Laughter beyond any imagination, rattled my ear drums. The old man stood in front of me. A few yards separated us. He was like an ancient tree. Never dying. Yet this was to be his last battle. Or so I hoped. I never did prepare myself for something like this. Facing the most buffest old warrior wasn't even on my bucket list. All I had was some scrap armor I scavanged and a rusty short sword. On the other hand, he had a full set of what seemed to be mithril plate armor that shined like it was made of a billion stars. The weapon he carried was a massive battleaxe adorned with small tags with little pictures on them. His voice rumbled like an earthquake, "Well little one, it seems that your days are at an end." He smiled and continued, "I have spent my entire life pleasing the gods of war. Fighting many battles and emerging victorious. Never once, have I lost a match." 

I needed to figure out a way to defeat him. Or at the very least run away. One mistake and my head would go flying. I inched a bit to the left and like a ballista, launched myself at his right flank. He grinned and swung his axe, destroying the ground and sending debris sailing my direction. In response, I sped up and shielded myself with my sword. A moment later, I felt the flat of his axe smash my entire body, knocking me down. It felt like a had smashed my head with a dwarves hammer. I quickly rolled to the right and brought myself back up and quickly regretted it. My head suddenly felt light and my vision hazy. I could only see the blurry motion of the old man stalking towards me. 

"You are as light as a feather child," He rumbled while spinning his axe around. Show-off. He stomped the ground and cracked stones hovered to perfect smacking height. With a flick of his wrist he sent the stones flying with a small boom. I deflected one and caught the other on my knee, shattering it. I screamed and fell to the ground. It felt like fire and acid mixed together entered my leg as it burned with never-ending pain. I looked up and, red blurred my vision. I couldn't die here, I had to retreat. The problem was this old man was fixated on killing me. Should I let him capture me and try and kill him while his guard was down? No that's stupid he was arrogant sure but, if what he said was true then chances are he has done this way too many times. I could just make small talk. I mean why not? Every second was precious. 

With gritted teeth I said,"So how'd you get that armor?" He was standing right over me. His face illuminated by the torch above us. His face was heavily scarred. A scar ran across his nose, while several dotted his slightly sunken cheeks. The largest one ran across his left side of his forehead running through his left eye and, ending at the tip of his slightly parted mouth where his visible breath appeared. So a blind side. I quickly thought up a plan. 

Step 1: Get his guard down.

Step 2: Get his left hand occupied.

Step 3: Get him to miss his swing.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Step 4: Use my sword to stab him in the neck.

Step 5: Profit.

Far from the best but I only had a single working leg. The old man smiled, "I plucked it off the body of a foolish hero." This would be all down to luck. I needed him to move just the right way. 

"What about those tags?" I asked, deperate to get him to keep talking. Those tags seemed like a good way.

His smile slowly dissapeared, replaced with a slight frown, "Memoirs of my comrades." Seriously that was it? He needs to do more explaining and moving.

"How many?" I asked.

"Seven-hundred," he grumbled. Just my luck he kept talking, "We were a massive guild see. We took quests to fight monsters, fought a great many wars to satisfy his majesty's whim. We slowly fell apart. It started with a betrayal. He was but a child like you. The ambition and fire in him convinced me that he would be great. His passion was what lead to our downfall. He wanted recognition. He lead us into the bloodiest massacre and became renowned as the one that destroyed the largest guild." By then I noticed that he had a distant look on his eye. I let him continue, "You see child, I was raised a warrior. I was raised by the guild. We spent our lives in the heat of battle, and what do we get after years of sacrificing our plunder to the gods of war? They allow a child to plan and massacre us in an ambush right after poisoning our food and drink." I almost felt sorry for him. Except he tried to kill me. 

A cold wind rushed into the room, sending a shiver down my spine. It was time. Picking up a piece of debris, I threw it at him. His eyes widened in surprise and caught the stone with his empty hand. I immediately rolled to to his left side and felt the impact of what felt like his crashing against the floor. With my working leg and both my arms ready, I sprang up and sliced his neck. Yes, I did it! I felt the satisfaction as my blade exited him. I felt a thud and a crack as his fist connected with my chest, sending me flying into the wall behind me. I spat blood as I made impact. It felt as if I was hit by a boulder. I looked up to make sure he was dead and sure enough, I could see him on his knees staring up at the ceiling. His eyes no longer had the light glow of life.

I crawled towards him. Hopefully he had some potions or something. Sure enough on his right hip was a small leather pouch tied with thin rope. I coughed blood as I cut the pouch loose and opened it. I rummaged inside and found a tiny flask filled with the familiar blood red color. I opened it and gulped it down. Warm heat flowed through me increasing in intensity as it touched all the scratches and more severe injuries. His armor was useful but to large for me. The same could be said about the axe. I could probably melt the armor and have it reforged, using the extra material from the reduced size to get myself a good shield. His axe on the other hand I observed. I looked through the tags and realized something. The amount of tags featured all his battles from his childhood to his death each one included a title the very first was called: Inheritance and, featured a small child in the middle of a war with a small sword in hand fighting against a man with a large axe. I moved through the tags looking at each one. I stared at the latest that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. It showed a small character looking at the body of an old man. It was titled: Legacy.