My Second Life Is A Heroic Power Fantasy 167 The Battle Begins Part 3

By the time he made it back to the others, they were under attack by another contingent of the furry creatures, these a bit larger than the last. They also didn't wear armor, and each carried ma.s.sive maces with carved stone heads that they swung in broad sweeps at Rose and the other two. Two of them ganged up on Rezza, one of them managing to smash her across the back with their mace as she dodged the other's attack. Jemeni went sailing head first through the air and augured into the dirt as Rezza slammed face-first into the ground. The larger of the two gnolls lifted his weapon above head, ready to deliver a finis.h.i.+ng blow on the downed half-orc.

Speaking the spellwords, Jack sent a surge of power through his body, bursting into a sprint as the magic took him faster than was physically possible. With a diving leap he dove past the gnoll, sweeping Harrowbloom in a wide arc above him. The blade resisted slightly as it bit into the bones of the dogman's forearms before it carved through and severed just below the creature's wrist. Catching himself, Jack tucked his arms and legs into a roll, before springing back to his feet and turning to face his new opponents, bewildered.

He had absolutely no idea how on earth he'd just done that.

The largest gnoll stumbled backwards, turning its attention towards its missing hand, then back to Jack, before snarling loudly and launching itself at him. One swing, then another whistled past Jack's head as danced out of their way. Between the magic in his veins and Harrowbloom's enchantment in his hands, he felt like everyone else was moving through paste by comparison. Finding himself having a little too much fun, he set about lopping off the gnoll's toes one at a time between attacks, until the creature finally lost balance and fell over. He buried the sword between the creature's shoulder blades, and it spasmed twice before lying still.

As he straightened up and turned his attention to the rest of the fight behind him, he found himself face to face with the giant stone head of another gnoll's mace. Panicking, he threw the s.h.i.+eldcloak up in front of himself as the ma.s.sive weapon impacted it with a thunderous boom.
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The blow knocked Jack flying through the air nearly a dozen paces before he plowed into the earth and tumbled end over end. He wound up on his back, disoriented and completely unable to catch his breath. He leaned up to see the gnoll walking up through blurry vision. He willed himself to move, but as soon as he tried to move, his vision swam and he fell onto his side. The gnoll stopped a few paces in front of him.

Jack lifted his hand, willing spellwords into his mind, but everything came out a jumble in his brain, and he stumbled over the words. Nothing happened. He tried again, and this time a small jet of water shot from his hand and hit the gnoll in the face. The creature snarled and raised its weapon. Jack raised his hand one final time, willing literally anything to happen so that he didnt get buried in the dirt like the seed of a Jackfruit tree.

To his surprise, the gnoll froze, looking confused for a brief moment, before its head promptly exploded in a fireball. The furry corpse tottered and fell, and Jack threw his body out of the way to avoid getting crushed beneath it. He looked down at his hand as his vision slowly reoriented itself. That hadn't been him. But then...

The young mage shuffled up, one arm holding around his stomach as he lowered his free hand to Jack. Jack grabbed the boy's hand, and stumbled to his feet. The boy grimaced and whitened as he pulled him up, but held his ground and provided a balance point for Jack until he got his feet back under himself. The boy glanced down at the corpse beside them, then patted Jack on the arm and smiled weakly.

Jack nodded.

"Thanks. Looks like I owe you one now." He said.

The boy shook his head gently, and made a flat line gesture with his hand.

"Even?" Jack asked.

The boy nodded.

"Can you keep fighting?" Jack asked.

The boy shook his head. He looked nearly as pale as before, and looked like he was struggling to remain on his feet. Jack put his hand on the young man's shoulder.

"Rest. Do what I told you. We will come back for you." He said.

The young man nodded again, before gingerly sitting down on the ground beside the dead gnoll. Jack gave him one final nod, before turning to go check on the others.