Archie rushed the dual dagger-wielding human, sending a jab at their face, which they barely blocked by raising the flat side of their left dagger, the blow pushing them back a few inches and snapping them out of their panic.

  Decades of training were coming back to kick in at full force as her Branding Seal started to sear her neck in response to her dread.

  The being snapped forward, thrusting their right dagger upwards toward Archie’s outstretched arm. Archie reacted instantly by moving his right arm away from the dagger’s trajectory, his left arm already in motion to give the glowing red human a liver shot.

  What Archie didn’t take into account was that the first strike his opponent made was a feint to parry his left arm.

  She’d been shaken up by her target’s sudden charge in the beginning and by his strength. It had far surpassed any sort of E-Grade warrior she’d faced, even the other D-Grade members of her cohort.

  She would need to push herself to the limit.

  Archie’s left arm skidded across the flat length of the angled dagger, shifting Archie’s fist’s trajectory mere millimeters away from his opponent’s side. Who then followed through by thrusting their dagger towards Archie’s unprotected, slightly deformed neck as it was still repairing from the extensive damage Primal Roar

  It would be quite a while before he could use the skill again, especially so considering the damage it caused him, taking 10% of his overall health as it activated.

  Who knew shredding your throat and repairing it more than twenty times before it turned to a fleshy mush was bad for your health?

  The thorns, from Thornscourge Expansion

  Which is why, as the dagger neared Archie’s throat, vines from his side surged with nature mana, making them explode forward and wrap around his attacker’s left cybernetic arm and yanking their arm downward, away from his neck.

  The attacker’s eyes widened slightly as the vines wrapped around his wrist and forearm. She hadn’t expected the flame-wreathed vines to be able to extend off the target, but she continued with her motion.

  The Shadowsteel dagger stabbed the Steel Chestpiece of Protection, chipping a piece of steel off the right pectoral. However, Archie’s attacker wasn’t finished just yet. She activated a skill she had honed for years - one she had been praised for by her teacher, the lead Hound. It was her strongest ability, her one and only Rare-rank skill: Rend

  She’d gained in less than six moons ago and since then, she’d been over the moon, churning out mission after mission. She’d even been told just prior to this mission that she would become the leading Hound’s fifth disciple.

  She wasn’t going to die here, not to this freak.

  The dagger pressed against Archie’s Steel Chestpiece of Protection suddenly turned midnight black across the blade of the dagger before it bypassed his armor entirely and stabbed into his right lung.

  This would have made any normal E-Grade at Archie’s level panic and falter, as if they moved, the dagger would release the floodgates of blood into their lungs, which would, in turn, make them suffocate. And if they didn’t move, the assassin would have sliced off their neck.

  But Archie was too high on his own adrenaline to even consider these options.

  A wide smile was displayed on his face, his eyes alight with joy as his right foot, the one he’d kept back, thrust forward with all his might, Spartan kicking his attacker.

  Blood sprayed from her mouth, splattering across the faceless metal mask that concealed her features. The force of the blow rippled through her cybernetic weave, sending jagged cracks spiderwebbing across her torso, with the spiked imprint of Archie’s boot at the center. She was hurled backward, flying six meters through the air, only to come to an abrupt, jarring stop that snapped her head backwards.

  The vines that were wrapped around her arm that had shredded through her left cybernetic arm and melted the flesh on her inner forearm and elbow, became taut. And just as fast as she was launched away, she was shot back toward Archie, who greeted her just as he greeted every creature he’d fought who managed to get a good hit in.

  With a full-powered punch straight to their face.

  Retaliation

  His fist shattered through his attacker’s Deepiron filtration mask and crunched deep into her face, spraying blood into the air and across Archie’s smiling face as well as shattering the dark mana cloak she had wrapped around herself, a veil that let her merge with the night and become nearly invisible to all.

  At least it should have.

  But that meant little to Archie as he’d been fighting both of his attackers with Vital Sight

  Normally, that would mean that he wouldn’t have been able to see his attacker’s weapons as they were made of metal, but that was far from the case. Cybernetics were connected to their body via their neural ports, and once connected, their vital energy flowed through their cybernetic limbs as well as their weapons.

  So, their cloaking did nothing to hinder his vision whatsoever; if anything, it only helped him, as their mana was being drained for a useless purpose.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Archie watched as teeth, blood, and fragments of bone sprayed through the air, still carrying traces of her vital energy. She crashed into the ground with a sickening impact before skidding to a halt.

  Instead of charging her right away, Archie focused on funneling the vital energy to focus more on his pierced lungs instead of his semi-still, shredded throat as it was being held stable by the thornless, flameless vines around it. As well as repairing the inch and a half long cut that pierced through his chestpiece like butter.

  His eyes never left his attacker’s downed form as he had yet to receive a notification of their death.

  As the wound knitted itself back and the blood that had seeped into his lungs vanished, Archie then started to approach his attacker, who covered her face with her right hand, keeping what remained in place.

