Chapter 231: Affliction

Malachi first hurled his blade at the troll who was still holding on to Opal after he had already asked him to put her down.

Tightening his grip on one of his blades, he hurled the thick cleaver-like short sword at the thick arm holding onto his friend.

The blade's edge sailed through meat, tendons, and bone as if they were all made of warm butter.

The thick arm holding up Opal came tumbling down to the ground along with an inhuman deluge of blood that only barely missed her.

The chains of Malachi's weapon lengthened themselves extraordinarily, and with his telekinetic powers working in tandem with them, they became even more deadly than normal.

With the first troll still reeling from having his arm cut off, the bladed weapon wrapped around his fat neck almost as if it had a mind of it's own.

Using his own Herculean strength, Malachi yanked hard on the chain and pulled the massive troll clear off his feet and barreling toward him.

"UWAAAAHHH!!"

"I asked you nicely."

Malachi raised his leg up with an absolutely unorthodox level of flexibility.

The moment that the troll came within striking range, he buried his heel into the skull of the troll with tremendous force and speed.

Even though troll bones are notoriously harder than even concrete, Malachi broke through it as if it were no more than an eggshell.

He ignored the dark blood that splattered onto his feet and the bottom of his pants and simply unwrapped his weapon from around the neck of the now unmoving troll.

"Bastard!"

"You'll pay!"

Two more trolls lunged at Malachi from opposite sides of the road.

He leapt up into the air to avoid being sandwiched between the two hulking piles of muscle.

Because the two ogres were unable to stop their momentum on a dime, they ended up slamming against each other rather hard and briefly losing their balance.

In the air, Malachi changed his weapon into a long gold and silver spear with a blade on both ends.

While the trolls were still in close proximity to one another, Malachi hurled his spear at the trolls the moment that their hearts lined up.

Twin holes were blown through their bodies and the two of them fell over comically, one right on top of the other.

"Gotcha!"

One troll was able to get the drop on Malachi from behind, and trapped his body between his unnaturally large hands.

However, this would unknowingly prove to be his undoing.

Malachi opened his mouth so widely that he nearly unhinged his jaw, and bit the troll's exposed flesh with his pointed fangs.

"Agh! You little shit!"

"W-What..? Hey, what is this?!"

Even without understanding why, the human suddenly turned back around and started heading towards Malachi at full speed.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop himself from running headfirst into his death, and his cries and pleas for mercy ultimately fell on deaf ears.

Holding out his weapon, Malachi changed it one final time back into a double ended spear.

The troll's jaw was forced open against his own volition, and he flung himself full force onto Malachi's weapon, completely impaling himself and dying without ever understanding how.

The last thoughts that went through his brain were that he was glad he was able to send a message back to base about a monster that would require no less than the boss' attention.

Malachi let the body of his opponent drop to the ground and he felt his anger coming back down from a rolling boil to a simmer.

A deep, tired exhale escaped his lips as he looked at the bloodied weapon in his grasp and he began to feel slightly introspective.

Naming weapons had never been something that he had put all that much thought into, but for some reason now it seemed appropriate.

As he decided on one rather quickly, he suddenly remembered that he was not alone here.

Worried, he turned back towards his traveling companions and grimaced when he found them waiting, eyes open, staring back at him.

Immediately, his heart sank and he wanted to hide himself, but there was no where for him to go.

The very second that she saw him starting to feel despondent, Serana had to chime in with one of her usual thoughtless and endearing remarks.

"All done, buddy? See if you can find a lake or something to take a dip in cause Lolo and I don't want you touching us when you're covered in gunk."

*Disgruntled hissing* (Don't speak for me, bitch.)

"See? She agrees!"

For some reason, Mal found his friend so much funnier than he normally would have.

His laugh started out small, but it grew louder and more unrestrained by the second.

Eventually, he collapsed on the ground with tears running down his eyes as he laughed and stared up at the bright blue sky.

He heard the sound of footsteps coming towards him, and Aisha squatted down just beside his head and tried to pull some of the chunks of flesh out of his hair.

"I hope you're starting to get it now... your girls aren't the only ones who love you unconditionally. No matter what you become, as long as Malachi is still in there somewhere we'll still be right next to you. Alien, monster, or man."

"I think... I'm finally starting to get that. Thank you."

Aisha held out her hand to help her friend up and he took it gratefully.

"Come on. Let's get our people home."

Serana : "But we have to find a lake first!"

"Right, a lake is a priority."

"Fuck you both."