By then, the orc had already scrambled to its feet. Shaking off its daze with a snarl filled with spit and foam. Adrian’s body moved almost without thought, his shield leading the way to his enemy. Muscle memory honed through endless drills taking over as he started one of the Katas and sequences he had been taught. The rim of the shield slammed into the orc’s face again.

The impact was strong enough to send the beast stumbling backward. Adrian followed up with a diagonal slash, forcing the orc to retreat further. Setting it up for the final part of the sequence. Mud flew as the creature tried to regain its footing. Adrian pressed the attack, never allowing it a moment to recover with insistent offense and stepping closer and closer.

A savage overhead swing came next. The orc had been set up into losing its balance and opening this gap in its escape. His sword carved through the air with the weight of a guillotine. The orc could only manage raising its forearm, in hopes it would prevent a decapitation. The blade bit into its crude iron bracer and cut deep into the flesh beneath. Adrian pulled his sword back to finish the strike.

He was unsatisfied with just the forearm, but it would do to tide him until he severed its head. The offending limb hung by thick leathery skin and nothing else, leaking green orc blood. It howled in pain. Guttural words and sounds that echoed with fury and desperation. Adrian front kicked it in the chest. His boot slammed it backwards and sent it sprawling onto the ground again. It attempted to scramble away. Skin tearing, leaving the forearm on the ground.

There was no let up. Another shield bash, as it tried to lung at him and get too close for his sword to be effective. Another swing that missed by inches, the orc contorting its body unrealistically. Each movement was mechanical, relentless. He was a machine of destruction and would not, could not be stopped. The orc could barely find any purchase to get up in the slick mud. Its massive frame could not escape the onslaught.

Adrian allowed his agonizing broken rib be the hold for his mental sanity and concentration. As long as it felt like his heart was beating from there, he refused to stop. Even when his breathing came in ragged gasps and sweat dripped from his eyebrows under the great-helm.

The Shadow Mark called out to him. Begging to be used, but he ignored it, mostly. It was tempting to [Shadow Step] and reappear behind the orc to land a devastating blow, but he had no clue how far it would take him. Or whether he had any control on the distance at all. If he made a mistake, it would make his entire advantage at the current moment worthless. Leaving them both exhausted, while the orcs outnumbered them.

As for [Shadow Strike], he waited patiently until he was given a perfect opportunity to bring it forth. It would end this battle, he understood, but not until then. Whether he had enough for more than one strike was another issue he had to figure out once he had some time to practice and train again.

Adrian saw the other two orcs move towards him out of his peripheral vision. They had finished off the last of the village militia. Their crude weapons dripped with blood and viscera. The bodies of the militiamen lay strewn about. Their forms broken and discarded like waste, smashed and cut in a multitude of ways. The two orcs gave him their undivided attention. Yellow eyes glistening with a promise of savage brutality.

He nearly lost his footing in the mud, because of his divided attention. He tried to glance between his current foe and the approaching threats or at least keep them within view. That didn’t turn out well for him.

It didn't help to curse himself silently, but he did it anyway. He still wasn’t fully accustomed to his size, weight, the way his body moved now. There was too much force behind every step. And a certain amount of agility that was beyond mere mortals. Adrian covered too much space and couldn't seem to find a middle ground between too far and too close. But he refused to let that slow him down, not when death was only a heartbeat away.

Adrian barely had time to react as the creature grabbed a small knife from its belt and hurled it at him. The blade struck his armor, doing nothing more than glancing off with a sharp ping that left a deep gouge on his breastplate. He didn’t even feel it as it harmlessly fell to the ground. But it had served its purpose.

The orc’s gambit had succeeded in creating the tiniest margins of an opening. It lunged past him while he was distracted. It's only arm reached out for its discarded war axe. The movement was clumsy. It reeked of desperation, but it was fast. Too fast. The beast’s hand closed around the shaft of the war axe. Let out a victory cry. And turned from the ground with its snarl twisting into a triumphant grin.

Adrian didn’t give it the chance to celebrate. Much less a moment to mount any form of retaliation.

He drove forward with more power behind his advance than before, finally getting used to his new body. A burst of motion. Mind screaming to activate his Mark abilities, and this time, he acquiesced to their demands. A surge of golden energy flooded his body like molten volcanic stone as [Strengthen] activated. Then he did something stupid, something he had no clue if it would work or end up killing him in his lack of concentration.

[Shadow Strike] followed [Strengthen] the two boosting one another. Time seemed to slow from his perspective as the two Mark abilities engulfed him. [Shadows] echoed in his core, Mark Energy surged.

His sharp vision grew ever more powerful, the darkness of night parted into dusk. The raging inferno of burning buildings no longer created flickering light that hid enemies.

The shadows answered his beckoning. Writhing around him, alive, eager, and hungry. His frame was covered in them.

He swung his sword, shadows jumping off its thick metal like spilling flames.

For a brief, fleeting moment, he felt invincible.