Near the church’s breach, the seething Choronzon-enhanced undead gibbered in triumphant frenzy.

  Beastly bodies entombed the fallen Knight beneath a writhing sea, its greataxe lost in viscera, its breaths rasping labored and defeated as undeath secretions burned like unholy fire in its veins, searing both flesh and soul.

  A mound of weapons bashing, talons raking, fanged snouts snapping at the buried prey, pelts slick with rain and gore, reeking of moist decay and spilled blood, the stench overwhelming, choking even the Swarm watching from his shadowed vantage high above.

  This one's toil had been admirable if futile, a duty-bound machine undone by the infinite, malignant storm.

  It'd soon be damned, spit back out of the crucible as an undead.

  He hoped so, as the ravaged Angar would return to its trial, its mettle a finer vintage for the subsuming.

  Beneath the crush, the mortal's world narrowed to suffocating agony, its vision tunneling to black as weapon bashes and snapping fangs blurred, the weight pressing down on its body like the corruption of a Demon Lord upon a righteous soul.

  But from that defeated silence, the Swarm heard something.

  A roar built.

  It swelled like a stormfront, like the howl of a primordial beast untethered from the abyss, devoid of fatigue, devoid of humanity.

  Devoid even of sanity.

  The bellow shattered the air, drowning the croaking howls.

  The pile exploded outward, bodies blasting away like shrapnel from a detonated mine, limbs and torsos scattering in ragged arcs.

  It erupted from the ruin like a blood-streaked demon, one finally unchained from Hell’s higher plains, eyes wild and blazing behind the cracked visor.

  And it stood there for a moment, just laughing hysterically before bursting into the horde like a feral engine of extermination, dodging some attacks with unnatural agility, but taking most blows in stride.

  “I’ll slay all your children!” it yelled, vaulting over a charging cluster like an unbound shadow, landing among their ranks to lash out in furious strikes, reclaiming its axe from the gore, setting the head whirling in baleful red.

  It churned through hides and bone en masse, the circular blade sinking deep to twist and rend, pulping torsos in eruptions of black blood and tangled gore.

  Wrath propelled it far beyond mortal limits, like it had been blessed by the Dweller of the Abyss, becoming a Choronzon too, an agent of pure chaos and purposeless malignancy.

  Wonderful! Truly!

  But the Swarm tempered its excitement, not daring to hope this one could match Angar's glorious resurgence.

  It cleaved through the undead with berserk recklessness, an unholy whirlwind of ruin, shearing through clusters like a machete through dense underbrush.

  Yet the horde surged endlessly, a living storm of beastly flesh slavering and slashing, pouring from the village's every dilapidated hut, every fogged crevice.

  And Garioch met their mad frenzy with its own.

  It gripped the haft in one gauntlet, seizing a thrashing undead around its neck with the other, wielding the beastly thing like a flail to smash its brethren, their bodies crumpling in sickening crunches.

  It reeled through the press, lashing wildly, ripping and tearing into the mob, their thick ichor mingling with its own from the armor's many breaches, gaining far more gashes weeping crimson, diseased secretions sizzling like infernal brands.

  And the rage propelled it onward, unyielding, tearing into the mass with animal savagery, reveling in the wanton slaughter, the horde's infinity wearing thin under the onslaught.

  But it pushed through, a laughing fount of unholy vigor that drowned injuries in the red haze of bloodlust.

  The splendor of it all greatly stirred the Swarm’s ancient blood. Such lovely slaughter, a glorious hymn to the majesty of violence.

  It took a long while, an impressive torrent of carnage, but the tide ebbed at last, the village cleared of the undead swarm, save for scattered stragglers twitching in innards or crawling through the muck.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Garioch stood defiant in the wreckage, armor battered and gore-smeared, mind lost to the madness, breath heaving, blood seeping from dozens of gashes.

  The heavy fog, filled with the foul reek of unlife and offal, parted then, clearing as Grubin, the Devourer, approached.

  This Undead Warlord was a hulking mass of bulging muscle under spiked-plate armor that encased the Dweller's infinite entropy.

  He hefted a colossal greathammer resting casually on one shoulder, its spiked head caked with dried blood, while his other arm bore a monstrous tower shield forged to resemble the Demon Lord Eurynomos’s snarling maw, dented from centuries of war.

  His face was a chaotic horror of a protruding snout lined with jagged fangs, eyes like abyssal voids burning with disdain for the broken mortal before him, crowned by a horned helm that concealed the melting, regenerating nightmare beneath it.

  The Swarm weakened him as much as possible, as much as he could in his domain, for Garioch had culled every undead barring those few mangled remnants.

  The church, though battered, still endured.

  And the mortal had given a grand show, fighting like a true warrior, and in melee, no less. The Swarm greatly approved. For a moment, he felt something almost like kinship with it.

  But even diminished, Grubin stood as doom incarnate.

  His decayed lips peeled back to taunt his prey, but Garioch’s mad gaze finally noticed the approaching warlord.

