After that confrontation, Jareth steered the wagon on a new course that would avoid Thunder Ridge and head straight to Stormwatch. While the route was shorter, it stayed in the jungle for a much longer time, though they avoided the single mountains that likely held either Thunderer or Tempest Beasts that were in the way of the travel back. No one mentioned the encounter to Roran as the companion rode in silence, Axel guessing he was lost in his thoughts about how his life was moving now.

  The next three days passed in relative silence as everyone was on edge for any beast or bandit. Though being off the road meant that bandits were unlikely to attack, there were plenty of beasts that would gladly attack and eat the group. Thankfully, the only beasts that were seen were packs of Zips, Duradons, and Gin, along with the ever-present Snars poking their heads out of the occasional bush, which eased everyone’s nerves after a while.

  On the fourth day, the wagon arrived on a road about halfway between Thunder Ridge and Stormwatch, which meant they only had a bit over half a day’s travel left before they could rest from this hunting trip. As the group stopped at noon for lunch and to allow the Pollux to rest from the hard journey, Axel began to have an ominous feeling that he could not explain. Axel looked around and noticed that everyone seemed to be feeling something off as their body postures were tense, but he could still not explain why.

  Axel then listened and noticed that there was not the sound of the jungle that was always in the background. All the nearby beasts had gone silent, which was never a good thing, but he did not hear any large beast or feel the ground vibrate from the ones that could mask their sounds. Axel then moved over to where Aria and Lyra were eating and leaned down to kiss Aria on the cheek.

  “Something is off,” Axel whispered into her ear. “All the beasts have gone silent in the jungle around us. Can you take flight and have a look around?”

  Aria finished her bite and nodded before putting her plate down to stretch for a flight. Axel then started to walk to Jareth as she lifted off with a gust of air, only to turn when he heard the sound of bow shots followed by something being hit. To Axel’s terror, he turned to see Aria falling out of the sky with several arrows in her, two in the right wing and one more that seemed to have slightly penetrated her chest armor near her heart.

  Everything began to slow at that moment, and Axel’s awareness seemed to expand so that he could see several groups of people. The strongest group of five, all Adepts from the power they gave off to Axel’s sense, seemed to be heading for Jareth, while Pearl and Larimar each had two people heading to each of them. Then there were two more groups of five Novices, one heading for Sky and Roran while the other was heading for where he and Lyra were.

  Axel, on reflex, put a repulsion anchor on Aria and moved to catch her while Lyra faced off against an overwhelming number of enemies. Each person in the group wore cheap armor and carried poorly maintained weapons, but as Axel caught Aria, it struck him that again this was too uniformly geared for this group as some people should have better gear than others.

  Axel quickly visually inspected Aria only to see that Sky’s armor held and only the tip of the arrow had punched through. Axel also noticed black and green lines around where the arrows hit Aria’s wings and the world tinted red. Axel gently laid her on the ground, got up, and turned in a smooth manner. He could see that Lyra was only just fending off the attackers by forcing them to get in each other’s way, limiting the number of attack angles. In his peripheral vision, Roran had summoned Star, and with Sky, they were holding their own, so he just moved to Lyra’s side.

  In the corner of his vision, his journal was flashing a message: Berserking Activated.

  Axel did not seem to run or jump but almost appeared beside Lyra, and one of the enemies exploded from the chest upon his arrival. As he made his move to Lyra, Axel had used gravity anchors for traction and left large torn-up rents in the earth where his steps must have landed using all his strength for propulsion. Axel saw through his journal that he had broken all the bones in his hand but did not care.

  Axel looked at a heavily breathing Lyra and said “Save Aria,” in a voice that held an arctic chill, then set to the grim work ahead.

  In the moment's distraction, one enemy had stabbed Axel in the gut blade bypassing his armor like it was not there, but with his damaged hand, Axel grabbed and held the man's sword arm in place, then the other shot out to grab the struggling man by his neck and then lift him to use him as a shield against the only other attacker that could get a swing in. This caused the other attacker to pull back his swing, at which point Axel kicked the man while anchoring himself, sending the attacker flying across the clearing and shattering a tree. Axel noticed that his boot was covered in the kicked man's insides before the last two attackers drew his attention by moving in aggressively one glowing green gathering air and the other glowing a black color Axel could not identify at a glance.

