Pain.

Pain like he’d never felt before, and after taking into consideration what he had felt before, that said something.

Ashton’s entire body felt as if it were being torn apart from every direction, like being turned inside out, like being dissected whilst being conscious or like hundreds of hot metal hooks violently twisting and jerking around his insides.

The pain was relentless, merciless and cruel, refusing to loosen its grip on Ashton’s mind.

His mind desperately attempted to shut it out, process what was happening and what could be done, yet the agony dispersed any cohesive, comprehensible thoughts or emotions.

Everything but pain faded away from existence, it was if he’d been plunged deep into the depths of the ocean.

Deep into the sea where its depths had yet to be explored, nothing for hundreds of kilometres in any direction but him and his failed attempts to fight back the pain.

Only pain, it consumed him, flooded his mind, tried to shred it from the inside out.

Only pain.

Deep down, in the furthest depths of his mind a voice yelled on about something, his voice swept away by the unrelenting waves of endless agony.

While intense agony triumphed over Ashton, washing away any voices or thoughts, there was one thing it couldn’t stop; magic.

Ashton’s blurred and fading vision was illuminated by thousands of tiny golden orbs engulfed his field of view, they surged into his chest and into his body like rapids, flushing away the agony.

Slowly the last remnant of pain trickled away and the world opened up around him, a blood red world filled with corpses, the distinct smell of metal in the air was so overpowering his could taste it.

Ashton choked on the foul air, leading him into a coughing fit, his thoughts flying all over the place as he tried to assess his situation.

Suddenly his brief moment of rest was rudely interrupted by a spiked fist slamming into the side of his head, three long spikes digging into his jaw and cheek.

The spiked fist then swung outwards, the spikes slashing through bone and tissue, sending bits and pieces of his mangled face flying through the air.

As Ashton shrieked in pain the wound quickly healed itself, tissue knitting back together with magic in seconds.

Terrified, Ashton leapt up to his feet and immediately put as much distance between himself and the spiked ogre as he could.

Pure rage was evident on the ogre’s face and Ashton stared at it in fear, still desperately trying to make sense of the situation.

The ogre bolted towards Ashton, its fist pulled back ready to lash out onto Ashton’s face once again.

As the fist hurtled through the air towards his face, Ashton instinctively leant back, yet not nearly enough to dodge the incoming strike, ‘luckily’ he slipped on a stray severed limb and fell backwards, narrowly evading the blow.

Taking advantage of the situation, Ashton kicked upwards, right into where he assumed the ogres testicles were located, only for his foot to drive itself up into another deadly spike, pinning himself to the ogre.

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Unsurprisingly the ogre didn’t really appreciate the gesture and grabbed Ashton around the waist before tossing him through the air and over the crowd, his head breaking the fall with a loud crunch.

While Ash struggled to fix Ashton’s badly broken skull and neck, the ogre charged through the crowd towards them and proceeded to punt them through the side of a stone hut.

Both Ashton’s ribs and spine exploded apart on impact, the fragments piercing his internal organs as heavy rubble built up on top of his motionless body.

Meanwhile the ogre leisurely approached the ruins of what was once a hut, assured of his eventual victory.

That was until he spotted another swarm of golden orbs drifting towards Ashton body though.

Ashton burst into a fit of traumatising screams as his bones were set back into place and the blood building up inside of his organs was forcibly ejected.

“Ashton!” yelled Ash over the loud chanting of their audience, “The only way this is headed at the moment is towards our deaths, I reckon we’re just going to have to go for it!”

“That will end in our deaths too!” screamed back Ashton, “We simply aren’t ready yet, we’ll kill ourselves!”

“Sorry, I gotta do it, Spiky’s too strong, we don’t stand a chance, at least we’ll have one if we do it, even if it’s a slight one,” responded Ash.

“Spiky?” questioned Ashton.

“Yeah, the one who’s standing above us right now,” calmly stated Ash.

“The one who’s… OH SHI-” cried out Ashton as Spiky grabbed him around the throat and lifted him up into the air with a single arm.

Ashton thrashed around, his limbs flailing violently as he screamed his head off before Spiky effectively shut him up by squeezing gently, crushing his windpipe.

Spiky slowly walked back to the crowd and lifted Ashton’s limp body up into the air triumphantly.

More orbs of light flooded towards Ashton from everywhere, but Spiky thought nothing of it, he’d already won and he could kill him with the slightest amount of pressure applied.

The orbs kept coming, thousands upon thousands rushed towards Ashton, many sucked right out of the goblins and ogres themselves.

As more and more continued to swarm Ashton, Spiky grew suspicious, tired and frustrated.

Why?

Why did this monster not back down?

It was cornered, the only magic it could rely on was for healing and that couldn’t help him now, so why did he still push on harder and for what purpose?

Spiky’s questions were immediately answered when a blindingly bright golden light exploded from Ashton’s neck, completely disintegrating Spiky’s left arm up to the elbow.

Everybody within a hundred metres of the blast was temporarily blinded, sending them to their knees in shock.

Ashton’s body crumpled to the ground, a dangerously large amount of blood sprayed from a smouldering hole in his neck.

Exposed spinal cord was quickly covered back up as muscle and flesh threaded itself back across his charred wound, yet the healing came to an abrupt halt as Ash was completely drained of all mana.

Ashton arose from a pool of his own blood and sprinted as fast as he could into the surrounding forest, not looking back at the very cranky goblins and ogres that had been left behind.

He ran and he ran and he ran, then he ran some more.

Angry roars and hisses could be heard somewhere in the distance behind him so Ashton pushed on further, unassisted by magic.

His throat pulsed, eyes throbbed, legs ached and there was still a rather large wound bleeding away from his neck.

Hundreds of golden orbs chased after Ashton, just out of reach and while Ashton was aware of them, and needed them, he dared not slow down in fear of his pursuers.

After ten minutes of all out sprinting, the roaring behind him had faded away and Ashton collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion and the amount of blood he’s lost along the way hadn’t helped much either.

The hundreds of orbs that had been trailing behind him finally caught up and dived into his chest, flooding his body with adrenaline, reminding him to keep on pushing further, he wasn’t safe yet.

Obeying his body, he rushed forward with new found energy, sprinting almost twice as fast as earlier.

Then, in the distance… he saw something… or rather he saw someone.

Too far to discern any prominent features, Ashton could only just make out that the figure wasn’t green, a colour he’d come to despise over the past few years.

Too late to alter his course now, he ran onwards towards the unknown figure, hoping for the best, surely anything was better than another goblin or ogre.

He stopped.

Standing in front of him, almost one and a half time taller, was a beautiful woman, adorned with a set of impressive black horns much like his own.

Fascinated, he stared at her, perhaps a bit too long, astounded at her beauty before… Thump.

An arrow lodged itself in his chest, piercing his heart… and he crumbled to the ground darkness overwhelming his vision once again.