7. The Black Hand Does Not Take the Taunt

The Black Hand Does Not Take the Taunt

The vague black silhouette had glowing blue eyes, yet did not exist inside my Force Sense.

To my hearing, it was a region of absolute silence, as if it devoured every nearby sound.

It moved in a way that was deeply wrong. Less like a living creature than a true shadow, flickering from place to place as the light that cast it shifted. Every step, every attack, every motion felt as though cold claws of fear were trying to pierce my flesh.

These Ringwraith-looking things were seriously creepy.

I tried to taunt it, but the words vanished. Even my voice was swallowed by the thing’s presence.

For half a street around us, the fog condensed into water and was pressed down toward the ground by some invisible force. Every time I tried to fly, that same force pinned my feet in place.

I blinked cold sweat out of my eyes.

In that brief instant, the shadow had crossed the distance between us. One arm was already swinging.

I blocked on instinct. From elbow to wrist, my arm went numb, then erupted in pain. Its touch felt as though it were trying to tear my arm apart.

Then the arm passed through my guard without resistance and sank into my diaphragm.

The sensation there was both freezing and excruciating, like an industrial waterjet cutting steel at just above the freezing point.

My body refused to suffer anything deeper than skin-level bruising, but the sudden cold and numbness still slowed me by a fraction. The moment I understood the danger, I punched the monster as fast as I could.

The instant we made contact, a bone-deep chill bit into my fingers. But Near-Object Manipulation erupted at once, throwing the shadow backward as if it had been struck by artillery.

Then I lifted a nearby trash can and hurled it at the figure.

The trash can passed straight through it and did absolutely nothing.

In retaliation, the shadow raised an arm. Green flame burned in its clawed palm. At first the fire was only the size of an egg. The dancing emerald flame seemed to drink in every scrap of light around us. Within a second or two, it swelled to the size of a beach ball.

I threw several chunks of sidewalk at it, trying to interrupt… whatever it was doing.

Just like the trash can, they had no effect.

The unnatural fire shot toward me like a missile.

I ran.

With Near-Object Manipulation, I accelerated between each step. I pushed too hard and nearly lost my balance, but the unnatural force pinning me to the ground had vanished.

The green sphere was terrifyingly fast. It closed the gap in an instant. Once I took off, it gained on me only a little more slowly.

I kept my guard up for lightning. If I were hunting myself, I would absolutely hit me with lightning while I was trying to dodge another attack. So I stayed at street level and turned at least twice every second.

As it turned out, the fireball could not turn as sharply as I could.

It slammed into an empty, half-burned apartment building and detonated with tremendous force.

Its explosion was not like a grenade. It was not like a movie car bomb. It was not even like the lightning being hurled at me from somewhere downtown.

Walls and support columns were torn apart. Chunks of debris the size of my body were flung several blocks away. The entire building collapsed.

It was the sort of blast that might have punched a main battle tank full of holes. I had grown much stronger over the past week, but I was not yet strong enough to withstand that.

Yellow-green tongues of fire licked at my boots, charring the material of my suit and burning my skin. I landed two streets away and checked the damage.

My arms trembled. My teeth chattered. There were no obvious wounds, but the numbness and cold lingered.

It was moments like this that made me wonder why my status panel did not include the health indicators common to computer games. Those would be extremely useful right now.

Name: Ye Rin
Profile: Female human, 17 years, 3 months, and 8 days old

Abilities [0 points available, 31 total]
Strength Modulation lv3
Force Sense lv2
Forced Acceleration lv2
Constant Strength lv2
Progressive Regeneration lv3
Near-Object Manipulation lv3
Super Suit lv1

Attributes [0 points available, 31 total]
Strength 18, Agility 10, Intelligence 3, Perception 5, Spirit 10, Luck 2

It did not even have a progress bar. That left me guessing how close I was to my next upgrade based only on the vague accumulation of power inside my body.

I would bet Cheng Rui’s system had countless trackers like that.

Digital Existence lv1:
You gain numerical representations of HP, stamina, mental energy, and progress. These numbers accurately reflect reality.

Mental Analysis lv1:
You perfectly perceive your own HP, stamina, mental energy, and progress. Your brain interprets these perceptions as numbers.

Had the ability list changed enough that it could now offer suggestions without my digging through it? Or was it just reacting to casual thoughts?

Either way, this was not the time to think about what power to develop next.

Behind me, the air shifted faintly. A tiny shimmer appeared from a sudden change in temperature. I dodged wildly at once.

Claws that seemed made of darkness sliced through the place where my head had been, and the freezing draft of their passage brushed my cheeks and hair.

Ha. Missed me.

I tried to tell the shadow that seemed to have risen out of the ground, but once again, my words were stolen.

Not being able to taunt an enemy was annoying. Throw the same shadow creature at ninety percent of comic or anime characters, and they might give up from sheer frustration.

I took a more constructive approach to relieving that irritation and punched it.

Not coincidentally, the shadow had already begun gathering another mass of emerald flame in its palm.

Unlike every projectile I had tried to interrupt the process with before, Near-Object Manipulation worked very well.

The moment my fist touched its arm, I pushed.

The arm—and the unfinished spell inside its torso—were hurled away together.

The resulting explosion swallowed us both in green fire.

I ended up buried nearly a meter beneath the sidewalk. Cracks radiated from the point of impact. Green sparks danced across my front, but aside from some pain in my ears and mouth, I did not feel much else.

Strength Modulation level three could now act directly on my suit. That greatly reduced the force of the explosion and impact, while the suit absorbed the rest.

Which gave me an idea.

I stood up, shook loose concrete and shattered stone from myself, wiped the blood running from my nose, and smiled.

The shadow had been blown apart. Its upper body was slowly drawing the fragments back together and recombining them.

And that oppressive silence flickered on and off like a radio with bad reception.

“Not so impressive now, are you?” I taunted.

The thing actually heard me. Its malformed head turned to face me.

I did not know whether it understood the words. It did not matter. The fact that I could make sound at all was already signal enough. And if it did not understand, well, a smug smile was universal.

It vanished in an instant and reappeared in front of me, fist driving straight toward my heart.

I saw it coming and made a reckless bet.

I did not dodge.

When the clawed hand touched my chest, it was stopped cold.

Like Strength Modulation, Near-Object Manipulation could act on anything I was touching, including my suit. It could also create any complex effect I could easily imagine. Holding the suit motionless against an incoming strike was well within its abilities.

The two powers together were stronger than the shadow.

The shadow’s main trick seemed to be passing through physical matter.

But powers were not ordinary matter.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I growled.

Then, with my strength amplified by Near-Object Manipulation, I kicked the shadow between the legs.