Chapter 118: (Not) A Natural Born Fighter

“Ack!” Jason reflexively threw his hands in front of his face. He was not a trained fighter. He wasn’t even an untrained fighter, and faced with instant, overwhelming aggression, his first instinct was to turtle up.

Jason felt his arms and legs get something wrapped around them and an instant later his entire body lurched violently to the side, nearly knocking the wind out of him.

Jason unscrunched his eyes and saw the spear-wielder whipping the spear around, aiming the hook at Jason’s ribcage.

Jason flinched again, trying to interpose his arm between himself and the attack, intuitively understanding that a wounded arm was better than a perforated lung.

The snakes wrapped around his arms and legs yanked him forward, putting him inside the spear’s range.

“Oof!” Jason groaned as the spear haft nearly doubled him over.

SHING!

“Eh?”

Jason glanced up and spotted a knife flashing past his cheek. The snakes were riding the strange man’s arm, fangs buried in his flesh and wrenching his stab off to the side.

Suddenly his crotch exploded in pain as a leather shoe impacted the center of Jason’s body with enough force to send him flying.

What the Abyss did I do? Jason thought, curling into a ball as roots of pain spread through his lungs.

The attacker shook the snakes off his arm with a nonchalance that spoke volumes, stalking towards Jason with unearthly grace, as though he had to hold onto the earth with his toes or he’d fly off.

He’s poisoned right? RIGHT?

Jason’s eyes twitched as he realized that it hadn’t been Withering repudiation that killed the kobolds, it was the Psychic Venom effect from the tomahawk.

…The tomahawk over there, that he’d dropped when he got folded over by the second attack.

Withering Repudiation

4->3 Charge remaining.

“You. Suck.” Jason rasped out, directing one of the snakes to deliver Withering Repudiation. It shot towards his enemy like an arrow, aiming to wrap around his limb.

The man flicked his spear and bisected the ivory snake, which evaporated into nothing, creating a phantom pain in Jason’s left ring finger that nearly eclipsed the pain in his balls.

“Easier to feel those things when they got Charge in ‘em.” The man muttered, raising the spear above Jason.

Withering Repudiation

3->2 Charge remaining.

“Killing a kid, huh?” Jason groaned.

The man wobbled in place as the Ability washed over him, paralyzing his limbs.

Jason felt a thin thread connect the two of them. It felt like a strand of spider-silk that was slowly being stretched and twisted. Sooner or later it would snap, and the only way that Jason could slow it down was to continue talking.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” Jason continued, resisting the urge to whimper as he dragged himself toward the tomahawk with his forearm. “From the moment we met, you’ve been trying to stab a child, so obviously your priorities are a bit fucked u-”

SNAP.

Withering Repudiation snapped, and the spearhead came flashing down.

A blur of red scales slammed into the side of the attacker, causing the spearhead to bury itself in the ground an inch away from Jason’s stomach.

A dozen more kobold and jibleya dogpiled the thin man, thrusting madly with their makeshift spears.

POOF!

The attacker exploded into a cloud of black feathers and reappeared some thirty feet away, plucking a dagger out of a dead kobold’s chest.

When did THAT happen!? Jason thought, the panic cutting through the pain, sending him scrambling forward and lunging for the tomahawk.

Jason got the tomahawk an inch off the ground before a foot slammed down on it, crushing his thumb against the gravelly dirt.

Jason hissed and rolled away, clutching his hand.

“Huh. Oh. WOW!” a young woman’s melodious voice entered Jason’s ears as he tried to blink the tears out of his eyes.

“Yep, it’s a Set. Wooow…can I keep it? it’s pretty badass.”

Jason blinked the tears out and spotted a young woman holding the tomahawk, her fine-boned face at odds with her attire, which was a mere handful of hardened leather straps dyed a ruddy brown.

“You know what he’ll say about that.” The raven-feathered man replied, sprinting towards Jason.

Withering Repudiation

2->1 Charge remaining.

“CUNT!”

SNAP!

The charging man only lost control of his body for a second, tumbling forward for an instant before catching himself with his fingertips, springing up and sailing over Jason’s head.

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“BAHAHAHAHA!” the woman said, doubling over with laughter, pointing at the raven-feathered man. “He-he called-he called you a-“

“I heard. Are you gonna help or what?” The raven-man asked, landing lightly on his feet.

“Do you need help?” The woman asked, a strange undercurrent of menace in her words as she rested Will’s tomahawk on her shoulder.

“Not really.” The feather-man mused, tensing, hand reaching behind himself.

“That’s not yours,” Jason gasped, drawing himself to his feet, a trembling finger pointing at Will’s tomahawk.

The woman glanced at the tomahawk resting on her shoulder before shrugging. “Sure ain’t.” Her gaze scanned Jason from head to toe before holding out her hand. “Cough up the rest.”

“You can have Will’s Set when you peel it off my dead body.” Jason muttered. They were gonna kill him either way. Might as well have some balls.

“…Your proposal is acceptable.” The woman said. The straps covering her body began reddening like sponges plunged into a pool of blood. A red stain spread from the straps as they began to ooze blood, covering her exposed skin in a layer of shiny crimson.

You should probably run, a little voice in Jason’s head urged him to flee, but the more rational part of him knew that these people were much faster than he was, so he was stuck there, in the center of the cluster of kobolds, facing two monsters who could disassemble them in a matter of seconds.

He felt the rough-hewn haft of a kobold spear placed in his hand, and glanced up, spotting a jibleya handing it to him. The spearhead was made of glassy stone and tentatively held together with poorly cured leather straps.

It would shatter on contact.

Jason sighed, holding the flimsy wooden stick in front of himself.

It was better than nothing, but they were still all going to die.

The raven-feathered man whipped his hand forward, unleashing one throwing knife for each of them.

Jason scrunched his eyes shut and swung at the dagger flying towards him.

Again: not a natural fighter.