Wonderful Insane World

The Guardian fought like a raw incarnation of nature’s fury. His blade moved with terrifying economy.

No flourish, no wasted motion—just perfect, lethal geometry. It was as if an invisible circle had been drawn around him, and any creature that dared cross it was instantly torn apart.

Dylan, Maggie, and Elisa stood frozen, mesmerized by the macabre spectacle. Corpses piled up quickly, limbs and torsos forming grotesque mounds—a growing barrier of flesh. The Guardian’s sword didn’t hesitate, even when the bodies became obstacles. It sliced through them like air, sending fresh pieces tumbling onto the blood-soaked heap. freёweɓnovel.com

Elisa was the first to move. She tapped Maggie’s shoulder, her eyes flicking toward a nearby bisected beast.

"The anima gems," she murmured. "He doesn’t touch them. But we can."

Maggie tightened her grip on her axe.

"You want to loot now?"

"The scent of blood draws more every minute," Dylan said hoarsely, eyes locked on the new shadows creeping from the treeline.

Elisa was already moving, low and fast, daggers ready.

"Let’s not waste this feast. We’ve already missed a full day of hunting. Might as well make up for it."

The Guardian didn’t spare them a glance. His whole being was focused on the endless tide. His blade a silver streak singing through the night. The rhythm never broke—step, pivot, strike—as if he had danced this dance for decades. And maybe he had.

Elisa reached the first corpse—a twisted thing with too many joints. Her dagger flashed briefly as she carved a pulsing crimson crystal from its ribcage. As soon as it came loose, the three of them grabbed the body and hurled it out of the mist with all their strength.

Maggie cursed under her breath but followed suit, using the spike of her axe to pry gems from split skulls. Dylan worked in silence, his movements stiff. Each extracted crystal pulsed hotter in his palm, reacting to the spiritual essence flowing through his veins. He felt the She-Demon’s attention sharpen with every touch.

The mound of bodies shrank as they worked, slowly clearing the Guardian’s killing field. Still, the creatures came—some on all fours, others upright, moving with eerie grace. Yet none lasted more than a second inside the circle’s edge.

It was as if the morning hunt had never happened. The three of them moved like tireless ants, rushing to each fallen beast, tearing free their gems, hacking them apart if they were too large to carry, then flinging the remains out of the mist.

There was a moment when the beasts stopped charging into the invisible circle—not because they had lost their appetite for living flesh or the soul-heat of the humans and the spirit-beast at the center—but because the meat had piled up outside the mist.

And they threw themselves at it.

Their screams rang out as they fought over the best cuts. The stronger ones ate to their fill. The weaker had no choice but to give in to hunger—and follow it into the mist.

And the moment they did—

The Circle resumed.

——

The military backpack was starting to weigh him down. The straps dug into Dylan’s shoulders, each step sending pain shooting through his back. Maggie was beyond exhausted. She collapsed beside the narrow case where they stored the anima gems, her breath ragged, her skin slick with sweat despite the cool moonlight.

"You two go," she growled. "I’m gonna soak up as much as I can. Then it’ll be your turn."

Dylan hesitated. Just for a heartbeat. Part of him wanted to say no, to stay, to claim his turn. His stigma was hungry. Always. But he let out a long sigh, clenched his teeth, and nodded.

He pulled Elisa aside, glancing back at Maggie one last time. She’d already seized a crystal, gripping it tightly in her calloused hands, eyes shut, immersed in the slow, spiritual digestion.

Over thirty gems still lay there. Torn from chests, cracked from skulls, dropped in haste into the reinforced sack—still warm with the monsters’ blood. Third-rankers, most of them. The kind of haul that would take another group a week to collect.

And Maggie was about to bathe in them.

Dylan had even taken her axe before leaving—not that he could wield the massive blade—but because she’d left it there, at her side, unconcerned. She didn’t need it. Not as long as the Guardian held the circle.

Standing amidst the corpses, the Guardian barely moved. His sword no longer sang; it rumbled. Every strike was exact, deliberate, inevitable. He didn’t run. He didn’t pant. He struck like wind crashing on the sea—cruel, wordless, rhythmic.

The most grotesque part of it all wasn’t the beasts’ screams. It wasn’t the blood or the tightening mist. It was the slow, inescapable realization: not a single one of them had touched him.

Not even scratched his armor.

Even the fastest, the biggest—those with jaws that could crush stone—had fallen before they even reached his shadow. As if his very presence drew a line no creature could cross.

Dylan and Elisa settled a bit farther off, in a rocky crevice half-covered in moss. She knelt down with a smooth motion, back to the stone. He stayed on his feet, eyes locked on the battlefield, unable to look away.

He knew what came next would be worse.

It began with a change in rhythm.

Not in the Guardian’s strikes—those remained steady, eternal, geometric. No, it was in the screams. The sounds of the creatures as they died. Sounds they’d learned to recognize without even looking.

Suddenly, they changed.

The shrieks weren’t sharp and frantic anymore. They grew deeper, rougher—and rarer. The kind of screams that didn’t signal an instant death, but a fight. A real one. A struggle.

Dylan felt it before he understood it. His breath caught. He frowned, listening.

Then he saw them.

They weren’t bigger than the others. Not more twisted or grotesque. But they were different.

Their skin—dark and stretched over dense muscle—glowed faintly from within, like embers burning beneath the surface. Their movements were no longer wild or erratic. They were taut. Controlled. Focused.

These were awakened beasts.