My eyes twitch at her insult.

“You… did say that!”

“Nuh-uh. I said I was going to be the queen of beasts and giant centipedes. Something so.”

“Whatever you say, failed abortion.”

Her smile disappears as she stares at me. “I’m going to kill you.”

I create a fireball. “Round two, let’s go.”

She leaps down from the giant snake, but Hessien quickly steps between us. “Okay okay. We have more things to be concerned about.”

Whatever.

I cross my arms as Vacinay makes a hmph sound and is about to turn into the cat but stops and says, “I want to recover all my EP first.”

Ghomas nods. “Yeah, same.”

I too need some rest. We sit down for about 23 minutes. Then the first one to stand is Vacinay.

Instantly, she morphs her nose to that of a cat then grows cat-like ears, and a tail. Oddly, it is proportionate to her body.

That makes me wonder…

I ask, “Is the size of those cat elements natural or do you focus to make them that big?”

She looks at me, “Eh, why are you asking a failed abortion?”

“Bitch, you called me a damn wench! It’s not like you are actually a failed abortion.”

She crosses her arms. “You don’t know my sad, tragic backstory…” her voice cracks. “H-how I feel when… when—“

“Just get to the damn point,” I interject.

She rolls her eyes. “Fine fine. Anyway, yes, I do.”

“So, you ever tried to just make the cat form huge like a tiger?”

Her annoyed expression turns to one of wonder. “Did… well, I thought of that! But…”

She looks around, “Anyway, let’s get back to moving.”

“Did you think you skipped a cut scene or something?” I ask.

Instead of answering, she extends cat-like claws from her fingers and leaps toward the ceiling she had previously pointed at before the snake appeared.

Once she reaches the ceiling, she clings to it with just her feet and left hand, while using her right hand to push a section of the ceiling, causing it to shift.

With her hair cascading down, she fixes her gaze on Ghomas and commands, "Give me a clone."

“Right.” He creates the fast clone which crouches low, building up force in its leg before leaping into the new path created for us.

We listen intently, waiting to see if there is going to be a sudden monster appearance—

“Intruder!”

We nod.

Vacinay quickly morphs into a massive tiger with metallic-ish green fur. With extreme grace, she climbs in and the next second, all I hear is screams.

She works fast. I go next, jumping in through the ceiling… door? I’m not sure what to call it. But anyway, it’s like another regular dark tunnel.

Hessien is next.

In front of us is Vacinay in her tiger form walking ahead of three brutally torn apart half-men.

Talk about ruthless.

She turns back to normal, leaning on her knees. “Okay… turning that big drains quite a bit of EP. Not too much, but too much to use when not needed.”

I say, “It seems pretty powerful, so it’s not that bad.”

"I know, right?" she smiles, then stands up and morphs her face above her lips into a cat-like expression.

She crouches low, sniffing the ground.

Hessien giggles. “That’s quite a sight, ass high, head low. Perhaps… a mating call?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“That makes me wonder. If Ghomas made a female version of his clone and fucked, would that be incest? Selfcest? Or would it be ethically wrong?”

... That's a good question...

“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

"That's a crazy thing to think about," Ghomas says.

"But it's a legit question," Hessien points out.

"It's weird!"

"You're the one who always made weird jokes."

"Since when?"

" 'So, let's say you had to choose between marrying an older person versus being trapped in a jail cell with a guy who says, 'I like you, and I want you. Now we can do this the easy way or the hard way.' Which would you choose? Personally, I prefer my women older than me, but the prison situation would make for an insane story to talk about. Because, like, every night you have to guard your booty.' " I repeat what he once said.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Oh. He goes silent."

We come across three routes, one straight, one left, and the other right.

“So, what is it?” I ask.

She stands up. “Straight, but I smell people there…”

Hessein steps forward. “I want to try clearing them out.”

I ask, “What if they are one of the mega-strong guys?”

“Then I will just die, duh.” He says as he walks towards the room with three fingertips of his having the explosive mist pellets. However, they look very different, they seem incredibly dense.

FYI, I didn’t know the actual name of the skill, I just referred to it like that.

Hessien then smiles and runs in.

As he runs, those inside, over nine giants with various skin hues and tails turn towards him.

“Heh… food!” one of them rushes at him.

What’s his level….

Level: 20

Level: 22

All of them range from level 20-22!

Hessien keeps his pace up as they come running, creating huge thuds along the way. A blue one jumps onto the rocky ceilings before using it as a platform to launch at blurring speeds toward him.

That fool!

Time—

He shoots the pellet at its face, and when it hits, the half-man cries out before crashing to the ground.

Huh?

However, they aren’t done. They come in like a flood. Hessien shoots the remaining pellets at their faces, and they explode. And just like the blue guy, they fall to the ground, coughing… as if they have water in their lungs—

Vacinay laughs, “The mist water content is so dense, they are drowning in it?!”

That’s… really pushing the limits of the skills. What if he applied that logic to his general mist skill?

Incredible.

Hessien’s moment of glory disappears in that instant though. He turns back, running towards us at full speed.

The sucker is drained out of EP, isn’t he?

"Come back here!" A green giant with a snake tail leaps over him and then dives down like an asteroid.

“I didn’t mean to attack you all! It was an accident!”

Hessien jumps to the side, saving his head from being beheaded by the skin of his teeth.

“Accident?! You ran in here and targeted us!” The giant pulls his massive axe out of the ground and locks his eyes on him.

Hessien looks at the three giants who are barely twitching. “Yeah, but… if you think about it. It was future self-defense.”

The other giants dash at him from every direction.

Time freeze.

As soon as I launch my time freeze, Hessien, who is a single second away from being cut down, is saved.

