Requiem Of A Failed Hero



The entire place was still, Chozek was there on the ground gasping, with Raith's dagger standing atop his chest. Raith narrowed his eyes as he watched the Orc's fat chest heave up and down.

'...by now it should have stopped breathing...' Raith thought to himself, it only truly made sense that way that the moment he embedded his dagger into the Orc warrior's chest, it was supposed to die. However, Chozek didn't look like he was hanging onto dear life. Instead, he had this relaxed expression with a smile as if he was at the peak of fun.

As Raith stepped forward to put a final stop to this... the orc's red skin began to blacken, the blackness spread until it had completely covered all his skin and Chozek rose again.

Raith was doubting what he saw even though it was right before his eyes.

'...did he just change skin...no, it is more than that...' Raith squinted his eyes trying to understand for real what it was that made this Orc turn from red skin to black skin.

"Shit, all that doesn't matter. I'll just beat the crap out of you again." Raith said and clenched his fist.

Wham!

Raith dashed off, it has been a while since he used so much speed that was as if he wanted to tear into the wind– before Raith's eye fell on the orc, it was already dashing at him in response, with its greatsword in the air... at that point, Raith's mind began to race, taking in all of the orc's movement– his eyeballs shifting here and there with ultra responsiveness trying to seek out the best path of counterattack all in one split second.

whom! whom! whom!

The Orc's movements were large and heavy and it also did not lack speed, the orc's speed was nowhere near the speed at which Raith was dodging but the Orc's responsiveness was amazing such that it was able to parry all the counterattacks that Raith slipped in.

It had changed all of a sudden, the orc's pattern of attack had changed and it was as if it was learning— before it charged at Raith with its large movement and swings, and as Raith continuously dodged, he started responding only to Raith's attack, as though it learned a great lesson from Raith. But it was still too slow to catch up with the speed at which Raith fought but yet its speed was threatening Raith's.

 Raith analyzed the Orc's movement predicting the wide arc swings before they landed, he ducked under a threatening horizontal swing, sidestepped another arc that came vertically downwards, crushing the ground, and narrowly avoided the Orc's heavy weight as it threw himself onto him in attempt to use its heavy weight to cause an imbalance or at best fall on him. 

With lightning-fast reflexes Raith began to strike back, aiming for places that he considered the orc's weak point, before now Raith had not landed a perfect punch or an attack since the Orc's sudden change. And so he didn't know what was coming at him the moment his fist collided with the Orc's body.

He began to deliver rapid fast punches at the Orc's joints, all over the orc's body, his fist was a blur as he struck with precision, exploiting any opening he could find.

Everything happened so fast and so precise that Raith was super focused and so there was no way he would have known that the Orc was just standing all through the punching and didn't even move an inch, red blood began to drop and the imprint of red blood all over the orc's black body could be seen– all in places that Raith had punched the Orc.

"...holy, shit..." He unintentionally mumbled as he saw how destroyed his knuckles were, he definitely had been feeling the pain as his fists connected with the orc's body but in his mind, he felt the Orc was taking more damage, whereas it was taking no damage at all.

It was as if he was hitting his hand on metal, the orc's skin was like metal, he squinted his eyes and looked at his sword that was still embedded in the monster's chest.

'...don't tell me...' He didn't pay attention to it even though he now had an impressive thought process and patterning, this was a probe that he was the one that ultimately drive the focus of his thoughts.

Raith's face crumpled to a frown, his heterochromia eyes each glinting different colors, red and white as he intensified his gaze on the orc– at this point, Mok Jae-Hwa and the rest of the team were already on the cliff where Raith had jumped off from and instead of jumping to rescue Raith, Mok Jae-Hwa wanted to watch, not just him– the majority of them wanted to watch, they wanted to see Raith in action and they were going to get it...

Raith touched his jaw as if he was rearranging it but it was just a massage, then he spat out– his face was still frowning at the Orc that stood in front of him with a naughty smile.

The Orc shouting and hailing also was there in the background the whole night.

'Do I have to go all out with a darned orc? I don't want to do that...' Raith said in his mind as his gaze stayed locked on the orc who was doing freestyles of all shades of weird celebration such as throwing his butt, jumping, and beating its chest like king kong while its clansmen continued to shout and all gathered, Chozek really was full of confidence.

So much confidence that it inspired him to want to change him with useless Cheche. Even the thought of it made him feel sentimental, he proposed to do it in his heart but his mind quaked. The normal dark soldiers it would have been easy to do but then we are talking about his founding guys, Cheche, Fenrir, and Kortopi were quite important to his heart, even though Cheche was useless of all of them.

The Orc looked at Raith's frown and dropped its greatsword, sticking out its tongue, at this point it was evident that this guy was full of himself.

But it's okay... Raith's curled down a corner of his lips as if he was dreadfully pitying the little guy. 

The Orc paused as it beheld the look on Raith's face– not liking the pitiful look that Raith gave it, it roared and dashed forward with brute face launching a barrage of heavy punches at Raith, each punch was like a sledgehammer, threatening to overwhelm him. Raith's quick thinking and superior agility kept him one step ahead. He weaved in and out, using his speed to evade the orc's attacks, while continuously analyzing its movements for any patterns or weaknesses with a surge of adrenaline and his limbs wearing themselves towards their limit, even at that Raith wasn't going at his best and was just doing things average. No one else might have known but Raith himself knew.

No way he would fight at his best with some minion orc, the thing was, Raith was already quite pumped up, amidst the fight he was wondering how strong the Orc chief was going to be, and all he just wanted to do was die and die and die before the orc chief and then level up so much that he would be able to increase the numbers of his army, even as it stands they were some bunch of nuisances in his army who he was still going to return the soul to the place of their rest.

 Raith ducked and dodged, bobbed, and weaved, delivering swift and precise strikes with his fists. He managed to land a few solid blows, but the orc's metal-like skin remained a formidable defense.

The Orc now growing frustrated at Raith's elusive movements, unleashed a devastating uppercut that caught Raith off guard. The blow slammed into his side, sending him crashing into the ground and razing it away as he tumbled away towards the side and so strongly that it was as if he was being aggressively dragged by a very strong invisible force.

Pain shot throughout his whole body but Raith was quick to respond, he rolled back to his fist, the pain was still surging from that point to all other parts of his system, especially that point, he was sure he must have broken a rib or two... or ruptured some organs that were around that side. The pain was truly unbearable.

Raith stood upright regardless of all that and began to follow his eyeballs all over the Orc, he knew that he needed to take out that dagger but the moment he turned that to his focus, he felt he would fall into the Orc's trap and receive more hit than before.

The Orc grinned and slammed its fist together as Raith took his time, Raith's eyes suddenly constricted with the usual glow in his eyes–

"...ah," He exclaimed as he discovered something with the Orc's movement. He chuckled as he formed a plan of attack in his head.