A barrage of punches was unleashed on the soul being wielding the halberd. It was truly ironic; the only soul being that had managed to land an attack on Young was the very one he was now relentlessly targeting. However, while it appeared that Young was battling this specific entity out of petty revenge for his injury, vengeance was not his driving force.
Out of the six soul beings surrounding him, he had tactfully chosen this opponent because he noticed its massive weapon was poorly suited for close-quarters combat. By suffocating the creature's operational space, Young effectively neutralized its reach, turning a formidable weapon into a cumbersome liability.
Consequently, while Young closed the distance to unleash devastating fist strikes, the halberd-wielder was forced to constantly retreat just to ready a counterattack. Young easily deflected the strikes of his primary target, but he found little luck evading the chaotic, encroaching attacks of the other five soul beings closing in around him.
An especially vicious attack almost claimed his life; had Nect's voice not suddenly rung out screaming, "DUCK!!!", Young's head would have been cleaved from his neck in mere moments.
Speaking of Nect, although Young desperately wished to shield the vulnerable ally from the onslaught heading his way, he was forced to prioritize his own immediate survival. It was a brutal, self-serving calculations that weighed heavily on his conscience.
He only found a shred of solace when he noticed his relentless assault on the halberd-wielder had successfully drawn the collective ire of the horde. By hyper-focusing on one of their own, he had inadvertently bottlenecked their aggression, and the number of attacks aimed at Nect was finally beginning to dwindle.
Moreover, Nect didn't seem to be complaining. He appeared perfectly content to follow along as Young relentlessly pressured what he assumed was the weak link among his attackers.
On the rare occasions Young managed to glance at him, he realized the frantic youth was actually faring much better than himself in terms of evading danger. Although Nect's eyes remained as bloodshot and panicked as ever, he had not incurred a single new wound aside from the initial blow to his head.
It was an uncanny display of survival that defied his fragile appearance. It was almost as if Nect could instinctively sense exactly where the incoming strikes would land, twisting his body or side-stepping with impossible timing to flawlessly dance away from impending doom.
Everything went smoothly for a brief period until the battlefield shifted yet again. Young began to discern a distinct pattern in the movements of the halberd-wielder. In addition to retreating, the creature was intentionally moving in a wide, sweeping arc.
This calculated rotation was a coordinated effort to reposition the squad, aiming to swap Young's current target with a combatant far better suited for lethal, close-quarters engagement.
The moment he confirmed this terrifying realization, Young desperately accelerated, lunging forward to close the distance and lock the halberd-wielder in place. Unfortunately, his burst of speed wasn't enough to disrupt their momentum.
The enemy successfully executed the switch, forcing a new opponent into his guard. Sensing that the scales had tipped entirely against him, Young cursed bitterly under his breath.
The new adversary was another high-class soul being, this one wielding a brutal, spiky gauntlet. It was the very same entity that had previously struck the back of Nect's head, causing him to become severely dazed, his eyes to turn bloodshot, and a torrent of blood to expel from his nose and mouth.
Suddenly, a barrage of coordinated strikes erupted in a fraction of a second. Six limbs moved in perfect synchronization to stall Young's advance. Coordinated like a singular, deadly machine, the enemy horde unleashed an inescapable web of violence designed to shatter his defenses and crush his spirit entirely.
Two limbs gripped the shaft of the halberd firmly, thrusting it with full force toward his back. Simultaneously, the low-class soul being that had joined the new group of soul beings that appeared shortly after the first two hurled a volley of kunai and shuriken directly at him.
Amidst this chaos, the final two spiked limbs lunged directly for Young's body: a vicious punch aimed at his face to daze him, and another aimed squarely at his chest to completely sap his remaining strength.
Young's hands looked dangerously small in comparison to the flurry of lethal attacks rushing toward him. His mind wavered as he frantically calculated his next move. Until now, his relentless offense had been the only thing keeping the soul beings at a safe distance; abandoning that pressure felt suicidal.
If he chose to pivot entirely to defense and evade whatever he could, he would likely preserve his life. It would undoubtedly shatter his wrists, but he was certain he would avoid any fatal injuries. Conversely, if he chose to launch a desperate counterattack of his own, the absolute best-case scenario was that he might shock or stall one of his incoming assailants, forcing them to halt their advance.
Yet, this offensive gamble carried a catastrophic tax. While he dealt with a single threat, the other two attackers would flawlessly unleash their strikes, leaving him utterly powerless to stop them.
There was also the theoretical option to split his efforts—using one hand to strike and the other to defend. However, that strategy was completely unviable simply because he was overwhelmingly weaker than his adversaries. Attempting to divide his attention meant he would likely fail at both and perish instantly.
Left with no middle ground, he had to make a binary, absolute choice: commit entirely to offense or surrender completely to defense.
The rational decision would be to defend himself against the incoming onslaught, preserving his life at all costs.
However, logic had never been Young's defining trait when backed into a corner. Defying all survival instincts and common sense, he ignored the safe route. Young lunged forward, plunging his gloved fists directly into the devastating fray, utterly determined to drag at least one of them down into the abyss with him.
Young knew the odds; he understood perfectly that he was fighting a losing battle with virtually zero hope of survival. Consequently, he was no longer fighting to preserve his life, but rather to perish in the glorious heat of combat—much like the legendary tales of ancient Viking warriors bound for Valhalla. Young had no idea why he was suddenly thinking about Vikings, or how he even possessed knowledge of their lore in the first place.
He simply recognized this as a deeply selfish decision, one certainly not born from a heroic desire to rescue Nect, the helpless fool who had dragged him into this nightmare.
Yet, beneath this fatalistic bravado, a stubborn spark of "human" instinct refused to completely extinguish.
Despite willingly throwing his life into the meat grinder, a desperate part of him still clung to the hope of survival. He prayed that whatever catastrophic injuries he was about to endure would remain salvageable, harboring a fervent, quiet hope that he might somehow outlive the suicidal gamble he had just initiated.