51 A little like Chess

Chapter 51: A little like Chess

It took Avery no time at all to jump off. He felt a little bad for all the seekers around him who'd have to deal with the cleanup, but overall, this would still be good enough for morale.

When he soared through the air, he always felt free. For a moment, just at the apex, the weight of his armor became nonexistant, and for a moment, he would simply float there. But Avery knew that the ground would soon claim him again, and he was prepared for it.

He drew upon his stamina, and drew in a deep breath of air. He pushed his blood through his veins at insane speeds, speeding up his heartbeat, and as he did so, he could feel small veins in his eyes bursting, tainting them red.

Avery had a grin on his face at that point. This had happened before, of course, as using this much stamina all at once wasn't even healthy, but there was no pain. He'd heal soon enough, and well, his eyes were a little special.

As Avery hit the apex of his jump, he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. As he was falling, his stamina caused him to heat up, covering him with a thin layer of steam. And when he saw the ground rush towards him, the muscles in his legs were pushed to their maximum, straining to the point where they were visible through his thick leather pants.

Avery came down with a large crash, many meters from his launching point. He was heated up and ready, and after a single glance upwards, he started sprinting off at his top speed.

Within seconds he had crossed hundreds of meters, and after not even a minute, he had gotten to the point where the general was apparently at.

Of course, Avery didn't expect to see them here. The general was smart, and probably far gone by now. But he wasn't stupid either.

Avery fully lightened up his glasses, swiping his red tinted vision across the field, his reptile-like pupils searching for any sign of movement.

<Blood Vision>!!

The guild master kept his eyes hidden because they constantly consumed stamina, depending on how much light he saw. The more his pupils tightened and focused the light, the more stamina they used, and usually, it came with an uncomfortable pulling feeling, just like now.

This time, it was much stronger though. The blood that had pooled into his eye suddenly formed a single drop, and then crystallized as copious amounts of his stamina were drained. But when their focus came back after a split second, it paid off.

He could now see blood. Not just heat, he could literally see the blood flowing in all living things. Birds, lizards, even insects. And, of course, a few hundred meters away, a human. Avery smiled for a moment, deactivating <Blood Vision>.

"Found you."

And just like that, he burst into a sprint again. He could feel the air rushing by his face, blowing away the steam that was gathering around him.

After a few moments, Avery had arrived at the general, digging his heels into the ground to stop. Stamina makes it possible, baby.

"Come on, let's make this quick. I don't got all day!"

But after only a few moments, Avery gave a sigh at the silence, reactivating his <Blood Vision> and keeping it active as he approached the source.

He could feel his own heart pulsate in his chest, and he could even smell the blood from his cuts, its irony odor creeping its way up his nose.

He slightly frowned at this, but kept his focus on the opponent in front of him. They weren't alone, the general actually had 4 guards around themselves, and it didn't take long for one of them to jump up and have a go at Avery.

A woman, with short, blonde hair, and blue eyes that many might have called pretty. She had an angular face, long nose, and square chin. Decently tall, well built.

"Step back now or we will have to get violent!!" the woman called out seriously, pointing the longsword in her right hand towards Avery. A one and a half hander, he noted, also sparing the shield in her other hand a short glance.

"Well, lady, let's get to it then," he said, the frown on his face deepening. He had deactivated his <Blood Vision>, opting for the much more combat oriented <Enhanced Motion Perception>.

Whoever this lady was, she at least deserved this much attention, because her swings were quick, and her footwork was solid. Avery luckily could see the attacks coming very well, and used a mix of ducks and weaves, as well as his hands to deflect the blade.

The girl was decently skilled, but he wasn't really trying to beat her too hard. After all, he still had questions, and revealing every card he had when there were still some more guards ready. He needed to get this done fast.

"<Shincracker>!" he yelled out a move, making his opponent take a step back, only for him to draw close and instead thrust his knee into her stomach, knocking the air right out of her, and following it up with a heavy kick to the same spot.

