Activating Phase Step was an entirely different experience to flying or anything I had done so far and it felt like a suction effect as I popped through space from one spot in my area to another. I appeared on top of the table, scattering their product as I released my Spectrum Veil. The sudden transportation across the room in the blink of an eye caused the wind to briefly get knocked out of me. I took short, shallow breaths to regain my composure as I scanned the surprised faces around me.
“Get down!” I hollered at the women before activating Weighted Clothes. It didn’t matter that they were within my zone, since I didn’t count them as enemies, the ability wouldn’t do so much as add a pound to their outfits.
Between a dozen Soldiers in the room, the 3000 pounds distributed through the ability’s Party Mode augmentation wasn’t going to do enough to take any of them down immediately, even if it did at least do some damage to them, but that hadn’t been the point of my initial attack. Just as I expected, more than a few of them materialized syringes into their hands intent on starting their transformation. What they couldn’t have known was that I had already activated Center of the Universe, targeting items in the space. The skill didn’t have the quickest buildup time, but having it already ramping up more than did the trick as I felt random baggies and equipment at my feet pulling against my legs.
Of the six syringes that had been pulled out, I managed to force four of them from the Soldier’s hands, absorbing them into my B.E.L.T. the moment they hit me and I deactivated my ability before too many things could come hurtling my way. To my surprise though, they weren’t Temporary Augmentation Serums, instead appearing as Superior Stamina Injectors as they were added to my list.
I was just about to vocalize the obvious question to Angie when I saw the entire group materialize and stab a different set of syringes into their arms before I could react. One by one, their bodies began to swell and burst through their clothes and yet as always their vests seemed to be absolutely indestructible to their transformations, though it was possible that was because they were still being held with the heightened weight of my first strike.
“You think we don’t learn Loophole?” One of them in front of me growled, his voice fluctuating and shifting to a higher pitch as his body began to morph. “Your trickssss won’t work on ussss twice.”
Knowing that I only had a moment to react, I activated Fun House, slipping into invisibility as I jumped from the table and toward the Soldier that had been attempting to taunt me. My stamina had dropped to nearly 50% already but I wasn’t even focused on that as I threw a 30% Gravity Punch at him, connecting with his chest and launching him backward into two of his compatriots going through similar transformations. The force caused them to slam into a wall with a good amount of force.
We were in tight quarters already, and the women were cramming themselves under the long metallic table at the center of the room. It was a stupid, impulsive move to jump right in, but seeing real people being treated this way had turned off my caution and practically enraged me enough that I just jumped in anyway. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of a lens and saw a camera that seemed to swivel to look toward me.
I didn’t have time to focus on it for too long as one of the faster transforming Soldiers lunged for me and on instinct I activated Phase Step again, reappearing on top of the table in place of the afterimage I had left behind. I materialized and immediately used one of the Superior Stamina Injectors, finding it returned 75% of my Stamina in a single burst, practically topping me off completely.
The Vipers were still moving slowly with Weighted Clothes activated, even as the last of them finished going through the process to morph into their snake forms. It was almost odd that it didn’t happen at the same rate for each of the Soldiers, but it also wasn’t something I found myself wanting to complain about either.
So far I had the element of surprise on my side, as my sudden jump to attack and subsequent return had left them confused as to where I was with my remaining three afterimages still moving around the room. One of them lunged toward the table anyway and I didn’t wait to be struck as I used Phase Step to jump to another afterimage on the far side of my zone.
I immediately started ramping Center of the Universe back to full strength, focusing on the enemies in the room as I started to yank them toward me and away from the cowering women. The Vipers had clearly been learning though, and instead of trying to pull against my force, six of the soldiers turned and lunged toward me. I waited until the last possible moment and a small smile cut across my face as I stepped across the room again in the blink of an eye. The group crashed into each other with several loud curses and hisses of anger as I settled in place of one of my two remaining afterimages.
I hadn’t necessarily been considering just how the Phase Step ability would interact with all of my other abilities but much to my happy surprise, this didn’t interrupt the strength of my gravitational pull. It remained maxed out and the sudden pile of snake-men began getting yanked backwards in a twisted mess. They tumbled in a heap, getting wrapped up in each other and taking more damage as at least one of them was knocked out.
“There’s some sort of snake spaghetti joke in here but I find myself drawing a blank,” Angie chirped. “Or maybe a tumblesnake joke? I’ll be honest, even though every digital bone in my non-existent body wants to make a joke, I’m kinda just impressed that you’re thinking on your feet.”
“Not now, Angie,” I said just as I activated Sting Like a Bee and threw a 10% Gravity Punch at the nearest Soldier.
