12 – Blood on the Sand The group advanced along the muddy path leading to the eastern coast.
Tarth was mountainous, the trees towering high.
Pig’s massive bulk forced a wide animal trail through the forest.
The warhorse, led by Brienne, followed behind with trembling steps.
Rek’Sai suddenly yanked the reins.
Pig gave a low grunt and charged straight into the bushes beside the road.
Branches shook violently, completely hiding both man and beast.
Brienne’s hand went to her sword hilt on pure reflex, eyes scanning the surroundings.
Fewer than ten breaths later— Crash!
The undergrowth was violently smashed aside.
Pig stamped back onto the dirt road with heavy steps.
Brienne sucked in a sharp breath, eyes fixed wide.
In Rek’Sai’s right hand a gigantic double-bladed war axe had appeared out of nowhere.
The weapon was five feet long.
Its twin blades stretched nearly half a meter wide, gleaming with a dark gold-red sheen under the sunlight that pierced the canopy.
A snarling skull was carved into the axe eye.
A fist-sized black crystal was set into the end of the haft.
Even from several paces away, Brienne could smell the blood-reek that clung to the weapon.
It was so heavy an ordinary knight might not even be able to swing it with both hands.
Rek’Sai carried it as casually as a dry stick.
“Master.” Brienne swallowed.
“That axe… where did it come from?” “Picked it up.” Rek’Sai brushed the question off without interest.
Brienne opened her mouth, glanced at the surrounding bushes that held nothing but rotting leaves, and wisely shut it again.
Who would abandon a weapon of this caliber in the wilderness of Tarth?
She understood clearly that the secrets her master carried ran even deeper than his monstrous strength.
The two continued east.
The scent of the sea grew thicker, but mixed into the wind was a wrong, scorched stench.
Rek’Sai’s nostrils flared.
A beast’s instinct locked onto the heavy smell of blood in an instant.
He clamped his legs hard around the boar’s flanks.
Pig immediately accelerated.
Its four hooves hammered the earth like war drums.
Brienne swung into the saddle and spurred after him.
They burst over a gentle slope, and the eastern coast came into view.
Cedar Village.
It should have been a quiet fishing settlement.
Instead, several thatched houses on the outer edge were already roaring with flames.
Two long, shallow-draft wooden ships sat on the beach, crude skull designs painted on their sails.
Dozens of ragged pirates armed with cutlasses and short spears were rampaging through the village.
Men had been driven into the open ground.
Any who resisted were run through on the spot.
Women’s screams and children’s cries tangled together into one continuous wail.
“Pirates from the Stepstones!” Brienne’s face turned iron-gray.
She ripped her longsword free, breathing already rough.
“Master, these are your people.
We have to protect them!” The honor of a knight burned hot in her chest.
Rek’Sai only stared coldly downward.
“Fuck.
That’s my village.” He exhaled a harsh breath.
His dark-green vertical pupils narrowed dangerously.
“Coming to steal my gold and my labor?
These pieces of shit must be tired of living!” He did not reach for the twin axes at his waist.
Instead he lifted the newly obtained Arcanite Reaper in one hand.
“Keep up.
Don’t die to trash.” Rek’Sai slammed both heels into Pig’s sides.
The Boar King unleashed an ear-splitting roar.
Two tons of living flesh charged toward the village like a boulder rolling down a mountain, carrying world-breaking momentum.
Brienne drew a deep breath, tightened her abdomen, and spurred her horse into a gallop.
The few pirates at the village entrance felt the ground tremble.
They turned—and saw the most terrifying sight of their lives.
An impossibly large black-bristled boar carrying an iron-tower giant was crashing toward them with unstoppable force.
“Enemy attac—” One pirate had barely opened his mouth when Pig was already on him.
The Boar King never slowed.
Its thick tusks punched straight through the man’s chest.
The impact launched his entire body into the air.
Entrails and blood fell in a red rain.
Pig smashed straight into the crowd.
The wet sounds of breaking bones rose one after another.
Three pirates were trampled into pulp on the spot.
“Kill him!” The pirate leader—a bald man covered in knife scars—waved a long blade and howled.
More than a dozen pirates quickly closed in, spears thrusting as one toward Rek’Sai on the boar’s back.
Rek’Sai bared a mouthful of white teeth.
Bloodlust exploded in his chest.
In this life I cultivate no good karma—I only love killing and burning!
He neither dodged nor blocked.
His waist exploded with power.
The muscles of his right arm swelled into hard slabs.
