The Hunter's Odyssey-Chapter 58: Overwhelm It.

The Troll King’s left leg regenerated with obscene speed.

The deep gouges Kade had carved into it moments ago began to seal, torn muscle pulling together as if guided by unseen hands. Mangled flesh smoothed over itself, blackened blood congealing and hardening until only warped, discolored scars remained. The monster shifted its weight experimentally, stomped once, and let out a guttural roar that shook rain from shattered windows and rattled loose debris from nearby rooftops.

It was not slowing.

Kade circled the giant, boots splashing through oily pools of blood and rainwater. His twin xiphos stayed low and ready, blades angled for joints and tendons rather than killing blows. Around him, his hunters moved as one. The assassin vanished and reappeared at the edges of the monster’s reach. The ranger repositioned with smooth, economical steps, arrows already nocked. The spearman adjusted distance instinctively, always just outside the arc of that devastating club.

They were not reacting.

They were hunting.

That was when Kade felt it.

A faint, silvery glow clung to the edges of his armor, barely visible beneath rain and grime. It traced along the fletching of the ranger’s arrows, shimmered across the assassin’s worn leather, and settled like a second skin over his own muscles. Strength surged through him, sharp and immediate. His fatigue receded as if it had been forcibly dragged away. His thoughts cleared, edges sharpening, perception tightening into something lethal and precise.

The others felt it too.

He saw it in their movements. Faster footwork. Cleaner angles. Strikes that landed exactly where they were meant to, without hesitation or waste.

’Buffs.’ His jaw tightened as irritation flared, but he crushed it down instantly. ’Focus.’ He forced the word into his mind like a blade driven into stone. ’How do you kill this thing?’

The answer was not comforting.

Trolls were infamous for their regeneration. It was their defining trait, tied directly to their vitality and monstrous constitution. Kade had read about them long before the system ever existed, in books, in games, in movies. The methods were always the same.

Fire. Acid. Sunlight. Or destruction of the heart.

Fire was unreliable. The rain was relentless, soaking everything, hissing and steaming wherever flame met flesh. Acid was rare, almost nonexistent in the chaos of the new world. The heart meant getting close enough to a creature that could plaster a high-level hunter with a casual swing. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

And sunlight.

Direct sunlight.

Not light. Not brightness. Solar radiation.

Kade glanced up at the sky, rain pouring down from a blanket of clouds and darkness.

Midnight.

"Motherfucker," he muttered under his breath.

The Troll King roared again, swinging its massive club in a wide arc. The weapon tore through the air with a shriek, pulverizing asphalt where it struck and sending chunks of shattered road skidding across the street. Some were like bullets, shattering storefronts, cracking vehicle windshields, and even hitting fleeing survivors.

Kade ducked beneath it, rolled, and came up already moving, blades flashing as he carved shallow cuts into the monster’s ankle. Black blood spilled again, steaming faintly before the wounds began to crawl closed.

Not fast enough to ignore.

Fast enough to punish mistakes.

"Kade!"

Jane’s voice cut through the storm and the screams.

He turned just enough to see her pushing through a knot of goblins, movements sharp and controlled despite the chaos. Lynis had taken point, his shield raised and battered, his boots digging trenches into wet pavement as he held the line. Jane was following at his flank, evading and stabbing, eyes scanning the battlefield. Porpo moved on the other side, wind coiling and snapping around her hands, Tempest Halo humming with restrained violence.

They reached him together, seamlessly, as if they had been fighting beside him for years.

"We need to work together if we want to finish this," Jane said, rain streaking down her face as she met his gaze without flinching. "That is not an ordinary monster."

Kade felt irritation flare again, instinctive and hot. "Don’t tell me how to do my job."

"I’m not," she shot back immediately, tone flat, professional. "I’m telling you that giving orders instead of fighting alone will be more effective." Her eyes did not waver. "Push your ego aside for five minutes. So, what do you know?"

Porpo snorted loudly. "Yeah. Let us help. BTW manbuns is so 2045."

Lynis said nothing. He raised his shield higher as a knoll’s crude club glanced off it with a dull thud, the impact rattling his arm but failing to break his stance.

For a brief moment, Kade hesitated.

The urge to refuse burned hot in his chest. To prove he did not need them. To finish this himself. Pride had carried him far in this new world, and it had kept his people alive when hesitation would have killed them.

But pride did not stop regeneration.

He looked back at the Troll King.

It flexed its leg again. The scars were already fading.

