Kevin practically flew across the ships. The tanker ship, then the military vessel. He idly started counting ships as he ran. Concerningly, his Soul Tracker pings to Katie did not line up with his direction of travel, her position to the right compared to the line of ships. Obviously, the southward direction of the ships did not at all line up with his mother’s location. He decided he would just need to push forward. This was the bridge, he knew that. So he would find what he could find.

Kevin also worried about the availability of the shop. He figured he had been perhaps ten miles outside the cluster when he had lost access to the shop. Would the same happen here? He didn’t know, but was still concerned. Only this time, he didn’t intend to stop if the availability did disappear. That would only be a test. Kevin was prepared to put his convictions against this test without hesitation.

Kevin counted his one hundredth ship and had not yet seen the message. He wasn’t sure how close to or if he had already passed the distance, but his worries lessened. He ran with his short axe out, only slowing down enough to kill morankai that were directly in his path, or if he saw an abnormal. He made no effort at stealth, so occasionally an abnormal would give chase; instances like that were the rare and really only reason Kevin ever stopped entirely.

Interestingly, Kevin realized that the ships were not indestructible as was true of the city when he threw an abnormal morankai at a wall, expecting to stun it against the indestructibility of the unmoving object, only for the creature to crash bodily through the wall. Kevin grunted with amusement, stalked forward and ended the creature before it could gain its feet.

Kevin did not rest, he did not stop. He took recovery potions and low-tier healing pills from his ring to keep himself fresh, but he did not slow until nightfall came. He couldn’t even guess how far he’d gone, even guessing his average speed was difficult due to the several times he had to fight. Not to mention that transitioning from one ship to the next took time. It was actually kind of fun practicing his parkour on the ships with such ample opportunity to move efficiently and quickly even compared to the cityscape.

Even so, he guessed at least 12 miles an hour average, perhaps 15. That meant, over the 14 hour day he just finished, he likely ran as many as 200 miles. It was a good thing his shoes were so good because that is normally not how a 100 mile run would go let alone twice that.

He’d killed dozens upon dozens of morankai and many abnormal morankai, he had pinged for golden morankai a few times, but there were none in his region. Throughout the day he continued pinging Katie. The angle she was at relative to his direction of travel hadn’t really changed. Kevin was no mathematician but he remembered trig well enough to realize that meant she was likely very, very far away. That only cemented his conviction to get to her.

He took a break, clearing the comparatively small yacht like vessel he was on of morankai before sitting in what turned out to be a very plush chair and having a meal. Kevin had verified several times throughout the day that the Shop was available, but he was still pleased to see the food selection splay out in front of him. He grabbed a carb heavy snack, and a beer, eating his snack relatively quickly. He took a moment to stretch out his tired muscles before having another of his recovery potions and a low-tier healing pill.

Kevin could feel himself close to a breakthrough with Axe Mastery. He felt like he was close to an additional understanding. He decided to switch his short axe out with a machete for a time. The Strength of Gods Machete wasn’t anything fancy from the shop, at 3,800 points it wasn’t close to Kevin’s best weapon. But he felt like a machete was the closest a long blade got to being an axe.

Kevin took a few deep breaths, put on his old Advanced Mask. The night vision on the mask was exceptional, but it also had heat vision, something akin to a compass, had a distance finder on it, as well as some other handy utilities if he was a shooter, like telling him how many rounds were left in a gun if he was using one.

Right now, and for quite a long time, Kevin just wanted the night vision. He started running again. Unfortunately, a much slower pace was required as, unlike the cluster, there were absolutely no lights on this grand ship bridge. The only light his mask had to go on was the unfamiliar stars in the sky. If he had been on earth, with such little air and light pollution, the heavens would have opened up and the universe in its full form would be on display. In this drab first layer, though the stars had their own beauty, they paled in comparison.

Kevin kept moving, the morankai just as active at night as during the day. His machete cleaved them in two, or took off their heads. He disavowed them of their limbs or put a hole in their chest. All the while he contemplated the nature of Axe Energy.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The only reason Kevin was willing to entertain this now of all times was due to the relatively sedate pace he was required to take. He was tired, but he was unwilling to stop with such little progress to speak of.

He pulled out a dagger, one he had taken from The Shooter he had killed on his first day here. It was a grand example of its type, exceptionally long for a dagger, it was only an inch or two shorter than his machete. He laid into the morankai he found, the commotion from one fight leading into another fight.

He hadn’t even put on his armor yet, and wasn’t sure he would, instead using the Cloud Step shoes to run off the edge of the ship, prompting some of the morankai to fall from the side of the ship as their companions pushed at them. Then Kevin ran forward jumping onto another ship. More morankai fell in the transition between ships.

Kevin noticed the cuts, gouges, stab wounds that each weapon inflicted on the morankai as he fought. The dagger was sharper, but it took the Axe energy less readily than did the machete. It was sharper, and so should have done more damage, but it didn’t. The machete was heavier, the blade less sharp, but its heft made it effective in a way that the dagger was not. It wasn’t the right tool for the job in a manner of speaking.

Swords were meant to pierce, or slice. They separated one side of the target from the other side of the target. Axes, and in a way this machete too, they did the same thing, but in different ways. An axe didn’t separate wood by cutting the wood, an axe separated the wood by forcing itself into the the wood, pushing the parts aside with main force. A sufficiently sharp sword could cut wood, there were knife contests where people did just that.

But contests for cutting wood with axes were very different than those sharp-knife-wood cutting contests. Different tools for the job.

Kevin felt a twinge in his soul. He couldn’t over examine it right now, but he felt like he had grasped something profound. He had mused on the nature of the difference between a sword and an axe many times, so he wasn’t sure what the difference was this time, but he was certain he had just attained a new level of Axe Mastery.

Kevin kicked the last morankai on the ship he was on overboard.

— Points Obtained: Points 12 —

He took a moment to switch out his machete and dagger for his Viking dane Axe, it was almost 5 feet tall with a relatively straight bit and a nice hammer head on the opposite side. He continued to the next ship, ready to keep moving all night if he had to.

The sun rose on Kevin as he crossed yet another bridge. He had been traveling for almost 20 hours straight over the bridge. He couldn’t guess how many ships he had crossed, thousands, maybe many thousands. He couldn’t guess how far he was from his cluster, perhaps hundreds of miles, he didn’t know. He did not know where he was but he knew he needed another legitimate break, and unfortunately, maybe some sleep.

Kevin cleared the vessel he was on of morankai, ate a huge meal and checked his stats.

Status: Name Kevin Moses

Points: 97,964

Race: Human

Age: 35

Stats: Strength: 149 - 150

Endurance: 126 - 127

Recovery: 86 - 87

Soul: 21

Abilities: 5/7

Soul Tracker

Ki Cultivator Earth Tier (Middle)

Basic Shield Mastery (5/5)

Intermediate Axe Mastery (1/5)

Ceaseless Mind

He was right. He had crossed into Intermediate Axe Energy. He could tell his cuts were more effective. Being Axe Energy, and not Sword Energy, it wasn’t just that his cuts were sharper, they went deeper, he hit harder even without using Light Heavy. If he pushed enough Axe Energy into the strike you could even See an energy surrounding the bit. Kevin felt warm at the progress, certain that he would need every advantage he had to keep his family safe.

He used Soul Tracker to ping Katie one more time. It might have been his imagination or his hopeful dreams, but he thought the angle to her was different now. Maybe that meant he was making real progress.

Kevin found a room to hide out in, pulling the bed off the wall and resting it against the entrance to the room before laying down to rest.