Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 48

Aaron was well aware of why the little dragonling was smirking. He could feel all of their allies creeping toward them. And he didn’t care in the slightest. If a fight was what Lord Draxas wanted, he was more than happy to oblige the strange, cosplaying kobold.

He had seen fate, and while fate had an annoying habit of breaking into many potential threads of possibility, he had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen next.

And he had every intention to make use of it.

Smiling widely, Aaron swung for Lord Draxas, and just as he had expected, an arcing line of energy shot out from the scrubbery where the kobolds' allies were approaching. The energy intercepted his attack, forming a barrier of crackling energy that consumed his strike, saving the three kobolds in a trenchcoat.

“BAHAH! Did you really think it would be that easy? We won’t go down like that. Soon, you will learn!”

Aaron wasn’t paying attention to the gloating kobold. His attention had already shifted to its allies. The streak of barrier-creating energy gave him a direct and very easy path to follow, and he shot straight toward the kobold’s defensively built allies.

“First you take out the defense!”

“What?!” Lord Draxas gasped as he watched in horror. This was not part of the plan.

In a flash, Aaron was there, standing menacingly over the hurry gremling that had created the barrier.

“Oh, hey. Another little guy.”

“Oh, shit,” the gremlin muttered, big, yellow eyes blinking up at Aaron.

With a single, barely powered kick, Aaron punted the little furball, sending it hurtling through the sky. It then slammed into the barrier and was zapped like a bug flying into a lantern trap. The sizzling furball then fell back down toward the ground.

“Rally the attack!” Screamed a little man, and out from all around him, dozens of pint-sized figures charged.

Arrows, empowered nets, electrifying attacks, and blobs of acid rained down on him from all around as a mist of some kind of toxin poured out from under him.

“We got him!” Squeaked one of the attacks as the catastrophic bombardment of attacks was launched upon Aaron from all directions.

But Aaron just closed his eyes and focused. He imagined all of the attacks as one. One great wave of destruction poured down all at once, and when his eyes sprang open, he called on the power of [ Soul, Body, and Mind ] and cancelled out the destructive wave in a single display of power.

For a second, his attackers stood in awe. They had thought the fight was already over, but how wrong they were.

“Don’t just stand there, get him!” Shouted a child-sized man, and dozens more tiny figures leaped out from around him.

In truth, Aaron wasn’t too worried about the power he felt from the little guys, but he was impressed by how well they had kept themselves hidden. Sure, he had sensed energy closing in on him, but there were way more of them than he had realized. In fact, he realized that he hadn’t sensed the little, child-sized humanoids at all.

But little people were in for a rude awakening if they thought catching Aaron Dober off guard was enough to win. And as the tiny army descended upon him, they were met with his lightning-fast reflexes and insane cheats like fate reading and phasing straight through their attacks.

The little dudes might as well have been a pitching machine, as they were flung into the atmosphere one after another as Aaron kicked and punched.

And it was at that moment that he realized something curious. They were all little people. Multiple races of tiny creatures all working together. There were some kind of tiny, furred gremlins. They were the ones who had built the barrier. There were also pint-sized men and women with pinkish skin who had pounced out of the ambush. Gnomes, perhaps? Not to mention the kobolds.

“Wait a fucking second. Are you little guys an entire world of little people?”

Aaron’s words seemed to incite the little guys even further, empowering them with rage, and a furious tsunami of attacks came crashing down against him as he retaliated with punches and kicks.

The little guys were really going all out. Not a bad showing, Aaron thought. But then he had an epiphany. He wasn’t being attacked by just three tiny species. There were all kinds of little people attacking him. Little mushroom men, goblins, imps, warrior hamsters, and a strange race of little, bald, blue people.

“Wait, no fucking way. Are you telling me there’s an entire cluster of little people in our universe?” Aaron blurted out between strikes.

“Not little people! We’re small folk!” Screamed one enraged midget as he hurled himself toward Aaron, only to end up on the wrong side of his boot, and sent shooting into the barrier.

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“That’s a six!” Aaron cheered as he punted away a fiery imp.

Interval Room

The bar had grown lively, with bets and booze flowing freely, and cheering spectators gathering around the screens. By now, the survivors of the multiverse had seen many, many things. What they hadn’t seen was one of them cheerfully taking on the top-ranking denizens of an entire cluster by himself, and it had drawn out their most festive side.

“Get ‘em, Aaron!” One man cheered, splashing dual pints of beer as he rocked back and forth.

Of course, not everyone was as cheerful. There were many people biting their nails at the edges of their chairs. One man humiliating an entire cluster was quite the display and a terrifying reality.