“That was a compliment though!” She complained but I ignored her as I watched the Soldier get staggered by my strike.
Even though the Soldier was my level, with my Strength sitting at 30 thanks to my Perfect Nutrition buff still barely being active, my attacks came with an impressive amount of force. The combination of abilities and my strength pummeled the Soldier’s health down by nearly 30% in a single strike. I followed up the strike with two more blows to try and take advantage of Sting Like a Bee, sending him collapsing to a heap as if it were child’s play.
“Who’s next?” I demanded, dropping Center of the Universe as I cracked my knuckles. I didn’t wait for them to respond, having only spoken to get their attention off of my last remaining afterimage. I jumped over to it, appearing behind three Soldiers suddenly turning their heads in a panic trying to find where I had gone.
Given that so many of my abilities lent toward me being an up close brawler, even as I continued to grow and adapt, I hadn’t really been sure how I was going to keep that style but strike multiple people at the same time. Sure, I had proven that I was good at dodging and punching fast enough to deal damage, but I knew for situations like this I needed to be able to do more than just punch a single target at once. An idea tickled the back of my head as the principle for quantum coherence suddenly came to mind.
“New Ability! Quantum Echostrike. I’m really starting to appreciate just how wild this book you picked up can be, and I’ve oddly been missing this sorta on the spot ability making, really lets you get creative. First you figure out a form of pseudo-teleportation which is, let’s face it, really just actual teleportation, and now this. Now, I could go into an elongated spiel on quantum coherence and wave-particle duality, but I don’t think anyone has time for that, especially with how many caveats this ability has. When this ability is activated, your next physical strike against an opponent or object will cause a quantum shockwave, echoing out to all identical targets within 5 feet of them. When there are only 3 targets, enemies will take 80% of that initial strike’s total damage. For each additional opponent in the affected range, lower the total damage that all affected enemies take by 10% less damage, to a minimum of 30% applied damage. If there are associated effects that come with an attack, replicate these effects to all targets affected by this ability. This ability has a 30 second cooldown and has no base cost. The cost of this ability is equal to 50% of the next ability thrown. If you do not use an ability for your next strike, reduce the cooldown by 20 seconds.”
I didn’t even hesitate as I dropped the ability in the empty slot at the end of my activated bar and activated it. In that flash, I had a sudden burst of inspiration, and I threw my punch. Right as my fist was about to strike the Soldier, I activated Gravity Punch with 30% of my stamina. The blow rippled through the air like a current, striking the two enemies directly next to him and simultaneously all three of them were thrown in different directions. The damage was immense, knocking each of them down to near critical as they struggled back to upright. Unfortunately, this also brought my stamina down to just over 15% just from the rapid use of my abilities.
“Can’t believe that worked,” I muttered internally and Angie giggled.
“Try and tell me to shut up all you want, but I do mean it as a compliment. You really are getting pretty good at immediately incorporating new skills into your fighting style,” She replied. “I suppose what you lack in forethought you make up for in on the spot thinking.”
“You know, that actually might just be the nicest thing you’ve said to me so far,” I laughed, watching my opponents carefully and taking a few slow breaths as my stamina slowly crept back up at its natural regeneration.
When I had more time, I was really going to need to sit down and figure out which of my stats affected both my stamina and health regeneration, and maybe scold Jon for either not thinking it was important or not figuring it out himself with as much gaming knowledge as he had.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Of the twelve Soldiers that had been in the room when I entered, four of them had already found themselves KOed and crumbled to dust, and four of them were nearly critical. The last four had so far avoided any of my damage, and I was going to have to figure out a way to finish this with a nearly depleted Stamina bar.
The women were still cowering under the table and at least for now the Soldiers seemed to be avoiding them. In that moment it clicked into place just why they weren’t trying to use them as human shields. The women weren’t hostages after all, they were slaves, and they couldn’t force them to work if they got hurt. But even that logic wasn’t good enough for me. I had to find a way to get them out of the middle of this battlefield before an attack went too wide or one of the Vipers decided they were expendable.
I needed just a bit more Stamina, just a little bit more and I was confident that I’d be able to finish this almost without breaking a sweat. Two of the Soldiers near critical got back up, materializing syringes and injecting them, returning to around half life in my hesitation. I might have been angry with myself for letting it happen if my confidence hadn’t been quickly rising. Angie had been right, somehow in the midst of battle, it was the easiest to come up with just the skill I needed.
