Second Coming of the Ruthenian Seer

Around 4:30 artillery fire ravaged through the Austrian trenches near Zborow, the Austrians occupied said trenches became lost and confused, sustaining vast loses to the artillery strike. No matter how long a man fought during the Great War, none could properly adjust to its horrid conditions. Explosions disoriented those who were not physically damaged by them, the sight of countless corpses and other war casualties caused one’s psyche to deteriorate. Men could not sleep at night as nightmares in the shape of enemy soldiers and war machinery haunted their dreams. The twilight of the attack on Zborow wasn’t any different.

Just prior to the strike, the soldiers on guard duty in the trenches noticed the approaching artillery when they heard the clucking sounds produced by the war machines, they quickly began waking up their comrades and commanders, but they weren’t quick enough. Seemingly mere moments after hearing the approaching machines, *Boom*, a large bang erupted in the distance.

*Boom*, a second bang blasted nearby causing soil, rocks and bits of metal to fly about. That was the first shell, many would soon follow suit. The explosions went on for long minutes, one after the other, leaving the Austrians practically unable to react. Every time an Austrian soldier tried lifting its head above the trench line, he was thrown back by a shockwave or killed by debris.

Twenty minutes after the initial attack, the explosions went quiet again, the infantrymen inside the trenches were readying themselves to take an offensive but their officers had stopped them, commanding that they have to hold the trenches and force their enemies to charge at them.

The battlefield near Zborow went dead silent for about fifteen minutes, that is when a young Gefreiter named Fritz poked his head above the trench line to see what was going on, his friend and a fellow Gefreiter Eduard grabbed him by the coat and barked at him, “Lower your head, idiot, they might shoot you”

Fritz smirked and said, “Can’t see anything, or anyone, there’s too much smoke, they probably can’t either”

Eduard tugged his friend by his coat harder and said, “So what? Get down, you moron”

Fritz lowered his head back down, set against the trench wall and pulled out a small metal box from his coat, “want a cigarette?”

Eduard looked at him, shock evident in his eyes, “where’d you get that?” he asked as he sits next to his fried.

“Doesn’t matter, I’d just like to have a smoke before I go to hell once more, do you want one or not?”

“Sure, I’ll take one…”

They set there and smoke their cigarettes in utter silence, until Fritz broke it. As he was finishing his cigarette, he looked his friend and comrade dead in the eye and said, “I’m scared, I don’t want to die here.”

“I’m scared too; I think everyone is scared, this is hell!”

“Yeah… this is hell…”

Silence once more filled the space inside the trench, the occasional moaning of the injured soldiers could be here, but at this point, none of the present were bothered by such sounds of agony as they had grown accustomed to them, they had seen worse, they had caused worse.

The silence once more was broken, this time, by the sounds of marching, roaring and gunfire from above the trenches. Eduard looked at his friend, Fritz, and said, “Here’s goes, let’s show them hell!”

They straightened their bodies, aimed their rifles and began shooting at the approaching Russian riffle brigade, as he shot, Fritz yelled out, “Die, pigs, die!”

The riflemen sustained miniscule damage at the beginning of their offensive, one dead, a few injured but their dozens of men stopped, just outside of the range of the machineguns stationed ahead of the trenches, silence fell once more upon the battle field, both sides anticipating the next move of their enemy, unmoving, almost like statutes in their respective locations.

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

One after the other, the Austrian machinegun operators fell, the Russians used sharpshooters hidden amongst their force to kill the machinegun operators. Even before the Austrians could react to such a move, the Russian brigade approached their trenches, riddling them with hand grenades that produce a large smokescreen.

The Russian infantry began screaming and shouting like a pack of wild dogs, and as they did a large shadow crept through the smoke screen, manage to tear through a large chunk of the barbed wire chains and crawl into an Austrian trench.

