Bound To The Dead: The Deceptive Class-E Farmer-Chapter 45: Chaos Unbound

The black energy around Isaac pulsed with every breath. His eyes had changed, sharper, darker. The air around him shimmered with power.

Two hundred humanoids charged. Their footsteps shook the ground. Screeches filled the plaza.

They came in waves.

"Here they come," Putol muttered.

"Hold the line," Isaac said calmly. "No one gets through."

The first wave hit like a wall.

Three humanoids with spider legs and blade arms rushed Isaac. He ducked, spun, and slashed. His double-bladed sickles moved fast, clean cuts through flesh and bone.

More monsters followed.

A giant crab-limbed brute swung for him. Isaac blocked with both sickles, then drove one blade into the creature’s chest. It fell back, twitching.

Aiah stepped in beside him, flames leaking from her fingers.

She hurled a huge fire bomb into the swarm of humanoids. Flames exploded through the air, sending bodies flying and limbs crashing to the ground. The smell of burned flesh hit like a slap.

Ben and Nai fought at her sides.

"Stay close!" Isaac yelled.

The team formed a tight circle again as enemies surrounded them.

Above them, the stands were still packed. Civilians, soldiers and nobles alike watched in horror and awe, like this was just some twisted arena show.

Another wave crashed in. Ten, then twenty. It didn’t stop.

Putol leapt onto a humanoid’s back, stabbing it with a spear. Mira hid with Elder Peter, who still couldn’t fight.

Isaac sliced his way forward.

He moved like a storm. Every attack was clean, every dodge just close enough. No wasted motion.

Corpuz and Broner, watched from above with stunned faces.

"He’s cutting them down..." Corpuz whispered.

"Seems it is easy for them," Broner added.

On the other side, Miss Wesson narrowed her eyes.

"This wasn’t supposed to happen."

The king clenched the armrests of his seat, pale and silent.

Isaac didn’t slow down.

Another spider-legged humanoid lunged. Its claws swung down hard, but Isaac sidestepped, grabbed its arm, and twisted.

Bones cracked.

Then he drove his sickle clean through its chest.

He yanked it free, spinning the second blade into the neck of a crab-like monster behind him.

The head popped off, black blood spraying across the cobblestones.

"Keep pushing!" Isaac shouted.

The others moved with him.

Aiah launched a stream of fire at a group of charging humanoids. Their screams echoed as their skin melted and peeled. One tried to crawl out of the blaze. Ben crushed its skull with a fallen soldier’s shield.

Putol spun low, cutting into the legs of a hulking humanoid with a horse-like lower body and a human torso. It fell, and Nai finished it with a precise stab to the throat.

Isaac turned.

Three humanoids came at once. One had blades for hands. One had a face full of writhing teeth. The third had no eyes, just ears twitching for sound.

They attacked together.

Isaac ducked under the slashes and stepped forward, elbowing the jaw of the fanged one. He stabbed it through the chest, kicked it off, and swung his blade upward, splitting the eyeless one from groin to neck.

"These things don’t stop," Nai shouted, slashing wildly at a beast with massive claws.

"Then we don’t either," Ben growled, grabbing it by the jaw and stabbing through the side of its face.

The ground was slick with blood.

Half the plaza was covered in corpses.

Isaac’s cloak was torn. He had a cut on his arm, but it had already healed. His chest rose and fell like a drum.

But he kept going.

A crab-limbed beast charged him, snapping its claw. Isaac blocked with one sickle, then jammed the other into its gut, twisting, yanking, finishing it with a clean slice across the throat.

"How many left?!" Aiah yelled, backing into Isaac.

"Too many," he said, glancing around.

But he could feel it.

They were halfway through.

The pile of bodies was rising.

Dozens of humanoids were dead. The battlefield was soaked in black blood and gore. Still, the remaining ones hissed and crawled forward, fewer now, but still deadly.

High above the wall, Corpuz leaned forward, jaw clenched.

"They’re dying. Half of the King’s humanoids... gone."

Broner stayed silent. Eyes focusing on the ground.

But Isaac wasn’t done.

He raised both sickles, now dripping and humming with energy.

He stepped forward again.

And the killing continued.

Then system notification flashed.

[Skill Unlocked: Death Reel]

"Drag them to judgment."

[Chains of abyssal energy lash out from the user’s sickles, hooking enemies and yanking them in with brutal force. A follow-up cleave can be triggered mid-pull, bisecting anything caught in its path.]

[Condition: Abyssal Overdrive must be active]

[Cooldown: 20 minutes]

Isaac’s eyes glinted, faint red veins crawling through his sclera like cracks in glass.

His grip tightened.

Then...

His arms snapped forward.

CLINK... SHING... KRRRK!

Four black chains shot out from the ends of his sickles, two from each.

They weren’t metal. They were alive. Forged from abyssal energy, pulsing with dark smoke and glowing sigils.

The chains snaked through the air, fast and brutal.

Each one locked onto a target.

Four humanoids, charging with claws out and mouths foaming, were caught mid-step.

