Too Stubborn to Die Chapter 10

He entered the trial, and as usual, he challenged the orc tribe, and out came the champion. Before the battle started, he spotted the shadow and gave it a wink. The fight began with Aaron dodging blows and conserving energy. He held back, waiting for the attack that had bewildered him for so long. Only [ Relentless Scourge ] was activated, so that he could conserve Mana, and therefore, energy.

After the mirror images failed to distract Aaron and a quick exchange ended with the orc on the losing end, the frustrated orc champion unleashed his third skill, turning into a whirlwind of steel.

Waiting until the last fraction of a second, Aaron pushed his energy into his legs and sprang to the side, shooting himself at speed well beyond his level. However, a single dodge wasn’t enough to beat the whirlwind, and it continued to spin toward him.

Aaron had to hope that the Skill used by the champion was eating up Stamina, as he couldn’t handle too many energy-infused dodges. But at least he could create distance each time he used one, forcing the spinning champion to close that distance, and dragging out the length of its Stamina-draining Skills.

The whirlwind stopped, and the orc glared angrily at Aaron. Unlike before, the cheers from the orcs on the sidelines no longer sounded cheerful. They were louder than ever, but they sounded more like a war cry, encouraging their leader in the face of difficult odds.

The chieftain charged forward again, and he and Aaron exchanged a few more blows before reusing his whirlwind attack. Having died to the attack many times already, Aaron knew its tells, and immediately leapt back out of range again, burning through all the aether he had managed to build up.

The orc wasted no time in charging back at him, and this time, when he used his whirlwind strike, Aaron didn’t have enough energy to fully dodge, and soon found himself back on the cold tiles. He wasn’t discouraged, though. If anything, he was encouraged. His new technique worked better than he had expected. He knew he was on the cusp of victory.

Just a couple more tries, he thought to himself.

A couple turned into a dozen, which turned into two. Refining his technique in the heat of battle wasn’t easy, but he soon saw what he needed to perfect. He was wasting energy, both by being inefficient in his use of it and by dodging further than he actually needed to. He worked to curb both of those issues and slowly made progress, dodging for longer and longer.

Despite his progress, though, he also knew he was coming up against a wall, and one he wouldn’t be able to force his way through easily. Using the aether instead of stamina was not ideal. It worked, but it didn’t work as well as he suspected Stamina would. He wanted to see it through to the end, but he had already accepted that he would have to look for other methods in the future. Perhaps further in the future, the aether would be more useful, but for simple physical enhancement, there was no reason not to use Stamina.

Even worse, the damage he did to the chieftain wasn’t permanent. Aaron had already known that having high Vitality sped up the body’s natural healing, but until he fought this orc, he had never seen it in real time. However, even as he landed more and more blows, the orc continued to heal them off, and they would only bleed for a time before beginning to close up. He knew he was burning through his opponent’s energy reserves, but as with Stamina, he had no clue how big those pools were, so he couldn’t be sure how close he actually was

As he neared this wall with his energy technique, his battles with the chieftain got longer and longer. He could see the chieftain getting tired. By the time Aaron died, the orc was breathing heavily and was dripping with sweat. Its attacks were getting sluggish and easier to dodge. While its wounds were still healing at the same rate, its Stamina couldn’t keep up with the battle. Aaron knew if he could just outlast it a bit longer, he could win. The only thing keeping him from victory was the whirlwind attack. No matter how tired it looked, the orc always seemed to have just enough Stamina to use the attack one more time.

However, on the 37th attempt after working out this new technique, it was different. Aaron felt inexplicably good. He was in the zone.

His body felt lighter and easier to maneuver. The orc felt slower and easier to dodge. His fists didn’t do any more damage than usual, but he felt like he was landing his strikes with more precision. When the illusory clones came, he was able to fully ignore them, locating the orc chieftain in an instant. When the first whirlwind came, he was able to dodge just outside of its range with pinpoint accuracy and minimal wasted energy.

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That didn’t mean it was easy, though. He still had his own stamina to worry about, and every subsequent whirlwind attack took more and more out of him to dodge. When the seventh whirlwind came–the one he had thus far failed to avoid–he managed to just barely stay out of its range. The very tip of the axe blade cut through a part of his shirt that was trailing behind, but he survived, and when the orc stopped spinning, Aaron knew this time was different. There would be no eighth spin.