Screams of agony were emitted from this trench, as the shadow, a tall man with silver hair was breaking his way through the Austrian soldiers he could not do anything against him. He was too fast, too strong, so strong that every punch and every kick he landed on an Austrian soldier produced a cracking sound. The cracking sound bones make when they are broken. Anyone unfortunate enough to be hit in the abdomen or chest would collapse, spitting blood. The man carried no firearms on himself, he carried no blades, he simply kicked and punched his way through the Austrian soldiers.

Bullets could not hit him, he just dodged their trajectory, and he managed to avoid being shot. The Austrians just ended up shooting one another when attempting to put bullets in his body. Soon enough the Austrians realized they weren’t dealing with a man but something more, some greater.

As this angel of death waltzed his way through his victims’ bodies he maintained a cold, emotionless stare, his blue eyes shone like the clearest sky with the light of the rising sun, it had almost seemed to the Austrians that he has no personality, that he is indeed the physical angel of death himself, that he is Abaddon.

It was clear to them that they could not stop him with force, so they ran, they ran away from him on sight. Fully armed, well-trained, proud Austrian soldiers ran away upon the sight of one silver haired Russian man. Had the emperor known about this, he’d cut their heads off himself, even had just General Bohm-Ermolli known about his troops running away from a single, unarmed man, he’d kill them. Running from a one man, that was a disgrace, but they still ran they just wanted to survive; they refused to be ripped apart by a Seraph of destruction.

As the silver haired man was making his way through the trenches, the rest of his brigade caught up, they started tearing up the barbed wire defenses and shooting their way through first defensive lines of the Austrians. A few dozen men managed to paralyze four well-prepared infantry regiments.

Soon enough, the officers found out about the silver haired man and ordered the soldiers to evade him in any way possible, that did not help anyone, as the silver haired man just caught up to anyone he laid his eyes upon. One man who tried running away found his face pressed against a trench wall, being dragged along it until half of his head had been smeared into a mesh of blood, bone and brain matter splattered all over the trench wall.

One he had killed the Austrian soldier, the silver haired man noticed a fellow Russian soldier about to be shot, he leaped in front of shooter, covering in a single leap an impossible distance, and catching the bullet fired from the Austrian rifle with his hand.

The shooter fell to his knees in disbelief and uttered the phrase, “My God…”

The Russian man he intended to kill heard him and turned around, he was about to shoot the Austrian soldier, but noticed the silver haired man standing in front of him, he lowered his gun and thanked his comrade, who in turn simply flung the bullet at the Austrian solider. Upon contact with the Austrian soldier’s skull the bullet sent his body falling backwards, bent at the knees, sending small splash of blood all over from the bullet wound.

The silver haired man then smiled at his comrade, and leaped on, pressing forward, deeper into the enemy lines. Wherever he stepped, Austrian soldiers would fall, beaten and broken into a pulp, none survived an encounter with the silver haired Russian soldier.

Fritz and Eduard were told to hold their ground, no matter what, unless they encountered the silver haired Russian, in such a case, they were instructed to run. Both of them stood their ground, even managed to gun down a couple of the Russian infantrymen. Sometime after the beginning of the Russian assault, the screams of hurting soldiers along with gunshots began echoing throughout the trench in which the two Gefreiters were stationed, followed by chatter in a Slavic tongue. The two realized they were about to face the enemy and prepared themselves for the worst.

Once the tall silver haired Russian soldier appeared in the distance, followed by other Russian soldiers, Eduard dropped his weapon and called out his comrades to run, they all began following suit, all but Fritz, who instead cocked his gun and aimed it at the silver haired man’s head.

“What are you doing, Freidrich? Run!” screamed Eduard towards his friend

“I won’t run from him!”

The other Austrian soldiers turned their heads to him and shouted for him to save himself, but before they could finish their words.

*Bang*

He shot the silver haired man in the head, blood and skull matter flew out of it, covering the Russian infantrymen who winced in disgust. The silver haired man did not even flinch; a visible irritation began appearing on his broken face.

Fritz lost it, at the sight of a man with half of his face blown away still standing and began spraying the silver haired man.

“Die!”