  Axel put his gore-covered boot back on the ground as he then used the human shield as a club and swept the last two attackers with him. The human club did not survive the contact, body splattering from the force of impact and both other attackers tumbled across the ground from the impact. Axel also noted that the sword was still in him and his broken hand holding the forearm of his improvised weapon, so he yanked the sword out and then threw the blade with a gravity anchor at one of the Adepts attacking Jareth who had his back to Axel.

  This attack caught the man completely by surprise, going through him and ending in a tree across the clearing from Axel, this action startled the pack of attackers and made them back off for a moment, giving Jareth breathing room. Axel then wasted no time and finished the two attackers that he knocked down with his improvised club with a pair of throwing knives to the heads. Taking the slight lull in the fight, Axel noted almost robotically that Roran and Sky had taken one enemy down while Star held three at bay with a breath of fire, which was being blocked by what looked like a Pyrokinetic power user.

  Axel then sent another throwing knife at the pyrokinetic, linking his knife and the man, and then began to move in on the Adepts without confirming whether the knife hit or not. As Axel began to move he then heard a shout behind him, only to turn and see that Lyra had thrown his halberd to him from where he left it near where he was eating, before going back to work on Aria. Axel caught the weapon mid-stride with the help of a gravity anchor and kept running, only to receive a warning that both legs had suffered multiple fractures, and his right leg was on the verge of snapping under the strain.

  Axel calmly adjusted his strength to prevent the break but ignored the rest of the warning as he arrived. Axel struck out at the closest attacker surrounding Jareth on arrival with a diagonal slash and even with the Adept fighter blocking with his weapon, Axel shattered the man’s sword with the axe head of his halberd and cleaved the man in two, much like what had happened to Cade. This thought almost broke the mental state Axel was in, but something pushed the memory and thought away, allowing Axel to stay focused in the moment.

  Jareth used Axel’s attack to launch his counteroffensive, dodging attacks and using a stream of water to divert a bolt of lightning from a Vortan attacker. Jareth then hit the lighting user with a combo of blows to disorient him, but before he could get a grapple one of the last of the three remaining attackers forced him back with a concentrated blade of fire. Axel tried to help but was forced into a rapid escalation of defensive blocks as a large human wielding a spear that tried to match him in strength.

  Axel struggled to keep up as, while the man was strong, Axel seemed to be stronger, but that was Axel’s only advantage as the man moved quicker and must have had a reflex-boosting power as it seemed like Axel’s every attack was being drawn into the other man’s spear only to then be diverted to the side. The fight with the spear-using Adept was moving quickly for as in as little as six exchanges of blows, Axel had received four new cuts though none of which were life-threatening and Axel was only able to force the man back once during their first exchange of blows as the enemy had tried to go toe-to-toe with Axel only then but realized he was overmatched. After the first exchange the spear user started to work around Axel's edges and deflecting his blows to wear Axel out.

  Axel vaguely noticed during this dual that his mind was working differently than normal during this deadly struggle as the only fluctuations but none of the fear or worry was bubbling up and only the errors in his attacks and how to fix them so none of the enemy’s hits came through the same openings. Then after five more rapid exchanges, Axel was completely on the defensive, out of nowhere, an orange ball of flame landed on the side of the man’s face burning it and causing the man to turn his head with a grunt in pain. This allowed Axel to find an opening, as the spear strike veered off course, and slammed the spear tip of his halberd in and then through the man’s neck cleanly beheading him and covering Axel in a wash of blood.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Axel wasted no time grabbing the spear from the last enemy and ambushed one of the last two men who were attacking Jareth by hurling the spear through the enemy combatant. This attacker noticed the attack and tried to dodge it to the side, but the gravity anchor corrected the course, causing the attacker to have a stunned expression on his face before he slumped over and slid down the shaft of the spear. Jareth wasted no time and, through a combination of hand-to-hand attacks that broke the Vortan attacker's arm, then locked his enemy into a joint lock and pushed his power into him.

