Chương 9: Breaking Point

Jonathan looked over the Rock Troll camp, his hands loosening and tightening around the leather-wrapped axe handles repeatedly. The camp sprawled across a natural depression in the rocky terrain, filled with crude structures and the massive forms of the trolls moving between them. A large figure stood near the center, its rocky skin a shade darker and a head taller than the others. The Chieftain.

Jonathan recalled the System blue window that appeared in his vision and labeled a task to slay the Rock Troll Chieftain. He watched the creature as it moved among the other trolls, grunting and interacting with them before returning to its position at the center of the camp. He knew that he should have been planning. His experience in war told him that he should have been looking for weak points or counting combat-capable bodies. Instead, his mind drifted to Marcus as he watched the Chieftain.

The rage that had carried him through his previous fights lingered at the edge of his mind. Before, it had always taken him by surprise, crashing over him like a wave. It was something to be resisted or fought against. This time was different. Jonathan reached for it deliberately, feeding the anger with memories of both of his sons—regret, pain, and loss in equal measure. His grip tightened on the axe handle until the leather wrapping creaked. The rage was there, waiting for him to surrender to it.

For the first time, he welcomed it.

"Come on," he growled while pushing himself to his feet and standing tall.

"Let's get this over with." He jogged down the slope, his boots sending loose stones clattering down the slope. The nearest troll turned at the sound, its mouth opening in surprise. Jonathan felt a similar heat building in his chest and spreading through his veins as the world began to turn red. Jonathan smiled at the grim thought that crossed his mind, almost a challenge to the rage within. Will you get out of this one?

The last thing he remembered was raising his axe and activating his skill as the first troll reached for its weapon. Awareness returned to him like surfacing from an ice bath. Jonathan found himself standing in the middle of chaos, his chest heaving and his muscles burning. His senses returned one by one. First came sound, amplified and muffled at the same time, similar to how his ringing ears felt after an IED had gone off. He could hear the crunch of stone, guttural growls, and his own ragged breathing.

Next, he noticed the taste of blood and finally, his vision cleared, showing the tint of red retreat to the far reaches of his vision. There were destroyed shelters and broken bodies littered around him on the ground. Everything's fine now. You're safe. The peaceful feeling washing over him felt wrong. It felt completely disconnected from the violence surrounding him. His body wanted to relax and lower its guard. Despite what his own instincts were telling him, he could see the chaos and danger around him.

Through the haze of calm, he registered movement. The Chieftain towered before him, almost twice his height. Up close, Jonathan could now see that the scarred markings on his carapace formed tribal symbols and patterns. Jonathan glanced down and saw both black and red blood covering his arms and chest. His shirt was cut further than it had been before he began the attack, and he could see freshly healed scars on his skin through the fabric.

He only held one axe, and he looked around for the other to see the one he'd been using in a troll's chest several yards away. A rhythmic chanting cut through the air and Jonathan looked over to its source. Past the Chieftain, Jonathan saw a smaller and skinnier troll that was perched atop one of the rock outcroppings. It held a gnarled wooden staff, and its hands moved in circular patterns over a glowing design etched into the rock.

With each gesture, the peaceful feeling intensified, and Jonathan felt like a cold bucket of water was being splashed onto his simmering rage. Magic? The realization that some sort of magic was being performed on him to quell his rage hit him. He was fascinated, horrified, and worried all at once. The burning strength that had carried him through previous fights drained from his limbs, leaving his muscles tight and exhausted.

He could still feel his natural strength, enhanced by the stat points from the System, but the primal fury that had made him unstoppable was gone. The Chieftain's massive stone fist swung toward him. Jonathan dove to the side, his movements sluggish without the rage's enhancement. The blow cratered the ground where he'd stood.

"Shit," he muttered while rolling to his feet. His body felt wrong, and as chips of stone slapped his skin and he registered the sting of pain, Jonathan felt vulnerable. Feeling like a fool, Jonathan realized that he'd come into this reckless assault with no plan at all. He didn't care if he died, he had just wanted to cause as much damage as possible to these monsters and perhaps kill the Chieftain.

