Riddick was about to let out a sigh of relief, be he stopped himself, as his relieved expression turned sour while looking at Phil's body.
Phil, who had been hit on the right side of his head, still had the entire left side twitching.
"You've got to be kidding," Riddick muttered. He was about to take aim again, not willing to give any chances for Phil to recover. This time, aiming for his left eye, however, Phil, with much difficulty, managed to turn his head to see where Riddick was.
Immediately, he let out an angry grunt, while using the force from his left hand to push himself up. Riddick, who was about to fire, missed his chance and didn't bother firing at all, as it would only be a waste of bullets.
Phil, now having stood up, with his entire right side of the body numb, looked as angry as he could’ve been. It was an odd sight, as only one side of his mouth seemed to be roaring, while the other just slumped lifelessly, as blood trickled from his eyeless socket.
Seeing that he couldn't run anymore, Phil simply used his right leg to propel himself up into a jump, aiming to simply crush Riddick.
Riddick, however, now had the advantage of someone who could already counter Phil in his compromised state. Now that the entire right side of his body, which seemed to also be dominant, was weakened, Riddick took full advantage of this and immediately fled from the window, rushing down the stairs just as Phil's figure shot through the window, breaking what was left of the frame and part of the wall.
"Get back here! Fight me!" Phil yelled. However, Riddick wasn't really running away but rather maintaining his distance because immediately after Phil landed and began yelling, Riddick waited by the door downstairs. And upon seeing Phil's huge figure near the stairs, he fired another shot. This time, though, Phil was very cautious and made sure to keep his working hand near his face at all times to easily block off any projectiles aimed at his face, now recognizing that he could actually be hurt.
The bullet collided with his hand and quickly shot through the tissue, but was thankfully being stopped by his bone.
*Tsk* Riddick clicked his tongue in irritation, but there was nothing he could do, and so he ran again. This only now made Phil angrier. He could understand what Riddick was trying to do, but Phil wasn't going to easily fall for this.
Immediately, Phil began to jump continuously while keeping his face covered. He also began to use the force by swinging his left shoulder to move his right hand. Although he had no control over it, he could at the very least flail them and hope to hit Riddick. And this is exactly what he began to do.
Riddick, needing to take shots off, would not be able to do so if he was constantly being barraged by attacks, even if they weren't hitting. It was a strategy in which Phil couldn’t possibly win, but at this point, to survive, he was doing anything and everything he could. Whereas Riddick was now doing anything and everything he could to gain some space.
Although he was easily dodging the attacks that now barraged him, Riddick couldn't help but keep a concerned and cautious mind, looking out for any surprise attacks that Phil may launch.
Every time Riddick would try to run for some space, Phil, eager to catch him, would propel to the point where he was coming.
‘Fine, since you want to follow me so bad… I’ll make it worth your while.’ Riddick thought, as Phil was already in the midst of jumping toward him.
This time, though, Riddick knew how to delay him.
Just as Phil was about to land a few centimeters away from Riddick, Riddick rolled on the ground in his direction. Because of the stance Phil had, it was impossible for him to change his course of action at that point in the air.
Moreover, since he was now covering his face and mostly depending on sound, smell, and vibrations to tell what Riddick was doing, Riddick could easily silently roll, particularly to his right-hand side, where even if Phil wanted to counter, he couldn't because he had no feeling on that side.
And it worked; as Phil landed, he would need to take a second at least to reposition his body and turn behind to face Riddick before being able to jump again. And in that time, Riddick could at least gain a distance of a few meters, which Phil would quickly close again by jumping.
It was this method that locked the two in the current stalemate.
But this time, as Riddick dived and rolled, he began to run toward the cars on the right-hand side of the gate, particularly the ones he had left uncovered.
After running about 20 meters, Phil had positioned himself and jumped yet again. This time, however, Riddick didn't dodge like he had been before. In fact, his entire reason for doing so thus far had been to put Phil under the impression that it that was all he could do.
Because initially, Riddick had stated that his goal was to just prolong their battle, and so long as he could do this, Phil would eventually succumb to the consequences of having so much power in his body.
With that in mind, Phil had indeed been under the impression that Riddick was simply dodging. Thus, Phil could only hope that he could perhaps capture or outlast him.
Riddick knew there was more than a 90% chance that Phil, simply due to human behavior, would react instinctively to turn his body and prepare another jump, regardless of what Riddick actually did. It was now an automatic response.
This was one of the clear weaknesses Riddick noticed as he was fighting Phil. From when he countered, if he tried doing the same attack twice, it was already proven that Phil would have an automatic response to react to it. If he didn't do it twice, Phil would take an attack because he reacted thinking Riddick would attack in the same way he had previously.
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In other words, Phil's inhuman interactions and counters were only an advantage against someone who used precise, traceable techniques, as their moves would immediately register to Phil the more they did them.
But Riddick chose to fight unpredictably. Phil could never truly grasp the style, and thus, due to all these factors, as Riddick jumped back when Phil collided with the ground, Phil indeed automatically turned and looked ready to jump again, only to hear the sound of metal behind him.
This was Riddick's figure as he jumped on the hood of the car and began to jump from car to car. Phil, surprised soon followed Riddick and aimed to attack him again. This time, there was only a wall behind Riddick, so he couldn't dodge back.
He could either go left, right, or under Phil. In such a scenario, Phil couldn't depend on his reaction. If Phil could look at Riddick and see the stance he was in, perhaps he could tell what was being planned.
Riddick couldn't take aim and fire in that short instance he moved; it was too risky. So, Phil trusted his projection and aimed to land on the hood of the car Riddick was currently on.