He might've cracked something there, but she'd definitely make it through, for now that is. He wasn't in a hurry as long as the general couldn't give any big orders. By now she'd at least be distracted by him.

Wait.

No, no, no. That was nothing like him. He didn't make assumptions about the enemies like that. Someone was influencing his mind.

Not paying attention to the other guards, Avery coursed the remnants of his enhancement potion through himself, using it up fully for one more burst of speed, where he reappeared in front of the enemy general, another woman.

She seemed to be in her late 30s, with black hair and strong eyes, staring back at Avery with disdain and hunger in them.

"Ease off on your orders right now and we negotiate. Every few seconds you hesitate I'm breaking something in you," Avery said, cold to the core.

He spoke clearly, making sure she understood no matter how poor her common. Only moments later, his head started aching though.

"Agh, fuck..." Avery swore, just in time, for another guard to lunge at him. Wait, the same woman with the sword? Had he been too gentle?

"You fight dirty," she said.

"And you should stay down," Avery countered, putting his headache to the back of his mind. The guards were no longer messing around, and while he could manage a single one, four of them would be too much.

Before the guard had a chance to give another snappy reply, Avery had reached for his potion belt, but she had managed to stop him by slashing where his hand was moving, only to have this quickly exploited as she received a heavy kick to the outer thigh.

Luckily, she managed to take a half step back, avoiding and heavy injury, but she definitely got a good bruise there, letting out a small groan of pain.

"Not gonna go easy on you, girl," Avery said. "I'm slowly running out of patience, so get to it. Come on out and attack me."

His head was still ringing, and he heard the blood rushing in his ears, as white steam spilled from his mouth when he spoke. His lips were dry, and his hands felt a little numb from deflecting the hits from the guard. She certainly wasn't weak.

Out from the bushes came two more men, and another woman. The men were both clothed differently, one wearing fancy metal armor, one that would probably even take Avery more than one kick to break through. The other was wearing lighter leather, and seemed pretty quick on his feet.

The second woman on the other hand was dressed in fur, wearing a helmet that looked like a bear, which was fitting, given that Avery would describe her as bearish herself. A true berserker, wielding a giant battleaxe. Shit, he really just couldn't catch a break today.

Ah, fuck it. Time to get to kicking ass!

As soon as everyone was lined up, Avery hunched over forward and began cackling. He liked psychological warfare, and it was time for some.

"Kehehe... Kahahahaha... HaHaHa.... KAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" Avery began laughing like a madman while twisting his fingers, slowly releasing a stronger and thicker bit of <Murderlust>.

As expected, the berserker and armoured man pounced on this immediately, while the other two were a little shaken up by it. Bingo.

Psycho's always got so distracted, and anyone with half a braincell would attack during the build up of their bloodlust, just like these two. Except Avery wasn't a psycho, just an actor, and thus, when the two pounced, he quickly drank a potion, taking it all in with one gulp.

The bottles were small, so he could pull it off just barely between when they had committed too much to stop the attack and when he'd be fucked. In the end, he barely managed to get it all down, and immediately felt his heart tighten a little.

He stepped back with a small gust of wind, quite a lot faster than before, and grimaced a little. As always, those potent agility potions were hard to control.

Still, after dodging the strikes, Avery immediately pounced, throwing himself low to the floor, and tackling the armored man's legs like a wild animal. The guard, still a little preoccupied with Avery's sudden change, couldn't quite step aside, and Avery managed to grab both his legs in a wide hug, though his head was ringing from the impact with the armor.

Avery grit his teeth, drawing on some more of his stamina, fighting back against the man's strength and weight. The Strength score of the system actually also influenced weight, funnily enough. After all, it would be stupid for similarly sized people to just continuously pick each other up and get thrown around like feathers.

But when Avery really grit his teeth, pushed his stamina into his muscles, and distributed the load between his arms and legs, he managed to hoist the armored man off the floor. Then, Avery used his enhanced agility to spin for a moment, none of the other guards daring to attack quite yet.

