Martin didn’t let his anger cloud his mind. He knew he was acting somewhat rashly by some regards, but to him it was a simple equation. If he wanted to get the boys home, the rest of the slavers needed to die. If he wanted them to be safe, Thomas had to die, something he couldn’t do. So they would make it home, but safety was something they would have to sacrifice.
Hunting a pack of slavers while angry actually brought back some fun memories for him. Long ago he’d done something much like he was doing now, only he’d been younger, weaker, and stupider. It was actually the reason he had ended up enslaved in the first place. The end result certainly hadn’t been what he had hoped for, but he took a surprising number down before they captured him. To many it would sound like the start of a horror story, but Martin got lucky. They never realized he was the one who had been hunting down and killing their people, and they only kept him long enough to sell him off to the duke.
Thinking over his past, Martin decided that he may as well bring that story full circle. Hunting slavers had gotten him power attack in the first place, so now that he was a man, he’d hunt them with the evolved version of that old skill. And just to make sure he’d get the boys home, he’d throw in the rest of his skills as needed. Spying on the approaching group from behind a bush, he suspected that he would need fewer of his other skills than expected.
The group approaching his position was about twenty people of fighting condition, the slavers, and forty or so near the end of their endurance, the slaves. Both sections were made up of multiple races, genders, and classes, but the slavers mostly tended towards physical combat classes and were sized appropriately to make the most of their skill sets. The slaves, on the other hand, were so varied as to be called eclectic. There were females that would have been beautiful if there weren’t half starved, beaten, and exhausted. There were men that looked as large and rough as the ones holding their chains, and others that were smaller and weaker, likely to be more magically inclined classes judging by the special chains.
Martin wasn’t intimidated by the size, or number of the slavers. None of them were very far into their evolved classes, if they even had them. They were a smattering of high apprentice, and newly evolved, none of which would be much of a challenge him, even in small groups. Martin himself had already finished his evolved class, and was working on his first set of supporting classes, but that didn’t mean that he could face all twenty of the slavers by himself head on. Not that he ever faced a challenge head on anymore. He’d learned from the mistakes of his childhood. He didn’t have the skill set of a rogue or thief, but he also wasn’t that far off.
His class was classified as a reaver type. Lightly armed and fast moving, reavers focus on flanking enemies and using that moment of surprise to unleash devastating blows and crippling strikes. His particular class fit that archetype perfectly. It was actually his progress along that path that drew the duke to him in the first place. He served as a coachman because he had better perception that most other melee types, and was fast enough to react in almost all circumstances.
The main difference between a Reaver and a Rogue was the number of targets they could hit before needing to reset. Rogues were precision instruments, designed to hit one target fast and hard, taking them out of the fight before they realized they were in one. Reavers focused less on elimination, and more on weakening and crippling large numbers of enemies in battlefield engagements. Facing a large group of people with combatants mixed with valuable slaves he could hide himself amongst while transitioning between enemies, he would be a nightmare.
In keeping with his class style, he waited until the slavers had passed him before striking. The early version of his class had required him to run after his targets, but evolution had changed things quite a bit for him. His defining skill had become a combination movement and concealment style skill called Land Swimming. He’d originally been incredibly disappointed when he got the skill, which lasted until the first time he used it.
As soon as the final slaver had passed by him, he ran three steps forward before diving into the ground. Land Swimming was why he never used anything larger than a short sword; larger blades interfered with his movements too much. His skill pushed him along without much need for physical movement from him. Being a mana based skill it used his mind more than his body to function. As he entered the ground he felt his sensory perception change. He couldn’t exactly see while underground, but he had another skill that changed how he perceived the world. It worked both above and below ground, but was significantly better below. It combined two different systems into a composite image of what was in the ground and what was above it, giving him perfect targeting.
Martin arched his back and spread his arms wide, changing his orientation to the surface. With a burst of thought, he shot upwards, rolling as he breached the surface and slicing his blade across and down the back side of his first targets legs, letting a skill guide the blade. His strike hamstrung one leg, and severed the Achilles tendon on the other, and then he was back in the ground before anyone knew he was there. He could hear the muffled screaming from the man he injured fading as he quickly moved to the front of the enemy group. As they all turned to stare at the recently crippled man in the rear, he repeated the strike on the front runner.
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Chaos overtook the slavers as one man after the other fell crippled to the ground. By the time Martin had downed half of the enemy, they had moved to fight back to back. He smiled to himself at their “brilliant” tactical acumen. Diving deeper, he pulled a long knife as he flipped himself back upright to rise again. With a thought his body started spinning as he rose. Just before breaching, he flared his arms out a little, activating another skill, letting the blades caress the bodies of the men on either side of him as he spun up between them. Falling, he angled his blades to drive through the hollow in the shoulder of two injured men, using his body weight and a skill to punch through their armor and deliver a killing blow to both of them.
