CHAPTER 4: The Shadows

Thump! His heart rate increased. Fury flowed through his veins. Thought retreated as Adam’s body moved. The punch felt slow and there was plenty of time for Adam to shift to his own right while leaning his weight on his bent leg. He then pushed upwards towards Tom. The punch came down next to him with Tom’s momentum bringing him closer to Adam’s head. Adam’s upward moving forehead contacted Tom’s downward coming face. A wet crunch echoed out as Tom’s nose smashed inwards, not even stopping Adam’s upward movement. By the time Joseph had stepped towards Adam’s right side and threw a punch at Adam’s face, Tom was falling backwards with blood spraying out, his nose looking like a crater that was sucking the rest of his face inward.

Adam didn’t have time to look at Tom as he felt Joseph’s punch coming. He didn’t turn to face it, instead he dropped down to duck, and then spun left bringing his elbow into Joseph’s gut, harder than he thought possible. As Joseph bent double, Adam stood while continuing to spin. He saw the stunned look on Randall’s face and stepped forward. Adam’s right fist landed on Randall’s cheek, knocking him sideways.

In three pulses of his anger, the bullies were knocked to the pavement and blood had been drawn. Blood. Adam stared at the blood leaking out of Tom’s nose and felt the heat building more. He barely heard it when Lucas spoke while moving towards him.

“I never expected you to be a fighter, Adam. You were just always there, never doing anything. Guess you’ve been holding out on us.” Lucas put his hands up into a boxer pose. “I’ve been boxing since I was a kid. Let’s see how we do against each other.”

The words were lost on Adam as the pulses became a steady river, moving him forward. No longer was the heat and anger pulsing through him. It had now suffused him, flowing in paths like water through all of his body and limbs. All along his muscles and tendons, his skin roared with a command. What had been a whisper that had been hidden in the pulses now became a shout. A shout so loud that the word blew away his conscious thoughts.

The edge of Adam’s consciousness awakened. You need to calm down! Adam felt that thought trying to come out of the small spot of coolness in his head, failing amidst the river of heat. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then another. However, on the third breath a scent rose in his nose. A delicious, addictive scent. His heat cooled a little at the smell.

Adam opened his eyes, curious what it was. What he saw was his fingers in front of his nose coated with blood, blood that had been wiped off of Tom’s crushed face. The mix of desire and disgust collided and froze him, which was why he didn’t see the fist coming towards his own face.

Staggering backwards after being punched just below his left eye, Adam snapped his vision back to Lucas. Lucas was pulling his arm back but looked horrified.

“What the hell?! Seriously! Are you sick? Who the hell looks happy sniffing blood?!” Lucas screamed at him while throwing another punch.

Being hit had knocked his thoughts away, triggering the heat once more and the river was back, flowing throughout him, raging forward to carry the heat and anger, too rapid for his thoughts to surface. It raged through all of his being. Adam’s eye snapped to Lucas, and he lunged. A quick left jab from Lucas was dodged to his own left as Adam’s gaze firmed on Lucas. He brought his right-hand swinging to the side, catching where Lucas’s ribs met his obliques. Lucas grunted at that but had no way to get his defense up as Adam followed with a strong right into his stomach.

Lucas grunted and hissed as air was pushed out of him, but he was used to taking hits and he shifted his weight back, towards the shadows of the alley. Instead of using a boxing move, Lucas brought his right arm down from overhead towards Adam’s shoulder. Adam caught the arm by the wrist and trapped it between his own hand and shoulder.

Then something caught Adam’s attention. It was too subtle to know what it was. Lucas was still trying to throw a punch with his left hand. The river was still raging inside, the inner command still being shouted, but Adam noticed just a speck of coolness force the heat away from the front of his mind. Enough to allow his thoughts to realize that there was something he couldn’t see that was different. Something was wrong, and he couldn’t see what. No, he was made unable to see it.

Then a feeling of revulsion and pure hatred radiated from the river flowing through him. The feelings were so strong they shocked Adam into awareness. Never had Adam felt so much hate towards anything, but inside the river and heat it felt justified. Fury born of something Adam couldn’t understand took him over.

Adam turned his head to the darkness of the shadows, took a grazing punch to his head behind his ear from Lucas, and then he jumped away from the shadows as hard as he could. He clamped down on Lucas’s wrist and pulled, bring Lucas with him.

Before he was done pulling, a stone knife came swinging out of the shadow and landed on Lucas’s arm. A sharp bone crunching crack echoed in the alley followed by Lucas’s scream as his arm went limp and he dropped to the ground. Had Adam not pulled him, that knife would have taken him in the back ribs.

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A quick look showed Adam that the knife wasn’t the only weapon, as a stone axe also emerged from where Lucas had been. The shadows opened as two hideous forms stepped into the light. They were green skinned, with heads almost as large at their torsos, balanced on a thick neck. Large green ears swept to their side. The noses were enormous with bloated lips and teeth so jagged that they pushed their own lips away from them. Their height was a little shorter than Adam’s. They were lanky and yet not lacking muscle. Animal skins were covering their chest and groin, but dirt covering most of their oversized feet and legs. What could have been considered hair looked more like weeds jutting from the worst garden ever.

