I had taken a bit of a detour, but I was back in the game with a Level 11 status, and two new abilities I could use.
I rushed into the next room, into the chaos of people running around while trying to avoid each other. There were six people here.
I heard Pretty Boy’s voice before I saw him—shouting desperate commands to someone else. Muscles ran into view a moment later–it had to be him. The two were still collaborating.
“I’ve got two triangle pieces!” Pretty Boy yelled.
“Understood! I’ll get the other!” “Muscles replied before grabbing one of the participants by the head and flinging them away.
This square room was weird. Three exits were blocked by thick iron bars, and only the path behind me remained open. There was a central torch burning brightly. Ahh, no, I wasn’t going to wonder about this. I ran straight for Pretty Boy.
And then, Pretty Boy turned. He saw me. He stopped breathing. Eyes wide. Pupils dilated. That split-second where you know the devil’s here for you, and he’s got the whole night planned out.
“You,” he muttered, like I was everything that had gone wrong in his life.
“I’m coming,” I yelled.
“Why are you still in the round!?” he fired back, aiming a torch at me.
“Because your head’s still intact!” I roared, pointing the torch at him.
We let our torch magic loose at the same time. A fireball left mine, while the ice that burst from his torch howled. The spell twisted into the shape of a lunging wolf, its body a swirling mix of sleet and frozen wind, jaws wide and fangs jagged like broken icicles.
The spells collided midair.
The impact sent a shockwave across the room—flames and frost exploding outward in a tangled, writhing blast. The wolf’s form warped, scattering cold mist and sharp snowflakes everywhere. My fireball exploded and was swallowed by the mist. The heat and chill meeting birthed a thick magical fog, swirling with embers and glittering frost.
I didn’t stop moving.
I punched through the fog like it was Pretty Boy’s face. And on the other side was that idiot, mouth hanging open, barely thinking.
“Better put your guard up!” I yelled.
He swung first. Right hook, gloves gleaming with those metal studs. I ducked under it, felt the air ripple past my hair, and slammed a knee into his stomach. He grunted but didn’t fall—he had moved with the blow.
“You got a weapon?” I yelled, hoping to get a rise out of him.
His left hand lashed out, backhanding me across the face. Those studs caught the edge of my cheekbone with a crack, sending sparks and pain dancing through my skull for a moment. I fell backward onto my hands, and then sprang forward like a possessed spring, nailing him in the gut with my feet.
He grunted and roared, grabbing me by the ankles. I threw my extinguished torch at his face before he could toss me. The torch hit his nose with a satisfying bonk.
I fell onto New Arm, as he stumbled backward. I twisted enough to pull muscles and sprang toward him again, running my metal shoulder into his gut.
He elbowed me in the back of the head, and I launched an uppercut into his chin in return, forcing his eyes to roll into the back of his head.
Senses back in gear, I gripped his shoulders. When his senses returned from the regen, and I could see myself reflected in his eyes, I headbutted him.
He yelped like a kicked pig, stumbling back, eyes watering. Blood dripped from his nose. I saw the light return to his eyes when his nose cracked back into place.
“You sure have a lot of regen,” I said, eyes narrowing on him.
He spat and glared. “And you seem to never know when to stop.”
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
I held up a finger. “There’s one thing I respect about you.”
“What’s that?”
“You really kept your cool with me,” I said, dropping my knees. “Let’s go–[Water Glaive: Riptide Arrival].”
The new ability activated.
My body melted into a rushing streak of water, barely a silhouette, arcing through the air like a live wire flung across a storm. The world stretched into watery blurs around me, sound warped, the floor far below. For a second, it was like I had slipped into a shadow dimension.
I was carried forward, as according to my intention. When I reformed, I was right behind him, as if I had always been there. That was my new skill–
***
[Water Glaive: Riptide Arrival]
- Uses: 3/day.
Must be used within 5 meters of a chosen target. - Turns the user into a high-speed trail of water, surging across the air to arrive within a glaive’s reach of a chosen target.
- Must be used while targeting a viable enemy.
- Trajectory and final angle are influenced by user’s intent.
- Trajectory will attempt to preserve "style."
***
Pretty Boy noticed me and looked over his shoulder, eyes wide. I grinned like a bastard and swung at him. The air around him shifted in that split-second moment.
Got him.
Golden winds erupted. The world boomed.
Divine Smite! declared the announcer as Pretty Boy went flying into a wall.
I chased after him, running past a stunned participant.
“A Divine Smite? Again?” the poor soul whimpered, falling onto his knees behind me.
It filled me with immense glee. All these people didn’t know–they didn’t know the secret of the Smite!
I reached Pretty Boy as he turned onto his back, body supported by the wall behind him. His wounds healed, but the blood was still on his face.
“How?” he whimpered.
I fished a mushroom from my pack and smashed it. Before Pretty Boy could react, I punched him once, hard enough to dislocate his jaw. His pained groan echoed.
“You have no idea how lucky you got today,” I said as I shoved the shroom into his mouth.
Without a single shred of remorse, I closed his mouth shut for him as his panicked yells rumbled from his throat.
The mushroom went off.
A wet pop echoed, followed by the WHOOOOMPH of expanding volatile spores. A fat cloud of bioluminescent smoke and plasma exploded outward from his head, escaping through his eyes, nostrils, and mouth before just tearing through his skin.
The explosion engulfed both of our heads and my hands. It smelled like home in the most terrible way. Fuzzy heat seared my skin, and the cloud glittered with little green flecks that fizzled on contact, like some kind of dying firefly.
“Gah—!” I stumbled back, wheezing, eyes tearing up instantly. My health dropped a solid 12 points, after my regen fixed everything.
“Holy shit, Raster! You’re just walking around with this stuff?!” I muttered, coughing and flapping my hand through the smoke.
I didn’t want to think about how I would look without the regen. I’d basically detonated a mycelium grenade point-blank after all.
I looked over to my enemy.
His entire upper body slumped and then crashed to the ground.
The smoke clung to his face like some cursed mask.
And then a groan escaped him.
I stood over him, studying the smoke. If someone were at 1 HP and they suffered that bomb, what would happen? As far as I could tell, HP limited the regen's potency. A bomb that could take out 12 HP? Scary proposition.
He coughed one more time.
I could barely see his jaw, twisted awkwardly, and one eye just… gone, obscured by a dense patch of glowing fuzz. His hands twitched once.
“Guess that’s the limit,” I said. “Hey, I did that when you still had regen left. These bastards won’t let you die.”
Then his body cracked into motes of light and vanished. Truth was, I made a bet. After seeing the control these people had on our wounds and HP, I was willing to bet that they would fix him up with the transference.
HP still had a lot of gray zones that I hadn’t yet confirmed, but at least I knew 100% that these people had more control than we might expect. And if he didn’t recover? Well, that would be a great lesson for me.
I stood there for a second, catching my breath. “That was… really worthwhile,” I said, watching the last of the spores drift up into the torchlight.
Then I turned.
Muscles stood twenty feet away, hands still raised from the spell he hadn’t gotten to cast. He blinked at me. Then looked at the torch in his hand. Then back at me. Then at the flickering spores hanging in the air.
There was a full beat of silence. Everything had happened so quickly. My fight with Pretty Boy was done in a minute after all. Everyone needed a moment to understand what my brand was.
“...Fuck this,” he said, voice flat.
And without waiting another second, the man turned into mist—just whoosh—and slipped through the bars like a shy fart. I didn’t stop him. Bastard was so fast it was unfair.
I picked up the two coin-sized triangle pieces that Pretty Boy left behind and looked at the remaining participants.
“I’ve got a theory I need to test.”