The moment the words pass my lips, I can feel power surge through me; it’s not the desperate fury I felt when fighting the boar though, this is something more pure.

Oh fuck yeah, I’m on that shonen bullshit.

Pain melts away and the world slows to a crawl as my perception of time is stretched; a helpful little timer pops up in the corner of my vision making it very clear that this isn’t a permanent state of affairs, but then I suppose I didn’t expect it to be.

Three minutes? Let's do this.

Even with my sense of pain almost entirely gone, I can’t help but wince as I twist my leg back into position. I didn’t notice it at first but I effectively just broke free of those shackles of light effortlessly; that surprises me, but I think it surprises Cernunnos a bit more. 

The deer dick stops his villain monologue to give the stereotypical shocked exclamation.

“What?!”

I’m not about to give him time to figure out what’s happening. Whatever I’m juicing on makes it effortless to pull off a back flip and grab my axe from the scorched ground where it landed. I want to do something for Amy and Addie’s daughter, but honestly the best I can probably manage is keeping this dick’s attention.

“Alright dickweed, round 2!”

Pumping my legs across the ground, I feel the air scream around me as I tear through it at inhuman speeds; pushing off the ground in a jump, I manage to meet the asshole’s gaze at eye height.

Of course I follow that up with an explosive kick with Arcane Backfire, but it's a bit stronger than I’m expecting. The pair of us are launched apart by a concussive shock wave that sends me skipping across the ground and...

CRACK

“SHIT!”

CRACK

“FUCK!”

CRACK

“ASS!”

CRACK

“BITCH!”

...through several tree trunks and at one point a boulder; I managed to slow my backwards motion by digging my ankles and the head of my axe into the ground, but I swear I dug three furrows half a kilometer long in doing so.

Laying in a heap at the end of a trail of carnage, I see several trees finish falling to the ground with thunderous crashes.

Of course my fucking helmet gets knocked off before I launch myself like a human cannon ball… I don’t have time to be bitching though.

Thankfully, I’m barely scuffed— a Physical Defense score of over 3k counts for something I guess.

I hop up like its nothing and run at full tilt, arriving back at the scene of the battle in a literal fraction of a second to find that Cernunnos is still on the ground in a daze; the front of his face is scorched clean of fur and the point of impact is visible as a charred black hole in his flesh that reveals the bone underneath.

Of course I take this all in during the frantic few seconds I spend skidding across the ground leaving a flaming trail like a certain time traveling DeLorean just before the echoing sound of a sonic boom catches up with me.

Holy shit, a sonic boom.

I just ran at least mach 1, how are my insides not jelly?

Actually, no time for that.

The situation wasn’t what I was expecting, with the primary threat down on the ground, the swarm of hornets tearing shit up is now priority one.

Okay, so I can run faster than some fighter jets, lets see just how high I can jump at full force.

Cernunnos the [Stag Lord] can hardly believe the events transpiring before his eyes; the human who moments ago was a broken shell leapt up and delivered an explosive flying kick that left his jaw broken and threw him to the ground— more than half of his teeth scattered far afield by the impact.

She should’ve been reduced to pulp by the force of her own attack, and for a moment he assumed she’d simply been vaporized until she returned to the scene at an impossible speed.

Watching her consider the swarm of [Devourer Hornets] in the sky, an emotion that the [Crystal Stag] has not experienced in some time now rears its head; it's been so long he almost doesn’t recognize it.

She crouches, winding up for a jump and her form disappears into the darkening sky, lost in the shroud of stars before a nova of light highlights her shape against the backdrop of night.

Kicking off the air with an immense explosion she soars with impossible velocity, piercing a row of [Devourer Hornets] like a lance of death before repeating the same slingshot tactic; aiming herself like a living cruise missile she launches through the hornets in messy bursts of yellowish insectoid gore.

Fear, the emotion is fear.

Screaming through the air like a fighter jet I make a game of knocking one hornet after the other out of the air. I’m surprised I can still hear with the explosive force I’m using to fire myself around like a cannonball.

The trajectories just come to me and the amount of force in each blast is refined every time I launch, the temporary increase to my attributes has me feeling like some kind of genius.

As much fun as I’m having, I know this isn’t something that can last forever. Power like this has to have a limit and it's definitely going to have a cost. Last time I juiced up like this I lost a hand, and I’ve already lost the rest of that arm.

We’ll shelve that thought for now and take out as many of these hornets as possible, that ass said they’d shred anything if they’re off their leash; speaking of the deer dick, he’s starting to stand up again.

I would’ve thought a broken jaw as a clear enough message, but there he is taking aim at me.

The beam fires off in slow motion, I know it’s just because of my stretched perspective of time, but it looks like it’s crawling through molasses.

