Alex felt the life force drain out of him and into his axe. It was miniscule, sure, insignificant even. But he felt it nonetheless. The feeling of growing weak, however slightly, and the feeling of various aches and pains act up in his joints. He felt it all. But there was something there, something he couldn’t quite place. He felt like it was just an inch from his grasp and yet, so far away at the same time.

He slapped himself with his empty hand and told himself to focus. He looked over the battlements and immediately determined the nearest orc warrior that was not being handled and shot off in its direction.

When he got to it, he swung his axe sideways and decapitated it before it even knew what was happening. He flicked his axe to get rid of the excess blood while looking around. He saw another warrior that was left dangerously unattended and repeated the same motions. But this time, it managed to put up its aura shield, making his normal swing only cut halfway into its neck.

RAAAHH

A short roar came from the war chief and all the warriors scaling the wall immediately glowed a red glow. And then another roar signaled a green glow to stack on top of the red.

“Fuck. That war chief isn’t that smart, but it sure can react.” He thought as he eyed the massive orc off in the distance. “And it’s not getting within range.”

Furrowing his brows, Alex continued on with the decapitations, this time targeting everything while the war chief hadn’t changed tactics yet. Alas, all good things must come to an end and the war chief decided to take things into its own hands.

It ran towards the wall at dizzying speeds, its aura a deep, dense red. Alex was about to give the order for any and all free long-range attackers to aim and fire at it, but decided against it. It was too fast. No one would be able to hit it even if every orc warrior magically disappeared right now. So with no other choice, he would need to take care of it himself.

He watched as it zipped across the forest below, felling trees with nothing but its body. Then… it jumped. And in that one jump, its apex reached so high that it was well above the wall. A shiver ran down his spine and he immediately activated his skill [Threat Detection] and what he got was… dread, pure, unadulterated, dread. “It’s tier two.”

He couldn’t win this with his normal class and stats. “I’ll have to rely on the axe for this one.” He thought as his grip on the axe tightened, even though it couldn’t tighten any further.

THUD

It landed.

Alex rushed to it and immediately swung his axe before it could get its bearings. But the expected sound of metal meeting flesh/bone or of glass breaking from the aura shield was never heard. Instead, all he heard was a dull thunk.

“Fuck.”

He pulled his axe back in alarm and swung it back down.

THUNK

All he got was another thunk, albeit a bit louder. He then looked at the war chief’s face and he saw it smirk derisively. It just stood there as it let him futilely try to kill it with his pathetic axe swings. “Why won’t you just DIE?!” He screamed in frustration.

And on the nineteenth swing, the massive orc finally moved to intercept his attack and pinched the blade of the axe with just two fingers.

Its grin grew wider as it made eye contact with him again. The war chief uttered a few grunts and what sounded like words in its language. He didn’t understand any of it, but he could feel the meaning behind them all the same, and it enraged him. It was taunting him, plain and simple.

“Calm. It wants you mad.” He thought to himself as he took a deep breath. “I need more power.”

He looked inside himself and felt for the miniscule drain on his life force. He tried to pump more life force into the axe, hoping to get more power out of it. But as he was doing this, the war chief lifted him up by his arm and then slammed him on the ground.

Alex felt several bones in his body break. Two broken ribs, his arm bones fractured, and his feet dislocated from their sockets. He tried to stand up, but all he got was pain for the attempt. Looking up, he saw the war chief turn his back towards him and survey the battle. Then, it locked on to one group that was about to kill a warrior and shot off towards them.

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“NO!” Alex screamed, but it was useless. The war chief had already arrived at their location and brought out axes from his spatial artifact. One glowing swing that sent a wave of energy later, the group of people died.

Desperation filled Alex as he saw the war chief look around for its next target. He looked inside himself again and felt the connection to the axe. “Just take more! Take more and give me more power! Please!” He begged.

Then, as if responding to his words, the axe glowed and the previous trickle of life force that it was draining became a river.

Pain and power overwhelmed him as he felt himself break through some kind of barrier.

Forceful breakthrough detected… ERROR… CORE IS ABSENT… ERROR…

Axe of the Fated End is forcing an override… Override successful…

Congratulations! You are now tier 2!

