61. The Giant Axe Fails to Cut

The Giant Axe Fails to Cut

Name: Ye LinProfile: Female human, 17 years, 3 months, 13 days old

Abilities [1 available / 57 total]Temporal Jump lv1Enhanced Regeneration lv4Force Adjustment lv3Force Sense lv2Forcefield Creation lv2Forced Acceleration lv3Constant Force lv2Instant Action lv2Persistent Force lv2Defensive Counter lv1Proximal Manipulation lv3Super Suit lv1Spatial Distortion lv1Spatial Jump lv1

Attributes [1 available / 57 total]Strength 28, Agility 14, Intelligence 6, Perception 9, Spirit 14, Luck 2

The ghosts had given me only one increase in power, not enough to make any major change.

It was enough, however, for a small attribute boost and one new skill.

Now that I had seen how he fought, I was certain of my choice.

First, one point into Strength. The extra stamina and durability might matter against an enemy who could keep hurting me over time.

My body grew slightly taller, and almost imperceptibly more solid.

I also confirmed that adding two points of Strength for every point of Agility and Spirit was the critical ratio that kept me from turning into a grotesquely overmuscled monster like my old man.

As for the skill…

He had just finished telling me that tricks were a waste, and throughout this entire fight, he had shown a preference for only two weapons.

Why not give his narrow-mindedness the reward it deserved?

Focused Invulnerability lv1:Once per minute, choose one target and one specific action. Ignore the effects produced by that target performing that action.

“…I will ask you one last time. Are you willing to abandon this doomed cause and reach your full potential?”

“Do you realize how stupid you sound?” I taunted him from a safe distance, using the time to regenerate until I was fully healthy again.

“Seriously, are you a Saturday-morning cartoon supervillain? Does this so-called potential make people stupider, or have you always been this insane and I just never noticed?”

Almost certainly the latter.

For years, I had either been too afraid of him or too angry at him to think clearly. My improved Spirit made that easier to handle now.

“It seems I was too soft on you.”

In the blink of an eye, he shifted from mad recruitment speech to violent punishment mode. The haft of that enormous axe swung toward my head.

That had always been his response to any backtalk, so I was ready.

The instant he committed fully to the swing, I used Temporal Jump to blink behind him and kicked him in his now extraordinarily oversized backside.

It did not injure his body.

It injured his dignity and self-control.

He whirled around faster than ever, his huge face flushed red, his even larger axe tearing through the sound barrier.

But I had expected that too, and prepared for it.

This time I blinked away a little faster than before.

I jumped behind him again and hammered kicks and punches into his lower ribs, but he did not move.

Instead of turning again, he drove the axe haft backward into my face and forced me away.

The dizziness and the black eye that would have turned into a brutal bruise on an ordinary person vanished in a wave of regeneration.

I flew back in, determined to keep the pressure on.

The axe twisted sharply.

I teleported inside his reach, too close for him to use it properly, and hit him with an uppercut empowered by Proximal Manipulation and Force Adjustment at full output.

The blow struck his jaw with the force of a tank cannon. It would have knocked even me flat for several seconds.

He took one step back, then came swinging again.

The axe struck my still-extended arm below the shoulder, sliced easily through my suit, and smashed me down with tremendous force.

The impact hurt.

The kick that followed hurt worse, launching me through the new sales kiosk that had been built just before the invasion began.

The next instant, I was already in close again, kicking the bastard between the legs.

He grunted.

So he did feel it.

Then he chopped at my ribs with the axe…

Or at least he…