A challenge issued.

"Her." His answer was immediate. John didn't even need to think about it. If this was what he hoped it was, and he suddenly had a chance to get out of the situation through only fighting one person, then fighting the weakest member of the pack was perhaps the easiest choice he could have ever made.

Yet, the whole pack bristled again when John pointed at Urga. The negotiator physically furrowed, growling out a warning at him as he pointed at the only one with a bow, and he almost stepped further back into the water to get away from them. Urga herself quivered slightly when John pointed at her. She was still fit and firm like someone would expect a barbarian to be, but compared to the rest of the pack, Urga was more full-bodied than beefy. She was more curvy and jiggly than she seemed to be toned or ripped. She still had the defined six pack and overall visible outline to her muscular physique, but... her large breasts and thick buttocks bounced and swayed with a slight sense of fat to them as she walked, something that the other orcs just didn't seem to have all that much. In his eyes, a lot of them may have just had too much muscle for his personal tastes. When John picked her, her full lips shook with the worry and dismay one might expect from a weaker member of a group like that.

Still, despite the packs worry in how John was so easily able to pick out their weakest link, Urga certainly stepped forward with her sapphire blue Mohawk falling off to rest on one side of her mostly shaved head as she moved. John could hear the tribe growling and barking indecipherable words at her as she approached with her bow in one hand and a handful of arrows in the other. Even the negotiator stepped forward to say something to Urga.

At first, the two of them simply exchanged a short couple of words. They patted each other on the other's shoulder, and John's brow furrowed at how loving the gesture seemed, and then the negotiator said something that had Urga scowling at her and then outright shoving and pushing her away from herself. They snarled and said something, that seemed like it may have been wicked and rude, and curtly faced away from each other. It wasn't until he used Observe again that he found out why.

Lagash Shelor
Level 6 Barbarian
<Wolf>
86/86 HP
RP: -174
Effects: Pack Mentality, Heart Of The Beast.

They were related. If he had to guess how, he would have probably assumed sisters from how similar they looked. They had the same high cheekbones, bright blue eyes, and thick and pouty lower lip. They were both busty, with incredibly deep voices that he wouldn't have expected to come from such feminine figures. Unlike Urga, Lagash had deep midnight black hair and she was toned. Her whole body was littered with rippling layers of thickly stacked muscle and power that left her form so defined that the single loincloth she had on could be seen straining and struggling not to break with every subtle twist and turn of her womanly hips.

Neither one of them wore anything more than that single loincloth, and most of the time, it was just a single flap hanging down over the groin in the front. A lot of the Orcs didn't even have enough to cover the hoard of toned, emerald backsides they showed to John whenever they turned their backs on him. Actually, now that he was up close, the only other piece of clothing that the orcs seemed to have other than their loincloths were little foraged straps of armor that occasionally wound up tied to their various shoulders, hands, or thrown over their heads as a kind of makeshift helmet. They didn't wear or own anything among the whole group that would have suggested some kind of advanced or civilized society.

For the most part, it seemed like the stuff that they owned was mostly just things that could have been looted off of other people if it looked simple to use and was helpful.

Unfortunately, the orcs didn't talk for very long. The sisters finished their bickering and snarling at one another, and Urga did something to tell off all the other green-skinned goliaths barking at her, and then she simply stepped forward to face John. Nobody ever came forward as a referee. There were no words or sounds to tell John when the fight was ready to begin. He was still just locked in his stance by the time that Urga nocked another arrow and fired it at him.

The crowd became suddenly abuzz with taunting remarks and various cheers as, without even a moment of hesitation, she let loose an arrow right into John's shoulder.

-10 HP

The arrow slammed into John's torso with so much **** that it was like he took a large, heavy punch into his left shoulder, actually shoving John backwards to stumble a few feet from where he had initially been standing before the hot, stabbing pain began to radiate out from his new wound. He let out a sharp, unmanly cry of pain as it instantly **** him off balance and onto his knees. He could feel the shaft of the arrow still vibrating powerfully from where it stuck out of where his lung should have been.

