Chương 134: Malcolm the Shield of Death

Malcolm, formerly the Divine Sword, slammed into the solid ground just beyond the army's cloud of pestilence. He bounced once, then landed on his feet, the earth cracking beneath him as he dragged his shield forward and prepared to strike. When the Progenitor reappeared, however, Malcolm saw that he carried two unmoving forms in his arms, and he relaxed, certain no attack would follow. The two figures were scorched with blight, their bodies marred and blackened, and Malcolm knew they were not long for this world.

Soon they would join him in undeath. Soon, they would be one with the army. But as he waited, something felt wrong. He did not sense their transition. They did not fill with deathly aura. Instead, they coughed, rolled onto their feet, and forced healing pills between trembling lips as the blighted scars on their bodies began to fade. Confusion rippled through what remained of Malcolm's mind. If he were still capable of speech, he would have cursed. Even now, like this, the Progenitor interfered.

How had he purged the blight so quickly? How had he saved them? How many times would this man stand in his way? A guttural roar tore from Malcolm's throat, thick with corruption, snapping the Progenitor's attention back to him. Blight dripped from Malcolm's mouth as he snarled, feral and absolute. It did not matter. In the end, all things fell. Even the Progenitor would die. There was no way he could stand against all four Horsemen, with Malcolm, the Shield of Death, barring his path.

Soon, he would learn who truly stood at the top of the food chain. Soon, he would understand what it meant when an Apocalypse advanced. __ Relief flooded through Joe as both Esha and Xingyu stabilized under the cleansing flow of Uriel's light. They were far from unscathed, but they were alive, and that was all that mattered. [Esh. You need to leave now. Company is about to arrive.] - Joe. Esha forced herself upright and hauled Xingyu onto her back in one smooth motion. [I'll get Xingyu to safety. Then come help.] - Esha. [No. Do not come back for me, no matter what. You cannot face what is coming in your condition.] - Joe. [I won't leave you, Farmer.] - Esha. Joe drew a sharp breath. There was no time for this. He turned to Esha and, for the first time since she had known him, spoke with unrestrained fury.

"Leave!! Get out of here. Now!!!" he roared. The force of his voice alone made Esha stumble back in shock. The hesitation lasted only a heartbeat before she blurred into motion, racing away from the cloud of undead, away from him, and most importantly, away from the four figures emerging from the black haze. Four skeletal horsemen strode from the cloud, wreathed in a churning tide of pulsing black mana. One raised a hand, and a bolt of death screamed through the air after Esha.

Joe vanished and reappeared directly in its path, slamming his quarterstaff into the pitch-black energy. The impact detonated like a collapsing star, hurling Joe across the landscape as the blast tore the ground apart. Before the dust could settle, a second horseman lifted its hand, targeting Esha's retreating form. Joe twisted in mid-air and forced himself upright just in time to see the next bolt tear free.

Esha's danger sense flared, and she shifted her stride at the last possible instant, the blast passing close enough to scorch the air behind her. She crushed the teleportation talisman Joe had pressed into her hand for exactly this moment. Light swallowed her and Xingyu, and they vanished, reappearing miles to the east, far beyond the reach of the undead. The horsemen lowered their hands and turned as one toward the lone figure who Space-Jumped back into their midst.

"You recover quickly, human," Famine drawled from atop his black steed.

"But you should have run when you had the chance." Joe stared into the hollow sockets of its skull and felt a chill crawl down his spine. He tightened his grip on his staff.

"I haven't finished collecting what I came for," he said calmly, gesturing toward Malcolm, who still stood nearby with his shield raised.

"Foolish. He is ours now, isn't that right, Shield of Death?" Famine raised a hand, and Malcolm lifted his shield overhead in solemn acknowledgement. Joe exhaled slowly at the sight. Then he flinched as the other three horsemen sank into pools of black mire and reappeared around him, their presence closing in from all sides. This was not the moment for a witty remark. Joe Space-Jumped straight upward, vanishing into the sky.

His new purple vine-woven barding formed around his body, while a heavy stream of violet mana coiled along his quarterstaff. The air vibrated with power as he began his descent. All four horsemen opened their palms, and bolts of black death screamed upward after him. Joe shifted his fall, but the bolts corrected instantly, homing in on his position. His eyes widened as the first one closed the distance. He vanished and reappeared to the left, only for the bolt to curve and pursue him relentlessly.

Joe swung his staff and smashed it aside, then vanished again, reappearing to his right as another bolt detonated nearby. The sky filled with streaks of glittering black mana as he deflected and evaded, strike after strike, until the air itself seemed saturated with death. Now only a few feet above the ground, Joe angled his descent toward Famine, the horseman who had spoken first. Famine did not retreat. Instead, it drew a massive black scythe from its back and swung upward to meet him.

Joe brought his mana-coated quarterstaff down, and the two weapons collided in an explosion of force that lit the battlefield. Joe twisted with the impact and landed beside the horseman, his staff thrumming with barely contained power as he swung again. Before the blow could land cleanly, a blast of black mana tore past from his right, forcing him to veer away.