As I am, my understanding of things is almost instinctual, but with an Intellect score of 2507 I suppose I should expect this much at least. I could dodge, but I have more options to consider and so consider I do.

My ability Lesser Elemental Resistance acts as a sort of buffer against all varieties of elemental damage, light included, by surrounding me in a protective sheath of energy that acts as a buffer; Greater Blast Resistance is similar in function but it’s tuned towards concussive force.

I don’t quite understand how I understand what I understand but it seems I can… yes.

New channels of power streak through me, exquisite latticeworks of higher dimensional shapes that I couldn’t conceive of outside of this state bend and warp linking together like a puzzle in my mind before The System catches up.

Yes.

With that in place, the incoming attack doesn’t even register as a hazard to my danger sensing abilities.

Oh my god, I’ve always wanted to do this.

When the beam finally reaches me, I casually slap it out of the air; a crackling sheath of energy surrounds my hand as I bounce the ray of concentrated light down to the ground where it explodes in a fabulous display.

Immediately after, I land with an earth shattering boom, brush the imaginary dust from my shoulder and look him in the eye.

“Pathetic.”

Oh my god that feels good, I sort of see why he puts on the anime villain act, but that’s enough messing around, the timer is running out.

I’ve wiped most of the sky clean of the pests and now only the primary pain in my ass is left.

Kicking off the ground I bolt forward and leave behind another sonic boom, each footfall accompanied by an explosive discharge of mana to project me at greater speeds towards the subject of my deepest hatred.

He fires off innumerable rays of searing light in a desperate bid to halt my approach as I speed towards him and my acceleration is slowed but by no means stopped, each bolt of energy careening off in a random direction as it ricochets off my defenses.

His panic is palpable as I lift off the ground in a leap and land on his head and it only grows when he hears what I have to say.

“I am going to hurt you… I am going to pay you back for all the shit you’ve put me through with interest.”

“W-wha-”

My fist punctures his cornea as I reach into his left eye socket, scrambling the jellied contents like an egg; the entire time he thrashes around, twisting and bucking trying to dislodge me from my perch.

Before he can knock me free, I decide to do the work for him and set off an arcane backfire in his orbital socket that makes his already punished eye explode in a messy burst of ocular fluids.

He’s not even using words anymore, just more screaming tinged with confusion, anger, and fear.

Good.

Blown free by my assault I land on my feet, right next to my now cooled axe; thankfully the implement is still in good condition. Despite my effective immunity to his assaults that asshole stag now one eyed continues trying to burn me to a crisp with his magic.

“Why won’t you die!? Why is this happening to me? WHY?”

“To answer your first question… apparently I’m just real fucking hard to kill.”

“As for why it’s happening… well I can’t say I’ve ever been an extremely vengeful person, but I’ve been learning a lot about myself recently; you took my eye, my arm, and my peace of mind. you hurt the first friend I’ve made since landing in this batshit crazy world and straight up fucking tortured her daughter.”

“I’m not gonna lie, that put a real damper on my mood.”

It's amazing that he stayed still this entire time, but I suppose I should be glad. Maybe it’s a bit flashy but I’ve always wanted to do the whole run by with a weapon and have an enemy’s arms fall off.

Unfortunately it doesn’t happen that cleanly. My attack is more of a mangling crushing affair as I dash by with the axe outstretched; flesh and bone explode away from the points of impact and liberated from two of his legs the dickhead stag falls screaming like the most obnoxious timber in the world.

My enemy has been reduced to a twitching heap of meat, groaning faintly; the job is almost done. Without much time left, I figure it’s time I wrap it up; scaling mount asshole on foot I have the ideal finisher in mind. 

Getting a grip on the antler is the hardest part, but when I finally manage to find a handhold I pull just about as hard as I can; deer back on earth would shed their antlers yearly but somehow I feel like its a bit early for this giant bastard if his screaming is any indication.

With a crack it comes loose and I leap into the sky with my newly chosen weapon in hand, as I reach the apex of my jump I aim the jagged crystalline spire downward and kick off with another blast that hastens the inevitable impact.

He doesn’t even have a chance to cry out again as I pin him to the ground with his own antler, the points puncturing his flesh innumerable times like the spear of Cú Chulainn.

"FUCK YEAH! We did it Addie!"

My celebration is a little short lived as dizziness and pain overtake me and I collapse into a heap, my mangled leg giving out beneath me without the support of my original inhuman durability.

"Son of a whore... that fucking hurts."

I don’t pass out this time, but I’ve got to be honest, I sort of wish I could; pain is back with a vengeance and I’m now acutely aware of the fact that I should not have been walking with my leg in this state, much less running or launching myself through the sky like a fucking cruise missile.

