"Will you be a challenge, young giant?"

I needed a weapon. There was no way I'd be able to hurt him as I was. My fists weren't strong enough to punch through armor.

Greater User defeated. Increased density of Chrysalis nanites detected in proximity. Beginning absorption..

..Absorption complete. Requirement for progression met. Authority: 0 -> I

The feeling of revulsion made its way through me. Grady's nanites had been redistributed to the people in the surrounding area: Beluga and I. It was a cruel confirmation of his passing, one final acknowledgment of the centurion via the System.

"Not as I am."

My words were honest, if not a little foolish. Beluga considered me, rocking his head back and forth, moving to music only he could hear. He took a step forward, putting one of his feet on top of Grady's chest.

It hurt me to see him debased in that way, even dead. I'd respected the man. He'd lead me into battle nervous and out of the battle victorious, so, I looked up to him.

My throat was raw due to inhaling the nearby smoke. It ached when I spoke. My voice was ragged.

"Why?"

Beluga pressed down with his foot. Grady's chest collapsed inwards with a wet noise. A stream of sanguine fluid began to trickle out from the body and onto the lawn. Then, he turned to face me.

"Why?" He questioned. "Why what?"

It seemed obvious to me. But Beluga was a god, and he'd been so far removed from humanity that little things like emotions were beyond him.

"Why did Grady have to die? Why are you here?"

"That's easy. He bothered something that should've been left alone."

The orb in his hand started spinning faster. The stream of blood from the ground began to rise like a thin, spindly vine through the air toward it. When the two made contact, the orb started visibly taking in the blood. It gained an unsettling reddish hue.

"He couldn't be suffered to live for his crimes. I was just hoping his execution would be a bit more entertaining, given what he was guilty of." He frowned. It sounded like murdering Grady hadn't been fun enough for him.

Grady wasn't guilty of anything except being exceptionally annoying to fight against and chronically dressing below his station. His death wasn't right. Beluga's moral reasoning was flawed.

"Crimes, what crimes?" A little bit of fire began to trickle into my tone. My heart was beating fast, my vision was beginning to turn red. I was angry.

The god sneered at me. The crack of lightning sounded nearby. Which was unusual, mostly because it wasn't raining, let-alone storming. Then, it rang out twice more in the proximity of the first. Boom, boom, boom.

A look of unease crossed his face.

"Sounds like the old man has noticed me. I'll need to be going now."

His cyclone reformed from the orb in his hand, and he started to lift off of the ground.

"Until next time, little giant."

He rose far and fast away from where we stood. His motions were significantly more frantic than they'd been upon his arrival. He was scared, I recognized. Beluga got about two dozen yards into the air before I decided to do something stupid.

I looked around my surroundings for something, anything would do. I found a rock just large enough that I could barely wrap my hand around it, picked it up, and hurled it after him via a healthy usage of [Empower].

Two things: I was already able to send things flying without relying on the System, and, my hands were large.

The rock flew through the air like a cannonball. I could hear the whine of it shearing through the air as it traveled, a visible slash following it across the sky. It connected with Beluga, hitting the back of his head with a satisfying clunk.

Requirements for ability: [Windslash] met. Variant path of [Empower], specialized around providing melee combatants with a ranged offensive ability.

It didn't do much. He momentarily lost control of his cyclone, swerving wildly, and forcing him to extend both of his arms from his side to maintain balance. Then, he reached up and brought a hand to his head as if checking for injury. He continued unimpeded.

The rock was a little victory for me. It proved that no matter how intimidating Fishbrain was, he was not all-powerful.

* * *

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

We had a small service the next day for Grady among the survivors at Alewife. The officers had been successful at evacuating the majority from the grounds before Beluga had arrived. If Tobias and I had continued on the main road, we would've been greeted by the majority of the garrison organizing for battle. The Centurion had been very insistent that none of them get involved because he knew that combat with a god was often fraught with collateral damage.

They'd returned after a short while and found us both outside of the manor. There was no one left for them to fight. Some were sad, others outraged, but most were just confused.

Prospero had taken charge of the group. He'd arranged a march back to Lille for some, and the care for the wounded. If he was shaken up then he didn't let it show. I stayed behind with Tobias. We were both able bodies, and the grounds needed to be put back into order. Putting myself to work served as a welcome distraction.

I couldn't help but be angry when I thought about the circumstances surrounding Grady's death. It made my blood boil. Beluga seemed to have cast himself as judge, jury, and executioner. And because he was a god, no one was able to stop him. He could get away with anything. It was no matter how horrible the deed was. At Alewife, he'd walked into a military community and slaughtered their foremost protector, and turned their home to ash.