Instead of planning things to be as effective as possible, he'd given into this strange power and depended on it to get the job done. This is my fight, damn it. He slapped his face, attempting to feel any rage or excitement in the fight, but his body continued to remain calm and at ease. The Chieftain advanced, each step shaking the ground. As Jonathan backpedaled, he did his best to reorganize his thoughts and regain control of his emotions, but the large monster moved to follow him.

When he looked back and saw the wall of a hut was collapsed with the feet of a stone troll sticking from the hole, he knew he couldn't keep retreating the way he'd come. He glanced around but saw other trolls beginning to gather and watch the fight between the small human and their Chief. He refocused on the Chieftain just in time to see him pull back the massive hammer and bring it down in a strong overhead strike. Jonathan slipped to the right and stepped in toward the troll.

As the Chieftain was forced to bend at the waist, following the weight of his hammer, Jonathan let some of his boxing experience take over as he sent a jab and a strong right hook into the rock troll's head while they were at the same level. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. The impact reverberated through his arm, and the blow broke a few bones in his hand.

Despite the punch having good form, his Strength surprised him as the carapace on the Chief's face cracked from the blow and sent him stumbling. Still, he knew it wasn't enough. The Chieftain barely staggered, its dark eyes fixing on Jonathan with newfound interest. It hefted its massive hammer. Jonathan looked down at his fist and how his right hand was awkwardly shaped from the broken knuckles and fingers.

He realized that with his increased strength, he'd gained a lot, but without increasing the other more reliable survival stats, he may have prevented his ability to withstand his own strength. He dodged several more blows, holding his stone hatchet in his good left hand. His thigh muscles were burning from the bursts of energy unenhanced as he was by his rage. Each time the hammer smashed into the ground, it left a small crater of pulverized stone.

After watching that happen over and over, without the Chieftain tiring, Jonathan knew that he had no hope of matching the monster blow-for-blow. Jonathan needed another way. The shaman continued chanting from its perch and Jonathan's eyes darted to the circle it stood atop. For a moment, he considered if he could reach it and disrupt the emotion-manipulating magic.

He dismissed the thought, realizing that the shaman was too far away and he'd be over-exposing himself to the Chief if he did attempt to make it across the middle of the camp. Also, he realized that he didn't want the rage back. Not now. The Chieftain continued to press forward, each swing of its hammer crashing into the ground with the force of a car crash. Jonathan kept moving, but as he was becoming more sluggish, the troll was becoming more frustrated and refused to tire.

He did his best to analyze the fighting style of the troll and found it to be powerful be predictable. Always an overhead strike or a horizontal swing of the hammer from the right side. Each overhead strike buried the hammer deep enough that it took a moment to wrench free. He thought that it could be something to exploit as a weakness, but it wasn't enough on its own. Something tickled at his memory as he circled the Chieftain. His first fight with a troll before the rage had taken him.

The monstrous creatures were well-armored but not perfectly so. The Chieftain roared, the sound echoing off the rock formations. Its next swing came horizontal, forcing Jonathan to duck and roll. He came up near a fallen shelter, using the debris as cover while he caught his breath. He knew that each move needed to count. The peaceful calm from the shaman's ritual dulled his emotions and made focusing on the danger of the fight harder than it should have been.

He continued to think through the Chieftain's pattern as he caught his breath and heard the beast moving on the other side of the destroyed hut. Horizontal sweeps when I'm too far, overhead strikes when I'm close. Those overhead blows… The hammer crashed down behind him, missing by only a few inches. Remnants of the hut exploded outward as the hammer embedded itself into the ground. The Chieftain grinned and wrenched it free with a grunt, causing more stone chips and wood to fly in Jonathan's direction.

Jonathan filed the detail away, adding it to his growing tactical assessment. He supposed that, in a way, the shaman's magic was actually helping him. He wasn't normally one to overthink a plan, and even less so since the rage had begun to take him. With the forced state of calm, Jonathan found the aspect of thinking through his plan easier than the actual fight, which was a first for the grizzled veteran. Standing, Jonathan's eyes were trained on the head of the hammer.

He saw it go back and could tell from the troll's stance that it would be a side strike. He ducked and rolled, feeling the air over his head move with the force. He was so focused on the hammer that he almost missed the boulder hurtling toward him. The Chieftain had grabbed a piece of debris with its free hand, launching it with terrifying speed. Jonathan twisted away, but not fast enough. The boulder clipped his side and exploded against a rock formation behind him.

