Jax slowly raised his hands to the sky and glanced towards the sound of the extremely confident voice.
"You! I saw you stand there as they killed him. It's scum like you that make life shit for the rest of us you know. That guys blood is on your hands." The speaker was at the front of a group of five guys, all eyeing Jax with looks varying from curiosity to disgust.
"Did you know him?" Jax inquired?
"We didn't have to know him to care." A second voice chimed in. "Julian was right when he called you scum." The second speaker watched Jax with his fists clenched as he stepped closer to the one Jax assumed was Julian.
Julian noticed and did not let the opportunity pass. "Come on guys, lets teach this miserable sack of shit a lesson, he should never turn his back on someone needing help." The rest of the group had gained a hard gleam in their eyes as they listened and were nodding in agreement.
Jax braced himself for the fight and started backing up slowly as he tried to get his back to a wall. "Oh, there is no way we are letting you get away creep." Julian crowed as he motioned to the other guys. "Surround him, we cannot let this guy get away and cause more people to get killed."
If Jax had remained standing still or backing away, their strategy may of helped them overcome him. However, just as Julian stopped speaking Jax leapt forward and sent a fist straight into his solar plexus.
Julian dropped to his knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Gasping and wheezing while hunched over while the other five attackers sprang at Jax trying to help their compatriot.
Jax guarded himself by dodging what he could and blocking their strikes with his arms as they swung at him. He took several blows to the shoulders and one to the face before shoving one of his assailants into another and jumping out of their range. He smiled and dropped his hands. “I will give you guys one chance. If you give up now and stop trying to hurt me, you can go.” Jax had realized that while he had with hardly any difficulty taken Julian out of commission, the others and their assault on him had nearly no effect. Even the hit he took to the face had not really phased him in the much. It immediately occurred to Jax that the cause was most likely due to their difference in both levels and attributes. It was also most likely the case he figured that his attackers had no idea that they were at such a disadvantage, hell, it was incredibly likely they were all ranked at level 1 still. This gave Jax a huge boost of confidence in estimating their threat level.
“There is no way you’re walking away from us asshole.” The guy who had stepped towards Julian before snapped. “First you let some guy you could of obviously have saved die, then you hurt Julian. You are done! Finished.”
Jax watched as the remaining three of the group eyed him warily. “I don’t know Alex, maybe we don’t need to do this.” Alex turned and snapped at them. “Come on you cowards, we cannot just let this ass wipe walk away after what he did. Besides, since we landed in this place right next to each other we should obviously stick together.”
Jax snorted in contempt as his patience reached its tipping point. “Look, Alex. You seem to be very confused here so let me tell you. Your logic makes no sense to anyone with two brain cells to rub together and if you do not stop this stupid shit now, you are probably going to end up dead.”
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Alex reddened and sputtered turning to try and help Julian back to his feet. “You… You think you have what it takes to fuck with us?” Alex turned to the group. “That’s it. Come on you guys, lets end him.”
Julian meanwhile was still finding it to breath properly. He put a hand on Alex’s shoulder and leaned close. “There is something not normal about this guy lets pull back and rethink our plan, we can take care of him later.”
Alex glared at Julian, the raging fury radiating off him intensely. “Now you want us to let this scum walk away?”
Julian started to respond when another otherworldly shriek pierced the air. Everyone turned, but it was too late. Jax dove for cover but was not quite fast enough as he saw a blur of motion and felt a sudden and immediate pain as a sharp weapon buried itself in his left shoulder while he dove for cover with his previous feelings of confidence shredded.
Jax quickly glanced towards the direction of the newest threat and observed several goblins much larger than those he had seen previously. He glanced at the blue box that sprang up which notified him that these where goblin scouts before willing it away.
There appeared to be at least nine goblins clothed in what looked like skin, all armed with throwing spears that while crude seemed quite varied in their assembly. The only thing that was uniform among them was the extremely sharp looking ends.
Glancing back at his would-be attackers he noticed that of the total of six including Julian that three had taken throwing spears to various vital areas from the stomach to the throat. While the remaining three did not have a scratch on them, with two of those three being Alex and Julian.
Two of the three on the ground with throwing spear wounds where still bleeding out but had not died immediately unlike the unfortunate third. Jax did not think they would make it though as he clenched his teeth together and pried the spear out of himself. Luckily while it hurt like hell the spear had not gone through him and was only sticking to him held mostly in place by muscle. At first Jax figured that the weapon may have hit bone and the small wound was actively bleeding
Holding the throwing spear in his right hand Jax stays low and grabs one of the guys who collapsed on the ground in a daze while bleeding out. "Sorry buddy, I did not want this, but if I don’t do this I will probably die, and I am not going to let that happen." Jax mumbles as he starts to use essence drain to heal himself. The pain fades away as his bleeding slows to a trickle and then stops a few moments later allowing him to step away and retreat from the glassy unmoving eyes he could feel following him as he stepped back.
Meanwhile Julian and Alex watched in a haze as they saw their groups numbers had just been culled. Alex snaps out of it as he notices the goblins starting to draw closer. Alex turns to Julian. "We have to get out of here now." Julian nods wordlessly and without even sparing a glance at Jax or the rest of them turn and start running away together. Jax watches them for a moment while he keeps an eye on the slowly approaching goblins, noticing they slow their pace but keep running even as they notice they are not being followed. In moments they are out of sight and Jax forces all thoughts of them out of his mind for the moment, their time will come.
Turning to the last remaining attacker Jax frowned. “Are you with me? You’re not running like your friends.”
“Yea those guys were crazy anyway, I am with you. The name is Sten by the way.” Sten eyed the quickly approaching goblins. “Not sure if it matters whether I am with you or not though.”
“I do not intend to die here” Jax replied, tightening his hold on the spear as he used it to swat another shifty approaching projectile out of the air. “You take that one, you are going to need it.” He said before knocking another two of the spears to the ground.
Determined to not be disadvantaged against the monsters again. Jax quickly grabbed the two spears on the ground as well and returned them to their senders. Getting a great deal of satisfaction as one connected to a leg and sank into it as its owner screamed in a high guttural pitch. Sadly, the goblins were prepared for the second spear and nimble dodged out of its way at the last moment.
Still, it was the break in momentum Jax had been waiting for and as they stopped moving forward he began his own advance.