  The man started to seize as blood poured out of his eyes, ears, and mouth before Jareth released the now-dead body. Axel did not waste time watching as he knew that Pearl and Larimar were also still in danger. Axel moved and yanked the blood-coated spear out of the last man he killed, beheading him with a casual swipe of the axe head, and turned to see who was in the most trouble. Both Pearl and Larimar had killed one attacker but had taken injuries while doing it Axel noticed that in his group of friends, Star had injuries all over her body, but there were three dead attackers with Lyra having joined the fight and Aria leaning against the wagon, slowly and precisely launching compressed balls of fire in support. Sky seemed to have changed from the direct assault to helping the twins, as every time one of the enemies started to get an advantage, they would be shot at by dozens of high-velocity sharp metal bits, forcing that fighter to defend.

  Larimar’s left arm was bleeding, but one of her enemies was an ice cube, gracefully dodging a user of a large hammer, while Pearl used a trident to fight off what looked like a skilled user of a sword. She seemed to have blasted a hole through one of her attackers with some kind of compressed water. Axel chose to help Larimar and threw the spear just after the man threw up a directional forcefield to block the attack from both Sky and Pearl. The man must have not been expecting the spear as it nailed him from behind, shattering his armor and breaking his concentration in the process. The force field user was much sturdier than the others Axel had seen as he was still standing from Axel's blow but went down quickly as the attacks that were being blocked by the force field slammed through.

  The attacker was frozen solid by a wave of freezing energy, leaving icicles diagonally along his body when Sky then summoned a large block of metal above the man that shattered him into many frozen pieces. With that done, Axel turned to help Pearl, but Jareth was already there and had a hand on the man’s neck, causing him to begin bleeding from his eyes, nose, and mouth. A moment later, the man began to shake and was dropped to the ground dead. With the Adepts dead, Axel began to move to help Roran and Lyra but was too late as Star ripped the last one to death with her teeth and then released a roar of triumph!

  Axel, still in the strangely focused state began to look for more enemies and his mind began to figure out how to eliminate Jareth, Pearl, and Larimar in their currently weakened states as they were threats to his mate in her injured state. Before he moved on to these strange thoughts, he was wrapped in a hug and he smelled a berry and herbal scent that his brain connected with Aria. As he looked to the source he heard her voice in a calm, soothing tone.

  “Axel, return to me,” Aria said just loud enough for Axel to hear. “The villains are slain, and the hero can now rest. Please return to me.”

  Something in Axel fought that calming voice struggling to keep unleash his destruction until she was completely safe. There was something in him that needed to destroy any possible threat to Aria and his friends.

  But why are Jareth and the twins a threat? Another voice asked, fighting down the voice calling to finish them before it was too late.

  Axel then closed his eyes trusting Aria and began to breathe in his meditation pattern, letting the red haze recede from his vision, as the strange state left him.

  Axel then saw a popup on the side of his vision: Berserking Deactivated

  As the haze retreated, Axel began to feel the pain throughout his body, and a wave of suppressed messages scrolled up his sight.

  User Poisoned

  Users internal Organs suffered critical damage

  User Core down to 50%

  User Core down to 20%

  User Core down to 5%

  User Core power has risen to 10%

  Regeneration cleared the Poisoned state

  User Core power has risen to 25%

  Regeneration (Lesser) in a heightened state and all injuries healing more rapidly than normal

  User, please disengage Berserking Mode as Crimson Corruption level has reached 2%

  The user has shut down Berserking Mode. Safe use cooldown: 24:55:22

  Regeneration (Lesser) returned to normal state

  User Core down to 5%

  Axel then checked over his health data, and while his right hand was still damaged, the broken bones were healed leaving only slight fractures. There were still small fractures throughout his body, but from the looks of it, his blessing and Regeneration (Lesser) would have them fixed within an hour. Also, all the slashing and piercing wounds were mostly healed. The pain was still assaulting him as, while his body was healed, his nerves and brain were still catching up on the information that was suppressed.