That wasn't right. Anyone could see that it wasn't right. But no one would enact vengeance for Grady, the legionnaire. He wasn't worth the hassle. He wasn't worth tangling with a god. The worst part wasn't even that he'd died; the worst part about it was that Beluga would get away with it.

That didn't sit right with me.

It was the evening after the ceremony. Tobias and I stood in the newly-reconstructed training yard. It was really just an ugly collection of wooden posts with racks of weapons that had been pulled out from the basement. We were about to begin testing out the ability I'd managed to manifest whilst enraged, [Windslash]. Like most abilities, it had no System-provided description, and figuring it out would be the responsibility of the User. Or, in this case, me.

"What'd it look like? How'd it feel?"

Tobias was trying to get me to recreate the circumstances that had led to the ability showing up. I couldn't describe how mad I'd felt, how frustrated. Instead, I relied purely on the physical.

"I told you, it cut through the smoke like it was solid! It followed the path of the rock until it connected. It felt sharp, I guess."

Tobias tapped his foot impatiently. "Have you tried it yet with a weapon? The ability name doesn't sound like one meant for throwables."

"No, I haven't exactly had the time with the burial and reconstruction."

Over the past day, my services had been in high demand. Someone who was able to uproot trees on their lonesome was valuable, especially when a lot of ruined trees needed clearing away. I'd been relegated to doing a great amount of manual labor. I didn't complain. In times of tragedy, it was understood that everyone did what was required of them. He brought up an interesting point, though. Ability names often yielded valuable insight into what they entailed. [Empower], for instance, pretty much spelled it out for you.

Tobias winced and shook his head.

"Yeah, I should've figured as much." He grabbed a simple doublehanded sword from one of the racks and handed it to me. "Just your style, right?"

I took it and nodded. In truth, the blade was a little light for my elevated Might; it felt like I was waving around a stick. But beggars can't be choosers and it was the best we'd got. I gave it a few practice swipes.

"Yup, just my style," I confirmed.

"Alright, I'm going to set up some logs as a target. I'd like you to try and use [Windslash] on them. Don't hit me until we know the lethality of the ability." He waited a few seconds, and then added, "Please."

He stacked a pile of logs longways up and took a few steps back, giving me a thumbs up.

I attempted my first [Windslash] on them. It failed, badly.

I was able to successfully create the same visible blade of condensed air, but it flew wildly off course as I pointed the blade at the wood. The [Windslash] made contact with the ground, carving a deep gash through it. The ability seemed to follow the edge and trajectory of the blade, not the point. More importantly, it had shredded through the ground. I didn't want to see what it would do to a person.

"I'd like to alter my previous statement," Tobias said. "Please don't hit me with that at all."

"I haven't even gotten the hang of it yet, Toby."

It was true. I had no sense of how to aim the ability or use it effectively. Until I figured that out, despite all of its potential combat applications, it was next to useless for me.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to be alive and unharmed for when you do. That means having all of my limbs intact."

I tried again, this time imagining I was chopping the wood with an axe from a dozen meters off. It connected slightly off of the center, not a perfect strike, but still managed to cut somewhat deeply into the wood.

It took a couple of hours to get used to slinging around the new ability. Aiming it followed the same logic of swinging a sword, only the [Windslash] was able to carry itself forward. It was like the air was mimicking my attacks. The slashes followed the same speed as the strike and could be forcibly negated by throwing any object in front of it. The very first thing they hit was what they damaged.

Whilst it was true that the more force I put behind them the faster they moved, they became very easy to respond to at a distance. We lived in a world of unnaturally quick movement. That meant you could dodge some things as they came flying at you. Like I said before, Delta could catch arrows.

Tobias was thrilled about this development.

"This ability is perfect for you! It addresses one of the major problems with your build! It functionally doubles your effective combat range!"

The language he used identified him as someone who'd grown up being taught how to maximize the System. No one else referred to your capabilities as your build. It was a term only used by the gentry of the Empire.

I was less excited.

"It's a neat trick, but I don't see how it's able to make me damage anything I wasn't already."

If Beluga showed back up at Alewife, or if something like the Spineback were to appear, I'd still have no method to harm them.

"That'll come with time. Ghul, [Windslash] gets more powerful as you gain more might to put behind it. You won't even have to grind with the ability to improve it."

I understood what he was saying. There just wasn't an easy way forward. There was no magical ability that'd make me capable of fighting gods.

"Are you saying that the only solution is for me to become even stronger?"

Tobias nodded.

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

I took the too-light blade and gave it a normal [Empowered] strike into the wooden targets. It wasn't meant to chop. The blade lodged into the wood and the rest of the force carried into the handle, snapping off the iron blade at the hilt with an unpleasant metallic screech.

I threw the now broken weapon onto the ground,

"How the hell am I supposed to do that?"