As night fell Theoric gave a mirthless smile while thinking, 'This bastard literally crushed my men under his feet like ants and he thinks I'll give him a good fight, where did such a strong troll even come from.'

Clenching his sword tighter in his right hand as he felt anger at his enemy and himself for being unable to fight him, this wasn't about who's more skilled or who's the better fighter, this was about strength, strength which he did not have.

Ulik not noticing his nervousness stalked to his intended prey hoping for a good bout.

Theoric seeing him closing in gritted his teeth hard enough for his gums to bleed, raising his sword he grasped it with both hands and let out a battle roar to get rid of his nerves as he charged Ulik intending to at least injure him if nothing else.

Ulik gave an ugly grin as he lept over to engage him.

Theoric rolled under him sending a slash behind which managed to scrape Ulik who gave an irritated grunt in response.

Turning back towards each other Ulik sent a heavy-handed punch towards him which he dodged jumping back slashing out at the arm hoping to wound him, but only managing to connect with the metal knuckles that made his sword groan in protest from the immense pressure of connecting with his fist.

The momentum from the clash still managed to send him flying a few feet away even though he managed to dodge far enough that most of the power behind the punch was reduced.

He got up quick enough checking his sword to make sure it was still in one piece, letting out a sigh, whether it was because of relief that his sword was whole or of bitterness that he still had to continue fighting this beast, no one knew.

Ulik gave a snort- "Is that all you can do?" feeling discontented with him

Theoric didn't bother to answer as he scowled in response, he was going to make this bastard scream in pain even if it was the last thing he ever does.

Ulik smirked- "Did that make you angry? Good, show me what you can do little gardian."

Theoric had to be careful though, one wrong step and he would be flattened like a bug.

He swung his sword low aiming for his oversized legs, Ulik responded by coming closer trying to punch him in the face with his left fist, Theoric dodged under continuing his swing giving Ulik another shallow cut.

Ulik growing angry shouted- "Stay still worm!"

Theoric ignoring his shout stepped in immediately after thrusting his blade at Ulik who reached out to grab it.

Stuck in his hand, Theoric tried to pull it out to no avail which received a laugh from Ulik, "Hahaha, to think I saved you for last, you're just like the rest, nothing but a bug." He then proceeded to punch out at the side of the sword breaking it in half.

Theoric didn't wait around for him to gloat about it as he took this chance to rush in with the half of the sword he still had that was still very sharp and pointy from the break.

Ulik caught off guard suddenly felt immense pain in his left side as Theoric thrust it in towards his heart, but his body was so thick, with only part of the sword left, it came up short.

Ulik let out a painful howl as he backhanded Theoric as hard as he could to get him away, sending him soaring through a few trees before rolling hard along the ground.

Pulling out the sword he started to huff loudly in agony as his wound poured blood made worse by the fact it was so close to his heart.

The Trolls in the surroundings were shocked as they started to make noises.

Ulik hearing them angrily shouted- "Shutup you weaklings, this is nothing, if I hear any of you speak about this, I'll squash you into a meat patty." Sending a deathly silence through the Trolls who knew as long as he lived they would have to fear him.

Exhaling in pain as he put a hand to his wound and check that it was healing properly, the blood already slowing, he angrily hollered at the direction Theoric was sent- "I'll make you suffer for that you stupid gardian, you'll wish you were never born."

Super jumping over he found Theoric readying himself with his mostly broken body.

Ulik enraged and uncaring ran up to him grabbing his head and slamming it down into the ground causing a crater to form, by some unholy miracle Theoric was still conscious as his skull split and blood started to pool under him.

He was unrecognizable as his face was completed smash flat and broken, few teeth left in his mouth as a pathetic moan of pain escaped.

Ulik unsatisfied clenched his fists and unleashed his fury upon his broken body, effectively beating him to death, he gave him one final foot stomp increasing the size of the crater before rubbing his foot into him.

Ulik growled- "Dare hurt me and this is how you end up." he said mostly for the Trolls in the area to realize what would happen should they try and spread around what happened when they get back.

Seeing his job done he jumped out and lead the Trolls home.

Surprisingly Theoric's body held together through the beating though his bones were now dust and innards were made of mush now and most of his blood was outside his body.

Under Ulik's fury, it was a miracle his body wasn't disintegrated completely, this was important because the Acanti's soul was just arriving seeking out a host for its knowledge and power in the hopes of changing its races destiny.

The soul was desperate at this point, on the verge of dissipating into nothingness it didn't have a lot of time to choose one, but it needed a dead vessel so it had more of a chance to influence the intended target.

In its search, it found the only dead Asgardians around at the time, Theoric and his men, but a great many of them were turned into meat paste and while there were whole ones, they were deemed too weak.

Out of all of them, Theoric was the best choice, but the soul hesitated when it found the state of his body to be one of the worst. It didn't factor in the difficulty in finding a good enough dead Asgardian when it made the rash decision to head to Asgard.

Left with no other options as it felt its soul decaying at a faster rate, it hopped into Theoric's body decisively with intent to fix the body and heal the soul by merging with it.