And then, Avery let go. He threw a man in full metal armor, hauling him at top speed straight at the general herself. With little resistance, the man crashed through the underbrush, though Avery imagined he must've felt the whipping branches a little.

But of course, the solid impact on the ground was much worse. With a loud crash, the man fell onto it, bouncing up just a little again, before crashing down once more and immediately rolling against one of the general's legs, knocking her off her feet and sending her face-first into the dirt.

"Fucking told you," Avery said, getting back into fighting stance.

"Monster..." one of the guards muttered, the girl he had fought first, when the berserker woman's eyes turned a fierce red, and... was that foam at her mouth?

"UUOOOOOGGHHHHHHHH!!!!" she roared, charging at Avery like a force of nature.

He was happy he went with an agility potion then, still only sidestepping the attack by a tiny amount. He didn't even bother trying to trip her, because honestly, he was pretty sure she would take him off his feet instead.

Berserks' strength was legendary, quite frankly, and he didn't need to match one. But he was also happy to have triggered her rage sooner rather than later, because he sure as fuck didn't want to draw this out.

Right behind him, the woman charged into, and straight through, a thinner tree trunk, before turning around and honing in on Avery again, all her wild fury directed at him and only him. Good control, he had to admit, which made things even more troublesome for him.

He frowned a little when she charged at him again, trying to sidestep her once again, only to have an axe heading straight for his face. Avery quickly ducked under it, to then have the woman with the longsword lunging at him, making him drop to the floor and roll aside, and instantly, the assassin was above him, stabbing towards Avery's eyes with his dagger.

Avery quickly pulled his head aside, just to have the assassin pull out another dagger, forcing Avery to grab his wrist, taking the second he got to kick the assassin's groin, immediately making the man wince in pain.

Metal shoes to the balls, that one surely had to hurt. But when Avery got back on his feet, he immediately was knocked back down, this time with the berserking woman on his back, his face on the floor.

Avery spat out a mouthful of dirt, groaning as his arm was laying twisted beneath her. He had maybe a second before she used her paws to smash his head in, so Avery knew he had to act fast.

Using his free right arm, Avery pushed it into the floor, groaning in pain as the left arm the woman was on twisted. This one was gonna be a bitch, but alright, time to get shit done.

Avery pressed his boot and right arm into the ground, before using a burst of stamina to spin and flick the woman off his body, wrenching his arm and torso out from under her, as his shoulder popped and dislocated.

He groaned in pain as he slowly got to his feet, when the berserker leapt at him again, but this time he opted to lean backwards under her jump, before propelling himself off the ground, into a backflip, driving his boot into her back and smacking her to the floor, before landing back on his feet.

"Fuck, you all really aren't giving me a break," he groaned, watching as the assassin was back on his feet, holding his groin, and even the man in armor had gotten back to his feet, much less shiny than before. The woman holding the small shield was keeping him at a distance with her sword stretched out towards him, and the berserker was already back up and fuming.

He flicked one of his rogue dreadlocks back behind his shoulder and spat out a mouthful of blood, which came from his lip when he was thrown onto the floor. His left arm was now hanging limp, and his entire gear was stained with grime, some leaves hanging off him as well.

Slowly but surely, Avery got into a low crouch. He then jumped high up onto a tree, and then even higher, into the sky, before using the moment to throw a healing potion into his mouth, before smacking his shoulder back into place, the pain fading as the potion took effect.

Then he landed again, and instantly launched a high kick against the longsword bitch, glancing off her shield, but knocking her off balance. He ducked under a swing of the berserker, kicked the knight before he got a chance to flail him, and grabbed the assassin out of the air, throwing him back against a tree.

He deflected the longsword by sidestepping and using the back of his hand, but he couldn't fully avoid the axe again, trying to block it with his boot by kicking up and leaning back, but the berserker quickly let go of the axe with one hand, using it to deck Avery in the face, and sending him flying.