  Aria must have felt him relax as she looked up into his eyes and smiled at him. “Aria is glad you are back with me.”

  Axel had no words for her as he was still mentally catching up on everything he had just done, though even now it did not feel real but more like a dream. Aria let Axel go after that, and her armor was now covered in the blood that transferred from Axel, who realized he was covered in blood or worse and went to check on everyone.

  Lyra was moving to check on injuries, and when she first moved toward Axel, he waved her off and pointed at Larimar. Lyra nodded and changed directions to check on her, but from what Axel could hear, besides issues with a poisoned blade, Larimar was mostly fine, just exhausted like everyone else.

  Axel checked on Roran, but besides several gashes on his armor, he seemed uninjured. More likely, Lyra had needed to heal him as Roran was keeping a much closer eye on Lyra now, and Axel, on closer look, saw several of the gashes had likely found their way into the more open areas of his half-plate armor. Star seemed exceedingly proud and kept poking Roran with her snout for attention and praise, which he began to lavish on her. From the looks of it, when Axel hit the pyrokinetic, she had heavily injured or killed at least three of the attackers with her breath attack. There also seemed to be five attackers that were on Axel's side of the field from the number of corpses his team needed to deal with twelve attackers as there were seven more dead in the line between the jungle and the clearing along with the five that came forward and attacked that side.

  Sky seemed to have minor injuries on her carapace, but she seemed fine as she waved her manipulator at Axel as he approached her. When Axel checked, she just sent calming emotions and ‘I am fine, just drained.’ to his mind.

  Axel took her word for it and began to help Pearl and Jareth clean up the battlefield. Jareth needed to leave just after starting as he went to retrieve one of the Pollux that had broken free. The cleanup was completed in silence over an hour as Pearl seemed to be avoiding Axel and worked on the other side of the field from him until Larimar, arm in a temporary sling, came over to Axel.

  “Are you okay?” Larimar asked in a soft voice.

  “I am mostly uninjured now if that is what you are asking about,” Axel replied as he was still trying to figure out the screaming feeling to kill both Larimar and Pearl. “I am still suffering from the aftershock of a power.”

  “That must be a hell of a third power,” Pearl, seeming unable to say anything, remarked. “You never used it while hunting.”

  “It is an intense power, and its aftereffects are never pleasant,” Axel said while trying to explain this ability without going into too much detail. “Sorry if it scared you.”

  “I was not worried about you,” Pearl immediately said, then shut her mouth after saying it.

  “You did have a very interesting look in your eyes there at the end,” Larimar said, drawing Axel’s attention back to her.

  “I was in a mindset that was looking for any other attackers,” Axel said while hauling the body of one of the Adepts to be placed in a pile after searching it for anything, but there was nothing on the man but a few coins. “I am sorry if I worried you there.”

  “Well, nothing happened, but that seemed much like a bad crimson backlash,” Pearl told him and gave Axel a gentle smile before saying, “You may want to talk to Lyra about maybe removing that power and building up more before you complete another cycle. I know you have been under a lot of stress, but you should take a backlash seriously.”

  “I have talked to Lyra about it before, and we have things in place to deal quickly with any aftereffects,” Axel informed Larimar and then asked her, “You think you have the power yet to give me a cleaning? This blood does not feel great, and that is all the attackers moved.”

  Larimar nodded and gave Axel a quick pressure wash, which caused something in Axel to want to dodge or fight, but he kept the feeling pressed down as those urges would not be helpful and was cleaned in a matter of moments leaving a large muddy bloody puddle. Axel still needed to change into a spare set of clothes and talk Larimar into giving his armor another washout. Jareth returned with the missing Pollux and, after checking with everyone to make sure they were safe to move, began to hitch up the wagon again. Lyra checked the bodies, but again the journals were destroyed like the last set of attackers.

  Sky and Aria worked together to incinerate the bodies, then everyone loaded up to get to the city quickly. As the sun began to set, the city appeared as the wagon came around the bend, the light of the suns shining off the many tall buildings.