“What is that? Like four years… and what the fuck! It ate... 95% of my experience!?”

For a moment, I feel a little angry… and then I look around the battlefield and see exactly how much shit I tore up— the smoking craters I left in my wake and the heaps of smoking insect viscera piled up in the immediate vicinity.

“Okay, never mind, that’s fair.”

After coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be an unstoppable killing machine at will, the more pressing matter of my physical condition comes to mind; my right arm is gone and my left eye is straight fucked.

“Goddamn it… and now I gotta sit through another fucking level-up sequence.”

"Condensed... So you are listening, huh? Shit there's a whole lot to unpack here... but that can wait until after medical treatment."

The worker bees emerge from the depths of the hive, offering triage in the form of potions or in my case an air lift to see the queen for more expert care.

We won.

The fact of the matter however is that… the battle was an utter mess. 

We won in the sense of ‘killing the enemy’ but this was a real Pyrrhic victory if I’d ever seen one— the superstructure of the hive was largely destroyed and there were questions about its long term stability.

In fact, there were questions about the long term stability of the immediate area; the immense flowers that Addie and her hive depended on were nearly eradicated by that bastard’s overzealous attacks and… in part from my own explosive ass-pull of a win.

Addie survived, as did her daughter and Amy. The quick application of potions and more experienced triage did their job and I was informed that after a few molts the damage would be unnoticeable if not gone entirely.

If only I were so lucky, I’m down to one arm and one eye, but at least I’m still breathing. It was an awkward conversation explaining that I can’t molt and I wouldn’t know how to even go about it, but it did give me an excuse to laugh after that nightmare.

That weird green armor of mine seems to repair itself, apparently its a bit like a living thing in its own right and as long as it gets sunshine and water it’ll handle patching itself up and even tailoring itself to fit me.

Gotta take the good news where you can get it and having self repairing clothing that will always fit is pretty high on that scale as far as my books are concerned.

The new magic bag I received as a quest reward has... frankly mind boggling capacity. We managed to fit the entire carcass from the stag in there and it only took up like half of its storage space; suffice to say I'll be having venison for dinner for a long while now and enjoying every bite.

The other good news is that pretty much all the rest of my equipment survived too— I was worried about the axe but it’s made of some kind of super-metal alloy or something, and thankfully the wrist blade is reversible… picking it off of my severed arm however was not a great feeling.

With the outrageous battle largely ended, Addie’s forces cleaned up or drove off the rest of the devourer hornets and we set to picking up the pieces, and boy were there a whole lot of pieces.

Everything was broken, shit was straight fucked, but in a way it was all okay.

I survived another day.

Roxyreads

Soooo... better late than never huh? It took me a while to get back to this, I've had a rough few weeks financially and health wise again but writing this story always makes me feel better. Amber's doing... well, alright technically speaking. Down an arm sure, but she's nearly doubled in level and came out on top.

Don't expect any more super-powered ass pulls for a while, fate is a fickle thing and she's played most of her aces.

For now, how about we take a peek at her updated stats?

