As soon as the words left Groff’s mouth, she was on me like a… uh… quickly. She was on me very quickly. As she charged me, she swung her greataxe at my face and I knew letting it connect would be a fatal mistake. Activating War Leap, I threw myself to the right as fast as I could. I didn't realize how powerful she was, I needed to change tactics immediately.

Landing on my feet a few meters away I took a breath as I turned to look back at her. Not a second later, I felt the wind rush out of the area as her greataxe came crashing down. I know I’m resilient, but is she trying to kill me!?

With a newfound appreciation for my continued living, I leaped back towards her back and raised my shield. Just before I reached her, I put all of my force behind slamming my shield into her from behind — just to find my shield frozen in place.

As I collided with my shield, I barely held on as I fell to my knees from the surprise impact. Looking at her body placement behind my shield, I realized she grabbed my shield without even turning around and stopped it from moving forward. What sort of a monster is she?

Letting go of my shield, I slid around it to the right and swung my mace at her knee like I did to the other guards. With a thud, it landed where I wanted — and did nothing.

With that, a roaring laughing burst from her. “Wow, my newer guards sure are weaker than I thought if they lost to a kid like you. You’re what? Level 10? If you thought you could win with any sort of brute force against someone of my level, you’re a fool.”

With that, she flung my shield across the room and slowly turned towards me. It’s as if she identified that I wasn’t a threat anymore.

Jumping backwards, I braced for another attack with my mace and racked my brain for what I could do. If she was so tough, did I have anything up my sleeve to give me an edge in this fight?

As I racked my brain, I kept coming up empty as she took slow steps towards me. It’s like she had switched to playing mode, realizing I’m just a toy for her to mess with.

Realizing how futile this fight was, I realized my only option was to try something new from my skill list. Calling up my status, I quickly read my skills again as she approached.

Passive skills Regeneration (Supreme), Night Vision (Ultra Rare), Steady (Rare), All-Weapon Mastery (Ultra Rare), War Instincts (Epic), Opponent Sense (Ultra Rare), Mana Sense (Uncommon) Active Skills Draconic Taunt (Ultra Rare), Flame Slash (Rare), Poison Slash (Rare), Power Slash (Rare), Harden (Rare), War Leap (Uncommon), Magic Analyze (Rare) Traits Soul Echo, High Intensity

Looking at it, I realized what I had to do. That might just work. I didn’t want to permanently injure her, assuming I could, so I only had one option.

Rearing back slightly, I steadied myself and leaped at her at full strength. With a wicked smile, she casually raised her greataxe as if uninterested in my next attack. This was exactly the opening I needed, her not taking me seriously finally opened an attack window.

As I got in close, I swung my mace from below towards her greataxe. With slight surprise in her eyes, she swung back at me with her limited range to counter my strike. In that moment, I put my faith in my ‘War Fiend’ skills and sent a prayer up to the war goddess. I just need to land this one hit, please work.

Focusing on my mace, I tried to imagine similar power to my leap flowing into my mace and giving me power beyond my means. I imagined it flooded into my arm, my mace, and strengthening the point of contact. The world seemed to slow down slightly, and I began to panic slightly wondering whether it would activate.

Mere seconds later, as my swing neared its middle, light started flooding my mace as the skill I wanted activated. ‘Power Slash’ was mine! I did! Fuck you!

Staring the lieutenant in the eyes, I smiled at her surprise and put even more force into my swing. Not even a moment later, our weapons connected in a battle of superhuman force. As my weapon strained against hers, I felt my muscles beginning to tear as they tried to hold themselves together. Luckily, being me, they instantly began to reknit themselves and repair any destruction right as it happened.

I had found some of the limits of my regeneration over the past few days, that’s to say: basically none. Overuse would make me sleep more, but that was the only downside.

Pushing even harder and calling for even more power from my skill, knowing my body would make it through this, I felt her greataxe finally give a bit as confusion flared in her eyes. Not even a second later, it was pushed aside and flew from her hand and across the room.

With a brief feeling of celebration, I swung back towards her chest with the intent to send her flying in the opposite direction of her weapon. What happened next would be something I’d never forget. In a fury, her body started to ooze a red mist and she grabbed my mace with her bare hands and crushed it.

In a mere second, my weapon was turned to dust and she grabbed my by my arms and picked me up. Before I knew it, I was thrown across the room at a force greater than I had ever experienced before. The entire world turned into a blur.

As I crashed into a wall less than a second later, my consciousness threatened to fade as almost my entire ribcage shattered and both my arms broke. Crashing to the ground, I felt my bones pierce through my skin and my breath catch as my lungs stopped working correctly.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

FUCK THAT HURTS. WHAT THE FUCK. IS MY BODY ON FIRE!? My thoughts repeated this loop for awhile before the haze shook slightly.

In that moment, I heard Groff call the fight over in favor of the lieutenant and shout for someone to get one of the apprentice healers. Unable to tell him not to worry about it, I laid there and waited for the usual regeneration while pain blossomed through my entire body. This wasn’t too much to fix, right? I wouldn’t die here for having surprised the lieutenant, would I? It hurts like a MOTHERFUCKER.

