Hardcore: Qi Worlds Chapter 13: Troll 1

 The forest was quiet, apart from the snorting, thumping, ripping and growling emanating from the Troll. In actuality, the forest was not quiet in the least, its harmony had certainly been trodden on. In comparison, the ferals had been an extremely minor inconvenience. Plants, shrubs, small and large trees were uprooted, half eaten, strewn about with roots sticking up in the air. The wildlife had scampered in every direction leaving the general area in droves.

Benzhi marched towards the troll. The tracking skills required were almost zilch, he had only to work out which part of the mess led to the troll, not to mention the noise made any mistake impossible. As Benzhi arrived upon the current scene of destruction. The troll was totally oblivious to his presence.

The troll was probably twenty-one foot tall, it was massive. It would be the height of a regular two story home back on Earth. Despite its diet, it was quite thin, with extremely long arms ending in spindly clawed fingers. It was splotchy green in texture, no surprises there, with brown patches, sporadic hairy patches breaking up its gawd awful skin tone. When taking in to account its drooling mouth with yellow and black teeth, the troll, was the very definition of ugly. As he was yet unnoticed, Benzhi took a moment to view the troll with qi sight.

In contrast, under qi sight, it was amazing. The physical troll was a thing of ugliness yet the qi circulation throughout its body, pumping through its core, was a thing of beauty.

The troll had massive amounts of qi vessels and pathways, some large, like an artery and some fine, almost too small to see. It was a walking contradiction. Its consumption of the forest made no sense until Benzhi saw it with qi sight. The troll was fuelling its massive core and ecosystem of qi with their forest!

Benzhi dropped qi sight, drew a long inhale of breath and charged the troll. He would trust that his companions had easily kept up with him and were in sniping range. Benzhi wanted to aggro the troll onto him and have the forest guardians pepper it with arrows. Between the four of them, they should take it down relatively quickly. He would just have to stay out of its claws until it went down.

Layering qi on the soles of his feet, small bubbles designed to give him speed and a greater leap. The troll finally noticed Benzhi approaching when he was fifteen meters away and closing fast. It spun, attempting to swipe him with what it had in its hands, a small sapling, however, this sapling was twice as big as Benzhi. Benzhi lept just to the left of the troll, as it was swinging from the right, he held the sword still at a horizontal angle. Benzhi moved so fast the troll was barely able to blink before he sliced its midsection, just below its chest, clean through. The cut carved a slice out of the troll the size of the entire sword length, it went through like a hot knife through butter. Immediately following the slice, three arrows hit the troll, one in the eye and two in the upper chest.

 The sword strike was a massive blow, a clean cut from front to back as Benzhi passed like a bullet. The troll fell to the ground with a moan and stopped moving with its face in the dirt. Benzhi gaped, wow, ‘his new qi blade sure was awesome,’ he thought. Ailen jumped down from a tree, also gaping at Benzhi and the troll.

“That was the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” Ailen praised Benzhi. Benzhi liked Ailen.

Talila arrived and waved at Sakaala and then pointed to the tree line saying, “stay up." She proceeded to gather some sticks and a  few dry leaves together. Just as she got a fire going the Troll started to move, wobbly gaining its feet. The wound on its chest had sealed. The trolled moaned and pulled out one arrow after another. 

"Up, up," Benzhi shouted. It seemed the troll was not going to be an easy kill after all. Benzhi put some distance between himself and the troll, trying to think of his next move. He engaged qi blade and layered his feet with the tiny bubble shaped qi. Benzhi angled across the troll at full speed, leaping as high as he could he could not reach its neck with a slice. He barely dodged its claws despite how slow they were compared to him as he had moved right into the trolls clutches trying to slice its head off its neck.