"You have come here to die, human! You will not leave this place alive!" Pestilence roared. Joe cursed as he dodged again. Two more bolts exploded near him, the shockwaves lifting him off his feet and hurling him through the air. As he spun, searching for the next attack, Malcolm surged forward with his shield raised. The ethereal manifestation of that shield expanded outward, filling the sky as Malcolm crashed into him. Joe grunted as the impact slammed into his barding.

The vines held, absorbing the worst of the force, but the blow still sent him flying once more. He felt like a pinball being battered across the battlefield, and the sensation was rapidly wearing thin. His irritation hardened into resolve. Joe vanished. He reappeared in a blur of motion, slamming bodily into the horseman astride the blood-red steed. War roared in outrage as it swung its great sword down toward Joe's tumbling body, but Joe thrust out his staff and parried the blow before vanishing once more.

He reappeared beside Malcolm and struck again, only for a shimmering black shield to flare into existence and block his attack. Joe pressed forward, attempting to overwhelm Malcolm with a flurry of strikes, but he was forced back moments later as fresh bolts of black mana tore toward him from multiple angles.

Deep down, he knew fighting in the heart of their formation was a terrible idea, yet relentless bombardments and perfectly timed shields shut down every attempt to isolate a single horseman and break their circle. So he kept shifting targets, striking here and there, trying to force a mistake or create an opening he could exploit. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! The horsemen anticipated every move.

They stayed one step ahead, offering him no quarter. With no other option, Joe shifted his focus fully onto Malcolm at the center. It was a dangerous choice, as it gave all four horsemen clear lines of attack, forcing Joe almost entirely onto the defensive. He parried, dodged, and twisted through space as though his life depended on it, because it did. Nearly an hour passed before the strain began to show. Bolts of black mana slipped through Joe's defences and slammed into his barding.

For now, it held, but pain was starting to build, and patches of the purple vines were blackening and crumbling away. His mana reserves were draining rapidly now, while his opponents showed no signs of slowing. Then he spotted why. All four horsemen, including Malcolm, were tethered to the roiling cloud of death behind them. Thick, dark threads of mana flowed from the army into their forms, feeding them power and granting them what might as well have been limitless reserves.

If Joe wanted any chance of ending this, he had to sever that connection. Fortunately, they were outside the cloud itself, and the land beneath their feet was not yet dead. Joe smiled grimly as he activated Seeds Will Grow. The horsemen were ready. They had faced this tactic before, back in the palace, and reacted instantly when thick purple vines erupted from the ground beneath their mounts.

Two horsemen shifted aside with unnatural speed, one swung its scythe in a wide arc to sever the vines before they could bind, and the last simply ignited in black flame, burning the vines to ash before they could take hold. But the damage had been done, as their formation broke for a brief but critical moment, which gave Joe the opening he had been waiting for.

He surged forward and intensified his assault on Malcolm, becoming a whirlwind of purple mana as he poured everything he had into striking the black, smoke-like lines that tethered the horsemen and Malcolm to the blight. One by one, the connections snapped. Joe severed three of them in rapid succession, two horsemen and Malcolm himself, and the effect was immediate. A primal scream tore from all three as their endless supply of mana vanished in an instant.

With that advantage gone, he crushed one horseman outright, his staff slamming into brittle bone and forcing the shattered figure to flee into a black puddle from which it did not re-emerge. The second horseman was knocked clean from its mount, the skeletal horse charging after its fallen rider, and dragging it away from the fight. That left Malcolm.

Joe focused everything on him, unleashing a rapid series of strikes that battered through Malcolm's defences until the massive shield was torn from his grasp and sent skidding across the ground. For a heartbeat, victory seemed within reach, but then the final two horsemen closed in, and Joe found himself once more at the centre of the storm. War and Death swung their massive swords down toward him in unison, aiming to overwhelm him through sheer force and position. Joe only smiled.

They may have had the advantage of numbers and height from horseback, but he held the edge in reach, dexterity, and an unshakable confidence born of countless battles against swordsmen. If there was anything Joe disliked more than swords, it was poison, and much of his training had been dedicated to dismantling bladed combatants as efficiently as possible. His staff blurred into motion as he moved. In a single flowing exchange, he disarmed one horseman and shattered the arm of the other.

Both were still connected to the blight and recovered quickly, but the momentary disruption was all Joe needed. He struck Malcolm aside and latched onto the undead man's leg, locking his grip in place. Joe gave the two enraged horsemen a brief, almost casual wave as they roared in fury, and then he vanished. In the next instant, he was gone from the circle of death entirely, escaping with his target in tow and leaving the horsemen howling in frustration behind him.

As the pair reappeared in a small clearing north of the horsemen, Joe released Malcolm's leg at once. The undead pulsed, a cloud of blight billowing outward to engulf Joe, but he ignored it as Uriel's light flared within him. Instead, he brought his staff down hard on Malcolm's legs. Bone shattered. Whatever skill allowed him to slip into those black puddles failed this time, leaving him pinned and broken on the ground. Joe knew he was still in danger.

