Retsu was used to his various areas where you could see that his body was not alive. His perpetually torn cheek, his left wrist, and also his fingertips, but there was something still human in him that wanted to protect his organs. He held his hand to his chest and fought through the pain as he activated essence absorption to heal the gash. When he did, his body reverted to his human state as well.
[Essence absorption time remaining 30 min uses remaining 0/3]
"Shit." He didn't mean to cancel his full transformation. He went to reactivate it, but it was too late. Essence absorption was any use of Rori's powers and he had just wasted all of it showing off instead of for necessary things. He would have still had 30 min. "Shit!" He growled.
Bob smiled as he circled back, spitting out Retsu's flesh on the ground with disgust. "What's wrong? You can't change back? I was pretty nervous, thinking that at the diner you were this monster, but it seems like this is gonna be easy."
Charlie and the lackeys chuckled and drank some beer as they sat watching on the step.
Then he came running back and attacked Retsu over and over again, tearing him apart with his teeth.
The loss of HP hurt. Retsu could see his stats going down with each hit [300/350]
[280/350]
[240/350]
Assault after assault as Bob lashed at him with his claws and tore flesh from him from all sides.
Rori sat on the edge of her seat, worry in her face, "come on Alpha, you can do it!" She yelled. "Ah!" The alpha aura hit her and she bowed down with the pressure.
Retsu got angry that they were silencing her, but he couldn't do anything. He couldn't believe that he wasn't strong enough to stand up anymore and the fight had only just begun.
Bob bore his sharp teeth in a sinister playful smile as another piece of Retsu's flesh tore free. Retsu had begun to look like a skeleton with his clothing draping around him like tattered rags, only it was his flesh, and not fabric. Blood pooled around him. Eventually, he lay still. His raspy breath hitched as Bob once again came in for an attack.
-40hp
Bob mocked Rori as the alpha aura made her bow to him, "you call this an alpha?!"
Tears were flowing down her cheeks. "Get up!" She tried to say but the aura didn't let her.
Get up! Get up! Get up!
Bob turned his body around to make another circle around him, tearing the bone of his forearm free. He didn't understand why this mangy undead creature wouldn't die.
Retsu had 1hp point left in him and no stamina.
"Get up!" Rori whispered finally. Retsu had very good hearing so he could have heard a pin drop louder than Rori's plea, but still the sound reached him. How?
Retsu got a green fire in his eyes and slowly, he began to lift himself to his feet. 1 HP point was still not zero.
Bob's eyes went wide.
"What in the?…." Retsu whipped his body around and out of his foot came a huge arch of flames, which whipped across the dry grass and burned Bob just as his back was to him.
[system is loading… HP has dropped below 5, initiating Mana conversion. Mana has now been re-converted to HP]
"Gaaaaahhhhh!!!" A roar escaped Bob's mouth as he arched his back to get away from the flames, his hands writhing in pain.
-200hp
the impact of all of Retsu's strength hitting him full force started the chain reaction which would be another volley of attacks, but this time it was coming from Retsu.
+200 hp
[congratulations, mana conversion has been activated. This emergency skill has a bounce back effect for 60 seconds. All pain inflicted on opponent will be considered a gain for user]
Bob's expression turned to shock because so far Retsu hadn't hit him, and now he came up with so much power just as he neared death!
Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! The flames came at him in waves one after another, preventing him from coming close.
As each flame hit him, he lost 200hp.
-200 hp
-200 hp
-200 hp
-200 hp
Rori put her arms in the air in triumph as her Alpha was somehow chipping away at the Revenant without even letting him close to him.
After the 10th hit, the two of them had switched places. Retsu had reached 2000 and Bob had 5 HP points left.
Bob lay on the ground, his skin melted and charred, the anger in his eyes had turned to fear. He braced himself for impact, expecting that this last hit would finally kill him when the lackey's stood up and blocked the flames.
They both screamed in pain.
-500 hp
-500 hp
+500
+500
Both of them lost half of their HP in one hit of the flames because they were only human. Retsu felt the power of their HP transferring to him. He hadn't expected them to jump in like that, Retsu doubted they could even survive burns like that, but his victory was short lived.
A wave of aura washed over Rori making her cough up blood and fall to the ground. Charlie grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off of the ground.
"Alright Remmy, let's just calm down a little bit and give my friends a break." Charlie said, pronouncing Retsu's name wrong on purpose. "I think we know it's obvious that you've won, wouldn't you agree? So there's no need to kill them. Release another flame and your daughter gets hurt."
Retsu hesitated for a minute. Bob was down to 5hp, so how was his aura still so strong?
"Get your lackeys to fall back, my fight isn't with them, and it's not with you and Rori either. This is a fight to see who is Alpha, it's cheating to get others involved."
"Is that so?" Charlie asked. "Well in that case, I must apologize, we've been going at it entirely the wrong way!"
With a flick of his finger, the two lackeys abandoned Bob for dead and retreated back to Charlie.
"Well go on then." Charlie said to Retsu.
Retsu didn't understand what he was up to. Also it began to dawn on him that Bob couldn't be the one making the aura subduing Rori right now.
Retsu closed his eyes and exhaled. When he inhaled, he smelled the air around him. His werewolf senses activating an ability he didn't know he had. Maybe it wasn't in the system, but an ability that his wolf had, but he could swear he felt the ripples of the aura coming from Charlie instead of Bob.
The smell confirmed it. This was Charlie's territory, and not Bob's. He had come attacking the wrong person the whole time.
Bob's eyes went dark. Retsu hadn't even needed to touch him for him to finish dying.
[congratulations! You have obtained 2000 hp and defeated the Revenant, you have been awarded an automatic level up…]
Then Charlie was suddenly on top of him before he could even read the rest of his system notifications. He closed his eyes as Charlie's enormous fist slammed his head into the ground, throwing rocks and debris upon impact.