The onslaught refused to relent.
Axel looked down at Connor, then glanced out from behind the tent shielding them and spotted the goblins closing in.
The only advantage Axel had was that the archer goblins didn’t have a clear shot at him, and the mage was too preoccupied with the main force.
’Shit...’
Axel waited and waited... then he burst from cover and planted himself directly in the patrol’s path.
’The damned mage and archers are nothing compared to these worthless thralls.’
Dawdling and cowardice led to failure. Failure would lead to the deaths of his comrades.
’I have a duty to be brave. I owe it to them all.’
Axel flung the hooded end of the tent over the closest goblin, entombing it beneath the canvas, then plunged his blade through the thin leather and into its body.
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
With the goblin’s corpse still tangled inside the tent, Axel hoisted it before him as a makeshift shield. It immediately proved useful when an arrow thudded straight into it.
As the arrow struck the dead goblin, Axel wrenched his blade free, flung the shrouded corpse aside, and lunged at the nearest enemy.
A sudden force jerked Axel backward. In the same instant, he watched as a sword sheared through the air where he’d just been standing.
Huang Gao, still clutching the back of Axel’s shirt, said more words than he ever had before:
"Don’t be reckless! We must kill the archers and the fire goblin, but don’t lose sight of the battlefield! There’s more than just forward!"
Huang Gao pivoted, rammed his weapon past Axel’s side, and impaled a goblin that had slipped around behind them before finally releasing Axel’s shirt.
Axel nodded and acknowledged his advice, but didn’t deign to heed it. His sights and goals were clear...
He lunged back into the patrol and carved through the first goblin, then carried the momentum of the strike into another.
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
Axel’s mind couldn’t tolerate a passive approach right now.
How could he move with caution with his enemy right in front of him?
"Sorry..."
Only the void heard his plea.
He didn’t owe anyone an apology for what he was about to do except himself.
’Forward. I must go forward!’
With each second wasted, a goblin or two would be peeled away from the main line and sent back to fend them off.
’There’s no time... I’m moving far too slowly.’
Axel stamped one foot into the ground, then the other, driving himself through the press of goblins. Realizing the weapon was only hindering him, he let it slip from his grasp and broke into a dead sprint toward the archer line.
Goblins surged into his path, their swords, daggers, and axes flashing toward him from either side. He dodged as best he could, but he could not evade everything.
Blazing pain ripped through his body every time a new laceration opened across his flesh.
’I see them!’
Under the blanket of night, illuminated by torchlight, stood six silhouettes clutching bows.
Axel drove himself forward harder. Every wound flooded him with fresh pain, and every flare of pain only spurred him faster as he devoured the distance between himself and the goblin archers.
With no regard for his safety, he launched himself at the nearest archer and hammered it to the ground.
Its bow skittered away. The goblin stretched its jaws wide and snapped for his throat, but Axel planted a palm against its face, crushed its mouth shut, and rolled behind it. He snaked an arm around its body and wrenched it upright, holding it between himself and the other archers.
The sounds of bowstrings releasing momentarily pierced the harrowing song of screams. Then, a stinging pain lanced through his left arm.
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
The goblin had intercepted a few arrows, and others had missed entirely. However, one arrow protruded from Axel’s forearm, embedded beside the jacket hiding the crude message carved into his flesh, while another sat lodged deep in his bicep.
’Hurts, bastards.’
Discarding his dead meat shield, Axel gritted his teeth. Before the archers could ready another shot, he barreled forward with a bloodcurdling scream:
"Fucking die!"
The five remaining goblin archers frantically scrabbled for arrows while staring at Axel as if he were the monster.
Like a rabid beast, Axel sprang forward.
’Shit!’
Two melee goblins darted across his path and formed a desperate barrier in front of the archers.
With the time for thoughts long since gone, Axel ripped the arrow from his bicep and drove it through the eye of the first goblin.
While it reeled away, clutching its head, Axel ripped the sword from its grip, whirled toward the second defender, and decapitated it.
Green blood sprayed through the air and splattered across Axel’s eyes, drenching his vision in green.
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
’Diligent little fucks.’
Having bought themselves enough time, the archers raised their bows and loosed again at nearly point-blank range. Every arrow was aimed at Axel. Yet he charged them anyway.
Three shots missed, but one punched into Axel’s shin, striking the bone. Another burrowed into the right side of his chest.
"Aggggreh!"
Axel howled in pain but used his remaining momentum to throw himself onto the nearest one. It tried to draw a dagger, but Axel was faster. He buried his sword straight between its eyes.
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
’Four left.’
The nearest archer cast aside its bow, drew a dagger, and charged Axel.
Acting on pure instinct, his mangled body moved at the absolute limit of what a normal human was capable of.
He slashed at the one with the dagger, hewing deep into its neck. Still alive, it tried to stab him.
Axel snared the dagger with his palm, the blade punching completely through his hand.
’What does one more wound matter?’
It was a grim truth to accept, but he wasn’t long for the world. He felt it was only right that his last action be to make amends for the mistake of not revealing the possibility of Aether to Lucas and the others.
Axel clenched his pierced hand around the goblin’s wrist and sawed his sword further into its neck.
[You have slain a Nascent Aberrant, Goblin]
"Shit..."
Axel hauled himself upright and stared at the three goblins who met his merciless glare — each with an arrow nocked in its bow.
’Hopefully, I at least cleared a path for the others.’
With nowhere to hide, his left leg rendered nearly useless, and his body teetering on the brink of death, all Axel could do was smile.
’It’s badass to die with a smile.’
"Huh?!"
At the last second, Mikhail sprinted across Axel’s line of sight, planted himself between Axel and the archers, and raised what looked to be a tent’s canvas.
"T-thank you!"
Axel screamed back, surging with a second wind of strength — a new hope.
Axel forced himself upright and lurched around Mikhail toward the remaining archers, who discarded their bows and brandished daggers.
But he never reached them.