FA Chapter 16 Supercharged

Bosingwa directed his senses inside his own body, scrutinising each and every cell. That was the miracle of spiritual energy. Anything that it touched was effectively within your sphere of awareness. And for some reason, the brain wasn't overloaded with the sensory data of over a billion cells and whatnot. He still found it miraculous how such a power could exist.

Larssen... The man had suggested a way that would give them a chance of winning. Had he thought it through though? There was a certain risk that came with trying out new stuff... And treating your body as the experimental subject could be one ticket to hell. But what other choice was there?

Vaguely, Bosingwa felt the energy within his cells. It was there, being released within reasonable doses, allowing his body to function. Larssen had made a suggestion to wring out most of it, to empower the cells into a supercharged state. 

He simultaneously activated all his cells, ordering them to spill forth their energy reserves, causing his body to warm up to the point that steam floated out of the pores on the surface of his skin, enshrouding him within.

Apart from the high temperature, Bosingwa felt as of he had been injected with an overdose of adrenaline. He pondered whether this euphoria was how Bora and Luna felt upon activating this state. But this strength was fleeting. It was draining away with such speed that this state would only last for a scant few seconds.

1 Second...

Bosingwa's eyes tracked his earlier opponent, who had now joined up with another to better handle Flame. The woman was a literal beast of combat. It was like she had been raised for war, with superior healing and a powerful body that didn't lose out to any of the assailants! She was also ferocious, like fighting a rabid dog or bull. Though, her traits made her a great opponent. Too bad, he was still green, or else he would have loved to tussle with the beastly woman. For now, he would lose miserably in a fight to the death without this supercharged state. That was how dangerous Flame was. She was a machine built for battle... A berserker!

Their clashes were fast and furious. Flame was just like her name, explosive and vibrantly burning with intensity. But their speeds had slowed down within his supercharged gaze. It was like gazing at a trio of ants moving, wondering to yourself whether you should take that step and crush them, or simply watch. Was this how Gods felt... If they truly existed? 

Bosingwa hurriedly banished such thoughts from his mind. He had almost thought himself to be a god. That was a very wrong train of thought! 

With a mighty stomp on the ground, he propelled himself towards the trio, his speed akin to a flash of lightning.

Within just a fraction of a second, he appeared, his hand directly punching out no complicated techniques involved. His fist didn't even face any resistance at all as it sunk within the man's chest, crashing all opposition into mush and exploding out of him, destroying even the spinal column in the process.

Bosingwa's facial expression contorted into something ugly the moment his fist sunk into flesh. He had thought that there would be resistance of some sort. He had underestimated his newly gained power...and overestimated the resilience of his opponent! There had been zero resistance! As if he had been punching a cake!

And now, the man had just died to a single punch, eyes widened in disbelief at the fact that a mere newly awakened human had killed him. There has also been incredulity and surprise, emotions only manifested when something incomprehensible happened right in front of you.

Disgust welled within Bosingwa, threatening to bring him down onto his knees, spewing out the contents of his stomach. The scene was just that visceral. Bosingwa had never imagined himself killing a person before. Even in this battle, he hadn't thought for even a moment, that he would be the one to deliver death onto these people. He had been too weak to bring about such an outcome, which had made his mind complacent in thinking about how his mentality would hold upon the realisation of that action. 

All of these thoughts and turmoil happened within the flicker of a second, where some of the man's bits, from blood to bone and flesh, were still in midair, moving towards wherever the force of his fist was pushing them.

The state of overcharge now seemed like a mental prison that housed beasts threatening on tearing his mind apart.

Flame and the other assailant, a man, were moving so damn slow, it was like watching a pair of snails. Ultimately, this wasn't the time to get caught up in these thoughts. Bosingwa forcefully pushed them to the side, moving onto the next opponent after pulling his red coated hand out of the dead man's chest. 

A momentary frown illuminated his features before his arm vibrated, shaking itself off the bindings of blood that had been clinging to it.

2 seconds...

The sound of shattering bone entered his ears as he snapped the neck of the other man, before moving onto the next quarry. Now, he had become the hunter. There was a grimace on his face though. He had just learned that the act of killing wasn't easy. Maybe those veterans who had gone beyond ending ten lives found it easy...?! He wondered.