To have such an imbalance of power spoke to what kind of universe they had inherited. And many realized that they had probably already missed the boat. That they might be elites amongst their own, but compared to the true talents of the universe, they were nothing special. And that was just one universe among many across the multiverse. It was a humbling experience, like looking up into the stars, and imagining how many worlds are out there.

Nonetheless, they couldn’t drag their eyes away from the screen. Warriors were being thrown all over the place, and cascading traps of deadly power were being unleashed with little to no consequence.

And worst of all, the mob wasn’t even wearing him down. In fact, the opposite was true. The human was actually wearing down his greatly outnumbered foes.

“How is that possible?” One man muttered and downed a drink.

“He did beat three full trials, remember?”

“Insanity,” another shook their head.

“How are you even supposed to kill that bastard?”

“You got me stumped.”

As if on cue, a massive explosion rippled across the battlefield, and a dozen little people went flying as their attacks crashed into Aaron.

The crowd gasped as they watched. He was incredibly powerful; that much was obvious. But the sheer number of rankers fighting him was just too much, and it had finally reached its peak.

The incredible power completely obliterated him. But less than a second later, before the dust had even settled, light flashed at the heart of the explosion. In the blink of an eye, flesh and bones materialized and put themselves together, and there was Aaron, looking as healthy as ever.

“He’s back?”

“I heard about this!” An orc shouted, pointing at the screen. “I thought it was just a rumor!”

“He really doesn’t die, does he?”

The little people looked exhausted, like they had put everything into their attack. And so when the barely tired Aaron cracked his neck, and shot toward them, they squealed in fear.

“Is he… no… he couldn’t be, could he?”

“That crazy motherfucker.”

“He’s really making a game of this, isn’t he?”

“Fucking looks like it.”

“Disrespectful,” an elf huffed and crossed their arms.

A pattern had formed, and the spectators had realized. Aaron had begun kicking the little creatures into specific points on the barrier as he danced around them, yelling out points in between.

“That is just humiliating.” Another spectator shook his head.

“Eh, they’re the ones who attacked him,” another countered. “Don’t go starting fights you can’t finish.”

“Aye, aye!”

Aaron’s unorthodox demolition of his foes started several debates, as spectators shouted over one another, some arguing that if you start a fight, you bear all consequences for the outcome. Others believed that warriors deserved some kind of respect, regardless of anything else.

“Hey, look!” A furry creature shouted over the ruckus, pointing to another screen, and many gazes shifted that way.

As if Aaron’s display wasn’t enough, on the other screen they watched as an incredibly powerful purple man with six arms crashed into an army of top rankers.

These weren’t little people, either. These were great warriors, prideful ones. But against the powerful six fists of the asura, and explosive balls of energy he shot from his palms, they looked entirely helpless.

Within seconds, barriers were shattering, and lines were breaking. Bodies were blasted across the battlefield, and mages were beaten into purple pulp.

It was a masterpiece of destruction as the six-armed goliath effortlessly crashed through one squad of warriors after another, unleashing a whirlwind of power everywhere he went.

“Incredible,” one man muttered in disbelief.

Gradually, more and more eyeballs were drifting away from the screen that followed Aaron as he handed out a beatdown, and onto the second screen, where the asura seemed to defy common sense.

If any of the spectators had still believed they held a spot at the top of their sector, they quickly realized their folly. This figure was on another level entirely.

“Wait, I know that asura! That’s Mo’han Khan! The Great Conqueror!"

Cheers mixed with frightened gasps as the entire room fixated on the screen.

The two screens had captured almost everyone’s attention. One displaying Mo’han Khan, and the other of Aaron Dober. Although there was a third with a small niche following, showing Mandor the insectoid taking out several objectives in short succession.

“Th-they are amazing… how do we have any chance against powerhouses like these bastards?”

“We don’t. We just don’t.”

Many uneasy glances shifted between spectators as they came to full realization of exactly what this meant.

There was no denying it. Top-ranking elites from entire sector clusters were being pummeled before their very eyes by two extreme talents, and those who had been left behind to warm the benches of the interval room could only gawk in awe at the impressive display.

All they could hope for was that their rule wouldn’t be too tyrannical.

Soohyun, on the other hand, had a wide and devious smile. She seemed elated, practically bouncing in her chair as she watched the spectacle.

She couldn’t believe how much information she was getting, her eyes darting between the two screens as she refused to miss even a second of the action, detailing everything as she furiously tapped away on her System keyboard.

“This couldn’t have worked out any better,” she mumbled to herself, chugging down an endurance potion so that she could keep up.

She had no idea when she would get another opportunity as good as this one, and every detail of it needed to be recorded.