My Last Wish is to XXXX Hot Guys! – Huh? No you’re not. You’re going to bring peace to the Seven Kingdoms!

Burying bodies took longer than she anticipated. It’s difficult digging through the dirt to make a large enough hole without a shovel. And by the time they’re finished, the moon is hanging tall above their heads. The forest pitch black, ice cold and eerie. Neither of them has the energy to even eat dinner before passing out in the first tent they see. The potatoes end up as breakfast for the next morning. It’s awfully unsettling to wake up without even a chirp of a bird in the closest radius. There’s this heavy ominous veil lingering in the sky that animals won’t even dare to approach. At least Soril’s right about the perpetrator not coming back.  

The remaining walk isn’t much different from yesterday. The closer they get to Ryden the fresher corpses become. The killer’s meticulous. Leaving behind not even a single survivor to tell the tale. And she can’t help noticing another detail. At first, she attributed it to simply the chaos. But at closer inspections. All the camps have been ransacked. Tents searched through; supplies flipped. The preparator seems to be looking for something.  

Whoever done this, she can only pray they’re an ally. It’s unnerving.  

By night fall, they’re greeted by a field of Estelian corpses before Ryden even comes in sight. Sparsely at first, a few bodies dangling off vines. Some bobbing like buoys in the flowing river, caught between rocks. There are these massive diagonal cuts in the tree lines, clearing the dense forest where the strikes had landed. Judging from the destruction, not only is the assailant’s weapon big, but it also has an insane reach.  

The carcasses are getting more and more clustered the closer they approach. Now, there hardly is any open ground for them to step on. So, they’re carefully skipping through. It’s getting more unsettling by the second when she realizes. The bodies are warm. The blood is still fresh and dewy. Rigor mortis hasn’t even started to set in. They died extremely recently.  

They see Ryden’s log fences emerge behind the forage. It’s partially collapsed now. Around the perimeters, rotting decapitated heads of Astian soldiers are put on spikes. That was Estelis’s doing. A ghost town straight out of a nightmare. They’re finally in range to hear clashing metals, screaming, resonating from within. The conflict is still on going. Her heart seizes.  

The preparator's here! It instantly puts them on guard. Crouching low to the ground, Soril’s gesturing her to go around.    

They slip by the gates barricaded off by the carcass dam. Tracing along the outskirts. Pressing themselves against the blood soak fences. She peeks between the crevices. Witnessing the horrifying scene within. How many men is that even? A dead body in every cranny, atop every feasible surface that’s able to stand defiant from the carnage. In the hundreds. It’s insane.  

The few alive are running away with a terrified look on their faces. Paranoidly glancing past their shoulders. But what’s chasing them isn’t a person but rattling jet-black chains. It snakes between the soldiers. There’s something bulky and heavy attached to the very tip. Moving too rapidly for her to see what it is beyond a blurry silhouette. But like the vicious pendulum head of a serpent, it coils towards the moonlight. Striking through its prey with deadly precision, akin rabbits swooped by a hawk. Spraying blood, intestines and body parts like grisly party poppers. Trivializing even the Godorian armor that’s protecting them.  

Just what the absolute fuck are they even dealing with... 

Someone’s slowly emerging from the shadows. Clothed like the grim reaper himself. In a draping black shroud and a plague mask concealing his face entirely. Pulling the clanking weapon back. Massive, fanged sickles, connected by chains, in each hand. The blade is darker than onyx, not even the vibrancy of red blood is able to stain. He’s spinning the one of the left. The right, he uses to nonchalantly cut down the last surviving soldier that’s desperately trying to get away. And what’s that? There’s a tune. It sounds like whistling. A displaced, joyful little song. He’s taunting them.  

Woah. I think male lead number three just showed up.  

Fuck off Bathory! Not now! Read the fucking mood. 

But that’s my family’s crest he has on his belt. 