And the memory of a Bloodclaw hunter screaming as he was crushed midair flashed through his mind, sharp and unwelcome.

Kade exhaled slowly.

"Fine," he said, the word bitten off hard. "Fire and acid are the usual answers, but they won’t be enough here. The regeneration is tied directly to its vitality." His eyes narrowed. "We need to burn it out faster than it can heal."

Jane nodded instantly. She had already reached the same conclusion. "Overwhelm it."

"Exactly," Kade replied. His voice snapped into command without hesitation. "You blockhead. Shield up and grab aggro." He pointed at Lynis. "Do not let that club swing freely."

Lynis grinned through the rain. "My specialty."

Kade turned. "Deck and I take the legs. We cripple its mobility and kill anything that interferes." His gaze shifted to Porpo. "You protect Zaila from the back. She will use her flame arrow skill on every open wound we create. Cauterize constantly. No pauses. No mercy. Do you understand your roles?"

Before anyone could reply, a Bloodclaw hunter howled nearby. "Kade!"

A Bloodclaw hunter stepped forward from the chaos, wild hair plastered to his face, a pair of hatchets resting loosely in his hands. His grin was all teeth and malice. Several more Bloodclaws fanned out behind him, weapons raised, eyes alight with anticipation.

"Don’t think I forgot about you," the man shouted, rain splashing around his boots as he pointed one hatchet forward. "You’re still going to become my sla-"

Kade instantly lowered himself, the muscles in his legs coiling tight as a drawn bowstring, and then he exploded forward.

The rain didn’t just part for him, it shattered. Water burst upward from the street as his boots struck, sending blackened blood and runoff spraying in his wake. The Bloodclaw hunter’s grin barely had time to falter before Kade was already inside striking distance, the world narrowing to speed, intent, and killing angles.

"Feather Drift."

The words left his mouth low and controlled.

At the last possible moment, Kade let go of his forward momentum. Not slowed. Not stopped. Released.

His body twisted with a precision that defied physics, weight shedding itself in an instant. His feet skimmed the slick ground, pivoting sharply as if gravity had briefly loosened its grip on him. The sudden change in direction was violent in its smoothness, a hard snap to the side that left his original trajectory empty and meaningless.

The hatchet came down exactly where Kade should have been.

Metal screamed through rain-soaked air, missing him by a breath. The wind of the swing brushed his shoulder, close enough that the Bloodclaw hunter felt victory for a fraction of a second.

Then Kade was beside him.

Twin blades moved as one.

There was no flourish, no wasted motion. Steel passed cleanly through flesh and bone, the cut so precise that the head did not immediately fall. The body took two more steps forward before gravity caught up with reality. The head slid free, splashing into a puddle as the corpse collapsed in a boneless heap.

The street went very still.

The remaining Bloodclaw hunters stiffened, eyes wide, bodies tensing too late. They had seen fast fighters before. This was different. This was pressure made flesh.

Kade stepped into them before fear could turn into action, shoulders lowering, stance tightening.

"Twin Fang Assault."

His voice cut through the rain.

His swords came alive in alternating rhythm, left then right, never striking the same line twice. Each blow was not meant to kill outright, but to batter, to break timing and posture, to force mistakes. Blades slammed into raised weapons, rang off hafts and guards, drove arms wide and feet back. The tempo was relentless, a rising storm of steel that gave no room to breathe.

One Bloodclaw hunter tried to meet him head-on, hatchet raised in a desperate block.

Kade’s left blade smashed the weapon aside.

His right hand opened the man’s throat in the same motion.

Another tried to circle away, boots skidding on wet pavement as panic overtook discipline. Kade adjusted instantly, steps flowing without pause, blades carving in crossing arcs that tore through armor and muscle alike. The hunter collapsed mid-turn, blood pouring freely as rain washed it across the ground.

A third lunged, screaming, rage overriding fear.

He never finished the charge.

Kade drove forward, pressure building strike after strike until the man’s guard finally buckled. Steel bit deep, once, then again, and the scream cut off abruptly as the body folded and hit the street.

Rain hissed against warm blood.

The space around Kade cleared without anyone quite realizing when it had happened. He slowed only then, blades lowering slightly as his breathing steadied, armor still faintly traced with that silvery glow. His eyes flicked once over the fallen, already dismissing them as irrelevant.

He turned back toward Jane and the others, voice sharp and commanding as thunder rolled overhead.

"Is everything clear?!"

"YES!" they shouted back, the response immediate, unified, and absolute, carrying through the storm as the Troll King roared again in the distance.