“Die!”

“Die!”

“Die, you monster!” roared Fritz as he was emptying his magazine on the silver haired man.

The silver haired man just stood there, fifteen bullet holes decorating his body, one in the head, one in the neck and the rest in the torso. His coat was soaked in his blood, and a look of madness formed on his reforming face.

The absurdity of the sight in front of him caused Fritz to burst in nervous laughter as he tried to reload his rifle, but the sight of a bullet ridden man being able to stand scared him so much, his hands were trembling too much to actually be able to reload his weapon. Tears began streaming down his cheeks as he slowly realized he was about to be killed by a monster.

The young Austrian soldier almost managed to reload his gun, but before he could actually accomplish the task, the silver haired man lunged at him and kneed him hard in the chest, that the Austrian spat blood as his body recoiled backwards from the blow.

Eduard froze in his tracks, paralyzed with fear and awe, he knew he had to run but his body wouldn’t listen to his brain, all he could do was mutter in hopelessness, “Dear God, hell us…”

The silver haired man grabbed Fritz by the back of his neck and punched him in the stomach, causing the Austrian to throw up the contents of his gut with blood. The light began to fade from Fritz’s eyes, he was a dying man drowning in pain, unable to even form proper thoughts. The silver haired man kneed Fritz once more in the chest causing his body to flip over. He then kicked him in the shoulder, tearing it out of its socket, leaving it hanging by a few strands of muscle and skin fiber.

Fritz managed to scream from the pain for the first time, as he lay on the floor, clutching at his barely attached arm, he cursed and yelled in pure suffering.

The screaming awoke Eduard from his fear-induced trance; he began begging the silver haired man to stop beating on his friend in broken Russian and German. The Russian infantrymen were also awestruck; they just stood there. They just watched as the Silver haired man beats angrily on the young Austrian soldier. The delirium like state often induced by the height of battle was evidently etched upon their faces; they were enjoying the sight of a needless, merciless beat down to the death. Eduard clutched at the trench club he had prepared earlier and was about to lunge at the silver haired man with it.

Before he could however, the silver haired man grabbed Fritz by his uniform collar, pulled him back to a vertical pose and punched him across the jaw so hard he sent it flying through the Austrian soldier’s skin. Oozing blood and saliva, the Austrian soldier could only gargle incoherently and stare directly into the eyes of his assaulter as an act of final defiance. The silver haired man was about to land the killing blow upon the already dying young Austrian as Eduard lunged at him with his club yelling he would kill him.

*Boom*

Ear piercing sound fills Eduard’s ears, everything goes black for a moment and then sharp, unimaginable pain surges through his left side. Eduard opens his eyes to see himself covered in blood, a large hole in his side, arm missing. Next to him lays an equally gravely injured Russian infantryman. Everything goes colder. Eduard can see bodies thrown around all over his vicinity, dismantled, dismembered, torn apart pieces of human bodies. He notices half of Fritz’s head lying next to his legs; he tries to move towards it but cannot move his remaining arm or legs.

As the realization of death sinks in, a large shadow inside the fire in front of him is formed, Eduard’s senses heighten for a moment and he notices the thing inside the fire appears to be doglike in shape. A loud canine roar blasts through Eduard’s ears, sending shockwaves through his body.

“W…w….w….werewolf?” Eduard utters weakly to himself.

The Russian infantryman next to Eduard chuckles weakly and Eduard strains his head in the infantryman’s direction, “d…d…d…” He does not have enough strength to speak.

The Russian infantryman manages to say, albeit with much difficulty, “Prince… Prince….Vseslav… of Polotsk… Th... th... th... Volkhv... th... th... thi... this… this… this… this… is… is… th… the… s… second coming of the Ruthenian Seer”

The beast turned its head towards the dying soldiers, revealing its gigantic lupine appearence. It roared at them, displaying its large fangs as it does. Upon noticing that the two were going to die from their wounds, the wolf turned around and leapt out of the trench releasing a dreadful canine call as it does.