of slicing everyone there without any difficulty. Once they witnessed his speed and domain skills, there was nothing to say or even comment upon. Every move of his dealt a fatal blow to the opponents. Within a few minutes, the battlefield was cleaned out of anything he deemed scum.

*Thud*

*Thud*

Night's heartbeat was at an all time high. He was excited, blood was smeared all over his face. His eyes glowing, his smile paired with everything else made him seem sadistic. There was something in him that was excited. Proud. It felt natural. It was as if he was used to such slaughter.

[Weapon Mastery +C ———> Weapon Mastery +B]

[Congratulations! You have cleared the second trial with zero casualties! Taking into account…]

[You have completed the second trial before the arrival of the reinforcements! Take into account…]

When Night looked back, he could see the reinforcements finally arrive. They were on top of the kingdoms walls, astonished but at the same time, frightened by what caused such a thing to happen. Looking at his own destruction, Night smirked. All around him was nothing but blood and corpses. Every hole filled with bodies, every trench, every small piece of land. 

Even though the allied forces had won, no one there was in a mood to fully cheer and celebrate the fact that they had defended the kingdom with no casualties. It enraged Night. It was something he couldn't understand, at least not at the moment.

"What?? You're not satisfied with this? You're not satisfied with winning? With keeping your own lives? You think war is only meaningful when accompanied by death? Does someone always have to die? Aren't you fcking glad that you get to spend another fcking day with your family?!!??!!" Night's fists tightened as he moved towards his own soldiers. "AREN'T YOUU??!"

"ANSWER ME!!" the dark clouds around him danced around violently. To the point where they acted like whips. Lashing out and burning random bodies on the ground. "TELL ME!" his own soldiers feared him. They moved back hurriedly afraid of what would happen to them.

However, before Night could do something he would probably regret, another notification saved him from making the mistake.

[Moving to trial 3!]