Riddick’s obvious taunting caused Phil to grow angrier than he already was. Riddick could only wonder what thoughts raced through the juggernaut's mind as he flailed his hands angrily, completely obliterating anything unlucky enough to be in its path.
Riddick stood firm, inwardly though he did have obvious reasons for concern. One misstep from him could likely lead to a set of unfortunate circumstances. He couldn't risk it, but in such a battle where he currently had the disadvantage, he could only aim to cause his opponent confusion and anger, perhaps making him more predictable in his movements.
This gamble paid off in the next moment when Phil finally stopped flailing his arms and flexed them hard while closing his hands into fists, with his green-eyed gaze focused solely on Riddick. Riddick gazed back, undeterred, and as Phil broke into another charge, he didn't move his hands in an attacking pattern and just looked like he was running toward Riddick.
It was almost like he, too, was trying to bait Riddick. Riddick, in response to this, relaxed slightly, adjusted his stance, and made it seem like he was gaining momentum to jump.
But, the moment Phil got 2 inches close to him, Riddick fell rather than jump. The moment he did this, he dodged the quick clashing of hands Phil performed right where Riddick would've been if he had indeed jumped.
A violent gust of wind was caused by that action, but Phil wasn't done. As Riddick caused himself to fall and was about to hit the ground, Phil's launched a kick with his right leg, aiming to send Riddick right into the concrete.
However, having already been facing down, Riddick braced himself for this attack. And because Phil didn't use as much power as he could have, and was instead just aiming to land a blow, Riddick crossed his arms over his chest and took on the attack.
The kick indeed ended up slamming Riddick into the wall; however, it was only with an amount of force that was almost negligible to Riddick as it caused no critical harm.
But as Riddick himself hit the wall, he immediately removed his hands from his chest and put them against the wall, using it to propel himself forward. By doing so, he had just dodged another quick attack from Phil, in which he launched his powerful fist into the concrete.
Riddick landed on the ground after propelling himself off the wall, but he couldn't slack. With three consecutive attacks missed, Phil had left numerous openings. So, while Riddick was assuming a crouched posture, he quickly turned his body and used his leg to sweep under Phil's left foot.
Just by hitting Phil with that much force, Riddick could feel his bone crack. However, his attack worked, and Phil was indeed swept down, his huge body falling to the ground immediately.
Riddick used the opportunity to move out of the basement, quickly rushing for the stairs and finding himself in the now ruined living room. For his plan to prolong the fight to work, Riddick needed to make sure he had more space to work with.
In an enclosed space, he would constantly have to deal with attack after attack from the behemoth that was now Phil. With that in mind, Riddick was about to start running and make his way for the door so he could be outside where the space was enough.
But as he was about to rush past the stairs leading to the second floor, he saw Johnny's figure as he tightly held on to a crying Sabrina. Although the lights were flickering, both Johnny and Riddick's eyes met.
Riddick could see in Johnny's eyes that he had numerous questions:
Probably thinking to ask, what was going on? What was happening?
Johnny, on the other hand, saw a look of urgency in Riddick's gaze, noticing the numerous injuries as well as blood stains on his body. Johnny couldn't help but wonder if all the attacks he'd been hearing were of Riddick fighting.
However, before either of them could utter a word, *boom!*
Riddick suddenly felt the floorboards under him crack upward before a huge force propelled him up into the air and through the wooden roof.
As was caught unprepared for the attack, Riddick let out a gasp of breath as the air in his lungs was knocked out. At this moment, he gritted his teeth and prevented himself from taking a deep breath, recognizing that his body's ribs still hadn't been repaired and so if he took in air, he risked causing his lungs to hit a damaged rib bone, puncturing them.
Phil, who had been the cause of that action, soon burst up from under the floorboards and let out an angry roar. As he was doing so, he turned to his right and caught sight of Johnny, who stood absolutely frightened at the top of the stairs.
Although Johnny had seen many superhumans before and watched what they could do on live television, he'd never have thought his family could succumb to their vicious power. He simply couldn't fathom what he was looking at.
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Phil looked at Johnny, and immediately became angrier. Then, as the lights flickered more, his gaze saw the corpse that lay roughly at the middle of the stairs. Even in this maddened state, he could recognize Jamie's figure.
Seeing Johnny fine while her dead, he couldn’t help but bring up numerous scenarios in his mind, which was now operating at an incredibly fast pace.
Was it that Jamie was just caught trying to let Phil in and got killed? Or was it the people he came with that did this? This would've been the rational thought consideration.
However, Phil was in a state in which his mind would do anything to bring out more power out of his body, in this case, inducing more anger, which meant immediately settling on the thought that Jamie had been killed by either Riddick or Johnny in order to foil his plans.
Phil let out an even bigger roar as he forced his body through the floorboards and looked at Johnny, yelling out, "You!"