WARNING! You have 10 minutes left to live…

He felt it; he felt his life force flowing out of him in a torrent. Like a pipe with a massive hole in it. But he also felt the power. Power that made him feel that he was invincible.

“Ten minutes, huh? Guess I need to make it count.” He said with a smile.

Strangely, he didn’t feel fear at the prospect of having only ten minutes left to live. If anything, he felt free, liberated, even.

He stood up, expecting pain from his dislocated feet and from his broken bones, but nothing. He didn’t feel pain. In fact, he felt like he’d aged backwards. Of course, he knew better.

So he scanned the battlefield and saw the massive war chief off in the distance. It had just killed off another group. He grit his teeth and immediately shot off in its direction. But because he wasn’t used to his newfound power, he overshot his target and skidded to a stop. He turned around and saw that the war chief was already upon him with its own pair of axes.

It swung its left arm, aiming to separate Alex’s head from the rest of his body but he managed to back away just enough that the axe missed him. He then lunged forward and brought his axe down on the orc, targeting its outstretched arm. Which he surprisingly hit, breaking the aura shield slightly and drawing blood for the first time in the fight.

Alex smiled.

The orc roared disbelievingly at the wound on its arm. It was small, sure, but it was damage, nonetheless. It then withdrew its wounded arm and swung with its other arm in revenge.

Using his increased stats, Alex was perfectly competent in dodging. They weren’t all perfect, like his first one. He’d dodge just right one moment, too much in the next, and some dodges were just straight up failures. He was racking up wounds left and right because of this. But as the fight went on, he got better and got used to his improved stats more. Unfortunately, this didn’t make up for the difference in stats. In that regard, the orc was still stronger.

He thought about disengaging and helping the people in fighting off the orc warriors. “The fucking war chief will probably just go around killing if I did that.” He thought. Looking at his notification, there were only five minutes left until he died. “I need to end this.”

He got desperate and started trading blows with the war chief. His collection of cuts and wounds growing by the minute, but he ignored them all.

And at the two-minute mark, Alex screamed. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK…” He cursed, and he cursed as the clock counted down the seconds. Hope was diminishing every second that the orc wasn’t dead and that the rankers weren’t around. More and more people were dying and if he died, it would set this monster loose on all of them and they would all die together.

“What if those rankers died… Fuck! No! They’re rankers, for fuck’s sake! They have to be strong enough to take care of fucking bugs!” He was spiraling, and he knew it. But there was nothing he could do. He had less than two minutes left to live and all he’d managed to do was piss off the orc war chief. “Wait… What if I run north? Would it follow me?” He ruminated over the idea and decided it was worth the risk. “Have to piss it off more, to be sure.” He thought, as a light bulb lit up in his head.

He launched forward with all his strength, head first into the orc’s groin. He heard a squish and a pop sound as he headbutted the poor orc's nether regions.

Alex saw the orc doubled over in pain for a moment before rage filled its eyes. He immediately bolted and ran north. Glancing at his remaining time, and saw that only a minute and a half was left. “I can do this.” He psyched himself up as he ran with all his strength. He looked behind him and saw the orc obediently following him with hate in its eyes. “If looks could kill…”

He ran and ran through the streets, through some buildings, through some cars, through everything in his way, all for the sake of getting there faster. Until a few seconds later when an axe hit him and the momentum carried him a few hundred meters forward. “FUCK! It just threw its axe at me!”

He hurriedly got up, painfully pulled out the axe sticking out of him, and continued running. Thirty seconds… He didn’t have much time left. But the orc was merciless. It threw its other axe at him, this time cutting off his arm at the base, which was throwing off his balance as he ran. This slowed him down enough for the orc to catch up.

It grabbed his head and squeezed, hard. Alex screamed bloody… well… murder. Fifteen seconds. He opened his eyes to hatefully stare one last time at his murderer when an explosion rang out behind the orc.

Ten seconds.

Released from its grip, he fell down. All strength left his body as he lay there powerlessly. He willed his body to move, to get a look at what had just happened, and he saw them. “Finally.” He said, as he awaited his fated end.