The Laughing Swordsman

A frightening crunch resounded in the air.

There was currently a woman with her jaw agape and her eyes wide open. She also had a rabbit mask on her face, but there was a large crack on the part that covered the forehead. That was because a black axe had pierced through. 

But it didn't just pierce through the mask.

It split apart the woman's skull as well, before getting lodged halfway inside. She didn't even have the time to scream before she died.

On the other side was Eden, still humming a lullaby to herself. She didn't actually put that much strength into the axe she threw. However, it still carried impressive power. The dim lighting from the torches in this underground expanse made her look a little ominous.

Especially since they would flicker, almost like Eden was a monster trying to hide in the darkness.

She began walking towards the only doorway in this room.

As for the woman that was just killed, her body had frozen up like a statue. The black axe in her head gradually lost its shape, like it was melting. Veins bulged out from the point that the woman was hit.

Then, the black axe turned into flesh that began swallowing up the woman's body. In just a few moments, a set of bones and organs were on the ground, coupled with a broken rabbit mask.

By this time, Eden had reached the doorway. A mass of black flesh beside the remains of the woman hurriedly scampered over to its creator.

It wrapped itself around Eden's leg before traversing up and back into her heart. Soon, it came out once more and reformed into another black axe, like it never left.

Eden found herself in a hallway. It was quite dark and the air here was especially uncomfortable. However, she didn't mind.

Instead, Eden continued humming to herself and twirling the axes in her hands.

For a while, she was unable to find anyone. However, She ended up catching a faint sound from far away. It was a continuous banging, like something was being hit. Eden walked down towards the sound, ignoring the other doorways along the way.

The banging sound eventually became clearer, along with the sound of hoarse coughing, like an old man on his deathbed.

Eden walked into the room that the sound was coming from and saw a fairly young man with a rabbit mask doing the duties of a blacksmith. He dutifully pounded on a bright red piece of metal on top of an anvil. Thick smog-filled this room in particular, which was probably not the smartest thing to breathe.

The man would constantly cough, as a dying old man would. In fact, even his hands trembled like he was at the end of his years.

Noticing someone else in the room, he stood up and walked closer to greet them.

"Are you here to request a weapon?"

Eden did not respond, other than humming and slowly raising the black axe in her hand. The man's coughing acted up severely at this moment. It was so bad, he didn't even realize someone was trying to kill him.

The man began to wheeze, like he was trying to suck in what little breathable air still existed in the room.

Eden threw her axe.

But the man fell to his knees, letting the axe cascade right above his head. He just brushed by death but didn't even notice it. The man's breaths became weaker and weaker.

Until eventually, he wasn't breathing at all.

Like that, the man died.

Eden fully intended on killing the man before her, but the deadly working conditions he was put into got to him first. He would've died regardless.

The thrown black axe turned into a liquid substance before scampering back. As for Eden, she only gave the man a glance before turning back and getting out of the room.

That man wasn't the only person working like that. And this was also the case for people that weren't in this organization of rabbits. Many people that were overworked sought refuge here, thinking that their lives would improve. If not now, perhaps later.

However, things remained the same.

The leader of the group of rabbits never cared about what the council was doing to the people, but rather, cared that they weren't the ones able to do it.

In other words, there were different leaders, but shared the commonality of not caring about the people underneath them.

Eden continued to aimlessly search for people, only with the intention of killing them. After some time, she met a few people here and there, thus threw her axe at killing the few people here on the spot.

The path she was taking gradually went upwards and eventually ended at a trapdoor in the ceiling. Eden mercilessly smashed that trap door, forcing it open by destroying it. After pushing it aside, she walked up to find herself in a house.

There was light coming in from the windows, which felt blinding compared to how dark it was in the cave.

Eden had made it back into the city.

She slowly navigated her way out of the house and stepped onto the streets. The moment she did, several passersby noticed her.

"Ah! It's a person wearing a rabbit mask, they are the supporters of the fallen angel!"

"What? Run away!"

"Shit!"

Eden was still humming to herself and winded up both axes once she saw the people around. They ran away, but the axes were faster.

Two clear cracking sounds rang out. The axes Eden threw into the skulls of two innocent victims. However, there were still far more than just two. She had to kill more.

Black flesh rapidly squirmed out of Eden's heart, turning into another pair of axes. The moment they did, she threw them without abandon, harvesting another life each time.

Eden was cutting through the tree.. It wasn't the fastest process, but would swing as many times as she needed to make it fall.