As it turned out, no matter how bizarre something was, it still followed certain basic rules—at least in the normal world.
Then again, what counted as the normal world? Kup had no particularly profound understanding of that. Since he wasn't dreaming, could a world where someone could vanish into thin air and reappear behind you really be called normal?
But that ability clearly didn't come with any special vitality or the power to rise from the dead. The hunched attacker still proved the rule that "your brain can't function with a piece of iron embedded in it."
Kup stepped around Yvonne, his left hand hanging limply, and went over to the enemy sprawled on the ground. He kicked away the dagger in the man's hand, then brought his hammer down on the sunken head, which looked like a rotten pumpkin, to make sure he wouldn't wake up again.
The wound in his left shoulder had worsened from overexertion, and the slash across his waist restricted his movements. Afraid he hadn't hit hard enough, he let his irrational worries get the better of him and struck the corpse a few more times. Only when he heard Yvonne cough awkwardly did he realize the man's upper body now looked remarkably like the raw ingredients for a meat pie.
To make sure they could both enjoy that delicacy for the rest of their lives, he'd better stop now, before he gave them even more unpleasant associations.
"You really saved my skin." Saying that while holding a weapon still smeared with some unknown substance didn't quite feel right. He casually wiped the hammerhead on the attacker's clothes. They wouldn't complain now, anyway.
With every target down, the force that had driven him ebbed away, swiftly replaced by exhaustion and lingering fear. He'd come within