The battlefield quakes as the Orc Lord swings its spiked weapon around in a dead arc.
Leo didn't flinch.
His fist lunged forward and collided with the incoming strike.
The effect was instantaneous.
The loudest of explosions erupted, sending vibrations everywhere. The earth below them crumbled, leaving another huge crater. Dust and debris spewed into the air like a volcanic eruption.
Two figures shot out from the swirling cloud of destruction. Leo touched down, light as a feather, the wind shrieking around him. Despite the vibrations still running through his bones, he felt the impact hit and closed his fists. His knuckles tingled but felt no pain, only exhilaration.
Heard the heavy wind from the Orc Lord coming down before deciding to land and thud down heavily, its feet smashing into the earth.
But something was wrong.
It stood there, unmoving.
Crack!
Clatter.
The giant weapon — previously a tool of slaughter — had been destroyed. Shards of iron and splintered spikes fell from its quaking grip, the handle dislocating entirely.
For a moment, the Orc Lord just gazed at its shattered weapon. Then its fingers tightened, crushing the remains to dust.
It made a deep, guttural growl from its throat. Leo narrowed his eyes. Something was happening. Dark-red aura leaked out of the Orc Lord's skin. It moved with an unnatural feeling of being alive— a thick, liquid aura crawling over its muscles like blood flowing backward.
Its chest heaved violently, steam wafting off its body as veins swelled across its giant arms. Then new words appeared beneath its name.
Enrage
Rattled Leo's stomach coiled, not from fear.
Excitement.
"So you have a rage mode, huh? Good."
He popped his neck and rotated his shoulders.
"Show me."
A roar erupted from the Orc Lord, shaking the air. The pressure alone was like standing in the eye of the storm. It burst from the earth, tunneling forward at a speed never seen before.
Leo hardly had a moment to respond. A massive fist was flying toward his face.
Boom!
Leo's body crashed against the cave wall, farther in than before.
Stone shattered.
Debris rained down as cracks spread like lightning across the surface. A normal human would have been pulped by now. But Leo wasn't normal.
He hacked, his breath uneven—but his smile never faded.
The Orc Lord was relentless. Its hands were closing now, and somehow, despite its massive frame, it moved like an assassin. All at once, it was near the center of the cavern.
The next— it vanished.
Then—
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Giant fists smashed into the walls where Leo was.
Again. And again. And again. The cave roared in agony. Walls trembled. Dust and broken rock erupted from the impact area, a storm of death and disorder in the air.
Leo could feel the ground shake with each blow, vibrating through his spine. The monster wasn't allowing him a moment to breathe. And yet, within the storm of dust and rubble, his excitement only swelled.
"Do I smell fear?" Eyes shining from the dark, Leo mused.
Minutes dragged on like hours as the monster waged its unceasing attack. The cave room strained under the punishment like it was about to cave in.
Then, a thin band of red light cut through the dust.
The Orc Lord froze.
It sensed it.
A killing intent, so great that the beast couldn't even register what was happening — Boom!
And out of the dust cloud, a fist, wreathed and surrounded in scarlet energy, shot out like a meteor. It crashed straight into the Orc Lord's enormous body.
Crack!
There was a sickening crunch as the monster's ribs crackled inward. Its massive body reared back like a cannonball, smashing through stone posts and jamming into the stone throne.
For the first time, the monster screamed in pain.
Leo emerged from the smoke, unscathed. His eyes glowed bright red, faint wisps of energy flickering from his fists like dying embers. His body hummed with raw power, his veins coursing with something unnatural.
And he felt amazing.
"What's the matter?" Leo's voice was slick, but with a dangerous edge.
He cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders.
"That's all you got?"
The Orc Lord slowly clambered out from under the rubble. Its once-mighty body was now bruised — but far from done. It was getting stronger; the dark-red aura had thickened.
The cave floor below it melted a little with the furious heat of its wrath. Muscles bulged further. Its veins thrummed black beneath its leathery skin, and its eyes glowed with a more ancient, primal rage.
The cavern shook with wrath and insatiable power.
Leo and the Orc Lord faced off against each other with broken bodies, but iron wills. Neither backed down. Neither would retreat.
Then—they vanished.
BOOM!
They emerged into the center.
Their fists collided with a resounding crack. A shock wave roared outward, kicking up dirt and stone and rattling the cave itself.
Then came the real fight.
Leo slammed his fist into the Orc Lord's gut, embedding it deep into the thick muscle, feeling the wet resistance of raw flesh and the solid of bone.
The beast hardly flinched, then replied with a savage right hook.
Crack!
Leo's head whipped sideways, spit flying out of his mouth.
A deafening exploded in his head, his eyes flashing for a second—
But he grinned.
No time to breathe.
Boom!
A fist hammered into Leo's belly, sending him off his feet. He coughed, a thin trickle of blood spilling from his lips. The monster brought this down with a hammer fist into his spine—SLAM!
Leo fell to the earth, carving a crater into the stone.
Clouds of dust and debris billowed around him. The pain was real. And it was exhilarating. His vision swam for a moment, but his body… his body felt alive.
The liquid fire turned to blood, strength racing through every fiber of his body. He wiped the blood from his lips and smiled wider.
The Orc Lord hissed, his blood-red aura wrapping around itself, expanding into blacker, deeper darkness. Its body pulsed, muscles tautened, veins blackened.
It was preparing something.
Leo's heart pounded.
The air was electric with tension; the ground below was cracking with the weight of the oncoming collision.
Then, both of them lunged.
There was a blurring of fists and flesh in brutal strikes.
BAM!
A punch to Leo's ribs.
CRACK!
It broke the Orc Lord's Jaw with his fist.
THUD!
A crushing elbow crashed into Leo's shoulder, and he was pushed back.
BOOM!
His counter struck the beast's chest, staggering it.
Neither stopped. Neither hesitated.
The cavern was coming apart around them. Walls split, the ceiling shook, and loose rocks tumbled into the void below.
Then, the Orc Lord took one step back. A shift in the air.
Leo's instincts screamed.
The monster raged, summoning every ounce of power into a single, world-ending blow. The very cave trembled.
This was it.
He felt a thrill of excitement.
Energy hummed in his fist; the air hissed as power concentrated into a single point. A deep inhale. A sharp exhale.
And then—They swung. Two fists, two monstrous forces, crashing into everything they knew.
The world exploded.
It wasn't a physical punch when his fist struck the Orc Lord's body; it was an explosion of energy that cleaved the air in two.
Leo punched through its torso, the impact humming violently. The impact of the blow reverberated throughout the surrounding area.
The orc lord's body disintegrated upon contact, bits of his corpse scattered in every direction. The area around the throne was blown out to make way, and its shockwave rippled out for miles, destroying a kilometer's worth of forest.
Everything was thrown into the air, and trees uprooted, of the absolute power of Leo's punch.
He landed with poise, the earth below quaking from the shock.
The fog of war began to lift, and he began to see the scale of the destruction.
Where the Orc Lord once stood, there was now only a massive gap, the remains of its throne scattered like dust in the wind.