“W-what the hell are those?” Randall stammered out. He and Joseph had gotten to their feet and pulled Tom back to not interfere with Lucas’s fight. Big grins spread across the monsters’ faces when they saw the human’s fear. They stepped forward holding their weapons up.

Joseph turned towards the exit of the alley ready to run for it, and then froze as he saw two more of the monsters. One had a wooden club and the other a stone axe.

A hiss sounded from the dagger wielding one when Lucas’s scream died out. Lucas’s face was pale and looked scared, showing more expression than Adam had ever seen on him before. Adam looked at the two before him. “Assassin [4]” stood above the dagger wielding one’s head and “Enforcer [4]” was above the other. The two at the front of the alley were a “Brawler [3]” and another “Enforcer [4]”.

“Human whelps lucky,” hissed the assassin, sounding like a bad movie snake who had only learned broken English. “One second longer. You be dead.”

“W-w-what do we do?” trembled Joseph. He and Randall were trying to get as far behind the infirmed Tom as they could.

The river was still rushing through Adam, but that tiny speck of coolness grew. However, instead of the coolness fighting the heat, this time it seemed to flow into the heat, penetrating it as both sensations moved through him. They didn’t blend, but they allowed the other to exist, the cold facilitating the heat, keeping it from building up inside. The raging was happening inside him, and the river was flowing throughout. Instead of the river sweeping him away with it, the cold allowed it to move while anchoring him outside. The command that had been a whisper too quiet to hear, the word that had been so loud with the river that he couldn’t make it out started to clear up.

“I don’t suppose you guys got a kick ass skill with your Warrior class?” Adam asked without much hope.

“N-n-no. We got [Sturdy Weapon] which makes our weapons 5% more solid,” Randall stammered.

“And do you have weapons with you?” Adam asked while staring at the assassin, who smiled back at him menacingly.

“N-no?” Joseph asked unhelpfully.

“Why was that a question?” Adam asked Joseph while keeping his voice steady, allowing the cold and heat to flow.

“I have a [Mana Dart],” Elias added as he slid to the midpoint of the alley. “One point of damage per shot with only mana enough for two shots.”

Adam sighed. “Now the enemies know how useless you are, Elias. You should have just made something up.”

The assassin hissed in laughter. “Already knew. All useless.” Then it pointed to Adam. “Confusion had. No class shows. Why?”

“I’m too strong for a class. You should go elsewhere before you find out firsthand,” Adam bluffed.

More laughter hissed and the assassin did an approximation of a shrug. A real shrug probably would have knocked its oversized head off.

Adam gave the grouped bullies a sympathetic look. “Well, guys, try to stay alive.” Horror sprouted on their faces.

Then Adam turned to the assassin as the enforcer moved towards Lucas, clutching his broken arm on the ground. It was swollen and bruised in a very unhealthy-looking way.

Adam reached inside. The river had swelled as much as it could. His muscles and joints were hot, but the coolness kept them from overheating. Adam knew he was ready, and he could finally make out the command. The single word that was a part of the river, a new part of himself. A word that became solid as he looked at the monsters in front of him.

CONQUER! Screamed the river.

The assassin darted forward towards Adam. His dagger suddenly flashed red and then thrust at Adam’s gut faster than should have been possible. It must have been a skill, Adam thought.

Dodging to the left, the dagger missed his stomach but scratched his side. It was made of stone and had no edge, but the jagged bits still tore his shirt and skin. Before the assassin could pull it back, Adam clamped his arm down trapping the assassin. Then he brought his right knee up into the loin cloth.

A new kind of hiss came out as the assassin popped off the ground from the force of Adam’s knee. Adam planted his leg back down before the assassin landed and then swung the flat of his left hand down on the elbow of the arm he had trapped. The joint snapped and became useless. The stone knife fell to the ground.

The assassin staggered backwards, giving Adam enough room to grab the knife off the ground and then dive at the assassin’s side. The assassin’s arm was useless, so it tried to turn to protect itself from the blow Adam was aiming at his gut, but that was a feint. Adam instead raised his arm so that it came upwards, driving the stone knife under the chin and into its head. The monster’s head was so big that while it hurt the creature, nothing fatal was hit by the short knife. However, the assassin was in bad shape.

Adam ripped out the knife as indelicately as possible and then turned it and drove it into the side of the neck. Blue blood gurgled up from the monster and Adam figured that even if it wasn’t dead yet, it wasn’t going anywhere.

CONQUER! His insides roared.

Turning to see the slow-moving enforcer speed up after watching him fight the assassin, Adam rushed towards Lucas. As the enforcer raised his stone axe above Lucas he was tackled by Adam and driven into the ground. Adam didn’t wait upon landing, and brought his fist down on the enforcer’s throat, even while clutching the dagger. After two throat punches to soften it up, he dragged the dagger from one side of the neck to the other. The enforcer’s hands dropped the axe and grasped his throat, allowing Adam to jam the stone knife up its nostril and into what he hoped was a brain.

Before the monster had even finished spasming, a message popped into Adam’s view.

Goblin “Enforcer [4]” slain. 54 XP gained.

Adam willed the window away and grabbed the stone axe. He rose to his feet while breathing hard. Looking back to the others, Adam croaked, “Two down, and who knows how many invaders left to go.”