Benzhi moved passed the troll and ran another fifty meters before turning around. This only took him half a dozen seconds, the troll was still looking for him. It scratched its head. Benzhi was moving so quickly he was confusing the troll. Benzhi charged again, he was still feeling fresh, he just had to find a weakness. The troll turned too slowly to find Benzhi before he struck again. Benzhi lept in the air again, even his six foot one was way too short to reach much higher than the troll's thigh. As he flew past the troll, it snarled finally catching sight of him, Benzhi's target this time was an arm which he severed before it could affect a swing. The troll screamed as its arm dropped to the forest floor. Its mouth started to froth furiously as its jaw snapped open and close in pain and anger.

Wasting no time, Benzhi circled for another sweep. His tactic of keeping his distance, closing to attack, then putting distance between himself and the troll again, was working. It wasn't elegant, but it was effective. The trolls brute strength, size, claws and fangs were not something to treat lightly. Benzhi ran up the tree behind the troll, quickly changing qi patterns on his feet from bubbles, to discs and back to bubbles. He pushed off from the tree at a height of thirty feet and dove down to severe its other arm.

If the troll was angry before, it was incensed now. Although this exchange happened in a less than a minute, there was no action from Benzhi's companions. They were most likely waiting for an order or frozen in uncertainty. The troll bent down and laid on the ground next to one of its arms. Benzhi should have run in and try to decapitate it, but he too looked on with curiosity, 'what the hell was it doing' he thought. Benzhi engaged qi sight, while keeping his distance from the now prone troll.

As it lay there next to its arm, it sidled its oozing stump closer and used its chin to position the arm, back on to its socket! What happened next was stunning, it also explained what had been happening during the fight. With Benzhi's qi sight he could see the troll's qi stitching, bubbling, sprouting and reattaching its arm. The arm itself began to reach out to the socket with qi sprouts.The sprouts from the arm connected with the qi sprouts from the socket and the arm began to reattach.

Although they were in the midst of a life or death fight Benzhi could not help but marvel at what the troll was doing. 'The troll was no qi master. This came naturally to it. It could regenerate better than, well, than anything!' Benzhi surmised.

Benzhi held up his arm, fist closed bent at the elbow. Hopefully, his companions understood this to be 'hold'. Benzhi continued to watch the troll heal itself with qi. This was an extraordinary opportunity. It was worth the risk. When the troll finally finished it started to look for its other arm. One part of Benzhi wanted to continue to study, but it was overruled by the forest guardian in him saying he must put the troll to rest, permanently. 

Benzhi called, "shoot its eyes out." He then added belatedly, "and next time I chop off an arm, run off with it if it's safe to do so ... Talila." Talila was the most sensible of the group, including Benzhi.

Benzhi had not tired in the slightest, his training regime was holding up, his qi core was still in good shape and he was physically fresh. They had been running for quite a few hours as well, but that was more like a warmup jog compared to combat.

He flew into range and viciously sliced down vertically, attempting to cut its arm off again. Benzhi was able to slice through and proceeded to kick the fallen arm out of the prone trolls reach. Benzhi had stopped moving for a few moments, right in front of the prone troll, in order to do this. The troll did not let this opportunity for revenge pass it by, not while the tormentor was in easy reach.

The troll sank its fangs deep into his shoulder and arm. Its mouth enveloped the right side of Benzhi.The trolls saliva was some kind of acid, it started to burn his skin away. The pain was insufferable.

The only saving grace was the troll was bent down onto Benzhi in order to bite him. It had no arms to fend him off but had its fangs sunk deep into him. Benzhi grimaced in pain, he had only one chance, he used his left hand to slice at its neck with his qi blade.

Benzhi reached down with his left hand and grabbed his sword from his now immobile right hand. Benzhi flushed the blade with qi shurikens, as many as he could, he swung at the trolls prone neck with all every ounce of strength he could muster in his injured state. Without the momentum of a charge, the sword could not cut all the way through the troll's neck. It got stuck halfway through. Benzhi was in severe pain. he would blackout in a second, he had to focus everything on his qi blade and push it through the troll's neck by sheer force of will. 

Benzhi pushed with all his might, all his focus was on one thing. Push that blade through its neck. Benzhi blacked out.

Chapter end