  “I’ll eat your heart!" it screamed, exploding forward like a lancer blast, heaving the gore-slicked axe aloft with an ease that belied its monstrous size and weight, the rotating blades humming a crimson hymn through the fogged air.

  Grubin, caught off-guard by the sudden ferocity, swung his greathammer in a crushing arc, the spiked head whistling through the stormy gloom like a falling anvil.

  Garioch parried with the axe's flat instead of the haft, the impact ringing out like thunder, the shockwave rippling through the muddy ground and jarring the warlord's arm with unexpected force, driving the colossus back a step, his tower shield scraping furrows in the muddy earth.

  Unrelenting in its assault, Garioch crashed forward, unleashing a vertical cleave aimed at Grubin's horned helm, the axe blazing like a comet.

  Grubin blocked with his tower shield, the demon-faced bulwark absorbing the blow in a shower of sparks, but the blade gouged a rivet, and the force dented the profane metal inward, driving the warlord to one knee with an angry grunt, his muscles bulging against the strain.

  Roaring in surprise and fury, the warlord lashed out with a spike-thrust from his hammer's reverse end, the point lancing toward the mortal’s chest.

  It ignored the blow, pushing forward in reckless abandon, taking the haft on the arm, the spike piercing its armor in a screech of steel, fresh blood welling as it sunk deep into flesh.

  Growling through the pain, the mortal loosed a horizontal sweep that caught Grubin's exposed side, the spinning blades churning into the armored flank, shearing through plate and drawing a spray of dark, Choronzon ichor that hissed against the soaked ground like acid.

  Bellowing, the weakened warlord realized the threat he faced, and went on the defensive, hunkering behind his tower shield like a besieged fortress, his abyssal eyes narrowing in disdainful calculation.

  But the mortal's berserk rage allowed no quarter. After a few vicious and pounding blows, with an unhinged cackle, it vaulted over the bulwark, landing atop the colossal arm to hack relentlessly at the hardened plate, frenzied grinding strikes sending sparks flying as metal churned free, leaving deep and ragged rivets in the armor.

  Grubin spat gouts of abyssal fire, the inferno washing over Garioch in a blistering wave that charred his cloak and seared exposed skin in bubbling agony, the stench of burning flesh overpowering the offal reek.

  Ignoring it all, the mortal leaped through the flames like a lunatic, driving the axe into the warlord's shoulder with a grinding bite, embedding it deep, eliciting a new bellow of pain as shards of armor shattered free in a glittering cascade.

  It wrenched the axe loose in a gout of dark fluid, dropping back as Grubin's greathammer swung wildly in retaliation, the ground quaking under its impact and the warlord's mounting wrath, which paled against the mortal's own.

  Abyssal eyes flared as the warlord charged forward, no longer defensive, his tower shield slamming into the mortal like a siege engine, the impact battering its rent armor and hurling it back across the mud in a tumble.

  With a feral insanity, it hopped up immediately, its deranged laugh causing even the mighty Grubin to flinch as it charged back into the fray.

  The clash devolved into a brutal exchange, Garioch's axe whirling in feverish arcs that clashed against Grubin's hammer in thunderous reports, sparks cascading like dying stars, the mortal giving as good as it got.

  And it got plenty, the tally of its wounds growing, set against the unyielding vitality of an Undead Warlord.

  It scored a vicious gash across the Grubin's thigh, the spinning blades churning through armor and muscle, drawing another bellow as ichor fountained.

  The hammer's head smashed against Garioch with tremendous force, the rerebrace and pauldron crumpling in a crush, its arm and ribs cracking with sick snaps.

  The axe fell from dead and useless fingers as it coughed blood inside its helm and leapt at its opponent.

  It snaked its good arm around Grubin’s neck, headbutting the horned helm in a savage clash that dented the metal and further cracked its visor.

  With a roar fueled by mad glee, its legs wrapped around the warlord, and it wrenched Grubin's helm off, exposing the melting, regenerating horror beneath, a face of churning flesh, eyes voids of endless chaos, fanged maw growling in rage, and headbutted again, metal smashing into undead flesh in a sick crunch.

  Grubin cast aside his shield with a clang, his talons seizing the mortal's head in a grip of iron, hoisting it aloft before slamming the thrashing body into the sodden earth with tremendous impact that splattered mud like an exploding bomb.

  Then the hammer streaked through the rain, descending in a powerful arc, but the mortal rolled aside in a blur of manic evasion.

  Its helm, crushed inward by the warlord’s grip, was battered beyond function, hampering its movements, blocking most of its vision.

  As it got its feet, it frantically opened the seals and ripped the helm free with its one good arm, flinging it into the gloom and muck.

  Then charged forth anew, disarmed and vulnerable, undeterred and uncaring.

  From high above, the Swarm observed, his ancient soul alight with that rare tremor once more.

  This mortal's mad frenzy had illuminated another facet of violence's majesty, one of primal, bestial beauty.