The horsemen were close, and his Space Jump was never meant for long-distance escape. He needed to end this now. He looked down at Malcolm. Those pitch-black eyes stared back at him, empty and lifeless. There was no humanity there. No defiance. No recognition. Not a single word spoken since the battle began. Just a hollow shell bound to death. Joe wondered if the man he had once been even knew what was happening right now. He hoped not. Joe whispered a silent prayer in his mind and raised his staff.

The swing was almost casual. Purple mana flared as the staff struck, and Malcolm's head was severed cleanly from his body. A connection snapped, death's grip burning away under the flood of mana as whatever tether remained was erased. The black eyes winked out as the head rolled to a stop in the dirt. Joe exhaled. He pulled out a burlap sack from his storage and gathered the remains without ceremony. A horseman burst from the shadows at his side, but it was too late. His task was done.

Joe had no reason left to fight. He blasted the horseman back with a wave of mana and vanished, reappearing high above as his skyboat formed beneath his feet. Landing lightly, he turned the craft east, toward where Esha and Xingyu waited. He didn't look back. Black bolts chased after him, streaking through the sky, far too slow to catch his speeding vessel. Behind him, the undead army remained, alone once more in the wilderness, denied its Shield of Death.

When Joe picked up a tired and utterly exhausted pair who had accompanied him on his reckless mission, he endured a brief scolding from Esha. It was half-hearted at best, and Joe could see the fear she was trying, and failing, to hide. She was simply relieved he had made it out alive. Even her punches lacked force, bouncing harmlessly off his chest before she finally collapsed onto the skyboat and slipped into a light sleep.

Only then did Joe fully grasp how much damage the blight had done to her during the chaos inside the cloud. Relief washed through him when he saw her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. Xingyu was in slightly better shape, her healing skills allowing her to recover faster, though Esha had insisted she focus on herself rather than waste mana trying to heal anyone else. Selfless, as always.

Joe wrapped Esha in blankets and kept her close, gently pulsing nature's healing mana into her as the skyboat carried them home. During the return trip, Esha stirred once, panic flashing across her face until Joe reassured her that he was right there, alive and very much not lost in an army of death. He held her gently and pressed a light kiss to her forehead before she drifted back to sleep.

"You two really care about each other," Xingyu said quietly once Esha had settled again.

"She is one of my best friends," Joe replied simply. Xingyu nodded, and not long after, exhaustion claimed her as well. Several hours later, the skyboat glided into Landradad. Joe remained seated, slumped and drained, as Corel and Gao carefully took charge of the sleeping women. Neither pressed him with questions. They were simply relieved that everyone had returned alive. Joe was left alone atop the skyboat, staring up at the sky in contemplation.

He didn't move until soft footsteps announced Alice climbing up beside him, curiosity plain on her face as she looked him over.

"What are you doing up here late in the evening all by yourself?" Alice asked, crouching beside his half-asleep form.

"Waiting for you, actually," Joe said as he lifted a hand. Alice pulled him upright into a seated position, eyeing him warily as if bracing for bad news.

"Have you seen Felicia? You might want to grab her for this," Joe added, offering a small, tired smile. Alice didn't ask questions. She dashed off, and before long, the three of them sat in a quiet circle aboard the skyboat. Joe didn't dance around it. He told them exactly what had happened that day. Both women took the news better than he expected, and when Joe placed the sack containing Malcolm's remains into Felicia's hands, they thanked him quietly before leaving to say their final goodbyes in private.

They never spoke of that day again. Still, Joe noticed that from then on, both women moved with a renewed sense of purpose, as if a long-carried weight had finally been lifted from their shoulders. For now, Joe was grateful that the matter of Malcolm was finally laid to rest. He never learned what had truly caused the undead to plague Thropia. Was it malice, hubris, ignorance, or some cruel twist of fate? He doubted he would ever find out.

What he did know was that one day he would face the horsemen again and whatever force empowered them. But not today. And hopefully not any time soon. Days passed. Then weeks. Then months. One evening, after another long day of training and failing, yet again, to break through the bottleneck that plagued him. Joe wandered through his garden in search of inspiration. Corel found him there, slipping her arm through his and pressing a light kiss to his cheek.

"You look like you're deep in thought," she teased softly. He smiled at her.

"Still failing to break this damn bottleneck," he grumbled. Corel slowed to a stop.

"What?" Joe asked, a flicker of unease stirring. Corel looked away.

"Esha broke through the bottleneck this morning," she said.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Joe groaned, dragging a hand down his face. He bowed his head in despair, then paused. Corel hadn't finished.

"Please don't tell me someone else also passed the bottleneck before I did," Joe pleaded, his expression openly tragic.

"Surprise!" Corel said, striking a confident pose as she held out her hand. It took Joe an entire day before he was capable of speaking again.