82. Forty-Three Hours Left

Forty-Three Hours Left

Putting one point into Strength filled every muscle in my body with more power. It felt like a surge of adrenaline, or a powerful performance enhancer.

My body tightened, changing even as the additional strength took hold.

The second point doubled the effect. My palms widened by the tiniest amount, my fingers lengthened, and my arms grew thicker.

The changes were not obvious, but I had already reached the upper limit of the body size I preferred, and I had no idea how strong I would need to become.

The third point brought me closer to winning my contest with the immense weight above me, but even after Grandma Lin poured the last of her repair magic into the problem, I was still slowly losing.

Grandma Lin might not look impressive, but when her magic was in full effect, a third of the pressure came off my shoulders.

I acted quickly, before my body’s changeable state had time to stabilize. I spent the remaining points on Agility and Spirit, and the outward changes began to reverse.

The muscles swollen by Strength compressed back to their previous size, increasing in density both physically and metaphysically, maintaining a relative balance between superhuman power and flexibility.

Bone and ligament shifted with them, then softer tissues followed.

I was fairly sure I now weighed twice as much as a human of the same build, and any doctor who examined my internal structure carefully would probably have a heart attack. Which would be inconvenient for everyone, especially the doctor.

My muscles remained as flexible as ever, even more flexible in some ways, but when acted upon by outside force, they responded as if they were harder than steel.

It was similar to the hardening effect of non-Newtonian fluids. How much of it came from physics and how much depended on magic was anyone’s guess, because apparently reality had decided to become a group project.

I did not feel different. In fact, after a few subtle adjustments to my skin, hair, and facial features, I felt better than ever.

The arms and hands bracing the ceiling above me no longer looked like those of a retouched supermodel.

They were so symmetrical and perfect that no cosmetic specialist or photographer could have given the most beautiful person on Earth the same effect.

The ceiling shuddered again in an aftershock, but held.

I drained my stamina reserves and used Nearby Object Manipulation to enchant the ceiling into holding itself up.

Then I slid several meters along the crack, added a second Nearby Object Manipulation effect, and then a third.

Only after I was certain it could support itself did I let go and drop into the wrecked dining hall.

“What?” I asked, realizing almost everyone was staring at me.

About half the soldiers whose weapons I had enhanced were also gaping.

“Dear, you looked like an angel while holding up a collapsing building,” Grandma Lin told me with a wise nod.

“And everyone else currently looks like…” She gestured at the dust-covered, sweating, bruised, and occasionally bleeding people around us. “…this. Meanwhile, your hair is perfect, and you are wearing a rather… small towel.”

“Right. That wasn’t intentional,” I muttered, flushing bright red while also being pleased by the compliment.

“Can we go kill whoever ruined our morning break now?”

“I fucking hate those bastards,” Chi Li growled, and her words crackled with fire. “Could they not have waited a few more hours before summoning their new thing?”

Looking up at the distant, two-thousand-meter-tall tower wreathed in lightning, and remembering my interrupted bath, I immediately approved of her mood.

Judging by the dust clouds rising across the city, roughly half the buildings still standing had just collapsed.

Even the most stubborn among us would have to give up on rebuilding here.

We spent hours rescuing everyone and everything we could from the destroyed base. At least I had my Super Suit back on, which meant I no longer attracted open-mouthed stares the way iron filings rush toward a magnet.

Low on the horizon, the disk of the sun was barely visible behind thick curtains of rain, while dark clouds poured water down with the intensity of a sustained downpour.

The tunnels that had not collapsed quickly filled with mud and rainwater, while many teams like ours did everything possible to cope with yet another disaster.

By the time Grandma Lin and I finally failed to keep headquarters from becoming a sinkhole, only three people among the gathered crowd seemed completely untouched.

Raindrops became steam before reaching Chi Li, and the mud beneath her boots baked dry.

I simply blocked every annoying thing with a force field.

As for Lia, the little brat ghosted through everything, quite literally, and did not even sink into puddles.

Not for the first time, I wondered whether she was really there at all, rather than one of her illusions.

“How long is this rain supposed to last?” I asked no one in particular, frowning up at the sky again.

“Indefinitely,” Lia answered, tucking a lock of black hair behind one ear.

If she had only been a little girl, the gesture would have been cute.

Then I processed what she had said and turned to stare at her.

“What?” Because that sounded deeply wrong. “I mean the rain. How long is it going to—”

“I already told you. Indefinitely.” She closed one eye, bit her lip in concentration, and held up the thumb, middle finger, and index finger of her right hand at right angles, measuring something only she could see.

“And not just nearby. It extends two thousand one hundred sixty-two and one quarter kilometers in every direction.”

“That’s… all the way to the sea?!”

“Wait, if it stretches that far, how can we still see the sun?”

“Lens effect,” she muttered, a smug little smile forming. “Oh, Mort, you truly are a complete bastard.”

“I thought that was obvious, given that he’s responsible for all the monsters attacking us,” I said, but nobody paid much attention.

Even after everything we had been through to survive, all of us were a little stunned.

A week ago, who among us would have imagined an effect covering that kind of distance?

It had to be that half-kilometer eyesore boosting the man somehow, because I refused to believe he was that powerful without it. If he were, he would have erased us long ago.

“Hmm… where is all that water coming from?”

“That is what you are worried about, girl?” Zhao Linshou asked, one thick gray eyebrow rising in disbelief. “Not the giant tower of metal and lightning?”

“The giant tower of metal and lightning won’t kill most of the people in this country, so…”

And considering the energy it was releasing, the local climate damage—

“You are very wrong, and it is not funny,” Lia interrupted. Her brief flash of humor had vanished. “That damned thing has to be destroyed as soon as possible, before it kills everyone.”

“Everyone in the country?” The little brat did not answer, which was exactly as reassuring as a skull-shaped warning label. “No, never mind. Either way, we have to knock it down. How long do we have?”

“Forty-nine hours from the moment it appeared. Forty-three remain.”

The news had already been passed to the rest of our group. I could tell from their reactions that everyone knew.

There was doubt, panic, determination, but most of all resignation and relief.

If Lia was right, and by now everyone knew she always was, then this was the enemy’s final move. His last card.

Either we defeated him before tomorrow night, or he would win and… somehow kill us all.

We still did not know the details.

Then again, the important part had been covered.

Most of the important part, anyway.