Spoiler

Status
Bio		Status Effects
[Name] - Amber 'Goddamn' Wilson [Age] - 27 [Race] - Human [Gender] - Female [Level] - 235 (235) [Allegiance] - Mercenary		[Lesser Blessing of Ikenia] [Well Rested] [Blossom-leather Set Bonus]
Bio Menu - [Expand]		Status Effect Menu - [Expand]
Classes		Titles
Primary Class: [Guerilla Fighter] Lvl 63 [51789/160157] Subclass 1: [Wildheart Berserker] Lvl 39 [36238/38043] Subclass 2: [Heart-thief Assassin] Lvl 38 [33744/35195] Subclass 3: [None] Secondary Class: [Combat Alchemist] Lvl 53 [26665/95388] Subclass 1: [Mad Bomber] Lvl 42 [22192/47501] Subclass 2: [None]		[Fearless Explorer] [Firebug] [Quick Study] [Army of One] [Last Hope] [Child of Strange Fortune] [Hard Headed] [Unconventional Thinker] [Tenacious Underdog] [Shrewd Negotiator] [Showoff] [Undying] [Final Defender] [Titan Slayer] [One Who Scorns Princes] [Cruel Tactician] [Accomplished Sleeper] [Irrepressible] [No Kings, No Masters] [Fearless Heart] [Human Cannonball] [Sky Dancer] [Hive Friend] [Beast Lord Slayer] [Limit Breaker] [Unbreakable] [Vengeful] [Match for 10,000] [Able Commander] [Scion of Terror] [Combeback Kid] [Sharp Intellect] [Mental Fortress] [Observant Senses] [Agile Body]
Class Menu - [Expand] (Class Points: 27)		Title Menu - [Expand]
Attributes
Resources
Health	Stamina	Mana
5710/5710	4845/4845	3807/3807
+755/Day (+31.4 /Hour)	+62.1 /Minute (+1 /Second)	+53.1/ Minute (+0.8 /Second)
Primary Attributes
Constitution: 71	Dexterity: 222	Intellect: 269
Wisdom: 153	Might: 238	Charisma: 72
Vitality: 92	Fortitude: 157	Spirit: 27
Secondary Attributes
Agility: 465	Awareness: 264	Willpower: 121
Endurance: 68	Faith: 33	Luck: 97
Phys Def: 395	Mag Def: 166	Mt Def: 509
Attribute Menu - [Expand] (Attribute Points: 561)
Skills		Perks
Class Skills	Equipped Skills	[Critical Focus] [Swift Mending] [Wild Empathy] [Will To Live]
[Aerial Manuevering] Lvl 1 [Alchemical Analysis] Lvl 3 [Alchemical Extraction] Lvl 1 [Awesome Leap] Lvl 1 [Axe] Lvl 3 [Basic Compounding] Lvl 3 [Blind Toss] Lvl 3 [Camouflage] Lvl 1 [Climbing] Lvl 3 [Crossbow] Lvl 3 [Dagger] Lvl 5 [Deflect] Lvl 2 [Disease Resistance] Lvl 3 [Disguise] Lvl 1 [Dismantling] Lvl 3 [Dynamic Planning] Lvl 4 [Evasive Maneuvering] Lvl 6 [Expeditious Brewing] Lvl 1 [Explosives Handling] Lvl 4 [Field Medicine] Lvl 3 [Formulaic Analysis] Lvl 1 [Herbalism] Lvl 3 [Improvised Weapon Construction] Lvl 1 [Intimidation] Lvl 1 [Iron Gut] Lvl 3 [Iron Lungs] Lvl 3 [Lesser Endurance] Lvl 4 [Mortar] Lvl 1 [Multitasking] Lvl 3 [Munitions Packing] Lvl 1 [Pain Resistance] Lvl 6 [Parkour] Lvl 2 [Parry] Lvl 3 [Perfect Portioning] Lvl 1 [Poison Handling] Lvl 1 [Poison Resistance] Lvl 3 [Potion Brewing] Lvl 2 [Potion Infusion] Lvl 3 [Potion Refinement] Lvl 2 [Potion Sling] Lvl 1 [Rapid Calculation] Lvl 1 [Shadow Manipulation] Lvl 1 [Simple Martial Arts] Lvl 2 [Spear] Lvl 1 [Sprinting] Lvl 4 [Stealth] Lvl 2 [Swimming] Lvl 3 [Torture] Lvl 1 [Torture Resistance] Lvl 1 [Tracking] Lvl 1	[Mental Resilience] Lvl 5 [Carving] Lvl 2 [Cooking] Lvl 4 [Foraging] Lvl 4 [Primitive Crafting] Lvl 4 [Woodcutting] Lvl 2 [Crude Martial Art: Fist of Detonation] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty]
Skill Menu - [Expand] (Skill Points: 241)		Perk Menu - [Expand] (Perk Points: 78)
Abilities		Achievements
Class Abilities	Equipped Abilities	[Survive] [Thirst For Knowledge]
[Aerosolize] [Air Step] [Area Awareness] [Berserker Fury] [Blast Compression] [Bloody Reverie] [Channel Totem] [Cheap Shot] [Combat Premonition] [Defuse] [Directional Blast] [Disengage] [Dragonsbreath Dispersal] [Early Warning] [Earthbreaker] [En Passant] [Expel Toxins] [Falling Lance] [Greater Blast Resistance] [Heart Snatch] [Hellfire Shelling] [Identify Physical Weakness] [Identify Vitals] [Increase Blast Radius] [Leg Sweep] [Lesser Elemental Resistance] [Overcharge Compound] [Point Blank Annihilation] [Prime/Detonate] [Quick Stab] [Rallying Cry] [Rapid Engagement] [Remote Detonation] [Scarlet Slash] [Sense Danger] [Shadowblend] [Shadowleap] [Sheer Adrenaline] [Size Up] [Sunder Blade] [Tactical Map] [Threat Detection] [Wild Howl]	[Transcend Limits] [Penultimate Light Resistance] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty] [Empty]
Ability Menu - [Expand] (Ability Points: 149)		Achievement Menu - Expand
Equipment Menu - [Expand]	Inventory Menu - [Expand]	Quest Log - [Expand]

[collapse]

Got some spicy stuff coming up soon! Hope you stick with me through the rough times and ideally... I'll see you on Friday or Saturday of this week with at least a side chapter!