The two sides stood frozen, ready to collide. But the leaders weren't looking at each other; their eyes were fixed on the backline.
The Support.
Then, the two leaders locked eyes. Remedy watched the swordsman, who was coiled like a spring, waiting for the slightest opening. Remedy twitched his fingers. Instantly, the opponent's blade flared with mana, slicing the air and sending a wave of energy toward him. Remedy bolted to the left in a wide arc. The swordsman followed his movement, firing consecutive mana blades while naturally positioning himself in front of his tank.
Remedy kept running—ducking, pivoting, weaving through the energy waves that sheared through the trees behind him like paper. The moment he saw the tank momentarily obstructed behind the swordsman, he flipped the switch from defense to offense. He lunged straight at the swordsman, ghosting through the rain of mana blades.
His eyes flickered toward the archer, who was drawing small throwing knives. He whipped his chains in a cross-pattern, intercepting the mana blades in a shower of sparks. As he spun, letting a blade hiss beneath him, he caught several loose chain links between his fingers. The archer let fly three daggers. The tank peeled off from behind the swordsman to intercept, but Remedy was already ahead. He flung the loose links at the archer. Simultaneously, the mid-air daggers froze, hovering near Remedy.
[20% MANA CONSUMED. MANIFESTATION OF THE LAW OF FEATHER-WEIGHT ON THE KNIVES.]
[LAW BOUND TO GRAVITY. TO THE UNIVERSE, THE KNIVES NOW WEIGH AS MUCH AS A FEATHER.]
The archer blocked the links while the tank prepared his Skill. Remedy snatched one of the weightless daggers and flicked it at the tank, forcing a block. In that heartbeat of distraction, Remedy leaped, hurling the remaining two daggers at the healer in the back.
The archer and the tank both recoiled, rushing back to protect their support, thinking Remedy had feinted them.
Trap.
By the time they realized their mistake, they had abandoned their leader. Remedy closed the distance with the swordsman instantly, stepping deep into his guard, his chest seemingly exposed. The swordsman didn't hesitate—he thrust his blade straight for Remedy's heart.
Trap.
Remedy swiveled his torso as the blade grazed him. His right fist whistled upward toward the swordsman's jaw, forcing his eyes to track the blow.
Trap.
The punch never landed. Before the swordsman could react, Remedy's left hand slapped the flat of the blade, redirecting it downward until it buried itself in the snow.
Disarmed and panicked, the swordsman tried to leap back to regroup.
Too late.
He never left the ground. Remedy had already struck the inside of both his knees, buckling them outward and killing his momentum. The swordsman's face was a mask of pure shock; he was dancing to a rhythm he didn't understand.
Remedy's eyes were darting violently in their sockets, processing the entire battlefield: the two companions were already rushing back to the rescue. Remedy's left fist surged toward the swordsman's face. The boy threw up both hands to block.
Trap.
A right hook exploded into his ribs. Driven by human reflex, his hands dropped to cover the pain.
Trap.
The right hook hadn't finished. Remedy held the impact just long enough to clear the hands, then his fist continued its trajectory, smashing into the swordsman's nose. Blood sprayed. The boy's hands flew back to his face.
Trap.
Remedy gripped the end of his chain and whipped it across the boy's flank, ending the sequence with the Vibrating Blade law.
[ATTACK CANCELED.]
The opponent felt nothing. Suddenly, the world seemed to accelerate for a fraction of a second.
No.
Remedy was the one who was slow. The enemy healer had debuffed him. The tank was already there, slamming into Remedy with a shoulder charge that sent him reeling. The swordsman seized the moment to reclaim his blade. The tank's body glowed with Aggro, dragging Remedy's focus away just as the leader swung a lethal horizontal strike at Remedy's neck.
The cracks on the sphere above the leader's head spread.
Serene's Debuff.
The swordsman, however, was not slowed down. He had forgotten himself for a micro-second. Meanwhile, Remedy shattered the Aggro, and with a backhand strike from his chain-wrapped forearm, he parried the sword upward and lunged. The swordsman flinched, expecting another punch.
Strange.
Remedy's hands dropped. The chains unspooled. He slid past the swordsman and charged the tank instead. With his left hand, he lashed out, forcing the tank to raise his shield, then immediately used the second chain to snake beneath the guard and coil around the tank's ankles.
He yanked. The tank's legs went out from under him, the metal links biting into his skin. But...
[ATTACK CANCELED.]
Reality erased the laceration. But Remedy smiled. It was a trap. Now, for the next two attacks, Reality couldn't cancel them without violating its own recursion laws.
As the tank fell, Remedy retracted his left chain and followed him down, driving a reinforced fist into the boy's face, slamming his head against the frozen ground. Meanwhile, the swordsman, thinking Remedy was still behind him, unleashed a massive circular swing. Remedy simply hoisted the tank's body into the trajectory.
The swordsman panicked, jerking his blade upward to avoid hitting his own teammate, leaving his upper body wide open. The archer was closing in now. Remedy kicked the tank's back, sending him crashing into the swordsman and knocking them both over.
The archer lunged at Remedy with twin daggers. Remedy retracted his other chain, engaging in a high-speed melee. He parried a flurry of stabs, then slapped a dagger out of her hand. As it hit the ground, Remedy's foot snapped out, kicking the fallen blade into the archer's own leg.
As she recoiled in pain, Remedy's foot blurred toward her ribs. She brought her hands down to block, but the kick curved upward in mid-air, snapping against her neck. Remedy followed the momentum with a 180-degree spin, driving his heel into her abdomen.
He turned back, but the backlash finally hit him. His vision blurred. A thin trickle of blood escaped his nose.
Remedy didn't dominate through raw power. He dominated through calculation, traps, and a level of combat reading that bordered on the supernatural. His problem in the past was that he couldn't evolve. He was a master technician in an ordinary body. But now that he had the stats, he was untouchable in close quarters—even against multiple opponents.
However, the mental load was staggering. His brain was analyzing thousands of data points a second. Even for an Optimized Human boosted by 50%, it was too much.
As he shook his head to clear the fog, the tank was on him again. But this time, the tank didn't attack. He was just trying to pin him down.
Remedy's eyes widened as he heard the swordsman laugh. He turned his head; the leader was sprinting toward Serene, his sword raised high. She was a distance away, standing still.
Remedy stood up and, against all expectations, he exhaled a sigh of relief.
"What, giving up?" the tank mocked. "You can't save her."
Remedy began calmly folding his chains. "I warned you this was a 1-vs-4, but you didn't listen. The fight is already over."
He looked at the tank with something resembling pity. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder with a gesture that chilled the tank to his very soul.
"You should watch your leader's 'heroism' one last time... before it's too late."
End of chapter 21