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Riddick had gotten his body propelled right through the roof, and during his descent down, he could only brace himself for impact as he quickly hurtled back toward the roof.
As he collided with the roof, he made sure to keep his body horizontal so as not to break through it. However, this also meant more force needed to be taken by his body, which led to several more bones cracking. However, Riddick grit his teeth still and took on the impact, not risking taking too much air into his lungs.
Shortly after colliding with the roof, he began to roll his body toward the nearest edge, knowing how quickly Phil could recover and attack, Riddick wasn't risking staying too long stationary
As he rolled off, he straightened his body and made sure to land on his two feet. But while doing so, *boom!* *crack!* a loud shattering of glass and breaking of wood caused him to look up toward the house on its right side.
There, Riddick could clearly see Johnny's figure getting propelled out of the window like a rag-doll before he landed in the nearby section of maize. Johnny's figure hit the ground hard, and unlike Riddick, who possessed superhuman physiology, Johnny possessed nothing, and he knew such a fall would likely kill him.
However, he grit his teeth and held onto his daughter tightly, ensuring he was at an angle in which he would take the most damage, praying and hoping this would be enough to at least keep his daughter alive.
Phil's grating roar resounded on the scene once more and caused Riddick to immediately realize that the reason he hadn't gotten yet another consecutive attack from Phil in the few seconds that passed was because Phil chose to target someone else.
Rather than rush to assistance, Riddick saw this as an opportune moment to gather himself yet again. So, as Phil soon burst out of the house, yelling out "You!" like a madman over and over again, Riddick jumped back into the house and immediately began to rush through it as he headed upstairs, where he had hoped to find Johnny's gun. Remembering that he couldn't see it with Johnny as he was thrown out of the window, which meant there was a chance it was likely still there.
And upon reaching up the stairs and checking the room he was supposed to sleep in, Riddick showed a look of relief as he spotted not one, not two, but five guns with bullets scattered all over the floor.
‘This will do nicely,’ he thought to himself as he wasted no time picking up the guns and strapping them over his shoulder, and quickly gathering the bullets and putting some in his jacket while loading the gun he had in hand.
He couldn't help but curse, ‘Shit, this would've been much easier if it was a plasma rifle or at least a gun with auto-cooling rather than clips. Well, at least it’s this brand.’
In the current age, very few guns used live ammunition to fire. Most simply came with clips that needed to be attached to the guns, and the power within them was drained, either from rapidly firing or depleting the chemical solution within them, which guaranteed more shots than any gun that used live ammunition could offer.
Unfortunately, Riddick didn't have the luxury of choosing, so he didn't even bother complaining and simply finished loading the gun before peeping out of the shattered window Johnny had just been thrown through.
At this time, Phil’s figure had landed right in the middle of some gravel, just a few meters away from the maize section Johnny’s body was in. It was clear he wanted Johnny dead, although Riddick already assumed that taking such a hit from this behemoth likely killed him.
Not bothering to check for Johnny, he used his scope to aim directly at Phil. But knowing the heavy resistance he now had, Riddick didn't aim for anything with muscle. In fact, given the state Phil was in, Riddick had doubts he could perform a powerful enough shot to blast through his skull.
So, not wanting to risk this, Riddick took aim for the eye, completely pausing his own breathing to take the most accurate shot he could in his current state.
*PEW!*
With deadly precision, the bullet hit, and given that there was no protection, the bullet had struck Phil not only through the eye but directly used his optical canal to reach his brain without even touching his skull.
As Riddick made this shot, he thought to himself, ‘Wait? This gun is actually has an MOPS.’
For a long time, guns hadn't evolved by much. However, in 2266, when an inventor by the name of Bjorn Lorentti made the world's first micro-orbiter projectile system, which came with the creation of a gun called the MOPS launcher, a rifle-like firearm which Riddick was currently holding, a gun that marked the peak of live ammunition efficiency.
Its design principle utilized electromagnetic propulsion, similar to a railgun, to achieve high precision and variable velocity control. It was made of a lightweight, durable alloy called Fibronium, with the strength-to-weight ratio ten times that of titanium.
It was also equipped with advanced targeting systems, including AI-driven optics. As for the bullets, it had a core made of a Densitium, a unique metal with the property of maintaining structural integrity under extreme pressures and velocities, with its exterior coated in bio-compatible lubricant to minimize friction and tissue damage.
It had a needle-like design with a length of 4 cm and a diameter of 0.5 mm at its widest point. The rear part also contained micro-fins that allowed the bullets to swim through tissue using vibrational frequencies controlled by the gun upon fire. It was truly the pinnacle of live ammunition guns, and if it weren't for the urgency of the situation, Riddick would've honestly taken time to admire it, as from what he knew, few, if any, still existed.
His precision shot caused Phil's body to hit the ground with a hard thump. At this time, Riddick thought it was over. From the splattering of the shot, he knew for a fact that he had hit Phil in the brain.
However, something strange began to happen…