The Arcanite Reaper swept out with a screaming storm of wind!
Clang!
Crack!
Spear shafts snapped in unison.
The axe’s momentum never slowed.
It carved straight through the waists of the two pirates in front.
No resistance at all.
Both bodies were cut cleanly in half.
Upper torsos tumbled through the air.
Blood sprayed like fountains across the dry mud.
“All of you die for me!” The extreme weight and edge of the Arcanite Reaper, combined with Rek’Sai’s inhuman strength, was a pure dimensional crush.
The pirates’ courage shattered.
They had spent years licking blood on the sea and seen hard men, but never a monster that could bisect a man with a single axe swing.
One pirate screamed and turned to run.
Rek’Sai’s left hand flicked.
One of the throwing axes at his waist left his grip with a sharp thunk and split the man’s skull open from behind with perfect accuracy.
Brienne had also charged into the fight.
She lacked Rek’Sai’s crushing violence, but she held tight to the breathing method.
Sidestep the cut—thrust the longsword into a throat—pull free and turn—smash the pommel into a face bone.
Her movements were clean and decisive.
Rek’Sai reaped lives from the boar’s back in a frenzy.
Every swing of the Arcanite Reaper took at least one life.
Severed limbs flew across the open ground.
The scarred leader gritted his teeth until they cracked, raised an iron-bound round shield, and tried to block head-on.
Rek’Sai gave a cold snort.
The Arcanite Reaper rose high and came down with the force of splitting a mountain.
Boom!
The gold-red blade cut the air.
The iron-bound shield tore apart like paper.
The axe continued straight down through the leader’s crown, splitting him cleanly in two from head to crotch.
Red and white matter splattered across Rek’Sai’s boot.
With the leader dead, the remaining pirates completely collapsed.
“Monster!
He’s a monster!” The surviving dozen or so threw down their weapons and scrambled toward the beach on hands and knees.
“Trying to leave?” Rek’Sai vaulted down from the boar.
Both feet hit the ground and immediately crushed a stone slab.
He strode forward at shocking speed, like a caged beast finally released.
The pirates had just reached the sand and begun to push the boats when Rek’Sai was already at their backs.
The giant axe swept sideways.
Three heads shot into the sky!
The slaughter lasted less than the time it takes a stick of incense to burn halfway.
The beach was littered with broken corpses.
The seawater had turned a pale red.
Brienne sat on her horse breathing hard, blood dripping from her blade.
Looking at the mountain of corpses and sea of blood beneath Rek’Sai’s feet, she was once again shaken to the core.
This was not a battle.
It was a one-sided clearing.
Rek’Sai waded into the seawater and casually rinsed the Arcanite Reaper.
He glanced at the two pirate ships and coldly smirked in his heart: Not only free heads, but two wooden ships thrown in for free.
Pure profit this time.
He walked back into the village carrying the dripping giant axe.
Several hundred ragged villagers knelt on the open ground, trembling like quails.
They stared at this giant who was ten times more savage than the pirates and believed they had only escaped the wolf’s den to fall into the tiger’s mouth.
Rek’Sai stopped in front of the old man who looked most like a village head.
The old man pressed his face hard into the mud in terror.
“From today on, Cedar Village belongs to me.” Rek’Sai’s rough voice exploded across the open ground.
“Pay taxes on time and work for me.
If any other trash dares come to rob you, I’ll chop them up the same way I did today.
Understood?” Brienne stepped forward at the right moment.
“I am Brienne of Tarth.
This territory has been granted to him by my father—my master, Ser Rek’Sai Storm.” The old man kowtowed repeatedly, voice shaking.
“Understood, my lord!
We will certainly be loyal to my lord!” The moment the words left his mouth, the long-absent system prompt rang in Rek’Sai’s mind.
[Quest: Territory Development — Completed.] [You have established absolute authority over Cedar Village.] [Reward: Basic Beast Camp (Unlocked).] [Please designate the location for the totem.] Rek’Sai grinned.
He swept his gaze around and locked onto a higher forest clearing behind the village.
It backed against a cliff face, offered a wide field of view, and was large enough to house the beast army he would one day raise.
“Clean up the corpses.
Drag the ships ashore and repair them.” Rek’Sai pointed at the scattered limbs on the ground and gave the villagers their orders.
He turned his head toward Brienne.
“Come.
Let’s go look at our new land behind the village.” Rek’Sai strode toward the woodland.
He could already feel it—once the totem was planted, his capital for contending on this continent would finally take true root.