The hooks buried into their torsos and shoulders, sinking past armor, drawing shrieks of agony.

They didn’t fall.

They writhed.

Isaac pulled.

Hard.

The four bodies whipped through the battlefield like ragdolls, dragged against their will. Dust flew. Bones cracked.

The crowd of soldiers and monsters could only watch.

One clean motion. free𝑤ebnovel.com

Isaac spun.

His double sickles carved a full circle...

SWISH!

SLASH!

CRACK!

Blood sprayed. Limbs flew. Four bodies dropped in pieces before him.

Silence, then hesitation rippled through the enemy lines. Even the most mindless monsters paused, just for a second.

Isaac didn’t speak.

He just took a step forward.

Then the ground shook again.

Isaac didn’t pause. He dashed forward.

[Skill Activated: Reaper’s Spiral]

His body twisted into a spin, his twin sickles carving a wide arc around him. This time, they weren’t blunt or clunky like his old axe, the blades were faster, sharper, almost whistling through the air.

Five humanoids closed in.

Five corpses hit the ground, sliced clean through as Isaac spun five times then landed with his blades dripping.

The notification suddenly flashed.

[Swarm Devour Effect... 100% Absorption]

[Swarm Authority +7%]

[Swarm Authority Level: 78%]

[Skill Progression: Swarm Authority has reached advanced level]

[Skill Progression: Swarm Authority has reached advanced level]

[The swarm becomes deadly, following complex strategies, host can even sense what they see,hear or feel]

[Swarm Heal Enhanced: Targets healed now receive a temporary surge in strength, enhancing reflexes and combat ability]

The boost came from the first wave, a hundred corpses now devoured, turned into raw power.

A burst of energy surged through his body.

The fight raged on, with almost a hundred still standing, but Isaac didn’t waste any more time.

"Swarm Devour."

The locusts screamed across the battlefield again.

Then they dropped.

Tens of thousands rained from the sky, landing on hundred corpses preventing to regenerate.

On the royal balcony, King Geoffrey stared in disbelief. His mouth hung open. His proud speech from earlier echoed in his head, useless now.

"How...? This was supposed to be unstoppable!" he snapped. "Miss Wesson! Is there anything left?!"

Miss Wesson’s voice was tight. "Only those in the incubation tanks. The three hundred still unfinished."

Geoffrey gritted his teeth. "Then release them!"

Miss Wesson’s eyes widened. "Your Majesty, they aren’t stable. We haven’t calibrated their control yet. If we let them out now..."

He grabs Miss Wesson by the collar. "I don’t care!" His voice cracking. "Do it! NOW!"

Miss Wesson hesitated, then tapped the command.

Far below the stage, in the underground labs, dozens of large vertical tubes filled with bubbling fluid cracked open.

Water spilled out across the floor.

And with it, more monsters.

Slithering. Crawling. Roaring.

Doors from the upper levels burst open.

The humanoids poured out, wet, twitching, and unstable. Their skin looked half-peeled. Their eyes, unfocused. Some twitches uncontrollably. Others snarled like starving beasts.

From the balcony, King Geoffrey grinned like a madman.

"There!" he pointed straight at Isaac. "Kill him! Tear him apart!"

The corrupted humanoids stopped for a beat, then suddenly lunged forward.

But not toward Isaac.

They jumped toward everything.

A nearby soldier was the first to scream, dragged off his feet by three of them and torn apart mid-air.

A woman in the crowd barely got a breath in before something burst through a wall and grabbed her.

They weren’t following orders.

They were attacking everyone.

Screams erupted.

Guards clashed with the monsters, but many were overwhelmed instantly. The corrupted humanoids moved like wild beasts, crashing through windows. Kicked open doors and dragged people out screaming.

One tackled a royal guard and bit through his helmet.

Another threw a merchant off a rooftop.

The people tried to run, but there was nowhere to go.

All at once, the plaza turned into a slaughterhouse.

King Geoffrey’s face went pale as his "perfect army" turned into monsters slaughtering his own.

Miss Wesson shouted over the screams, "They’re out of control! We didn’t stabilize their minds, they’re feral. I told you they weren’t ready!"

The king’s voice cracked, "Then shut them down! Shut them down now!"

"It’s too late!"

Broner stood tall on the balcony, eyes locked on the chaos below. He let out a low breath, then glanced at the younger general beside him.

"I guess I’ve decided which side I’m on," he said quietly.

Corpuz smirked without taking his eyes off the battlefield. "Took you long enough."

Without missing a beat, Corpuz raised his bow, already strung with four glowing arrows.

"Archers, on me!" he shouted. "Protect the civilians! Kill every last one of those freaks!"

His troops responded instantly, spreading out across the balcony and rooftops.

Corpuz releases four arrows at once. All of them hit. All of them blew something apart.

Meanwhile, Broner gripped his twin swords and took off down the stairs like a missile.

One of the corrupted beasts lunged toward Aiah...

SHLICK!

General Broner landed between them and sliced it in two.

"Eyes up, Princess."

Aiah nodded, fire blazing in her hands.