Curse Energy flowed through my limbs, flooding me with overwhelming strength. I threw my perception sphere upward and enhanced it with Overdrive. My fist came together, and the second I heard Ade reach the third floor, all of the ice rattled—shattering into razor-sharp spikes and converging on his location.
The air exploded. The ceiling shattered. I spun, barely in time, dodging a vicious diagonal slash that split the wall behind me. Scrambling back, I reversed my energy flow and flicked my finger, unleashing a disruptive wave of positive energy that shredded through the entire floor. It broke vital structural pillars, made the building groan and lean forward with a resounding crack, and blew out the far wall—exposing us to the Manhattan air.
Ade had cleaved through the wave with ease, one hand lazily wrapped around Curse Piercer, a small smile blooming on his face. He'd come ready for war, with an ancient, gnarled bow brimming with Cursed Energy strapped to his back. A quiver full of arrows hung from his waist.
"Ice manipulation," Ade hummed, his voice vibrating. "Artisan was right to assume you were holding back. I wanted to push you harder—"
"And you would've found nothing," I cut him off, my voice sharp. "The Ice manipulation is something I plucked from the body of one of your most promising students."
Ade's face hardened, and an arrow came screaming at my face. It ripped through the air like it had been shot from a ballista.
I blurred—moving faster than I ever had—flaring Overdrive, Muscle Control, and Bone Manipulation. The air shattered as I twisted, dropping to one knee and flicking my hand. A bone knife leapt from it, flying straight at his crotch.
Ade batted it away with his bow and continued to fire. I opened my inventory, tanking a penta-shot he pulled with zero warning. Pillars collapsed around us from the shockwaves. The floor gave way beneath us, and we dropped to the ground floor.
There air split with a loud crack—and suddenly, Curse Piercer was swinging at my neck.
I panicked for a split second, nearly paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of his speed. I knew Ade would be better, but not this much better.
My stats might have failed me, but my techniques hadn't. I opened an exit portal—a nebulous disk of warped space—leading to the same location Ade had fired his five arrows into.
He angled his blade down mid-cut and pulled off a flourish that I barely tracked. His stats had to be in the high thousands if I could barely keep up. That bullshit serum must've pushed them even higher. This was going to be a hard fight—made even harder by the limitations I'd agreed to.
Above me, I heard the rest of the League enter the fight. Batman, M'gann, and Canary were moving on Alex's family, beating back the Metas, while Superboy extracted the rapidly fading ones. Wonder Woman was probably still chasing down the runner. While I trusted her, I had to hedge my bets.
A straight fight was suicide against someone this much faster than me. I needed to fight smarter, not harder—and get Curse Piercer out of the equation.
"Better," Ade remarked. "But let's see if you can keep up."
The ground powdered beneath his foot as he accelerated. A simple Domain spilled out of me as a bone katana and sheath materialized in my hands. Pulling the blade free in an explosion of Curse Energy, Bone Manipulation, and Body Control, I barely managed a parry in time—batting away his strike at the cost of most of my blade.
Ade twisted, looping around for a horizontal cut. I leaned back to dodge it, lashing out with a kick.
He caught my leg, lifted me high, and slammed me into the ground. I flared Inverse at the last second and covered my body with an armor of Ice just before impact, absorbing a significant portion of the force.
It still shattered the building's foundation, sending the entire structure leaning dangerously into the street. Ade swung seconds later, just as I switched from Earth Manipulation to Shrine.
The blade took my arm—but the swing left him open. An Overdrive-powered slice caught him across the chest, blooming with blood and sending him stumbling back in surprise. A dozen bone spikes shot from my chest, aimed straight at him.
He cut through them with a lazy swipe, which proved to be his mistake. I used the contact to grab Curse Piercer, sending it to my inventory, and severed the bone spikes at their base, detaching them from my body.
I rose with a victorious smirk—and caught a blisteringly fast punch to the jaw.
It shattered my Inverse and sent me through the far wall, tearing through several cars. I arrested my momentum mid-flight, manipulating bone and muscle, but a car still slammed into my bloodied body. I stopped it by briefly reactivating Inverse and dropping it.
The passengers screamed. Five months ago, I would've done the same when I saw my reflection in the windshield. My jaw was gone. One eye bulged from its socket. The rest of me was layered in contusions, muscle tears, and embedded shards of metal and glass from the cars I'd smashed through.
The occupants had died immediately.
The people in the car I just stopped— a father and his two daughters—screamed. I leveraged my adaptations, pulling myself together with near-encyclopedic biological knowledge paired with RCT. I was whole again in seconds. The father and his kids spilled out of the car and ran.
Three more accidents happened in that span. Ten people died.
I stopped the eleventh by instinct—sending a wave of Ice to cocoon a child about to be run over by a truck. Gently, I lowered myself to the ground, taking in the destruction for a brief moment.
It was hell, because I couldn't help but listen.
People were screaming. Pointing. Some recognized me. An off-duty cop and his partner circled an abandoned car, hands tight on their weapons.
I looked at them and said one word.
"Don't."
And all courage drained from them instantly.
Ade emerged from the collapsing apartment building with a swagger, his bow raised again. A black mask covered his face now.
"After all that death in Canada," he said, "I thought you'd finally overcome it. Your sick need to play hero. Your bloody crusade is just as destructive as ours. You ache to punish those who stole your life from you, and we want our species to evolve even if we have to shed blood."
I sneered. "And here I thought you were the honest one. Drinking your own Kool-Aid, Ade. I'm not sure if I'm surprised or disappointed."
I spread my hands. The skin of my forearms peeled back, revealing bone. The bones ejected themselves and were replaced by new ones grown in under a second. I caught the old bones, twisting and shaping it into short swords.
"Your talents are wasted on you, boy," Ade said. "It will be a pleasure to strip you of them."
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