Chapter Eighteen: The Hordes of the Undead Part 2

Zero headed deeper into the dungeon.

The further he descended, the more the gravestones changed. What had once been elegant memorials of peaceful rest were now larger, more jagged, and twisted into ugly, malformed shapes. The sacred atmosphere of Okunoin had been completely overwritten by something far more malignant.

Then he saw him.

A Sidhe sat casually atop a massive, cracked gravestone. Behind him stood a towering behemoth of an undead — a hulking mass of rotting muscle and bone, easily three times the height of a normal man, its empty eye sockets glowing with a dull red light.

The Sidhe twirled a small crescent blade between his fingers.

“Well, well, well… it is you.” He tilted his head, studying Zero’s face. “From that vague expression, you don’t remember who I am?”

Zero stopped a short distance away, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

“Who are you?”

The Sidhe gave an exaggerated, almost theatrical bow of the head.

“Ah, do forgive me. I am Braelion, Herald of Fate. Not some amalgam monster you faced before… but someone chosen by the Architects and the Fae Hegemony to serve as their vanguard.” His needle-like teeth flashed in a cold smile. “You bested that wench’s idiot brother… but I’m here now.”

Without a sound, Braelion landed lightly on the stone path in front of the grave.

He flicked his crescent blade toward Zero.

At the same moment, the massive undead behemoth roared and barreled forward, the ground shaking beneath its charge.

Zero’s cape stirred as the deep maroon Magicyte circuits across his heavy armor flared to life. He drew his sword in one smooth motion, the dark-red glow reflecting in his gray eyes.

The lower floors of Okunoin had finally offered him something worth cutting down.

Zero charged forward in a haze of speed.

The hulking undead behemoth brought its massive rotting arm down in a crushing overhead smash. Zero didn’t slow. His sword swept upward in a single, clean arc.

The arm was cleaved cleanly from the shoulder. The force of the swing sent a hurricane-like blast of wind tearing past the creature, scattering broken gravestones and loose dirt across the platform.

Braelion’s eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise.

“These Delvers are more intelligent than I thought. Here I assumed they were simple monkeys… figured they were just scavenging the dead. This has become more exciting.”

Zero stepped straight through the behemoth without slowing. His blade flashed once more.

The towering undead split cleanly in two from crown to groin. Both halves collapsed with a wet, heavy thud, blackened ichor spilling across the ancient stone.

Zero pointed his glowing sword at Braelion, the deep maroon Magicyte circuits along his armor pulsing brighter.

“Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.” His voice was flat, almost bored. “Give me a challenge. My blood demands violence.”

Braelion’s needle-like teeth flashed in a sharp smile.

“As you wish, Fatebreaker.”

Braelion dashed forward with blinding speed.

Their blades met in a violent clash, sending a shower of sparks and dark-red light exploding across the platform. Zero shoved him back with a sharp flick of his sword, the force of the parry cracking the stone beneath their feet.

Undeterred, Braelion came again — more forceful this time. He slammed his crescent blade down in a heavy, savage overhead strike. Zero caught it on the edge of his own sword, the deep maroon Magicyte circuits along his armor flaring under the sudden pressure.

Braelion’s strength was different from the previous Sidhe. It was heavier. More brutal. More relentless.

The force drove Zero down onto one knee.

Braelion’s needle-like teeth flashed in a cruel smile as he leaned in, pressing harder against the locked blades.

“That’s proper for you, Fatebreaker… on your knee in front of your superior.”

He chuckled, the sound low and mocking.

Zero’s gray eyes lifted slowly, the deep red glow of his Magicyte armor reflecting in them. For a brief moment, the pressure of the Sidhe’s strength held him there — but the look on Zero’s face was not one of submission. It was the look of a man who had just been given a reason to stop holding back. Zero pushed Braelion off, then balling his fist and smashing it into the side of his face

"That's proper for you Sidhe, a fist in your face" Zero smirked, Braelion’s expression twisted with pure rage.

Magic began to swirl violently around him as he let out a sharp, furious scream. A burst of power exploded outward. His crescent blade warped and stretched, flattening and elongating into a straight, vicious edge. Frost rapidly crawled along the metal, coating it in a layer of razor-sharp ice.

“I’ll freeze the blood in your veins, Fatebreaker!”

Braelion rushed forward once more. The crashing of weapon against weapon began anew — steel and ice meeting Magicyte-reinforced blade in a relentless storm of sparks and frozen shards. Each impact sent cracks racing across the ancient stone platform as the two warriors traded blows at blinding speed.

Zero met every strike head-on, the deep maroon circuits across his heavy armor pulsing brighter with each exchange. The cold radiating from Braelion’s transformed weapon bit at the air, but Zero’s pressure only continued to rise.

Chaos reigned on the upper levels.

The horde of undead had fully surfaced, a writhing mass of rotting flesh and broken limbs pouring from every grave and cracked memorial. The air was thick with the stench of death and the constant, broken groaning of the dead.

The Tyrants met them with reckless abandon.

Raiden’s greatsword carved massive arcs through the swarm, each swing splitting multiple undead at once. Blackened blood and rotting flesh sprayed across the ancient paths as he roared with pure battle joy.

“Keep pushing! Don’t let them regroup!”

Yumi Shinohara moved like a phantom between the denser clusters, her twin blades flashing in precise, lethal cuts. Heads and limbs dropped in her wake before the corpses even registered her presence.

Kai Hayashi laughed as he raised his staff, floating Magicyte orbs detonating in controlled explosions that tore open gaps in the horde. “They’re endless! This is perfect!”

Sora Amemiya held the rear and flanks, barriers of pale light forming and shattering as she redirected the densest waves while striking down any undead that slipped past with precise thrusts of her spear.

Despite the overwhelming numbers, the Tyrants were not being pushed back.

They were massacring the horde.

Braelion’s ice-coated blade scraped against Zero’s sword with a sharp metallic screech. Frost exploded outward from the impact, coating nearby gravestones in a thin layer of ice.

Zero’s expression remained calm — almost hungry. The true test had only just begun. Braelion met Zero in combat once again, roaring like a madman.

His strikes came with the fervor of someone completely possessed — wild, savage, and fueled by pure outrage. The ice-coated blade howled through the air with every swing, freezing the moisture in the air into sharp crystalline shards that shattered against Zero’s armor.

“Die! Die! Die! Die!” Braelion screamed, his needle-like teeth bared. “You dare strike me!? ME! I am a royal, you fucking peasant!”

Each of his furious blows was met with equal force.

Zero matched him strike for strike, the deep maroon Magicyte circuits along his heavy armor flaring brighter with every collision. The platform beneath them cracked further under the relentless exchange, ancient gravestones splintering from the shockwaves.

Yet of the two, only Zero was smiling.

It was a small, sharp expression — the look of a man who had finally found something worth pushing against. His gray eyes burned with cold intensity as he continued to meet Braelion’s frenzied assault without giving ground.

“Is that all?” Zero said between clashes, voice steady and almost amused. “A royal should hit harder than this.”

Braelion’s rage only deepened, the ice around his blade spreading further as he poured more power into his next series of strikes.

The duel had become a storm of steel, frost, and raw killing intent.