  Tears ran down what remained of her face, and she stared at her smiling attacker with dread.

  She shakily backtracked as her left arm went behind her back and into her pouch, rummaging for something to use.

  Her fingers wrapped around a potion, and a smidgen of hope welled up in her heart before it died as quickly as it came; her target wouldn’t give her the time to drink a potion.

  As she continued to rummage through her pouch, her hands eventually wrapped around a syringe-like vial, where she hesitated for a moment before her Branding Seal seared across her neck, almost bringing her to the floor from the added pain.

  , she cried before she whipped out her arm from her pouch and stabbed the syringed vial into her side, where its viscous orange contents entered her bloodstream.

  She’d received this reward from the lead Hound himself after she’d gotten her Rend

  But it came at a cost, her sanity would be spliced and fried until the drug was completely flushed out of her system. There was another side effect from the serum, but the lead Hound said she was strong enough to withstand it.

  According to the lead Hound, she’d either have to drain every drop of blood in her body that was contaminated by it or find a powerful enough healer to expunge the drug from her body.

  Archie witnessed his attacker’s vital energy suddenly change from its usual glowing red to a vibrant, murky orange. He wasn’t even sure how that color made sense, but it was there, right in front of him.

  In addition to the color of her vital energy changing, neon black lines grew across her body and atop the cybernetics she’d equipped. Her shattered and fragmented jaw snapped back into place as dense, thick veins pulsed across her forehead and disappeared under her sand-colored cloak that covered her form.

  Archie was not one to see an obvious boss power up in front of him. He charged forward, activating Savage Charge

  Earthen Grasp

  Archie crashed into their body with all of his force, but unlike the first time, his attacker didn’t budge; rather, they smashed their cybernetic fist into his right cheek with such force that it sent him tumbling through the sand in shock.

  Archie quickly rolled to the side, dodging a… Archie thought to himself in disbelief as he rolled into a crouch and launched himself at his attacker’s back as his jaw popped back into place and his loosened teeth snapped back into his gums courtesy of Vital Metabolism

  But just as he neared his attacker, her body twisted faster than what Archie could see and struck him with her cybernetic right foot across his stomach, sending him skidding across the sand with a faint, small footprint across his Steel Chestpiece of Protection.

  Archie wondered in astonishment.

   You’re not some stupid comic book character who can’t put two and two together.

  Archie kicked away from where he tumbled into, dodging another superhero landing attack from his attacker, but unlike before, the shape of their vital energy outline grew in size.

  Archie thought to himself, bewildered by what he was seeing.

  While he wasn’t short by global standards at 5’10”, he still stood an inch and a half shorter than his younger brother - something Henry never let him forget. And as an older brother, having a younger sibling who was taller was an injustice that needed to be changed.

  to 50% , Archie thought as he manipulated it to lessen by about 50%. This allowed him to still see the glowing hue and vital energy from his surroundings, but also let him see things somewhat like normal.

  Upon his vision somewhat returning to normal Archie’s first thought was when he saw his opponent were,

  What previously used to be a 5’4” woman wearing a sand colored cloak that covered her entire frame with perfectly sized cybernetics and pixie cut sandy hair was now something entirely different.

  In front of him was an 8’2” gargantuan, red-skinned creature, covered in muscle with bulging veins, and a red-skinned bald head, with strands of sandy hair. Her cloak was ripped to shreds, revealing leather spandex that clung to her skin, showing far too much in Archie’s opinion. Clinging to her gargantuan limbs were undersized cybernetics, disturbingly reminiscent of sausage casings stretched too tight.

  [Human ???]

  Archie shouted to himself, ducking just in time as his monstrous attacker missed him. Now out of her vision, he quickly thought of a plan, requiring him to take out his three remaining Rot Spreading Spheres and hold them in his right hand that he kept hidden behind him before he charged at his now monstrous-looking attacker. !

  Archie shot forward, crashing against his attacker’s back, twice the size of his own, before surging nature mana into the flame-wreathed thorny vines that covered his body to explode forward and envelope as much of his attacker’s body as possible before activating chainsaw mode.

  Archie’s eardrums rang as the monstrous human let out an agonizing guttural scream as thousands of molten-hot thorns shredded through her flesh. Desperation flickered in her movements as she hurled herself backward, intending to crush him beneath her massive frame - anything to break his concentration and cancel his skill.

  Archie felt his ribs crack from the enormous weight that landed atop him. Archie thought in shock with a choked gasp.

  Archie's hands, still crossed around her throat, struggled to raise his right fist, the one with the three Rot Spreading Spheres close enough to her mouth as her mouth kept lunging forward, trying to bite his hand off as she arched herself off the ground.

  Slamming down on the sand once more, back first, the monstrous human smashed her head backwards, managing to clip the corner of Archie’s temple with enough strength for him to hear:

  Crack!

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