When Irik burst through his carriage door, the first thing that showed up in Irik's view was a huge man in leather armor and furs coming towards him swinging a one handed long-sword.
The man had a bushy beard and shaggy hair. He looked dirty, like the typical image of a barbarian turned bandit.
He was heading straight towards him with his sword held over his head in a swing. He kept running and he was only five steps away.
Irik's eyes narrowed.
'Amateur, They're not properly trained'
He took a big step in perfect form. He might have not been trained on Earth, but movement was ingrained in his muscles from the previous inhabitant of the body. These memories came to the forefront as his mind went blank and his movements fluid.
The best way to fight is to not overthink it.
He stepped forward with the left while using the right to push him forward, while keeping his steps stable, his mass centered and his waist low. This kept him fast and stable.
He took the first step straight towards his assailant, the second veered to the right and the last back to the left. By this time he was inside the guard of the attacker, and the barbarian hadn't had the opportunity to swing at him yet.
Amateurs usually think that getting up close to the opponent in close combat is the best idea, but it fact one needs at least a little space between combat. This is especially true if you're using melee weapons.
One needs space to gather momentum. Otherwise the weapon becomes useless. One way to effectively combat someone holding a weapon is to get closer to them. It then becomes easier to neutralize their force.
Irik struck a palm forward to the inner elbow of the incoming sword arm to neutralize the strike first, using the outstretched arm to grab onto, pivot while twisting the arm and going behind the man. He conveniently dragged the man forward.
The man's body crashed into another assailant's. The arm made a strange cracking sound and the man's mouth produced a great shout. He lost control and loosened his grip on the only thing that could have helped him escape, his sword.
'Real amateur. A real swordsman never lets go of his weapon. How disgraceful.' Irik thought.
As he fought more and more, the Irik part took over more than the Rick part. Even his inner thoughts became arrogant, befitting the character of a Bright scion.
He grabbed the falling sword by the hilt mid-air and immediately stabbed forward, piercing the back of the neck of his assailant. The man didn't even last three seconds. The sword pierced through the barbarian to stab into the nondescript character under him.
Irik's first kill didn't make him feel guilty or any of the sort. He was still in a state of fight or flight and even then, his current mentality didn't allow him to feel mercy for his attackers. He could philosophize the value of life later.
Now that the Bright scion had a weapon, and he stood up and looked around and took in the battlefield. It was chaos.
Some of the carriages were on fire, Men were running everywhere. They had been caught with their pants down and now were running around like headless chickens.
His men had managed to rally. The ones among them who weren't complete incompetents had managed to survive the rain of arrows. But they had already failed. Their job wasn't to survive, it was to prevent this.
They were fighting against the attackers, who were a hodgepodge of well equipped mercenaries and bandits. Some of the assailants evidently possessed formal training, while some were like farmers picked up at the side of the road.
They were still deadly though. Even an idiot would be if handed a sharp object.
It took Irik 3 seconds to survey the field. In that time he had noticed the most powerful fighters, Several were already approaching the level of awakened. Those were the ones he had to kill.
With a goal into mind, he set into motion. He was silent but efficient, deadly but graceful. His steps were light, but they bit into the earth.
He made full use of his muscles, twisting his hip for extra strength, bracing his core and making sure the moves originated from his stance.
It would have been mesmerizing if not for the blood and gore. But strangely enough, the more he fought, the better he got.
He could feel a strength circulating through his body like a warm current. It felt like his body was waking up.
His speed was already as fast as an Olympic runner, but now it was just a tad bit faster.
He had already been stronger than your usual gym rat, but now he was surpassing even that.
Irik had trained his body to the limits of human, but he was now subtly breaking the barrier to superhuman.He wasn't really in the state of mind to notice. He was in a state of battle fugue.
He cut through the cannon fodder as if it were weeds. They blew away like loose sand in the tempest that was him. He used the swordsmanship he had been taught and fought.
That was until he met his first quasi awakened.
"Come little Baron, let me taste the blood of nobility." The speaker licked the blood off his blade. His tongue was long and forked like that of a snake. It was purplish and discolored, with splotches. It was positively disgusting.
The man was a shifty sort. He wore a dark hood and had a hunched poster. Something about him just made you want to overlook him.
Irik's mind raced. From the man's getup to his weaponry - two daggers dripping with purplish liquid- and the fact that the men surrounding him all had discolored skin he had already slotted this man into an archetype.
He was a rouge. They were fast and agile and specialized in trickery. They were terrible opponents to fight with a straight forward weapon load-out such as a one-handed sword with no shield.
Dual wielders were always a menace. He should know, since his brother Ben was one and loved to harass him during Ossenia's weekly spars. Thanks to him though, he knew how to handle an opponent like the one in front of him.
Only thing that made it tricky though was the poison. He had to fight him without letting one of those blades touch him.