How to Fight a Losing Battle

He gripped his weapon tightly as the next person rounded the corner.

Sadly, he couldn't perform the same ambush twice as they had realised what had happened to the Jin clan lackey and taken a slightly wider berth around the corner.

As he did mist started gathering around his hands as the lackey held them together in front of him, palms facing towards Jacob.

No, not mist. Condensation.

It was the ice user.

He was about to shoot an icicle at him.

Jacob increased his overclock to 5x for the next 3 real-world seconds.

In that time, he did the unthinkable.

1 second.

He jumped straight into the man's palms, headfirst.

The lackey panicked, raising his hands so that he wouldn't accidentally shoot a pellet and kill another student.

2 seconds.

Jacob used his free hand to grab the man's hands, pushing them further upwards into the air so that they pointed directly up as they shot the deadly cold projectile.

3 seconds.

Jacob, now nearly pressed up against his adversary, rammed his shiv straight into the man's dick.

'If it ain't broke…' He thought to himself as the young man kneeled over.

Jacob took a second to breathe.

A bad idea.

The next thing he knew he was on the ground.

His head was spinning as his ear ached.

The one opposite the side of his head that was still bleeding from having been grazed.

"Well, well. I'm almost impressed" Victor's voice echoed in Jacob's still hazy vision.

The next thing he knew he was being hoisted up from behind, his right arm that was holding his only weapon now held nothing.

He had dropped it as he fell.

It now lay at his feet. So close, yet he couldn't reach it no matter what he did.

That same arm was being held behind his back in a painful position.

Some kind of hold, meant to keep him in place, lest he wanted his arm broken.

"I would be impressed if you'd actually fought any of them instead of ambushing them like a coward" Victor walked in front of him as he taunted him.

Turns out it was the final lackey that was holding him.

The one he had just stabbed was already running to the nurse's office.

"If I'm a coward for beating two of your little fuckbuddies out of 3 then what does that make you? Oh sorry, I already know. You're a guy that needs three dudes to make sure you're safe against one clanless, not to mention rankless dreamer." Jacob taunted back.

He was hoping to get Victor into a one versus one scenario.

Not to win, but to try and run away again.

Maybe screaming out 'rape' as much as possible to draw attention.

Normally he wouldn't resort to such a thing, but he never had that much pride and he REALLY didn't want to know what Victor would do as revenge for castrating two of his underlings.

"Nice try weakling, one part of being powerful is having people to help with tasks that are beneath you" Victor said condescendingly.

Right after he said that he punched Jacob in the stomach.

Hard.

It pushed both Jacob and the man holding him back a little.

The next thing he knew Jacob was seeing his lunch come back up and onto the ground in front of him.

But that wasn't the end.

Vincent hit Jacob repeatedly, but he avoided the head.

Most likely so that he didn't accidentally kill the young man, not out of mercy but practicality.

His dual affinity status offered him protection, but the murder of a new dreamer inside the UDRD wouldn't fly.

After a solid round of beating, Victor finally relented.

Jacob's body now sported so much bruised skin it was difficult to tell his original complexion.

He gasped for air as his vision continued to spin.

Everything hurt, and now that he wasn't directly in combat the adrenaline wasn't doing much to keep the pain from affecting him.

He looked up at Vincent groggily.

"Now that's a much better expression, fitting even. But we're not done just yet." Vincent mocked with malicious glee.

He walked over to the window that Jacob had gotten his shiv from and grabbed a decent-sized piece for himself.

He walked back to Jacob and showed him the glass shard up close.

"I believe I owe you something" he whispered.

As he did so he dragged the blade across the wound on Jacob's head. Causing the dried blood and newly scabbed skin to rupture and start bleeding again.

He went even further as he cut over to the middle of Jacob's forehead causing blood to flow down onto one of his eyes.

"As a good boss, it's only right that I get payback for my loyal followers. Right?" The bully whispered with maniacal joy as he brought the shiv towards Jacob's lower half.

At that moment, Jacob made a judgment call.

He activated his overclock to 5x.

He didn't have much mana left but he needed to.

He moved as abruptly as possible.

He smashed his head into Victor's nose.

He moved his body.

His arm broke.

It hurt.

Holy fuck did it hurt.

But it wasn't like in the mansion.

He could keep moving.

Keep acting.

Keep fighting.

He dropped down to a crouch.

His right arm was useless now.

He grabbed his shiv with his left hand.

He turned.

His body turned with him.

He used the momentum and drove the shiv directly into this captor's dick.

He wondered if this reflected badly on him from a psychological perspective.

He stopped thinking about useless stuff.

He had less than 5 real-world seconds left when he started his escape.

He had taken 3 so far.

Victor had stumbled away, too far to hit in 1 second.

He deactivated overclock.

His mana was far too low to use in excess on overclock now. Even worse he couldn't use it at 1.1x to give him a slight edge.

The only good news was that it was just him against Victor. Maybe, just maybe, he could win.

He charged at his final enemy intending to take advantage of his earlier headbutt.

Only to be greeted with a blow to the stomach.

It sent him flying back causing him to land on his back a solid 4 meters away. The good news was that he had kept a hold of his shiv this time.

He got up slowly, not to judge Victor's actions, or for any tactile reason.

He got up slowly because it was difficult, his whole body was aching, his wounds were bleeding and one of his eyes was almost useless because of the blood flowing from the cut Victor had given him.

That wasn't even mentioning his broken and twisted right arm that hung limply at his side.

He breathed in steadily as he stared at Victor.

Plans tried to form inside his mind, but nothing was coming together, he had too few cards, too much exhaustion and there was too great a gap between them.

The only thing he managed to properly process was that Victor had used his earth manipulation ability to hit him rather than his actual fist.

Admittedly Jacob had been hoping that Vicot would avoid using the Vass clan ability, a foolish hope but one he had held out for.

Jacob stood there panting.

Hunched over and injured, a moment away from passing out.

He was exhausted beyond belief from the last few minutes.

Not to mention he had only just finished training earlier and wasn't in the best condition to begin with.

But there was one thing that he refused to do.

Give Victor the satisfaction of seeing him give in.

Another second and Victor had his sense back.

He looked over at Jacob with a rage that could rival Asura and teleported as he threw a punch straight at his head.

Jacob had anticipated this, knowing full well he possessed no ability to stop it.

He raised his shiv into a makeshift stance and prepared for one last hurrah before he blacked out.

But that silent blackness never reached him.

Instead, a streaking light streamed in front of him, blocking the hit right before it could reach him.

"BASTARD!" Arthur shouted as his lightning-clad fist struck Victor.