He immediately went on the offensive. This was a part of the battle he had never made it to before, so he had no precognition when it came to the orc’s attacks, but after having fought it countless times, he didn’t need it. The very first twitch of his opponent’s muscles told him all he needed to know. He dodged every attack seamlessly, weaving through the massive axe strikes and landing punches of his own. None of them did much damage, but as the damage accumulated, the orc began to slow down even more.

It was clear that the orc wouldn’t be using the whirlwind attack again, so Aaron used the aether he had been gathering up to switch things up and land a devastating kick on the orc’s calf. It was the first kick he had used in the fight, since his legs didn’t have the same penetrating power as his spiked gauntlets, but between the aether and the orc’s existing exhaustion, it was enough to make the orc’s leg buckle.

It put one hand down to catch itself, and Aaron used the opening to start pummeling its face. It tried to stand back up, but Aaron landed a front kick on it, forcing it to stagger again.

Aaron wanted nothing more than to just recklessly charge forward and finish it off, but he intentionally held himself back. This was his perfect run. He couldn’t waste it. Instead, he slowly and methodically walked the orc down, making it stumble when he could and damaging it whenever there was an opening.

The orc got sloppier and sloppier with its attacks, and after another few minutes, it was so tired that it attempted a massive swing with both axes, and when Aaron dodged that, it collapsed to its knees, its arms limp at its sides. It barely reacted as Aaron whaled on it with his fists, turning its face into a bloody pulp. Soon, the chieftain fell to the ground, and Aaron continued to punch at it. He didn’t stop attacking until the body stopped healing, at which point he sat on its chest for a moment, panting.

He was almost as exhausted as the chieftain. If the battle had gone on for another thirty seconds, it would have been him collapsing instead. However, he had managed to win. Against all odds, he had defeated the chieftain.

All around him, there was silence. He looked up to see the rest of the orcs staring at him in dumbfounded silence. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet, staring them all down. None of them met his eyes. Then, he raised a bloody fist to the sky, and when he did, the orcs knelt before him.

Chain Quest: The Shadow Trials

Stage one of [ Trial of Dominance ] COMPLETED!

You have tested yourself against a force of monsters and managed to subjugate them through your undeniable prowess.

Quest Rewards: Warbanner [ Uncommon ], Unique System store unlocked.

Experience rewarded for completing a quest stage!

Ding!

[ Brawler ] has LEVELED UP!

9 → 10

Ding!

[ Brawler ] has LEVELED UP!

10→ 11

A tender and battered smile slipped across his exhausted expression, and he locked eyes with what he swore was a smiling shadow mere seconds before the world around him melted away, and he returned to the obsidian hallway.

What’s its problem? He thought, but he had no answers and a bunch of rewards to go over, so he let the shadow drift from his thoughts.

Immediately after, as his adrenaline drained, he felt the most severe and all-consuming pain in every inch of his body. This wouldn’t do, and he knew it was best to get his death over with, but he hesitated for just one moment. After all, what was he supposed to do with a warbanner?

Warbanner [ Uncommon ]

Used by Orc tribes across the multiverse, Warbanners are both a symbol of pride and tribal allegiance. Place in your System Claimed Territory for the following buffs.

For the Tribe: +10% to all stats. Lasts for 8 hours after resting for a full night within the territory where the Warbanner is placed.

Feral Gut: Rotting food and tainted water are no longer a problem for you, and will nourish you as if it were fresh food. Lasts for 8 hours after resting for a full night within the territory where the Warbanner is placed.

Aaron’s brow perked at the description. It didn’t sound like something he would be using anytime soon, but there was such a thing as System Claimed Territory? He was going to need to ask Douglas about it, though he doubted he would get many answers. Either way, it seemed to suggest that the System provided a means to rule land. Is this what Douglas meant when talking about being made into a slave? Was the world going to be divided between people who used the System to claim plots of land, and everyone unfortunate enough not to, who would end up in their service? It was an interesting thought, but the pain stabbing into Aaron reminded him to drain the last of his health, and he promptly killed himself.

Waking up on the obsidian tiles, Aaron’s eyes flung open. He had a new room to investigate and a lot of questions to ask. Oh, and a new Skill to pick.