Figuring he’d not likely get many more through ground based sneak attacks, he changed tactics.
A quick glance around the area cleared up some of the confusion that being underground always left him with. The two men that had disappeared from his perception earlier were up a tree with bows, and the other six slavers that were uninjured were paired up just like the two he had finished off. Unfortunately, other than the bowmen, the remaining slavers were the largest of the group. Or it would have been unfortunate if he hadn’t done it that way on purpose.
Knowing he’d been spotted this time, Martin didn’t waste any more time. The slavers were still surprised and confused. His method of attack had been hard to spot, and more closely resembled that of a monster than a man. Running towards the bowmen, he waited until they both raised their bows before diving forward into the ground again. His abrupt change in movement and angle had caused both of them to miss their shots, and he felt their arrows hit the ground behind him. He rode his downward angle only briefly before pushing upwards with a surge of mana.
Once more he breached the ground, this time blades first. With his angle and increased speed he launched himself straight at one of the archers. More experienced bowmen would have moved after firing, but the two he was fighting were not only less experienced than him, but they had suffocated any combat instincts they once had by fighting the weak. When both blades sunk into the chest of the archer, the man’s minimal armor meaning he didn’t have to reuse his earlier skill, Martin rode his body towards the ground. Just before they both hit, he kicked off into a back flip and threw another knife at the second archer. It missed, but it did force the archer to dodge, an action that resulted in the man falling from the tree he had forgotten he was in.
The other six slavers hadn’t been complacent, and were rushing his position. He landed just in time to yank his blades out of the corpse and raise them to meet the first blow. The next few seconds were busy as he dodged, ducked, and wove his way through the blades of his foes until he could position them and himself where he wanted everyone. Then he activated the evolved version of the skill he had killed slavers with so long ago.
Power Strike was a simple skill no matter who had it. It made people hit harder, as did every evolved version of it. That simplicity is what made the skill truly powerful in his mind. He had found that when used repeatedly on the same spot on the same target it did significantly more damage. Bash a higher leveled slaver in the same spot on his head with Power Strike enough times and they die. When he’d evolved his class and the skill he’d been delighted with its results. Now the repeated shots increasing in power was precisely what the skill did, but it didn’t need the same spot on the same target anymore. It didn’t even need the same target.
The fight was basically over as soon as he activated his first use of Power Chain, they just didn’t know it yet. His first blow severed the leg of the fallen archer. His second took two fingers from the hand of one of the orcs attacking him. The third took the head of one of the crippled men strewn about the camp.
Had any of the slavers been paying attention they would have run at that point. Those men strewn about the camp? They were collapsed on the ground, unable to walk, in a meandering line that Martin had just started walking along. Each swing of his short sword was imbued with Power Chain, and each successive attack that was uninterrupted by him getting injured was stronger. As he bobbed and weaved between the attacks of the two humans, three orcs, and a large bestial man of some kind he continued to casually kill the crippled men. He’d built up quite the Chains in his day, and knew exactly when he passed the point where a casual swipe of his blade would annihilate any one of his attackers. There were still four men to go on his personal path of carnage when he turned to the attack.
The orc who’d lost some fingers to him happened to be the nearest target when he started fighting back. He was one of the best fighters amongst the slavers, and managed to impose his large blade into the path of Martin’s. It did absolutely no good. Martin hadn’t been building up his Power Chain to explode people, although it could do that. No, he used it to cut through weapons and armor as easily as he did the air. The larger combatants that he’d left alone during his crippling attacks hadn’t been casually left in fighting condition, they had been wearing armor strong enough to keep him from doing much harm to them. With a long enough Chain, he could treat them the same as he had the other men. Like straw training dummies.
With each stoke of his blade, Martin pictured Thomas’ face. He could only wish the man would walk into the fight unprepared at that moment. It was the only way Martin could ever kill the man. He knew he couldn’t take the man in a standup fight. After all, Thomas wasn’t just a Rogue type, he was some sort of evil Mage Rogue combination that didn’t simply assassinate people, he massacred entire families without anyone having a chance to strike back. He’d seen the man fight just once before, and it was a terrifying thing. Martin was positive that Thomas was the most dangerous man in the duke’s employ.
As the last of the slavers fell, Martin smiled to himself. He might not be able to take Thomas in a fight of any kind, but he was always happy to get a chance to use his class as intended. It had taken him quite some time to figure out how everything worked together for him in the most optimal way. Over the years, he’d earned the name of his class. Martin was a Threshing Land Shark.