With Phil getting close, Riddick jumped to the left-hand side of the car, reaching the gravel near the gate. Then, he aimed his rifle, but rather than at Phil, he aimed toward one of the tripwire’s he had set.
As Riddick took the shot, the needle-like bullets tore through the tripwire. Located near the rear of one uncovered vehicle, the moment the tripwire was breached, a loud clank resonated, followed by a very familiar *boom!*
That ignited a vicious and powerful explosion right where Phil was. Such a lapse left Phil no choice but to fall into the fiery pit. But Riddick wasn't about to take any risks; he knew Phil could simply jump out of the flames. So, as Phil looked ready to land in the flames, Riddick, ignoring the immense heat he could feel being just a few meters away from the vicious explosion, looked down his sights yet again and aimed for Phil's knee.
*Pa!* *Pa!* Riddick fired two consecutive shots, and as they struck Phil, they ignored his tissue and targeted the bone; however, the other targeted Phil's ligaments, tearing through and causing them to rip.
“Argh!” Phil let out a pained grunt, and although his body was already slowly healing this, it was also working towards trying to heal his brain, making the process much slower.
*Boom*
As he landed in the sea of burning scrap, he could only laboriously crawl out using his right arm. But even in this state, he could feel pain the more he tried to crawl. He had no choice but to touch smoldering, burning red-hot metal. His entire body was in agony, and his nerve endings quickly got charred, rendering him numb in most of his body.
As he desperately tried to crawl out of the fire, no longer even caring to look in Riddick's direction, Riddick quickly got away from the fire as well and onto one of the 4x4s Phil had come with.
There, he could see Phil's figure retreating toward the right side of the gate, trying to escape the flames. Riddick immediately got off the car and circled around the inferno.
Unfortunately, Phil, whose senses were now at an all-time low, couldn't even hear Riddick's approach, his ears rang constantly due to the explosion popping his eardrums. And the only eye he had left had gone blind from having been burnt, whereas his own burnt flesh overwhelmed his nose.
As for his sense of touch, it was gone, as his nerve endings no longer functioned.
While he crawled through the scrap, as pieces of metal embedded themselves into his flesh and injured him further, Phil could feel the supracell within him fading.
Critical damage was perhaps the hardest to heal; no matter how superhuman someone was, if the body's critical functions were damaged, they needed to be quickly repaired. Such was the case for Phil.
The boost supracell provided was now essentially focused on repairing the part of his brain that was hit, so as to quickly restore his body to full functionality. Sadly, now his eardrums also popped, he had gone blind, and numerous nerve endings were burnt, numbing them all over. Due to having to boost all these areas, the supracell was fading quickly, and by the time Phil crawled out of the flames, his body was completely charred, even reducing slightly in size from his initial gigantic frame to now barely 2 meters tall. He had flabby, charred muscle around him that made it look like his body had been melting.
By the time Riddick spotted Phil's figure, the sense of urgency and caution left his body as he thought to himself, ‘finally reached your limit.’ Thinking this, Riddick held on firmly to the gun in his hand as he approached Phil.
The smart thing now would have been to already kill him from a distance, but looking at the status of Phil’s body, Riddick knew that he wouldn't be a threat, so he began to approach.
Completely blind, Phil was only recovering his senses now that he had made it out of the fire. Slowly but surely, he began to hear faint sounds, and as his bloodied gaze began to become clearer, he saw Riddick's figure, although bloodied.
Phil felt fear.
In a state where his emotions were boosted constantly, the fear he currently felt was immense. Such was the consequence of supracell; when one was in a negative situation, it would be boosted several times over.
Seeing the gruesome sight that was now Phil, Riddick couldn't help but let out a scoff, as if it weren't the behemoth monster that was trying to kill him just a few moments ago.
Riddick ignored the pitiful state and approached Phil, standing just a few inches away from his head. Phil tried to slowly reach his hand out to grab onto Riddick, close to saying "please."
However, Riddick didn't hesitate to hip-fire his gun, shooting Phil right through the hand, causing his body to twitch erratically.
Riddick only asked, "If you want a quick death, tell me where your camp is."
That's right. If Phil and the people he brought with him were a huge part of his
And if Riddick could get his hands on it, that meant another boon for him. And after nearly losing a lot to Phil, Riddick felt it was only right he got paid back.
However, even in his dying breath, Phil, wanted to hold on to his sense of greed. "No, no."
Seeing this, Riddick reached into his pocket and took out a vial. Phil could immediately recognize it as supracell. In the initial explosion, not all of them had been destroyed, as some were simply scattered around the compound, with Riddick having picked up two.
Without hesitating, Riddick took the vial and violently shoved it onto Phil's neck, letting the serum be injected into him. Phil let out a grunt, but it was more energetic than his last.
“ARGH!!” Then, his scream grew louder.
Why? Because as he was in a state of healing, the only way his healing would truly be boosted was if he was given adequate amounts of supracell. However, if he was given only a few doses, rather than the supracell fading and him losing his life, the supracell would instead remain in a state of healing, and some senses and feeling would be restored before it began to deteriorate again.
In other words, a continuous cycle of pain.
"If you don't tell me now, I'm going to keep injecting what's left of this into you every five hours to ensure you keep feeling as much pain as you possibly can," Riddick threatened.
Phil could only listen, loud and clear, as an overwhelming sense of despair overcame his body, heightened by the supracell that once made him formidable.
Riddick ignored the screams and pleas and only asked, "What's it gonna be?"