Wonderful Insane World

The rhythm quickened, turning into a savage cadence, a heartbeat forged of steel and will. The pounding of weapons against shields and Maggie's guttural chant held the whispers at bay, forcing them to retreat into the limbo of their minds. Tonar seized this fragile reprieve to drive the assault forward.

"Forward!" he roared, and the spearhead they formed drove deeper into the cursed village.

The puppets fell beneath their blows, a harvest of inert flesh. The beasts, more cunning, tried to flank them, but Zirel's arrows and Élisa's spear pinned them to the ground. Zirel, his quiver nearly empty, had drawn a short sword and a dagger. He slipped through the chaos like a shadow, slashing a monster's hamstrings before burying his blade into its neck. His style was elastic, unpredictable, a deadly dance at the heart of the chaos.

Élisa, by contrast, was a pillar of calm and destruction. Her spear cut the air with a deadly hiss, every strike delivered with perfect economy of motion. But Tonar knew she was fighting on another front. Around her left wrist, three small lead beads engraved with runes floated, orbiting lazily as if weightless. Suddenly, one shot forward like gray lightning. It didn't strike a puppet, but darted toward a shadow trying to manifest between two huts. The shadow disintegrated with a muffled sizzle, like metal plunged into water.

"They're trying to condense on our left flank!" Élisa warned, her voice taut with the strain of double concentration.

Tonar nodded, cleaving his longsword down on a puppet that nearly broke through their line. The blade split it cleanly in two, the halves collapsing lifelessly. "Maggie! The flank!"

Maggie, slightly behind, was already turning. Her great halberd, a curved blade mounted on a long shaft, seemed far too heavy for her frail body. Yet when she swung it in a perfect arc, three puppets were decapitated at once. The breath of her chant never left her, guttural words seeming to lend power to the weapon. The halberd wasn't just a weapon; it was a tuning staff for her magic, a focus channeling her will into a protective field. Each sweep of the blade created a wave of stillness that pushed the whispers back like a tide.

They advanced, meter by meter, through a mire of black blood and trampled earth. The village square was close now. It was there that the stench of rot and age was strongest. It was there that he was waiting.

Suddenly, the whispers stopped.

The silence was more terrifying than all their mutterings. The pounding of weapons on shields suddenly seemed vulgar and pointless. Maggie's chant broke, the young woman gasping, sweat streaming down her face.

At the center of the square, before a larger, more twisted hut, shadows began to dance. They writhed, compressed, wove into one another. The air thickened like honey, resisting their advance. The soldiers slowed, doubt creeping back in.

Then, the shadows took form.

It wasn't a body, not truly a creature. It was a humanoid silhouette, three meters tall, made of liquid darkness and gnarled roots. Where a face should have been, a mask of raw wood, polished by time, was affixed. There were no eyes, only two narrow vertical slits oozing a milky, glacial glow. The Wooden Mask.

No sound came from it, but its voice erupted inside each skull, crushing, absolute.

"STOP."

The mental pressure was physical. Several soldiers buckled to their knees, weapons slipping from their hands. Others began to weep silently, drained of all will.

Tonar felt the command crash into his mind like a wall. His legs trembled. Lay down your sword. Sleep. The temptation was soft, enveloping, a shroud of peace after so much horror.

"No!" he snarled, biting his lip until blood welled. The sharp pain snapped him back. "Hold fast! It's now or never!"

The Wooden Mask raised a hand of shadow and bark. From its fingers shot black filaments, quicker than serpents. They sought not flesh, but minds.

"Élisa!" Tonar shouted.

The young woman was already in motion. Her three lead beads spun wildly before her, forming a small triangle in the air. A psychic shield, barely visible, a distortion in reality itself, materialized before the group. The black filaments struck the barrier with the sound of shattering glass. The backlash hurled Élisa to her knees, blood trailing from her nose, but she had held.

"Zirel!" Tonar bellowed.

The scout was already moving. He darted sideways, using the confusion to find an angle of attack. His short sword? No—too far. He had pulled his bow again, one last arrow planted in the soil before him. He snatched it, drew, and loosed in one fluid motion. The arrow, steeped in sacred herbs, hissed through the air toward one of the mask's glowing slits.

The Wooden Mask tilted its head slightly. The arrow disintegrated a meter away, reduced to dust.

