While fighting, Malik watched his soldiers die around him.

The ones who had formed the shield wall were gone, cut down by the enemy charge.

The archers who had loosed volley after volley were gone, overrun when the lines broke.

His people were dying in the mud while he stood amongst them, too wounded to save them, too weak to do anything but keep swinging, too level-headed to use Shifting Ground in front of them and the enemy.

He was stuck.

Malik wanted to activate the Soul Glyph to save them. But he couldn’t activate it because of their presence.

Since they never once gave him a moment alone, he couldn’t do much to shake them off.

He could try to kill them all at once and silence those in his army with a Rune Oath, but even then, that would still be too risky.

Malik’s strength was known; anyone seeing the aftermath would realize that he was the cause.

No matter how long he thought about it, he couldn’t reach any semblance of a doable solution.

The transformation to his true appearance, once a great boon, now became a great disadvantage, stopping him from doing what he so desperately wanted to do.

He was already cutting it close earlier in the clash, fighting in the quagmire with his true appearance.

Thankfully, that could be excused away.

Malik was always considered strange, but now...

’Haaa.’

Malik went against his wishes.

Something heavy broke inside him.

It wasn’t his body. His body was already broken, his shoulder torn, his thigh pierced, and his ribs cracked, blood pouring from a dozen wounds.

No, this was something of the mind.

His damned calm.

Rage.

A blood-drenched, bone-deep rage consumed him entirely.

His world narrowed and darkened.

The pain emanating from all over his body didn’t matter anymore.

His people were being butchered.

They should have known not to touch his people.

They should have known.

He couldn’t use his Soul Glyphs.

But that didn’t mean that he would stand down.

No, not at all.

Great was the rage of a quiet man.

"Just die already!"

An invader came at him, his blade raised.

Malik caught the sword with his bare hand.

Steel bit into his palm, splitting flesh to the bone. Blood sprayed across his face. He didn’t feel it; his brain didn’t even register it.

He just yanked the weapon from the man’s grip and smashed his forehead into his nose.

Crack.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The man screamed, stumbling back, his hands flying to his ruined face.

Malik didn’t let him fall.

"Not yet."

He looked down at the man and gripped his throat. He squeezed, felt the pulse thrash against his fingers, and then, with one brutal motion, slammed the soldier’s head into the nearest rock.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The first blow cracked the skull. The second caved it in, stopping the invader’s struggling. The third turned it to pulp.

Malik kept going until the rock was slick with blood and the body beneath him was nothing but meat.

He dropped the corpse and turned.

"You’re all alone!"

"Give up, you bastard!"

Two invaders rushed him at once.

A curved sword swung for his neck; a spear lunged for his ribs.

He ducked the first; the blade passed over his head, close enough to cut his hair. The second, he let it graze him.

Bait.

Before the spear could be pulled back, he caught it, yanking himself forward.

The invader’s throat met his teeth.

Malik bit down, blood flooding his mouth, and tore away.

"W-What the Hell—"

The second soldier faltered, horror filling his eyes.

Before he could compose himself, Malik shoved the dying body aside and pounced.

Taking the weapon from the corpse’s grasp, he drove the tip through the man’s jaw, up through the soft palate, and into the skull.

He ripped it free just as fast, letting the corpse fall.

Whoosh!

Just then, another invader attacked from range, an Earth Magi.

A spike of stone buried itself deep in Malik’s chest, an attack too fast for him to dodge.

Yet, he barely felt it.

Pain was a distant thing now; his rage was too all-encompassing.

The same spike was returned to its owner, now lodged in her head.

At the same time, Malik met another invader halfway. Their bodies crashed into each other, and they tumbled into the dirt.

Malik straddled the man’s chest and began to pound.

A fist to the head... then another, then another.

Crack. Crack. Crack!

Blood sprayed onto his face with each impact, ending the invader’s life after the fourth blow.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Looking up at the sound, he saw more ice arrows coming his way, three of them.

He pulled back just in time and lifted the corpse beneath him, using it as a shield.

The arrows punched into the dead man’s back, which jerked with each impact.

Malik threw the now-cursed porcupine of a body aside and whatever sword he took at the ice archer, ending his life.

Even more soldiers came.

Malik clenched his left hand.

’Ah...’

Nothing.

Right, his sword was gone.

He was so lost in this brutal chaos that he had forgotten what he had just done.

’Fine.’

He picked up a broken sword from the mud that was lying next to a corpse, and then, in the next moment, punched it through an invader’s throat.

The edge tore through flesh, felling the man.

Malik stomped another soldier’s skull in. He tore another soldier’s jaw clean off. His fingers hooked under the chin and pulled.

No longer did he fight like a Sultan.

His royal sword style was forgotten.

Now, he was no more than a beast.

He ripped, crushed, stomped, bit, and tore.

If Malik couldn’t kill them with a blade, he would beat them with his hands. If he couldn’t beat them with his hands, he would beat them with his legs. If he couldn’t beat them with his legs, he would tear their throats out with his teeth.

And he did.

Again. And again. And again.

Again and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again—

Until there was no one left.

Until the only one left standing was him.

...Or so he thought.

Schwing.

A blade flashed.

Thus came his lowest point.