As he shot forward, a few things popped into his mind. First, Broken Fang looked different in the light of day. It looked duller and more substantial. It also felt slightly heavier, but maybe he imagined that. More importantly, He had four ability points, and five skill points that he still hadn’t used, the trolls were larger than the ones he had met previously, and he was still within 50 feet of the Soldiers, which kept him from getting his loner buff.

  Sophia answered with a haughty tilt.

  Sophia replied sheepishly.

  she replied happily.

  ::Common - Con + 2 (Fighter) - Gain 2 Constitution::

  ::Rare - Rending Strikes - Your strikes cause the target to lose mana also::

  ::Uncommon - Graceful Notes - While playing an instrument, you dance more nimbly::

  ::Rare - Alloy Knowledge - Know how to make alloys up to epic quality::

  ::Uncommon - Stalwart - Blocking an attack increases damage for a short time::

  ::Your current attributes are Str - 31, Dex - 30, Con - 25, Wis - 18, Int - 22.::

  The increased intelligence allowed him to think much faster than before. He had processed all of this and was still flying. When he collided with the troll, he concentrated on making himself as heavy as he could. This was a mistake. He lost almost all his forward momentum and slammed himself into the ground in front of the troll. He still stabbed the troll. It looked down in amusement, raising an enormous tree trunk of a club over its head. The look turned to shock as the flesh around the wound from Broken Fang didn’t immediately start healing, but grew black and decayed looking.

  In that instant, Morgan recovered. Loner was active, and the energy was thrumming in his blood. He had missed the feeling when near the Soldiers and welcomed it with a smile. The troll finally recovered enough and brought down the club. Morgan made himself as heavy as he could without crumpling into the earth and blocked the swing. Well, he blocked most of the swing. Half of the wooden club splintered off, careening away, as it slammed Broken Fang down into the ground. Morgan felt a different, good tingling feeling, and knew his Stalwart skill was active. Broken Fang was buried halfway into the ground.

  He dismissed his sword and instinctively punched out, attempting to put some space between him and the troll. Instead, to his amazement, his fist exploded the troll’s elbow. The combination of all of his damage bonuses amputated the troll’s arm. The creature and Morgan both stared in shock at the forearm lying on the ground, hand still twitching. Morgan dodged to the side, activating Kinetic Burst, as the second troll’s club slammed into the ground where he had just been.

  He summoned his sword and performed a Bladestorm between the two trolls. The one missing a hand was already growing a new one on a fresh stub of forearm. Broken Fang sliced into the trolls, leaving oozing black gashes in their legs. The blood splattering out gravitated toward his sword. One troll collapsed to one knee, a growing look of fear in its eyes. He deflected a swing from the standing troll and struck out with a riposte directly into the other troll’s dense chest. Then he leaped airborne, cleaving his sword up and out through the side of its neck.

  Landing lightly in a crouch, Morgan was searching the downed troll for any signs of life. Suddenly, a club came whistling in from his left. He tried to dodge but failed, catching a partial blow to his right shoulder. The blow launched him back towards the Soldiers, spinning chaotically. Morgan had still been light as a feather. He made himself heavy and slammed into the ground near the front line. He glanced up to look at a sea of shocked and concerned faces.

  His shoulder had been pulverized, but was already almost completely healed. He stood, holding his sword in his left hand, and gave a halfhearted, painful thumbs up with his right hand before turning, taking a breath to give his shoulder a few more seconds and leaping back at the troll. One on one, the troll was much easier to fight. It was strong and fast, but now Morgan was faster in spurts and could do much more damage. With three quick dodges and a well-timed horizontal slash and the second troll’s head landed next to its partner’s cleaved torso.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  ::Title Progress 3 of 10 - Kill more elite invaders to unlock this title.::

  ::Title Progress 2 of 1000 - Kill more dungeon invaders to unlock this title.::

  Morgan quickly snatched up the bags they dropped without looking in them and then nonchalantly slaughtered all the surrounding goblins and orcs before dismissing the sword and returning to the line of Soldiers. They still hadn’t moved. The fight with the trolls had only taken about 45 seconds. Most stood with slack-jawed amazement. Morgan nodded his head awkwardly at the captain.