Gamer's Body... He realized it only after he took his next breath of the barrier's sluggish air without any kind of problem. He could already feel his mind mentally fighting against the idea that he could breathe so easily with an item piercing into such a critical area. He had to adjust. It didn't necessarily matter how he got hurt here... as long as his health points didn't drop below zero.

Adjusting to his new situation in time was a whole other problem though. Despite Urga's low level and fighting style, she was fast, unbelievably fast. The second she released one arrow she was already reaching forward to grab another from the same hand that held her bow, nock it, and draw the string back all in one fluid motion. She had done this before. She knew what she was doing and nearly put a second one right through one of John's Fighter's Eyes as he looked back up at her.

His ability never actually told him the exact path of an item that was being shot or thrown at him. He was just able to see which direction it was that Urga was aiming in, and barely managed to duck and roll out of the way before he took another one, but it wasn't precise at a range. It was like giving him an estimation of what area she would have been firing at. He was able to see what zone she wanted to try and hit him in, and if he was fast enough, then he could just get out of the firing zone all together. For him, it was very similar to dodging area of effect attacks in video games. If he used large, heavy movements to dodge and roll around, then he had no problem moving out of her attacks...

If he tried making small adjustments however, she proved to be fast enough to simply adjust her aim and try and hit him.

Urga's arrows weren't infinite. She had no quiver or backup stash to draw from. She just had the handful of arrows tucked away in her grasp, and that diminished quickly.

It wasn't until she was on her second to last arrow that John decided to change things up. He decided that, after switching his predicting ability on and off a few times, he could have used a weapon. It was a cocky decision, and he knew he probably shouldn't have made it, but she was almost out of ammo, and that meant that soon he would be able to just finish the battle.

On her second to last arrow, with John finally coming to a stop, he rolled again to stand upright on his feet as Urga fired. John's gaze flicked, turning off his Fighter's Eyes at the precise moment to try and follow the arrow itself as his body moved... and everyone watched as his hand came up to close around the arrow's shaft just before it slammed into his chest again.

"Holy shit!" John exclaimed with a happy gasp and spun the arrow in his grasp for emphasis. "I caught it!" None of the orcs shared his happy sentiment. "Do you know how hard that has to be? And I did it on the first try! That was awes-"

-11 HP

Another arrow punctured the side of his neck. The orcs fell silent, and everyone watched as Urga confidently lowered her bow with the end of her final shot. They stood there, a wave of grins passing over the lot of them knew she hit what clearly was a killing blow on most creatures and for once... John's powers actually seemed like it might have been the most overpowered thing in the entire area.

The group realized how he failed to bleed in front of them far too late. Even as John's cries of pains came to a silent end, the horde of Orcs were all still standing there, ready to congratulate Urga on her victory while he pulled the arrows out of his neck and shoulder with a couple of sickening pops.

"Ow..." John groaned with a long, heavy breath, and everyone turned to look at him. There was no mess or horrible vision of gore where John had been standing. It was just John... with two little, red holes in various parts of his body that were slowly sealing back up behind his new wounds. A wry laugh eked past the young gamer's lips as he rubbed at the two new sore points on his body and blinked at the woman who had put them there. "That hurt."

Sixty-three. That was the amount of health points he was left with after the end of her attacks. He had, on top of that, his forty-five points of mana left. It wasn't much... but for someone who had less max health than he had at that moment... it felt like it was enough.

"My turn." A wicked grin curled along John's lips as he became the one person to actually break the silence that had fallen over the band of raiders. He took a step and immediately debated throwing out another action hero one-liner. Yeah... it was just too good of a moment for him. "You're going to regret tha-"

Urga used Form Of The Beast
Most of Urga's stats have doubled!
Urga's critical strike chance has doubled!