Faces filled with incredulity and horror entered his eyes. The assailants felt as if they had just fallen into an icy cave because of him. If he had been some sort of crazy lunatic, he might have revelled in those expressions, but no, he was a normal human. Besides, with this newfound power, he really wanted to challenge the strong! Those in the liquid stage. Slaughtering the weak was something only those crazies would do.

'Larssen...' 

As the name came up within his mind, his gaze shifted towards the man, who had just taken care of two others, and was looking back at him with an indecipherable expression.

3 seconds...

The sound of a pig being ushered into a slaughter house sounded through the neural link, almost scrambling his brain. The source had been Drekov. The man had just woken up, or pretended to. After all, who would love to wake in the middle of a battle where your chances of dying were close to 100%?

There was this urge to ignore the sound, but it seemed like Drekov's mind had reacted since his body couldn't, broadcasting the fatal danger the man had found himself entangled with. One of the remaining assailants had just set his eyes on the man, with just a few insignificant meters separating them. And this was only because everyone below liquid was significantly slower.

Bosingwa took a step, with the ground shrinking beneath his feet as if distance was nonexistent. A sense of marvel threatened to make its way into his brain only for the beginnings of pain to eat away at it. There was a reason only liquid stage Forgers could get away with activating this supercharged state.

He appeared right where he needed to be, this time using his leg instead of his hands. Having blood on them might trigger his repressed vomiting episode, so the legs had become the sacrificial pawns. After all, they weren't in his immediate conscious sight.

But that might have been a mistake. Bora had once said that showing mercy to your enemies was a cruelty to yourself, so he hadn't held back at all in his attack.

His gaze transformed from shock to bewilderment... Then cycled through a myriad of other expressions in just an instant. He had never expected his kick to simply bisect the man into two at the waist, cutting through flesh and bone as if they were air!

'Shit!'

Bosingwa inwardly cursed as his body prematurely exited the supercharged state because of his emotional fluctuations.

His heart sped up as he beheld his handiwork, comprised of bone, flesh and blood. His lungs heaved as air struggled to enter them from outside. His vision grew hazy even as his body entered a catatonic state. 

The rational part of his mind tried to dismiss these reactions as mere trivialities, since this was his way of life now, but it didn't work. He had just ended two lives. Living and breathing humans had just lost their lives to him...gruesomely! There was absolutely no way his mind was getting away scot free. Even trying to convince himself that they had been aiming for his life in the first place failed to stop his panic attack.

"Hey! Are you okay?! Your eyes are bleeding!"

The shout entered his ears, alerting him to the consequences of using a power not meant for the gaseous stage. But Bosingwa wasn't in the right mind to pay any attention to that.

He had just taken the lives of two healthy humans. They had been enemies. They had been aiming for his life... Yet those reasons weren't enough to curb the turmoil raging within his mind.

"How sad that even I am going to have to die. But its better than my Jess dying... right?"

Bosingwa would have cursed the man for uttering such strange words if he had been capable of moving his lips. He could feel it vividly, the failing of his body, the death of multiple cells and the weakening of his limbs. His face planted itself upon the floor when his limbs failed.

"These imbeciles just had to lose. Everything would have been better if they had succeeded! Then I wouldn't have had to lose my life here! I really want to live! I don't want to leave her in this world alone!"

Bosingwa, even in his powerless state started to feel a feeling of dread encroaching upon him. Drekov's weirdness was starting to creep him out. Faintly, he could feel the sound of battle through his muted hearing. There was no one else nearby to listen to Drekov's mutterings except him.

[Drekov is acting weird!]

After that message, his eyes, though having blurred his vision with the flowing blood still managed to see Drekov digging something out of the left pocket of his coat.

Bosingwa considered himself a learned man, having gained a massive amount of knowledge from school and the web itself. So, with but a glance, he managed to identify what Drekov was holding in the palm of his hand.

The man was kneeling just in front of him, as if he wanted someone to at least have a chance of bearing witness to whatever he was about to do.

The item in his palm was a silver coin, a physical unit of currency that had been prevalent during the earlier stages of human civilisation lasting until the early 25th century. It was one of those once used in this state when it had once been a country. It was a 200 shilling coin with a fish for heads and a Coat of Arms for tails.

The silvery shine of the coin increased in intensity, blinding him even as a curse went out into the neural network.