An Unwelcome Hero - shadow slave

The city of Assai was left with only a single defender, against an entire army. The immortal of Assai was the one and only defender it needed! As the army saw Chiron take a stance with his bloated visage, their expressions changed drastically.

They weren't fools. The fact, that thousands of arrows didn't wound the ridiculous man in front of them was proof enough, that he was an "awakened", at least. The soldiers quickly spread out to surround Chiron and keep him occupied, while the rest of the battalion split up to go conquer the walls using their ladders.

"Men, ignore this fool! Even if he is an awakened, so what? We are MANY! We can EASILY defeat him! Middle unit, surround him and keep him at a distance with your encirclement. Literally EVERYONE else, go around him! Bust that door down and set up ladders near the edges of the towers, so we can get better grip and climb over!"

*F"ck! Forgot these were ACTUAL humans, with intelligence and the ability to adapt and overcome... LoL, even these illusionary humans don't know, that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer! Well, I'm not called overconfidence, but good old Chiron is a QUICK and insidious killer!*

The men did as they were told and over 200 men formed a spearmen encirclement around Chiron, intending to keep him at bay, rather than kill him, while . Chiron kept staring at the army and completely ignored the hundreds of hoplites slowly coming closer and closer to him, tightening the knock bit by bit, while the other continued their way to the wall.

"..."

Chiron dared not open his mouth, as he feared his mouth's content would spill out if he released even a bit of his body's pressure, so the just stared at the hoplites silently and waited.

Siege ladders were set up and the army finally rolled their ramming columns towards the door. Without any soldiers to reinforce from the other side, only a couple hits would be needed to bust the door down.

Blop

Chiron's belly jiggles slightly, as he finally finished compressing it down decently and let some of the pressure off of his joints, giving him back a bit of his mobility, unnoticed the the encirclement.

*Hmm. Guess it's time to go ham!* Chiron didn't even hesitate, as his body directly rushed back toward the gate, aiming for the siege equipment. *Transporting these giant siege items is a huge pain in the ass and without them, getting in within a 24 hour timeframe will be impossible! And at that point, it would be faster to split the army in two and go around!*

That was Chiron's true goal and the potential the ascended general saw. Assai is an elite fortress, with the express goal of training and nurturing awakenings, so they had a low soldier count, but the fortress was nearly impenetrable to those below ascended rank and these were normal humans in the army.

Aranai was planning a slaughter! Their goal was to overwhelm Analand's elite using numbers and then use their quality advantage to take over the rest of the territories, but that all would be impossible if the column was gone and they

All I need to do is destroy these two and keep breaking their ladders and all the Assai people will be able to survive! The elites will make it back home! *With this, I will be able to clear this nightmare with a glorious evaluation, as I have served my purpose to the extreme! I protected the weak from the evil and strong, while also protecting all those I am duty bound by!*

Chiron turning and rushing at them was a bit unexpected by the hoplites, but they were trained soldiers and were ready to fight Chiron, but what can a barely 2kg piece of junk spear do, when a juggernaut is rushing at it, not intending to stop? The answer is quite obvious, bend!

Before the soldiers even knew what was going on, Chiron's joints felt like they were on fire, as he ran at them with speeds completely unimaginable for someone of his stature! He hoisted his sword above his head, as he ran into the spears stomach first. All the weapons did was absolutely nothing! His bandages stopped them from going further than a few millimeters. Even if they did go Further, what could crude spears do to Chiron the immortal?

They bent, as Chiron crashed into the soldiers. His weight of nearly 200 kilograms was already too much and could crush them, but his sword was the final death sentence.

[You have slain...]

Several notifications of him slaying the dormant humans sounded out, but there was only 1 that attracted his attention.

[You have received an Echo: Common soldierly.]

*Isn't that interesting!* That was an Aranai soldier, someone, who could blend into the crowd and be there, biding it's time.

The echo was summoned next to Chiron, as he pretended to push him down, leaving the instructions to steal equipment off of a corpse and blend in, which the echo promptly did, while Chiron promptly escaped the encirclement and ran at the siege weapon.

Chiron didn't intend to destroy it, his goal was to make it cumbersome to use and that's exactly what he did. His heavy body smashed thought the soldiers, as he barely even lost momentum and slammed the front side of the siege weapon.

The column swung, as the chains and rope used to hold it rattled, but Chiron wouldn't let it go so easily. He loosened some of the bandages on his left hand and threaded them throughout the chains and regained his grip. With the ascended level cloth now firmly gripping the chains, Chiron's Swing down on the rope, but couldn't quite cut it.

Clink

Bam

Smash

Hammers, spears, arrows and swords rained down on his legs and back, as he decisively gave up on his only weapon and directly bit down on the rope. His compressed fangs and front teeth more than thing enough and his jaw more than strong enough to make up for the lack of sharpness.

Chiron munched down on the rope, where his sword had cut it and it barely was held together by a thread.

Bam, bam, bam, bam

Several successive hammers landed on Chiron's body, as they kept denting his bones and muscles, but his organs were more than safe enough from the impacts, but his body wasn't immovable. He fell off the column, but he kept his hold on the bandages, which he used to swing the column side to side, allowing him to remount and push the other humans away!

Having gained a couple seconds to get to work and achieved part 1 of the plan, Chiron realized the biggest oversight of his current plan *How the h"ll AM I supposed to break these steel chains. Wait! Hehe! Chain is only as strong as it's weakest link you say?!*

With a quick analysis, Chiron found the most unlatched chain and condensed his arms to be thin enough to fit into said chain and the quickly reformed. Not to the maximum, but the pressure was enough, the chain bent enough to collapse and collapsed it did.

All Chiron had to do was rotate it and the entire column came undone and fell to the ground, along with Chiron, who promptly put the bent link of chain into his mouth to make sure no one would be able to fix the mess he made within a reasonable timeframe.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"How the f"ck did he ruin our entire operation within less than a minute?!"

The generals stared in complete confusion. The time taken between Chiron flattening the hoplites and the men operating the ramming column and taking down the column's support system was barely 30 seconds.

They simply couldn't comprehend how the fat joke they dismissed as a pathetic attempt at distracting them had actually managed to foil their entire plan so spectacularly.

But Chiron was no gentleman, he didn't wait for his enemies to regain their bearings, as he pushed the massive column with his entire body as hard as he could, making it collide with one of it's support beams, breaking it thoroughly and causing the entire siege weapon to collapse, making it completely unrecoverable... But he wasn't done!

Even if he now only had to pay attention to 1 ram, he still had an army of 27 thousand breathing down his neck and if they get on top of the walls with the ladders, then they would simply open it from the other side!

*The fight isn't over yet! Let the slaughter begin!*

They only had 1 column to ram with left and Chiron was confident that wouldn't be enough to break the gate down within 2 hours. By then, he would have destroyed all the ladders and be free to deal with it's operators.

Even if the enemy were numbered in the tens of thousands, a couple tens, at most, could attack Chiron at a time and he was no slouch! He quickly broke the 5 siege ladders already set up, causing the few on the walls to fall down and completely securing the safety of the gate!

"C-ugh-l-ome a-hn-d g-ugh!" Chiron heaved, as he kept expanding and compressing his lungs over and over, again and again to over oxygenate his already large lungs.

The general all looked at each other and they all came to the same conclusion "Tire him out!"X5