Jason left the town without hurry. The road behind him still carried the faint scent of scorched earth and blood from the day before. He glanced once at the distant plain where the dark guild’s army had fallen. Bodies had already been cleared by scavengers and council clean-up crews, yet the scars on the land remained. The sight did not bother him. He kept walking.
The Ant King had scouted earlier and marked a quiet lake a short distance from the settlement. Jason followed the path it had communicated to him, moving through sparse trees until the water came into view. The surface was calm, reflecting the late afternoon sky.
No paths led to it. No signs of regular use. The town had wells and a proper river closer to its walls. This place was simply isolated.
Jason stopped at the edge, looked around once, then began removing his clothes. Boots, tunic, trousers—everything set neatly on a flat rock. He stepped into the cool water and sank down until it reached his shoulders. The temperature was perfect. He closed his eyes and let the water settle around him.
Minutes passed in silence.
"Do you plan to keep hiding?" Jason asked without opening his eyes.
Heavy footsteps crushed grass and twigs. Thar stepped out from the tree line, massive frame tense, tusks bared. His armor was travel-worn, axe already in hand.
"You are an abomination," Thar said, voice low and hard. "One that needs to be purged."
Jason opened one eye and looked at him. A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "The only abomination here is this monster between my legs."
Thar’s brow furrowed. He actually glanced downward, then back up. "Is it... sentient?"
Jason let out a short, genuine chuckle. He couldn’t believe the orc had asked that. "You’re serious."
Thar did not laugh. He adjusted his grip on the axe. "I came here to end you."
Jason tilted his head, still half-submerged. "You want to fight me while I’m naked?"
Thar stared at him as if the question itself was strange. His expression made it clear he saw no issue with the situation.
Jason sighed and stood up. Water ran down his body as he stepped out of the lake. His cock swung freely with each step, heavy and unbothered by the cool air. He walked a few paces onto the grass and stopped, completely exposed.
"Well, come on," Jason said.
He could feel the absence of any distant observation. No scrying. No watching eyes. Just the two of them.
Thar’s voice stayed flat. "I have to kill you."
Jason’s face twisted into an exaggerated mask of fear. His voice rose in a mocking, high pitch. "P-Please don’t kill me."
The act lasted only a second before his expression settled back into calm interest. He wanted to see what the orc actually had.
Thar’s eyes narrowed. Muscles tensed. Then he charged, axe raised high, feet pounding across the ground toward the naked human standing by the water’s edge.
Thar’s axe came down in a vertical arc heavy enough to split a siege gate clean in half. The massive blade glowed with layered enchantments—runes of amplified weight, cutting force, and delayed kinetic release all burning at full strength. The air around the weapon screamed as it descended, pressure building so sharply that the grass beneath it flattened before the steel even arrived. Any ordinary fighter would have been forced to either meet the blow head-on or die beneath it.
Jason simply stepped to the left.
The axe missed by less than a hand’s width. Before the blade could bury itself in the dirt, a bolt of concentrated lightning erupted sideways from the head of the weapon. The discharge was point-blank and perfectly timed. It struck Jason square in the face with a crack that lit the entire clearing pure white for a full second.
The force was strong enough to vaporize stone and cook flesh on contact. He had no chance to dodge; the angle and the delayed trigger had been calculated to catch him the exact moment he committed to the sidestep.
Smoke curled from his skin and hair. Small arcs of residual electricity danced across his shoulders before fading. Jason blinked the residual light from his eyes, then smiled.
"Not bad."
He drove a straight punch toward Thar’s jaw with enough force to shatter bone. The orc moved with surprising speed for his size, dropping under the strike and driving a thick knee hard into Jason’s midsection. The impact lifted Jason clean off the ground and launched him several meters upward in a short arc. As he came back down, Thar’s massive hand snapped around his throat like a vice. With a roar that shook the nearby trees, the orc slammed him into the earth with everything he had.
The ground cratered under the impact. A violent shockwave blasted outward in a perfect circle, flattening grass for twenty meters in every direction, throwing water from the lake high into the air, and cracking nearby stones. Dust and debris exploded around them in a choking cloud that momentarily hid both fighters from view.
Anyone else would have died on impact. Ribs would have shattered into splinters, the spine would have snapped, and organs would have ruptured beyond repair.
Jason’s body simply absorbed the blunt trauma. Bones that should have broken remained whole. He looked up at the orc still gripping his neck and grinned through the settling dust.
"Damn son, you really do want to kill me."
Jason’s legs snapped upward and locked around Thar’s thick forearm with crushing force. He twisted with sudden, violent power, using the orc’s own bulk against him the way a crocodile rolls its prey into deeper water. Joints popped loudly under the pressure. Ligaments strained. Thar snarled in pain and was forced to release his grip or risk the arm being torn from its socket completely.
The moment he was free or rather, Jason let him go, Thar began raining down heavy punches without pause.
Fists the size of warhammers smashed into Jason’s face, ribs, and shoulders in rapid, punishing succession. Each impact sounded like stone striking stone and sent visible shockwaves through the air. Jason’s head snapped left and right under the barrage, yet his expression never changed. He felt no pain. Still, he played the part carefully—grunting on the heavier blows, letting his body go slack at the right moments, and finally releasing the leg lock as if the assault had finally broken his hold.
Thar stepped back several paces, chest heaving, blood dripping from his split knuckles. Only then did he notice the empty space in his hands. His enchanted axe lay several meters away in the dirt where it had been torn free during the earlier struggle.
Jason rolled to his feet without hurry, walked over, and picked the weapon up with one hand. The orc’s eyes widened in clear disbelief. That axe required two hands and significant strength to swing properly under normal conditions. Jason lifted it as though it weighed little more than a training sword.
"This is lighter than I thought it would be."
He swung it in a single-handed horizontal arc. The same lightning enchantment activated, but the discharge was far more violent under Jason’s raw strength. A wide, roaring blast of crackling energy tore across the clearing with a sound like the sky itself splitting open. Thar crossed both arms in front of his chest just in time.
The lightning slammed into him with tremendous force, scorched deep glowing grooves into his armor, and forced him backward several heavy steps. Smoke rose thickly from the plates. Blood trickled from a split lip and the edges of freshly burned skin along his forearms.
Jason lowered the axe and held it out toward the orc, handle first.
"Oops."
Thar stared at the offered weapon for a long second, breathing hard, then snatched it back with a low growl. Jason continued speaking, voice still casual, almost conversational, as if they were discussing the weather rather than trying to kill each other.
"You are strong, and you must know by now, you do not come clo—!"
Jason’s words cut off mid-sentence. His balance wavered noticeably. He took one unsteady step sideways, then another.
A strange, spreading heaviness moved through his limbs, as if the air itself had thickened around his muscles and the strength he took for granted had begun to drain away without warning.
"Huh?"
Thar’s expression shifted from pure fury to cold, satisfied recognition. His grip on the axe tightened.
"I see it has taken effect."
He raised the massive weapon high above his head. Lightning already began gathering along the blade and in the darkening clouds overhead, answering the call of the enchantment. The orc’s voice was final and absolute.
"Goodbye, abomination."
Streaks of pure white lightning dropped from the sky in a concentrated, roaring column, striking the exact spot where Jason stood. The blast was deafening. Earth and water erupted in a violent geyser that reached higher than the surrounding trees. A thick wall of dust, steam, and shattered stone exploded outward in every direction, swallowing the entire clearing in a choking, blinding cloud that refused to settle.