Hell's Bane (COMPLETED)

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Beginning of the End

They can't kill me. Joss knew it well enough, yet as the mosaic opened yet once again, he had doubts. They can't kill me, right? The eternian makes me immortal unless I lose contact with it.

Joss shuddered. What if he did?

The hermit tried not to think about it a the Scavenger soldiers made it to the top of the stairs and suddenly froze, surprised that he was standing there in plain view.

What if they can read my mind? What if they know that if they get rid of the eternian...

C'mon, Joss. That's just ridiculous.

Joss swallowed the lump in his throat, yet his stomach still felt as if butterflies were swarming around in there. Taking a deep breath, he looked at the two knives held in his hands, both of them the sharpest weapons in Amandalin's animal-slaughtering armory, and then charged at the horde of enemies in front of him.

Usually, he would feel delight in seeing the soldier's faces as they realized he couldn't be killed, but this time, it was as if some of that joy was robbed from him. The bullets tickled him as they hit, but he barely noticed. He continued charging and finally plunged the two blades into the nearest people. They screamed and fell down, lifeless.

Where's Susan?

Joss recognized her in the back, looking around. There was no rifle on her shoulder, he realized. She was unarmed, though the determined expression on her face suggested otherwise. What was she planning? Joss knew that she was calculating. He knew that look that people wore when they were in the midst of considering their next move...

No time to think about that now.

His hands were a whirlwind of motion. He spun, he hit, he didn't even stop as he saw the bodies fall down one by one, with a knife through their eye, or blood oozing out of their stomach. All that mattered was the Chest-

The Chest? Where is the Chest, even?

And that he had to make it out alive.

Slightly unnerved that he couldn't spot the Chest anywhere, Joss continued to harvest all the soldiers that came into his path.

The leader looked at the fray behind him and then slinked away with the Chest. Let them die if they wanted – they were only pieces in the game. Knowing that nobody saw him, he strode out of the pagoda, letting the rays of sunlight welcome him – knowing that it was a new dawn for the Scavenger.

Joss was almost sure there were an infinite amount of soldiers that he was fighting. From a far away distance, it seemed that he could take on all of them, but only now did he realize how many people there were, and how the odds were stacked against him.

The hermit suddenly tripped, falling to the ground as he thrust the knife into another soldier. There were still too many of them... he had killed most of them, but there were still what? A dozen? A dozen and a half? Joss gave out a moan.

Scrambling to get back up, he thrust his knife at another soldier, but rather than hitting, the soldier grabbed his arm and twisted it. Joss winced, expecting the pain that should've come out of it. Quickly recovering, he stabbed the soldier with his other knife.

At least, he tried to. The soldier clearly anticipated it and grabbed it just an inch before he would've ended the man's life. Grunting, he fruitlessly kicked the soldier, who gave no sign that he noticed.