What? She instantly pinpoints her gaze. Bathory’s right! She quickly nudges Soril to look. There’s a jade butterfly hooked on him. Strikingly green. Emitting an iridescent glow. Why does the grim reaper wannabe want Bathory’s family’s crest? What does it even mean? Is he someone Bathory knows?  

No... it doesn’t look like it. Not with the way he’s sinisterly turning his head towards them. The next moment, the sickle’s darting towards her in a hazy swoosh,  

“Duck.” Soril abruptly presses her face to the ground. She swallows a mouthful of coppery dirt. The jagged blade wisps past above. Slicing into the tree lines behind them. They’re still picking themselves up when the grim reaper has already leaped before them. His weapon, drawn to hack. He’s fast. Frighteningly so.  

Soril shoves her out of the way. Deflecting him with a dagger. But he’s pushed back. Grim reaper is much stronger, and he’s just as quick on close quarter combat. Soril’s figuring that out after a few exchanged strikes. Dodging backwards to keep a distance. The grim reaper doesn’t land hits anymore. The way his weapon works sacrifices speed for reach and destructive force the further it travels.  

Soril can dodge him effectively at mid-range apart. And there’s a down time. He must drag the sickles back each time he throws them. Soril manages to bind the wires around the grim reaper during his recoil period. Laboriously holding him still with both hands, 

“Grab the crest and let’s get out.” but he’s unable to cut through despite the grim reaper isn’t wearing visible armor. Just what the fuck is his skin made of? Metal? She can wonder about it later. She quickly dives for it the moment his movements are stifled. Brushing her fingers against the emblem.  

It’s not quite enough. Grim reaper just brute forces through his restrains. Dragging Soril forward. The wires loosen. Grim reaper turns to a side to dodge her. She sweeps past beneath his navel instead. She hears sizzling. Smoke following in a line where she touched him. A horrible twinge bolts right up her arm. Grim reaper instantly retreats three paces back. She briefly looks at her hand. The finger that they made contact has been scraped to the bone. Gradually seaming back to place. Soril’s getting confused,  

“What was that?” He stalls beside her to evaluate the situation. 

No way. No fucking way.  

“You...” She’s flicking her attention back towards the grim reaper when she discovers, 

“You’re a Demon.” He’s examining himself too. Brushing the fabric aside to reveal the bubbling flesh on his abdomen. His voice is made scruffy by the mask, 

“For the love of fucking Satan. Really? Can’t I get a fucking break?” Though the way he speaks sounds deceivingly unthreatening. The frivolous type with a few screws loose in the head and doesn’t really take anything too seriously, 

“First that insufferable bitch sends me on a scavenger hunt looking for a needle in a haystack. Next a fucking Angel appears?” His wounds aren’t healing. This means, his contractor isn’t nearby. He hasn’t been fed for a while. She instigates, 

“Who summoned you? For what purpose did they summon you?” Yet it only unnerves her more. Now things have suddenly gotten a lot more complicated. Just what in the convoluted hell is happening to this world? 

“What’s this fairytale talk about Angels and Demons I’ve been hearing? Thought it was strange that none of my men came back.” Fuck. A third party now? She recognizes who it is before she even needs to witness his face. She snaps her attention towards the speaker in the opposite direction, the redhead is emerging from the forest, tapping his claymore against his shoulders,  

“All I want to know is which one of you motherfuckers did this.” but he isn’t even bothered to hear their replies, dashing forward in charge,  

“Actually, does it matter? I’ll just kill you all.” he’s pissed off. The grim reaper too, launches his weapon, running after it, encroaching to attack, 

“I guess why the fuck not. Let’s have a fucking go at it!” he sounds increasingly excited,  

“I haven’t sparred an Angel in a while.” Trapping them between an impulsive maniac and a hedonistic demon. This shit just can’t get any worse. It just did. Bathory can’t read the fucking mood, she’s enthusiastically squealing,  

Oh my, oh my, oh my, this certainly isn’t how I imagined my first four-way would be.  

Woman you’re in the wrong fucking genre!