Chương 56: Ferocious Wolf

After these words, echoing through the emptiness, the Swordsman took his sword and fastened it to his belt — the motion came out practiced, honed to automatism, as though he'd done this a thousand times before battle. The metal of the scabbard clinked dully against the belt buckle, and that single concrete, tangible sound cut through the ringing silence of the white void for a moment, scattering into the infinite distance and slowly fading, as if dissolving into the very fabric of the space.

He started toward the first row of Players with slow steps. Each footstep echoed hollowly through the void, as though the silence itself amplified the sound many times over, carrying across the endless space like the beats of a metronome before an execution. With every step, something inside Lloyd tightened anxiously, as if counting down the last seconds before something inevitable.

The white emptiness around them seemed to be listening to those footsteps itself, frozen in tense anticipation, and the even, featureless light suddenly began to feel almost suffocating to Lloyd — as if it pressed not only on his eyes but on his chest, making it hard to breathe fully.

Walking along the rows, the Swordsman pierced each person with his wary, appraising gaze, lingering a second or two longer than necessary on the more visibly nervous faces, as if weighing each Player on invisible scales, searching for weakness. But he said nothing — and that silence was more terrifying than any threat could have been.

The quiet pressed down on everyone's shoulders almost physically, and Lloyd felt the air around him growing thicker, heavier, as if saturated with the tension of everyone present at once. Someone beside him swallowed nervously — the sound came out unexpectedly loud, and a few heads turned toward him at once, then just as quickly turned away, as if afraid to draw unwanted attention.

Suddenly Lloyd heard two Players talking behind him — a hushed, hurried whisper that nonetheless seemed unnaturally loud in the ringing silence. — That sword, that walk. Now I'm certain. — What are you talking about? — That's Ferocious Wolf, I'd swear to it. Lloyd strained to listen, trying to make out the conversation through the hum of a hundred similar hushed whispers around him, blending together into a single nervous drone, like the buzz of a disturbed hive. — Who is that?

— Ferocious Wolf — his True Name speaks for itself. Fights like a wild beast, and acts just the same. There are some not-so-good rumors going around about him.

"Ferocious Wolf? Wow, that's quite the True Name to end up with." The corners of Lloyd's mouth twitched slightly, but then he heard something even more interesting. — Is that really him? The second Player nodded, and in that nod there was something like reverent awe, mixed with poorly hidden admiration. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. — Yeah, that's a Player who's reached level six. A lump rose in Lloyd's throat.

"Level six? So that's what they look like. I heard they're worth their weight in gold." The Swordsman walked past Lloyd, and his mere presence sent chills across Lloyd's skin — as if a cage door had briefly cracked open beside him, releasing something primal, wild, utterly untamable. Even the air around the man seemed to move differently — denser, heavier, as if reluctantly parting to let him through, and the white void around them seemed to darken ever so slightly, absorbing a fragment of his presence.

For a split second, Lloyd thought he heard a distant, barely perceptible growl — whether an echo of someone else's memory or a trick of his own anxious imagination, he couldn't tell.

"Well, I suppose the rumors are an understatement, if anything." Lloyd kept watching the Swordsman, and by now the man had reached the very end of the rows of Players, still moving with that same unhurried, heavy predator's gait, patrolling his territory before choosing his prey. Somewhere deep in the rows, sobs could be heard; someone was muttering words under their breath that sounded like a prayer, and one Player standing just a couple of meters from Lloyd was trembling so hard his teeth audibly chattered.

The white emptiness around them seemed to stretch even wider, even more desolate, turning a hundred people into a hundred lonely, lost points scattered across nothing. Then the Swordsman suddenly raised a finger, pointing at some ordinary-looking guy. A hoarse male voice came from his lips — low, emotionless, as if carved from stone, exactly like some antihero from a webcomic. — You. Eliminated. The entire hall froze in stunned silence, and somewhere in the back rows came a stifled sob.

But the Swordsman didn't seem to care in the slightest — he kept moving forward, pointing here and there at different figures and uttering the same single word, in a flat, merciless tone, as though crossing unnecessary lines off a long list. — Eliminated. — Eliminated. — Eliminated. Each word dropped into the ringing silence of the hall like a stone into still water, sending out fresh ripples of silent dread.

Waves of stifled gasps and muffled sobs kept rolling through the crowd — some let out loud sighs of relief when the Swordsman's finger passed them by, others went pale as sheets, feeling that heavy, unblinking gaze land on them. With every new "eliminated," the air seemed to grow thinner, and the ringing silence between each word more unbearable, thick as tar.

Lloyd could only swallow his own bitter saliva, watching the spectacle unfold as the Swordsman drew closer and closer to his row, step by step closing the distance — and along with it, his remaining reserve of calm.

"Please, just pass me by. Please, just pass me by." And then he suddenly stopped right in front of Lloyd. The air seemed to freeze in place, and the white emptiness around the two of them felt, for a moment, even more hollow and vast than before — as if the entire world were holding its breath, waiting for the verdict. Lloyd slowly lifted his gaze to meet the Swordsman's eyes directly, feeling his heart drop, his palms breaking out in cold sweat.

His eyes were ferocious — wild, almost animalistic, with some primal cold lurking at the very bottom of his pupils, as though countless battlefields had left their reflection frozen there forever. Lloyd found it hard to even imagine what this man had lived through, hard to picture what kind of monsters had left him with so many scars. Every second the Swordsman spent staring straight into Lloyd's soul felt like an eternity — slow, motionless, airless.

Somewhere behind him, Lloyd could hear someone in the neighboring row holding their breath, as if afraid that even an accidental gasp might draw that terrible attention toward them, and the white void around them seemed to contract, tightening into a suffocating, narrow ring. Then he pointed his finger directly at Lloyd. — Everyone standing behind him — eliminated.