"UGH!!" he let out a yelp of pain as he impacted against a thick tree, his nose now broken and bleeding. He quickly cracked it back into place, bracing for the pain, but he needed his airways clean for breathing.

Then he kicked the flail of the knight away as it was heading for his face. He could see the assassin coming with his <Enhanced Motion Perception> luckily, a near perfect counter to stealth, so he got the man's face midair with a roundhouse kick, putting him out of commission at least. That should have splintered his jaw, and perhaps even his neck, and Avery was pretty sure he saw blood flowing from the dude's mouth.

But when he looked back up, he saw the barbarian woman charge at him, her axe overhead and quickly coming down at him. Avery quickly sidestepped the attack, from where he anticipated the longsword fighter coming at him again, and he gave a predictive kick, which ended up catching her in the chest as she came out from behind the barbarian.

"Gotcha," he said, as she was knocked to the floor, going in for another kick, when the knight blocked him with a large tower shield. Probably from his inventory. For a moment, there was a white glow behind the shield, but after just a second, there was a hissing noise and whatever magic the knight had cast stopped.

Maybe he had been a paladin, but Avery knew that he sure wasn't anymore, after hearing the arrow of pure fire hit the floor, having pierced through the armor, man, and shield, one after another.

"FUCK YEAH!!!" Avery roared, satisfied just to be alive for now. He would grieve for them later, maybe Lucia had been merciful, but maybe not. For now, it had turned in a 1 vs 2, because he surely couldn't expect too much more support.

Avery quickly attempted to go after the fighter, but the goliath of a woman that the berserker was stopped his leg with her bare hands, then picked him up, and grabbed his arm, before tearing at them, like a boy trying to rip apart his sister's dolls.

Avery let out a scream of pain, using his stamina just to keep his body together as he launched a kick at the woman's chin, turning her lights off for just a moment as she dropped him to the floor, where he quickly rolled aside as a sword was coming down at him from above.

He grabbed the fighter woman's sword-arm with both his hands for a moment, and twisted it around and holding it in place, before slamming his forehead into the back of her extended elbow, breaking it with a crunch.

As the woman let out a scream of pain, he kicked her in the side of the chest knocking her onto the floor and when he got up, Avery immediately ran. The berserker was running at him with murder in her eyes, and Avery was not taking any chances with that, so instead he used the blessing of his armor, and ran like the wind.

After a few seconds, when he had enough space, he dug his heels into the ground, cancelling his speed and jumping straight up, only to come crashing down on the woman's head with the back of his foot, and kicking her face into the dirt.

He didn't know quite how long it had been, but by now, her stamina should be running dry. Rages were draining after all, so at the very least, she wouldn't be making it back faster than him, and thus, Avery sprinted back to where the general had been.

Quickly activating <Blood Vision>, he checked that the assassin and the knight were still alive, but barely.

"Hey, longsword! Your friends are alive, you keep this up, they die!!" Avery yelled as soon as he was in earshot, trying his best to stop this before things got any further. He was still beat up as well. His shoulder still hurt, his nose was screaming, he had bruises all over, and a few small cuts on his hand from the longsword.

"... Fine."

And with that, the battle was over.

The seekers had swapped with the city guard by now already, and now that he had taken down the general, their ranks would fall apart. Any more resistance, and the woman dies.

After a few tense seconds, the general sighed.

"You have me, Avery "Lightfoot" Beckham. You have me indeed."

"Great!" and not wasting any time, Avery pulled out a first aid kit and some healing potions from his inventory, quickly bandaging up the knight and assassin and pouring the potions down their throats, before splashing the other half onto their wounds. Then he downed another one himself, before handing his last one to the fighter.

"Take it. I got you good enough," he said throwing it into her hands, while grimacing a little as his nose bent back into place.

"Now, get your people to stand down and we handle this on our own terms. Neither of us want to lose more people."

For a moment, the general hesitated, but in the end she nodded.

"Yes. Let's end this."