CHAPTER 10: Right Throught the Neck
He didn't roar this time.
Didn't posture. Didn't threaten.
The Goblin Chief just stepped forward and that was enough.
Each footfall hit the stone like a drumbeat. Measured. Confident. Final.
The rusted axe in his grip was easily taller than me, chipped and cruel-looking, like it had been forged in rage instead of iron. He dragged it lazily beside him, letting it scrape against the ground, the sound a promise of what was coming.
I didn't blink.
Didn't speak.
I just tightened my grip on my sword and lowered into a stance, centered, balanced, focused.
And then he moved.
Fast.
Too fast.
I barely registered the blur before the side of his axe slammed into the left side of my face like a steel freight train. Not the blade. Just the flat, and still…
BAM.
The force launched me off my feet and into the stone wall like a ragdoll.
The impact cracked something, maybe the wall. Definitely me.
My head bounced once. My vision flickered.
My body slid to the floor like wet laundry.
Everything rang. My ears. My teeth. My thoughts.
The system notifications flickered like static across my vision but said nothing helpful.
I tasted copper. My jaw felt like it had been dislocated. I tried to breathe and got blood instead.
I forced myself upright. No time to lie down.
The Chief didn't charge.
He just watched.
Like a butcher letting the pig crawl.
I staggered forward, sword dragging, and swung low, putting everything I had into it.
He caught the blade.
With his hand.
Just caught it.
Blood spilled from his palm, but he didn't flinch. He pulled me forward with the blade still in his grip and headbutted me square in the face.
My nose broke. I heard it.
Warmth gushed down over my lips. My eyes went blurry again.
I fell backward. Rolled. Spat blood.
"Fucker," I gasped.
I activated Acceleration Loop. My Ki surged but it was like sprinting into a tsunami. I dashed in again, went for a flanking cut, feinted, pivoted mid-swing.
Didn't matter.
He turned and kicked me in the ribs before I even finished the move.
I flew backward again and hit the ground hard enough that the sword skittered out of my grip.
CRACK.
That sound was internal.
Left arm.
Broken.
I screamed.
I'd like to say I held it in. Took it like a hero. But I didn't. I howled like an animal as my shoulder twisted unnaturally and the bone inside flexed the wrong way.
Pain unlike anything I'd ever known.
And still, I scrambled to my feet.
Because I wasn't dying on my back.
I gripped one of my spare swords with my right hand, my good one now and lunged.
He didn't block.
He just let me come.
And when I did, when I swung at his side with all the speed and fury I had left, he twisted at the last moment, elbowed my jaw, and swept my leg out from under me.
I collapsed mid-air. My right knee folded sideways on the landing.
SNAP.
This time, I didn't scream.
I just lay there.
Shaking. Breathless. Blood running from my mouth, my nose, my ears. My left arm hung limp, twitching. My right leg was mangled at the knee, turned at an angle that should never be possible.
Everything hurt. Bones, skin, nerves, Ki. My own energy felt like a curse now. Useless. Weak.
I lay there, blinking through the red fog, and saw the Chief step toward me again.
No expression.
No gloating.
Just the calm certainty of death.
I looked up at the countdown out of habit.
27:58:10... 09... 08...
"Is this it?" I whispered.
And then the world flashed orange.
A blast, loud, roaring, bright, slammed into the Chief's side. Fire erupted in waves, tracing sharp geometric patterns mid-air: glowing circles, angular runes, spiraling threads of power that twisted outward in rings of heat.
He stumbled.
Only a step.
Didn't fall. Didn't scream.
But he moved.
I turned my head, blinking through the heat and smoke.
And there he was.
Rordan.
His robes were shredded. Blood trailed down from his nose and ears. His legs trembled. But his hands were raised and in front of him spun a magic circle of red and orange, etched with glowing runes and shifting symbols. It hovered like a living thing, flickering and burning.
"You bastard," he gasped. "You don't... get to win."
Another fireball surged forward faster this time, more raw. It exploded against the Chief's back, lighting the room in fire.
The air boiled.
The Chief didn't move.
He stood up straight again, ash and heat steaming off his skin.
Then he was gone.
Not literally. Not magic. Just speed.
Blinding speed.
He reappeared beside Rordan in the blink of an eye.
Rordan didn't even have time to flinch.
The Chief backhanded him across the chest.
The sound was like a tree snapping in half.
Rordan's body flew. Arms limp. Legs spinning mid-air. His back hit the far wall with a crunch, and he collapsed in a tangled heap of limbs.
Unmoving.
Like a bag of bones dumped on the ground.
I didn't even have the breath to scream.
I just stared.
And then I reached for my sword with my one good hand.
Because I didn't care if my leg was broken. Or my arm. Or my will.
He wasn't walking away from this.
Even if I had to crawl to kill him.
The Chief turned his back on me.
Not because I wasn't a threat, he knew that.
He just didn't care.
To him, I was finished. Limp. Broken. Useless. He didn't even spare me a glance. Just walked toward Rordan, who lay crumpled in the far corner like a broken toy someone had tossed aside.
Every step the Chief took was thunder.
Every second a countdown.
I watched as he raised the axe again, high, slow, deliberate. The final blow. The kind of strike you save for when you want the last thing a man sees to be death wearing a grin.
"No," I croaked. My voice was barely air.
My right leg was ruined. My left arm hung dead. My vision was hazy, and every breath tasted like rust and lightning.
But my right arm?
It still moved.
Barely.
I reached out, fingers slick with blood, trembling, half-numb and grabbed the hilt of the nearest sword.
It wasn't elegant.
There was no technique, no form. Just instinct. Rage. Will.
I took what Ki I had left, not much. Just a flicker. A dying ember. I didn't try to circulate it. Didn't guide it through pretty diagrams or pathways.
I just shoved it forward.
All of it.
The sword felt impossibly heavy, like lifting a car with a dislocated shoulder. But I raised it. Aimed it. My body screamed. My nerves begged me to stop.
I didn't.
I stared at the back of the Chief's head.
"Get away from him," I rasped.
And I threw the sword.
It left my hand like a meteor, Ki erupting down the blade in a final burst of heat and force, more instinct than training. More fury than finesse.
The blade screamed through the air, slicing through smoke and ruin and the weight of my own defeat.
The Chief turned at the last moment.
Too late.
The sword plunged through the side of his thick neck with a wet, shattering sound, metal splitting skin, crunching into bone, lodging itself halfway through the other side.
He staggered.
Not instantly.
Not theatrically.
He just paused.
The axe in his hand drooped slightly.
His glowing red eyes widened, not in fear. Not even in pain.
But rage.
Pure, venomous, soul-black hate.
He turned his head, slowly, mechanically, like a tower toppling just slightly off-center, until his burning gaze landed on me.
The sword still jutted from his neck like a defiant flag.
And still, he stared.
I stared back.
Bleeding. Shaking. Spitting blood with every breath.
But not blinking.
Not looking away.
His mouth opened slightly.
A breath escaped.
Like a curse he couldn't quite speak.
And then…
He collapsed.
The axe dropped with a metallic clang, echoing like a bell through the chamber.
The Chief hit the ground on his knees first, then pitched forward with a final, weighty thud that rattled the stone.
Still.
Motionless.
Dead.
I lay back against the wall, chest heaving, blood pooling beneath me. The adrenaline drained out like someone had pulled the plug. My vision swam again. My broken limbs throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
Everything slowed.
Everything stilled.
But even as I felt myself slipping under, as the darkness crept at the edges of my sight, I managed one last broken whisper.
"Who's... useless now?"