You *are* the target! A raiding party of the Dark Lord ambushes you.

You growl in frustration at this meek place, having seen no sentient beings in two days. You want to use your enhanced body for anything dark, evil, or at least interesting. In your frustration, you've lost focus, and are completely surprised when, without warning, an arrow pierces your gut, just below your armor and three more skip off your lamellar breastplate. Another hits you in your bare upper arm, and several more whiz by, having missed as you spring into a sideways aerial somersault.

The body you're puppeteering sends agonizing pain signals to its brain. You almost laugh in your relief.

With the surprise attack done, a mixed party of Orcs and Goblins howl battlecries, their missile barrage was complete and their target apparently injured, they move in to swiftly kill the single human warrior they've successfully ambushed.

You keep the flimsy spear you crafted in your right hand and draw your longsword with your left, flipping it out of its sheath and grabbing it from the air. Your spear won't be able to do anything against armor, and will be only somewhat useful even against tough muscle, but it can pierce vulnerable areas well enough to be useful. You hold the haft midway up, keeping it balanced.

You draw on the battle tactics of twenty goblins and orcs, as well as Lothar's own experience, and charge one side of the enemies that had hoped to surround you.

Being surrounded was bad, every single warrior's mind you've come across agreed on that one point. Even a far superior combatant couldn't block every blow that came from behind them, or deflect from too many angles simultaneously. In addition, only so many opponents could realistically use weapons against you in close quarters without it becoming a brawl, or risk injuring and getting tangled with each other. The more space you kept them from using behind you, the fewer that could charge you at once.

So instead of allowing them to close in, you charge a weak point - two goblins to your left; if you can kill them swiftly, the remaining ambushers will have to either line up in your sights or expend extra time and energy maneuvering back around behind you, which you could prevent by retreating again or cutting them off. In this situation, the most important thing you could do was to control the flow of battle and the positioning of your multiple attackers.

With expert coordination your spear found the eye of one of the goblins while your sword deflected the blow of the other, and chopped down with inhuman speed and strength splitting its thick skull. Both dropped lifeless in an instant.

Withdrawing the spear you turned and threw it with such force that it pierced deep into the muscled stomach of a massive orc lumbering your way, causing it to howl in pain. Not a fatal wound, at least not immediately enough fatal, but he had to pause and pull it out or risk impaling himself with five feet of wood sticking out of his belly.

The goblin who's eye you had speared had a long-hafted axe with a sharp point, almost a halberd for him but it was perfect for your right hand. You flip the handle up with your foot and grab it with your right hand as an orc closes on your left. Rather than block his own axe you use your great speed and strength to cut off his hand with your sword, accepting the weight of the falling axe on your armor. Your right hand shoots upwards, slamming the point and upper edge of the axe right into the Orc's jaw - splitting, piercing, and smashing the thick mandible in one blow.

You kick away the mostly-useless orc and spring forward to the next attackers in front of you, bringing the fight to them with frightening speed. You whirl low on one knee and eviscerating one orc with your axe while stabbing the goblin next to him right through the throat, clear out the back, severing his upper spine cleanly and dropping him. With a jerk you clear back to your feet, blocking a desperate blow from the disemboweled orc and finishing him before throwing your axe to finish the broken, handless orc you left behind.

You pick up another fallen axe, facing the remaining three orcs and two goblins in front of you, face stretched into a ridiculously happy smile. Blood pumped through your borrowed body. Arrows still sticking out of your stomach and arm, you feel fantastic.