I run over with the knife in my hand. I kinda feel like I’m an assassin.

Heh.

I jump over an axe and wrap my legs around one neck before putting my knife in front of his head, with the knife pointing towards his skull.

As soon as the knife leaves my hand, it also freezes in time.

That’s about 2 seconds.

I do the same for another one. Since I only have two knives on me, I unfortunately can’t have a badass moment of all of them dying at once.

Anyway, with that done, I leap down and lay him on the ground and then step aside.

That’s about 6 seconds.

Unfreeze.

I grin as I wait for their death to take place.

The giants continue their movement, swinging their axes and swords at where Hessien’s head is supposed to be.

Upon missing, knives fall to the ground with a clang.

…

Wait… they… also get unfrozen?

Then I get hit so badly that everything goes black.

I open my eyes.

Hessien is running away. “It was an accident!”

“Accident?! You run in here and target us!” The giant pulls his massive axe out of the ground and locks his eyes on him.

DAMN IT!

That is a dumbass mistake of mine.

I am experimenting… which gets me killed.

Ghomas dashes inside, electricity cracking around his fingers. As soon as one of the giants almost hits Hessien, a thunderbolt breaks into his head.

It is not like the regular ones. It is massive! And the frying scent from the giant drifts to our noses as he falls to his knees.

However, he does not go out with that alone.

“Damn, that takes everything I have!” Ghomas complains.

Hessien screams, “I take down three of them and you want to tell me that was everything you had?!”

Speaking about that… his mist clouds stay around their faces, unlike the orc-half-men we face earlier. Perhaps he manipulates it differently?

Besides, he does not take those giants out yet. They are dying, but still alive.

I manifest a dense fireball the size of a bullet. One of the giants locks eyes on me instead of Hessien, I point my finger like a gun.

With a single eye open, I mutter, “Target in sight, asking for permission to fire. Fire request granted, open—“

A red beam suddenly shoots from his mouth, striking me right in the temple. Maybe… I should stop playing around so much…

My legs buckle and I fall down. Everything goes dark….

I wake up to the giant chasing Hessien getting hit with a bolt of electricity.

Vacinay starts hopping around, bobbing her head as if preparing for a boxing match. She makes a wide arc in the air before summoning a massive, two-headed dog that stands 2 meters tall and weighs over 900 pounds.

With her sword tight in her hand, she calls to me, “You and I are next up. Let’s gooooooooooo!”

She is still four levels lower than me—

She leans forward in a psychopathic manner, like she is about to fall, and dashes. Her massive dog runs towards Hessien’s aid.

Now, where is she heading?

Well…

“First, I will be taking those!” She bellows. She leaps with her sword pointing down towards the incapacitated fellows.

With a flash of blood, she impales one into the head, and gets splashed with brain matter and blood. She moves to the other, cutting its head open just like the first.

Hessien who sees this, mouth trembles in betrayal. "You… BASTARD!”

Vacinay stands up chillingly from the blood and stares at the remaining half-men.

I ask her, “You want me to freeze time, but make you unfrozen so you can—“

She ignores me and runs forward, at first skidding from the blood-soaked ground, but she does not allow it to bother her. Her legs morph into that of a cat’s, and she uses the claws to dig deep into the ground to reach ridiculous speeds!

She throws her sword straight, piercing into the head of one of the giants that was about to snap one of her dog’s neck.

She turns into the tiger (big cat) but… unlike before, it seems… very different. Not just twice the previous size, but entirely! It has a mane and it is muscular, and the metal fur seems like dangerous spikes!

Did she… Level the cat skill up?

She claws at the giant’s neck, removing a large chunk of it, and moves to the other with the help of her dog, which is bleeding heavily.

Welp. Time for me to shine.

With a fire bullet formed, I make the gun gesture and… say, “That’s for the last time!”

The bullet-sized fireball shoots forth and hits directly in the mouth of the one that killed me before! It tried the same trick, but look at how that turned out for it!

Its eyes roll back and it falls down. The flames didn't even expand.

I had realized something before. The expansion of flames is created by my desire; me instinctively pushing its limits.

After all, it’s called fireball, not explosive flames. So, when I just think of it as a bullet kind of ball, it functions at that, burning/melting whatever is in its way.

To put it simply, the energy/heat does not spread out but is concentrated in what it hits. (Obviously, heat would spread out on its own, but I can limit it.)

I look at the last one. It's struggling to keep Vaciany’s claws from digging into its throat. It looks at me, fearful. I place my finger on my lips, as if to tell it 'silent.'

Now, why do I do that? Hell would I know. It sounded cool in my head in that moment.

Anyway… time to do some kill stealin—

With the fury of a mad king, Hessien armed with his spear gun begins blasting at the half-man, not that it matters since it barely does the damage.

Like I was saying! Time freeze baby!

Without knowing why, the half-man suddenly feels the touch of an angel’s hand on his neck. A touch so divine, precious, soft, holy, unnerving, beautiful. And other cool stuff to make me sound elegant.

He tries to see who it is, but it is too late. My knife stabs deep into his neck.

I then whisper into his ears. “You should not have abandoned me… I told you I would come back as a ghost…”

His eyes opens wide… spiraling into confusion.

He drops dead and Vacinay is confused until she realizes what I did and turns back human, half covered in blood and guts.

“Kill steal,” She grunts.

“Shut up, wench.”

Hessien screams at us, “You both stole my kill!”

I turn to him, adjusting imaginary glasses on my face and holding an imaginary book to my chest. “Did you know that murder is a sin? Those who commit murder shall—”

Bang!

He adjusts the spear gun, which begins glowing red with power.

Argh! He’s shooting it at me.