No, no, I have supreme regeneration… It could probably even restore limbs. Or, that’s what the high priest said. This was nothing, right…? I’ll definitely be fine. With that thought, the world faded to black as I finally lost consciousness.

bloody divider [https://i.imgur.com/yTIGwtI.png]

Feeling an itching in my arm I sat up with a start and looked around. What I saw surprised me, I didn’t know where I was. I was on a light brown bed with dark red blood stains and I was missing both my shirt and armor.

Oh right, armor… I had been fighting… In a flash, my memories returned to me and I remembered what happened. The lieutenant had smashed me to pieces against the wall, not an experience I’d like to repeat.

Remembering the horrible searing pain across my entire upperbody, I grimaced and felt my body up. Running my hands down my chest, arms, and across my sides I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed like I was in one piece, no puncture wounds or any other pain I could find. The itching even stopped after a minute!

Scooting to the edge of the bed, I took a deep breath and hopped to my feet. Testing my leg strength by rolling around on the balls of my feet and moving onto my toes and back onto my heels, I accepted that I was in prime condition again.

This power is insane. Even if a healer had to help, there’s no way someone like me should be perfectly normal in such a short period of time. Or, what I think is a short period of time? I need to find someone.

Also, regeneration might be more powerful than I thought… I’m not even rattled or shocked from all of this, is that part of the skill? I need to be careful about that in the future, trauma isn’t meant to be fixed with a healing spell.

Grinning slightly, I pushed past the curtain in pursuit of someone who could tell me what happened. So began my quest for answers! A quest that ended 10 feet later when a woman around my age with light blue hair and soft brown eyes walked into the room and screamed, at full volume, in my face. Based on her outfit she was definitely a healer and while I might’ve been right in front of her, that seemed a bit rude to do to a patient.

Intent on giving her a piece of my mind, I realized she was a healer and stopped. It wouldn’t be proper for someone of my standing to speak first, let alone complain about the screaming. Hell, she might even ask me to thank her for the musical display of her vocal chords.

Freezing in place, I stared at her while she stared back at me. After a few moments in awkward silence, she spoke up. “Uh… you’re not dead?”

And those had to be her first words? What the hell. Whatever, I can roll with it.

Looking at her cute white uniform and smiling slightly, I looked her in the eyes. “If I’m dead, would that make you an angel?”

Okay, maybe I can’t roll with it. What the fuck was that, me? Holy shit! Let’s try this again. Roll it back! Not the time!

Clearing my throat as she gave me a shocked look, I tried again. “Sorry, I guess we were both surprised. I’m Roik, your patient I assume? I lived and I’m perfectly fine. Can someone explain what happened after the lieutenant smashed me into the wall. I think I passed out.”

“Of course you’d pass out, your entire upper body aside was filled with fractures and your organs were damaged. I had to spend half an hour trying to heal you and couldn’t seem to make any good progress, so I left to get orders from the captain on what to do about 10 minutes ago.

“You shouldn’t.. You… How are you alive still? I was confident I would come back to a dead body.” Still looking into her eyes, I saw she meant what she said. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t know the trick up my sleeve!

“Oh, that. I have a rare ability that heals damage to my body. Wait, did you say 10 minutes ago? So, it’s been less than an hour since I was smashed into the wall?”

With that, her mouth hung open. “No wonder the healing wasn’t working… I was getting in the way of your own regeneration and slowing it down… Wait, what?”

Realizing she was lost in her own thoughts, I tried again. Waving my hand in front of her face, I repeated myself. “How long has it been since my near-death experience, Miss Healer?” What she had been saying sounded important, but it might be more important to tell the guards I wasn’t dead. What if something happened to the lieutenant?

“OH. Uh. It’s been just over a hour, maybe? It hasn’t been long.”

“Perfect. Well, I need to go find Groff and the lieutenant. Can you point me in the right direction, or even maybe accompany me?”

Staring at me for a solid minute she shook her head and sighed before nodding once. She must’ve realized I was totally fine and relented because of that. That, or my charms worked wonders on her. Er, maybe I am a bit shaken from the trauma. She’s cute, but what’s up with these thoughts? Did I break something in my head?

“If you’re fine then… oh, they’d be… yes, follow me.” With that she exited the door she had just entered and we began our hike through the guard building. While I instantly recognized where we were, I wasn’t exactly comfortable given my lack of a shirt.

Despite the strange looks I was getting, the walk went pretty smoothly. I’m not sure whether the looks were because people expected me to be dead or because I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Maybe both? Probably both.

I did decide to ask her about my slight delirium as we walked though, and got an interesting answer. When I asked, she clearly remembered what happened in the room and blushed slightly before giving me the first normal-sounding answer of the day.

“Oh. That's explains... That’s a common side effect of healing, it’s common for the brain to get a sort of ‘intoxication’ effect until you’ve had time to properly rest. It’ll pass in time.”

And that’s all it was. I was drunk, or something like it. Well, could be worse I guess…

A few minutes later, we arrived at a door I had never seen before. It reminded me of the lieutenant’s door, but… more intimidating? Before I had a chance to ask, the healer knocked.

“It’s me, Seralee. I’ve brought a guest that should be able to resolve your discussion, Captain.”

A moment later, a smooth tenor male voice shouted from the other side. “Well, what are you waiting for? Hurry on in, Seralee.”

With that she opened the door and we stepped through. I had never planned on it, but apparently it was time to meet the captain of the eastern gate.