CRITICAL! -10 HP

Her first actual punch hit John like a blurred train. He felt her hard, defined knuckles cracking into the side of his face at almost the exact same time that he saw her start moving, and when she hit him, John actually flew backwards into the pool of water. Her sudden increase in power was accompanied by the throat-tearing roar of an animal-like power as she screamed so loudly that he could hear how the strain of it began to ruin her throat. There was a sense of rage and pain in the noise she made, like it hurt to yell that much... but by the time she finished yelling, her whole body looked like it might hurt in John's eyes. Urga may not have been as brawny or as powerful as the other orcs had been, but after using her ability, she just seemed to swell up. Her muscles got bigger, beefier, and flexed with such strength that he could see veins bulging out through her skin when she tensed up. Her eyes became bloodshot and red, as every last trace of reason within them looked as if it just disappeared with her newfound power while a line of drool began to slowly drip and hang from one of the corner's of her slack, hanging jaw.

5 Damage!

Urga's health dipped slightly as she stood there and her body twitched almost in response to the pop-up that followed John into the water. None of the orcs made a sound as she waded through the surprisingly deep pool after John and found herself submerged all the way to her waist after only a few footsteps. She followed him in, and as John began to swim for the other side, the whole pack growled in annoyance while he outright ran away from her.

5 Damage!
5 Damage!

He didn't get very far. By the time that John reached the other side in a **** bid to stay away from the suddenly, ridiculously, powerful Orc, the horde had already sealed off any chance of escape he had been searching for on that side. They blocked him off, using their own large mass of bodies as a makeshift barricade while Urga finally caught up to him.

5 Damage!
5 Damage!

Urga’s health dipped to a hopeful and solid twenty-nine before she fell upon John. She didn't hesitate to hit him, and even with Fighter's Eyes, John was not able to keep up with her insane speed. It was almost cruel for him. His powers would activate and draw his gaze up to the clenched visage of the nearly naked orc beating upon him, but even though it would show him where she planned on hitting him, she was just too fast for him to move out of the way of her attacks. She just pummeled him at such horrible speeds, letting his mana go to waste on trying to stop her!

CRITICAL! -10 HP
-6 HP
CRITICAL! -10 HP

5 Damage!

At the same time, both of their health bars dropped and fell, both vanishing down to a point of no return as John could do nothing but stand there and hope that her health would hit zero first. He didn't get a chance to hit back. When he tried to hit her, she just moved out of the way, and she came at him far too quickly for John to try and run again. It was over. If anything... all John could hope to rely on was another lucky miracle to keep him from dying at that moment.

CRITICAL! -10 HP

5 Damage!

It wasn't so much of a miracle that came to his aid as it was just timing. Even though John's health dipped lower than Urga's did, the orc had to actually stop when her health points finally hit nineteen. Her body lurched and jerked, her bones audibly grinding with her own muscles as she tried to physically **** her own body to keep going with such an intense amount of power... and then she just dropped. Her luscious green form fell to her knees and relaxed, reverting back to it's normal size in an instant as she weakly tried to take up her stance again.

It was just too much for her, and John nearly cried out in joy when he saw it.

It really was his turn! It was his chance, and he didn't waste it! He all but jumped on her with the last of his mana, pouring everything he had left into his Infused Strike as he clocked right across the jaw.

Infused Strike has leveled up!
Infused Strike is now level 2!
Infused Strike now costs 9 MP!

CRITICAL! 14 Damage!

The use of John's attack ability was vastly different from when he had used it the first time. The first time John had used his ability, his hands had been covered and bound. They were hidden away from prying eyes while he had worked his magic, and he had been granted a kind of privacy with the boxing gloves he had been using.

This time every last Orc in the tribe was there to watch as John's fist abruptly began to glow and burn beneath the skin with a buried, powerful, white light. The bones and veins in his hand were made into a simple silhouette as his fist pulsed with the power of his mana and unleashed it into a small, confined explosion from the front of his rocketing fist. His hands cracked against the side of Urga's head as the tribe fell silent when he knocked the female Orc onto her back with his one blow.

Urga's form fell into the water with a weak and wet splash. She didn't fall ****, much to John's dismay, but she did not get up again. She just laid there, writhing and groaning in pain on the ground, too dazed and weak to continue fighting.

John had won and he let them know as much.

"No." Lagash growled viciously, her hands clenching at her sides with a sense of barely restrained rage. After a couple seconds of gathering control over her own self she gave a curt nod in the direction of her own sister. "Finish." She said in a curt, final grunt. There was a tradition to be obeyed here.

She wanted him to kill her.