3 – Absolute Violence Mud exploded into the air.
The reek of blood and beast hit her full in the face.
Brienne locked her eyes on those blood-smeared tusks.
The monster was simply too big.
The side-step and eye-thrust she had planned would only get her smashed aside.
Just before the Boar King reached her, she drove both legs into the ground and threw herself hard to the side.
Then she came up swinging.
Clang!
The longsword scraped across the coarse dark-brown bristles and slammed into the thick hide beneath.
The blade left only a shallow white mark.
It had not even cut the skin.
The Boar King’s momentum carried it past.
Its massive body twisted violently.
A thick hind leg swept around and smashed into Brienne’s braced form.
She grunted.
Her whole body flew like a snapped kite string and crashed into a mud pit three meters away.
The expensive half-plate caved in under the impact.
Agony flooded every nerve.
Her head rang like a struck bell.
She tried to rise, but her limbs refused to obey.
Her vision blurred.
Muddy water flooded her mouth.
The Boar King skidded to a halt, shook its head in irritation, and fixed its gaze on the paralyzed squire Roland a short distance away.
Roland clutched his head and knelt in the mud, sobbing.
The Boar King gave a low growl, opened its blood-stained jaws, and clamped down on Roland’s shoulder.
“Aaaah—!” Roland’s scream tore through the trees.
The beast yanked hard.
The iron rings of the mail shirt held for a moment, then burst.
Sharp links sliced the Boar King’s gums.
It jerked back in pain and disgust, flinging Roland to the ground.
Enraged, it raised a forehoof and brought it down on his chest with crushing force.
The sharp crack of breaking bone rang clearly through the rainforest.
Roland’s scream cut off.
His ribcage was flattened.
Blood and shredded organs poured from his mouth.
“No… please no…” The remaining squire, Pat, completely lost his mind.
He scrambled away on hands and knees, fleeing the way they had come.
After crushing Roland, the Boar King’s cloudy little eyes shifted and locked onto the fleeing figure.
It snorted a jet of hot breath and started after him.
“Hey!
Beast!” A hoarse, furious shout came from behind.
Brienne forced herself upright.
Mud covered her face.
Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth.
She planted her sword in the earth and used it to push herself up, eyes locked on the Boar King.
“Your opponent is me!” Her voice shook, but the resolve in it was absolute.
She turned her head toward the fleeing Pat.
“Run!
Back to Evenfall Hall!
Tell my father I did everything I could!
Tell him not to avenge me!” The Boar King stopped.
It turned its huge body and faced the prey that still dared challenge it.
Fresh blood dripped from its tusks into the mud.
It began to walk toward her—slow, deliberate, heavy with pressure.
Brienne closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the sword.
She knew she was going to die.
She simply refused to die like a coward.
Suddenly the Boar King’s steps halted.
Its short ears snapped upright.
The massive head swung toward the dense forest on the left.
An uneasy, agitated growl rumbled in its throat.
Its front hooves began to tear at the earth in frantic scrapes.
Brienne opened her eyes.
She heard it too.
From the deep woods to the left came the sound of something enormous running—heavy, rapid, and impossibly loud.
Thick brush was being crushed in wide swaths.
Wrist-thick branches snapped one after another.
Boom!
The undergrowth at the forest edge exploded outward.
Through a storm of flying wood chips and mud, a massive black shape launched into the air.
Brienne’s eyes went wide.
Her breath stopped.
It was a man.
A man so tall he defied every natural limit.
Rek’Sai sailed more than ten meters through the air.
Two-point-four meters of height and three hundred and sixty jin of terrifying mass came down with the force of a collapsing mountain, straight at the Boar King.
The beast sensed the lethal threat.
It roared in pure rage and raised those steel-piercing tusks to meet the falling shadow.
Rek’Sai did not dodge.
His bronze arms spread wide.
Muscle fibers stood out like tightly wound steel cables.
At the exact moment of impact his hands shot out with perfect precision and locked around the upward-thrusting tusks.
Crash!
Man and beast slammed together in the mud.
Water exploded outward in a perfect ring, spraying several meters.
The ground itself shuddered.
The four-meter bulk of the Boar King was forced to a dead stop.
Its four thick legs plowed deep furrows in the earth as it strained forward with everything it had.
Rek’Sai’s feet sank into the mud.
The coarse linen across his upper body split open under the sudden expansion of muscle.
A low, bestial growl rolled from his throat.
Both arms locked against the tusks, matching the thousand-jin monster strength for strength.
Brienne sat collapsed only a few meters away, staring in blank disbelief.
What kind of monster was this?
Fully armored knights died against this Boar King.
This bare-chested savage was wrestling it with nothing but his bare hands.
She heard the inhuman man speak in a low voice: “You’ll do.” Rek’Sai’s eyes burned.
There was no fear in those green vertical pupils—only pure hunger to conquer.
Then he roared: “Waaargh!” The Boar King twisted its neck wildly, trying to throw him off.
Its strength was monstrous.
Rek’Sai’s feet were shoved half a meter backward through the mud.
“Not bad.” His arms exploded with power.
He yanked hard in the direction the beast was turning.
The Boar King’s balance broke.
Its massive body tilted sideways.
Rek’Sai used the momentum, ripped his legs free of the mud, and in one fluid motion vaulted onto the Boar King’s broad back.
Three hundred and sixty jin crashed down.
The Boar King screamed and went completely berserk.
It charged through the rainforest with Rek’Sai on its back, slamming its thick body into ironwood trunks again and again.
Bark exploded.
Wood chips filled the air.
Rek’Sai did not flinch.
Branches scraped across his bronze skin and left only faint white marks.
Only then did Brienne notice the two massive axes hanging at the small of his back.
He had no intention of using them.
His legs clamped the Boar King’s flanks like a vise.
His left hand seized a fistful of the stiff bristles at its neck.
His right hand curled into a fist the size of a small sandbag.
Boom!
The punch slammed into the side of the Boar King’s skull.
The beast’s head snapped sideways.
Its charging stride stumbled.
It shook its head harder and began leaping in place, trying to buck the man off its back.
“Down!” Rek’Sai roared.
His right fist rose again, whipping the air.
Boom!
Boom!
No fancy technique.
Only pure, primitive, overwhelming violence.
Every punch landed with a dull, wet sound of bone and flesh meeting absolute force.