  “Umm, Sir, the trolls are dead, but there will be more. You need to get the survivors out of here. The dungeon will keep spawning things until we kill the champion.” Morgan said.

  The words broke the dam of shock, and the murmurs and exclamations poured from the Soldiers.

  “Who is that kid?”

  “What just happened?”

  “Did you see the size of those things?”

  “He can fly?”

  Morgan couldn’t even concentrate on all the voices. It was overwhelming and just got louder as more and more Soldiers broke out of their stupor.

  A short, older man with large hands and a bunch of stripes on his shoulder yelled over the noisy crowd, and they quieted down instantly. They formed back up into their teams and stood by awaiting orders. The captain and the short man, who had yelled, stepped forward to meet Morgan.

  “That was impressive. I am sorry, but I am ashamed. I don’t remember your name,” The captain said quietly, with a look of genuine regret on his face.

  “Morgan, Sir.”

  “Yes, Morgan!” The captain echoed. “Well, Morgan, you saved a considerable number of my men. This here is Master Sergeant Martins. He is my right-hand man.”

  “A little flashy, but you did good.” The man reached out a thick, calloused hand. Morgan shook and could feel that he was much, much stronger than the man.

  “No offense or anything, but what level are you guys?” Morgan whispered.

  Taken aback, the captain replied, “I am sorry that information is classified.”

  “Eight,” said the older man with a glance at the captain. “Not sure if you realize it sir, but this kid could wipe us out without even breaking a sweat.” Then he turned and asked Morgan, “What level are you?”

  “Sixteen, almost seventeen,” Morgan replied, not even more self-conscious.

  “What build did you go with? That was some excellent fighting,” the Master Sergeant asked.

  “Its kinda complicated,” he answered. Then quickly asked,

  “I have a few different random ones in other trees, but Dervish,” Morgan replied.

  Nodding, the older man said to the captain, “Makes sense. We need to have our teams analyze some of the skill trees and set up a more optimized build like Morgan’s here.”

  “I agree, Master Sergeant,” The captain replied. Another wave of orcs made their way out of the access tunnel, interrupting the conversation as the Master Sergeant jogged over, yelling out commands.

  “Sir,” Morgan said earnestly, “You really need to get these people and your Soldiers away. If you can’t go into the dungeon and kill the champion, this will never stop.”

  “Can you defeat the champion? What the hell even is it?” The captain asked desperately.

  “The one I killed already was a vampire. I have no idea what this one is. It smells different,” Morgan said.

  “Smells? I don’t smell anything different,” the captain said, inhaling deeply. “A vampire?” The Captain exclaimed, Morgan’s words finally sinking in. “You killed a vampire?”

  “Yes, in Maple Creek it was going to use me as… let’s just say it wanted to keep me alive so didn’t just kill me immediately, then I surprised it.” The captain looked shocked, and it made Morgan uncomfortable. “Some advice, Sir,” Morgan said, looking at the large group of soldiers as they killed the orcs. “The larger the group, the more the people split the experience. You need to divide up your men more if you want them to level faster.” Sophia had told him this, but he wanter the captain to know it.

  “We are working on a lot of theory crafting and changing our training pipeline. I will make a note of that. Thank you.” Then he looked over his men. “I do not ask this lightly, but would you be willing to go in there with my best teams to kill the champion?”

  “No,” Morgan answered almost instantly. The captain nodded once, understandingly. Then Morgan realized what his answer sounded like. “No, I will not go in with your men. I do much better alone.”

  “I will not try to force you in.”

  “No Sir, you misunderstand. I am going to go in, but I need to do it alone. I get … bonuses when I am fighting alone that having people around will remove.”

  “Oh, I see. I don’t feel sending you in alone is the best course either.”

  “You aren’t sending me in. I am going to go in and try to kill this champion. Your men and the people from this town will not survive the night if it isn’t destroyed.”

  “We should be able to fill our water tank before nightfall.”

  “And just leave the town to be overrun?”

  “If we need to retreat and return with a more focused and specialized group, so be it.”

  “I am going to take a short break, and then I am going to go down into that dungeon and kill whatever is sending out these monsters. Then you guys can take the survivors back with no issues, and no reason to return.” Morgan said this matter-of-factly, and with much more confidence than he felt.