Infernal Apocalypse

POV Trent

When Richard gathered up almost the entire group to talk about something, I knew it would be very important. He rarely did that. What I didn’t know, was that it was going to be about Jax. I knew he has been acting different for a while now, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.

He wasn’t a violent person before the Tutorial, man none of us were, yet it only took a couple days in this place for it to change us. We had to change, we had to adapt to this whole thing, or it would leave us behind, but…what Jax did was different.

I was there with him standing outside the shop when that guy showed up. At first, we thought he was one of us, and was hunting on his own and hording the orbs, but we quickly realized that wasn’t the case. Jax has always been the one to take action, and eventually the conversation went in a weird direction and Jax did just that, He tried to physically stop him, and the man retaliated.

Looking back at it, what the hell were we doing? Acting like no name goons working for a two bit villain in a superhero movie. Sigh

It took a while, but Richard eventually talked some sense into me, and I realized how wrong about that situation we were, but Jax…he didn’t like that at all. He stormed off and I eventually caught up and spoke to him, but I can tell it didn’t do much. I knew he would still be upset, but I thought he would eventually get over it, and move on but no, it instead gave him more drive and will power.

I remember hearing him scream out, and when I arrived, he was unconscious, but it didn’t long for us to realize that he had successfully broken through.

Everything should have been good from that point on, but when Richard told the group this morning what he did, I realized how wrong I was. I looked to Jax who was standing next to Richard as he explained his wrong doings, and apart from frowning, he didn’t try to deny any of it.

The Jax I knew before the Tutorial was no more.

He took advantage of an injured man, then proceeded to injure him further.

That wasn’t acceptable.

We thought Richard was about to talk about some type of punishment but instead he mentioned how the injured guy in question wanted Jax to pay a price for what he did to him. A price…the way Richard was talking about it, it sounded like something that could be either be fatal or at least serious enough to bring Jax a lot of harm.

That thought kind of got confirmed when Richard said that anyone who goes to help Jax should be ready to put their life on the line.

That was hard for me to wrap my head around. I understand what Jax did was very bad, and he should face some type of consequence for it, but his life? Isn’t that a bit too far? I looked around the group, but it seems only a few of us didn’t like how it all sounded. I understand that only a small amount of us actually knew Jax before the Tutorial, but the lack empathy was surprising.

Most seemed to not want to associate with Jax, thinking that he brought this upon himself. The Tutorial was changing people faster than I was prepared for. Eventually Richard ended the meeting and almost everyone dispersed somewhere. The only people that remained was our core group of people who all mostly knew each other, with the exception of 1 or 2 others. No one said anything for a few minutes, before Jax decided to talk.

“What are you all worried for? I’ll handle this.”

No one responded to him, and he didn’t seem to care as he turned and just started walking towards the gate. We just followed along as I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do. Was I really just going to let Jax go fight this man potentially to the death? That sounded barbaric…but we’ve been running around fighting with medieval weapons and killing Goblins…I suppose we are already acting barbaric.

Either way, I think I’ll at least walk out with Jax and try to convince them to go about this situation differently.

Or at least that was the plan until we actually met up Raizen, I believe his name was. He seemed a lot different than I remember. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he seemed…stronger?

At some point Jax started talking to him but I wasn’t really paying attention to him at all. Something about this is really bothering me and I’m struggling to make sense of it. Why does he feel dangerous? A couple of moments later he spoke for the first time since we got here, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.

“Fine. Come die.”

Was…was that a flame in his eyes…?

swoosh

Before I could fully realize what I had just seen, the man took off in a speed that was faster than anything I could do…wasn’t he in the first realm of Body Cultivation just like me...? Why is he so fast?

I quickly took many steps backwards to get out of the way, but while I did that the man had reached Jax. He was slow to react and barely put his sword out in front of him in time to block incoming spear thrust. It was barely a block and Jax went flying back towards the Outpost.

He got up gingerly and his face seemed flip between both fearful and angry at the same time for a few moments before he screamed out and charged with sword in hand towards Raizen.

Instead of screaming out and charging back, Raizen simply waited till he got close and when Jax did a downward slash straight at him he sidestepped it and struck out with a fist. The connection was loud.

Bang

Before I knew it Jax’s body seemed to bounce off the forest floor in a much more stomach churning fashion than when this happened the first time. It wasn’t even a real fight. It lasted barely a minute and Jax was now squirming on the ground. Maybe it was because he no longer a weak human anymore and was a cultivator that stopped him from being knocked out completely.

I thought this would be end of the battle and I started walking towards Jax to pick him up. I didn’t understand why he was so much faster and stronger, but hopefully with this fight this is all over.

“Don’t. Move.”

I froze on the spot as those eyes almost seemed to stare into my soul. I felt like I kept seeing flames flicker within his eyes, but it never lasted long enough for me to confirm. I didn’t know what to do, I wanted to get Jax, but my body wouldn’t listen to me. It took me a second to realize that my legs were shaking. I was…afraid. I was afraid of this man in front of me.

I managed to turn my head enough to look at the rest of the group including Richard, and none of them were moving. Everyone seemed to be rooted as they watched in shock and perhaps...awe? I didn’t know how I even felt as I watched him slowly walk towards Jax.

Was he going to…kill him? Here? In front of all of us? Will Richard really just sit and watch?

He eventually reached Jax, and then he slowly and almost methodically bent down and grabbed his foot. A second later, Jax was being dragged on the forest floor away from the Outpost, towards the forest. Nobody did anything. Nobody said anything. We all just watched, like sheep seeing the farmer drag away a member of the herd.

Soon enough, Raizen and a mostly unconscious Jax disappeared behind the cacophony of trees surrounding us.