The laughter that filled their minds was the groaning of dying trees.

The grating laughter echoed inside their skulls as if every thought had become a hollow trunk, resonating with an unseen axe. The soldiers clenched their teeth; some screamed just to drown out the sound.

Tonar did not scream. He took a step forward, sword raised, but each motion weighed heavy as if he moved through mire, his muscles dragged by invisible chains. The Wooden Mask barely moved at all, and that was the most terrifying thing: its sovereign stillness, as though it didn't need to lift a hand to crush dozens of men.

Élisa wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand and raised her spear. "Don't let him freeze us! Move, attack! He feeds on stillness!"

Her words cracked like a survival command. And so, even half-crushed by fear, the soldiers struck at the remaining puppets around them. A rhythm, a motion—just enough to keep from being swallowed whole by paralysis.

Zirel slipped diagonally closer, blades ready. But as soon as he entered the square's circle, the air shifted. His steps grew heavy, his arms numb. Too late, he realized: the Mask had drawn a zone, an invisible snare where willpower dissolved.

He stumbled, his strike faltered. A root burst from the ground like a snake, coiling around his ankle. Zirel cursed and hacked at the living wood. The root recoiled with a hiss, but two more already surged forward.

"Tonar! The ground!" he shouted.

Tonar plunged his blade into the mud, carving a brutal furrow that severed several roots. But it was only a reprieve. The Wooden Mask hadn't even raised a hand: the earth itself obeyed its will.

Maggie stepped forward then, her halberd sweeping arcs of light charged with her guttural song. Each strike rang like a bell, clearing the air for an instant, repelling the clinging gloom. The roots hesitated to approach.

"I can open it for a moment!" she cried, her fever-bright eyes blazing.

Tonar understood: she could create a breach, but she wouldn't hold it long. He gave the order: "Élisa, ready your strike. Zirel, support. I'll take the front."

They moved as one. Maggie roared her chant, the halberd crashed down with a shockwave that split the air. The path before them vibrated, a gap torn open.

Tonar charged. His boots hammered the ground, sword high, aimed at the chest of shadow.

But the Mask reacted. Not by retreating. Not by parrying. It merely tilted its head, and the whispers shifted in tone—softer, more insidious. Faces bloomed in the haze, faces Tonar knew: his old comrades, long dead.

"You should have saved them, Tonar. You should have died in their place."

His steps faltered, his breath caught. Guilt crashed down like lead. His grip nearly slipped from his blade.

Élisa screamed his name. It was enough. Tonar roared, his voice tearing through the illusion. He struck, a downward blow. But as steel neared the shadow's chest, a root shot up and seized his wrist. The strike veered, the blade only grazing its shoulder—darkness that reformed instantly, like black water.

A hand of shadow clamped around his throat. Tonar was lifted, feet dangling. His vision blurred, his breath crushed away.

"Your mind is weak." The Mask's voice resonated inside him like a sentence passed.

He was about to give in.

Then Zirel appeared, his twin blades cleaving the root that held him aloft. Tonar crashed to the ground, gasping but alive. Zirel rolled aside just as another filament lashed at him, dodging into the mud.

Élisa leapt next, her beads whirling so fast they formed almost a ring of light around her spear. She thrust, driving the weapon deep into the Mask's chest.

The impact thundered, echoing through the village. The Mask staggered a single step. Just one.

But it was enough—they knew it could be pushed back.

It struck back at once. Shadows erupted like waves. Maggie howled, halberd raised, her chant forging a barrier. Behind them, soldiers were flung against huts, cries choked by whispers.

Élisa staggered, her psychic shield cracked. Zirel bled from a cut to his thigh. Maggie spat blood but still stood.

Tonar, crawling on the ground, planted his sword to haul himself up. His eyes locked on the towering silhouette. "It's learning from us…" he gasped. "Every time we strike, it changes."

The Wooden Mask turned its head toward him, as if it had heard. And perhaps it had.

Then it raised both arms of shadow, and the entire square trembled. Roots split the ground everywhere, gaping like jaws, enclosing the survivors.

The battle had barely begun, and already they stood on the brink of ruin.

Tonar clenched his teeth. No, he thought. Not yet. Not while I still breathe.

And he raised his sword once more.