White-hot pain shot through his side and back as stone shrapnel tore into him. He stumbled, feeling warm blood soak his shirt. Jonathan noted that he had at least two broken ribs. As he tried to move and take deep breaths, they screamed in protest.

"Getting too old for this shit," he muttered while pressing his broken hand over the worst of the lacerations to apply pressure. He created some space and looked down at his side. While he knew that the injury wasn't immediately fatal, he could feel his movement being restricted further by the wounds. If he wasn't able to continue moving around the troll, he would die quickly. Without the {Rage} regeneration, each of his wounds would stick, compounding each mistake.

He cursed himself and tried to think through the rest of the plan. The Chieftain advanced, sensing weakness. Its hammer dragged across the ground and left a furrow in the stone. Jonathan backed away, his combat boots crunching on the rocky ground. The terrain was a bit different than normal, unstable with a slight slope. Another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. He thought back to his first troll kill and remembered how his combat knife had found the weak spot where carapace met soft flesh.

The Chieftain had the same vulnerability. Jonathan had seen a glimpse of it when he stepped in to punch the larger monster. There was a band of exposed tissue just below the jawline. Jonathan planted his feet and ignored the pain in his side. He held the axe in his left hand, loose but ready. The Chieftain's dark, beady eyes narrowed, perhaps sensing a trap but too confident to care. It raised the hammer high, committed to an overhead strike that would end the puny human.

Time seemed to slow for Jonathan as he watched the hammer come down. As it came down with earth-shattering force, Jonathan began to move. Not away, but forward, as he had when slipping inside the troll's reach to land a punch. The hammer's head passed inches behind him, and the ground shook with the impact. Small stones and pebbles all around his feet rose a foot off the ground from the force of the blow.

The Chieftain's strike buried the hammer deep into the unstable ground, and as it tried to wrench the weapon free, its footing shifted on the loose gravel. Jonathan saw the moment he'd been waiting for in the form of a slight overextension as the creature fought for balance. He gathered every bit of strength he had left and activated his only skill.

A pull of unknown energy leaked from his navel and into his arm as the skill activated, and his axe whipped out with more force and coordination than his injured left side should have been able to produce. The axe found the spot where a stone-like carapace gave way to vulnerable flesh. Black blood sprayed as the Chieftain's roar became a wet, gurgling sound. The creature released its hammer, and its massive hands reached for its ruined throat.

It was too late, however, as his legs buckled, and the massive body crashed to the ground, causing the small pebbles to bounce once more. Jonathan staggered backward and felt his vision blur. The adrenaline coursed through his body, and he felt his eyes wide as he continued to scan his surroundings and heave for fresh air. He found himself still surrounded by remaining trolls. The shaman had stopped chanting and stared at Jonathan with wide eyes.

Its gnarled staff clattered to the ground, the ritual circle's glow fading to nothing as disbelief replaced its confidence. Each breath sent daggers of pain through his side, and he could feel blood soaking through his mangled hand and down his leg. Beautiful blue motes of light began to rise from the troll Chieftain's corpse, and Jonathan found his vision following them. He was surprised to find that, as he watched them rise like ethereal butterflies, he still felt calm and at peace.

Is the ritual still affecting me? The lights rushed toward his body, and he tried to take a small, startled step back, but his leg gave out. As they connected with his chest and spread through his body, all of his skin began to tingle. A moment later, golden motes floated down around his own body, and he looked back and forth in wonder. He fell to his knee, and the entire world seemed to still.

Those fifty or more trolls who had circled the fight continued to watch on in silence and disbelief though they were becoming restless at his obvious state of weakness. A bright blue glow caught his attention. Through pain-blurred vision, he saw a portal form a few feet away. The light seemed to beckon him as he realized that it looked identical to the one that he'd entered through. Blue windows began to fill his vision.

He pushed himself to his feet and dropped the remaining bloody axe to the ground as he used his knee for support. He took one stumbling step toward the portal and then another. His legs gave out again on the third step, but he never felt himself hit the ground.