“New Ability! Schrödinger’s Surge! Did you know that in some quantum systems, energy and matter can “borrow” energy temporarily under the uncertainty principle? Look who I’m talking to, you’re the one who insisted on buying the book, of course you do! Though that means you’d also know that that borrowing does come with some consequences. Instantly restores your Stamina to 100%, after 15 seconds has elapsed, all excess Stamina from your bar is removed and an instance of the Exhausted debuff is applied, reducing your natural Stamina and Health regeneration by 25% for 30 minutes. If you do not already have an Exhausted debuff when you activate this ability, refresh the cooldown on all abilities with cooldowns 10 minutes or less. This ability has No Cooldown and costs No Stamina, but the applied Exhausted debuff is accumulative and if the ability is used more than 4 times within a 10 minute period, you will be rendered unconscious for 24 hours.”
I put it in place of Earthbound Impact for the time being just as I started to move, knowing the flight skill would be useless to me for the moment. The Soldier’s moved to react, seemingly unsure what my plans were as I activated Float Like a Butterfly, dodging under and through several wild swipes of overly sharp claws. I lunged forward, sliding on my knees toward the table and using the last bit of my stamina to activate Quantum Echostrike just as it came off of cooldown alongside a minimum strength Gravity Punch. There wasn’t a single Viper near me, but it wasn’t them that I was aiming for.
My fist connected with the base of a chain holding the shackles of one of the women and the power of the strike rippled outward through the other clasps. Had I been trying this with my normal strikes, it probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near strong enough, but between my increased strength and the bonuses from my ability, each one shattered. The women still had parts of the shackles on their ankles, but more than one of them had been aware enough to see what had happened.
“Run now! I’ll guard your exit!” I told them. I didn’t wait to see if they were going to listen and I turned, activating Schrödinger’s Surge as my Stamina immediately refilled. I felt a practically electrical surge ripple through my body as I spun on my knees, picking a target and Phase Stepping through the air toward them.
I didn’t actually think a snake could look surprised, but the Soldier managed it as I threw a wide hook at the side of his head, activating Gravity Punch and throwing 25% of my stamina into the strike. It sent the Soldier flying, his body immediately starting to crumble to dust as my strike flattened the last third of his health. I had to catch myself as I nearly stumbled from the momentum.
“You don’t fuck with real people, you don’t treat them as slaves!” I nearly yelled as I turned and dodged under a wide strike from yet another snake. The others had conveniently been charging in on me, clearly not wanting to let me jump out of the way yet again. They were just about to have me surrounded and I might have jumped out of the way anyway, but my Surge ability had reset my Quantum Echostrike.
I activated it, and threw a 50% Gravity Punch for the snake directly in front of me. Just like before, it was as if a shockwave of visible force emanated out from the front target, striking each of the snakes one after another and launching the entire group of them backwards towards the nearest wall. Their bodies smacked against the concrete with a chorus of satisfying THUDs. Four of the seven remaining Soldier’s collapsed, the KO debuff appearing briefly before they began to crumble to dust.
The remaining three weren’t doing a whole lot better, even if they had been at full health when they first charged me. The strength of my attacks was either far higher than I had even fully considered or the serum that they had started to take was becoming less and less effective at increasing their defenses. They had seemed to wildly increase the production of both the serum and the Soldier class Vipers in such a short timeframe, so it seemed not only possible, but likely that whatever method SnakeBite was using was flawed.
The three remaining Vipers didn’t actually get right back up, and I found myself cracking my knuckles as I slowly walked toward them. My stamina had bottomed back out and I had gained the Exhaustion debuff, but that didn’t matter. I was finding myself not just happy that I had made these assholes crumble so easily, but I felt outright satisfaction in it. Normally, I might have gotten into my head about that, worried about what sort of monster I was becoming with how fluidly I was jumping into battle, but the truth was, the Augment's Code was right and it was the very first thing the the list.
Our job was to protect the Sapients that weren’t involved in this.
They couldn’t help the fact that someone had introduced this system into our world, and the best they could do was hope they could just live from day to day. It’s what I had been doing before being crushed by that dumpster. Hell, I was maybe just starting to realize it was why I hadn’t really applied myself past some random cleaning job. How were you supposed to try and thrive in a world where a small population literally played by different rules? As much as I might have wanted to let myself go down an existential rabbit hole, I was too damn angry at seeing Sapients being treated like tools.
“You know, had you guys just been using folks like you to run your business, maybe I would have offered you three the chance to surrender, maybe I would have tried to coax some information out of you even. But you guys, your boss… he crossed the fucking line,” I said, looking up toward one of the cameras in the corner. “SnakeBite, if you’re watching… I’m fucking coming for you.”
I activated Schrödinger’s Surge a second time, waiting just long enough for Echostrike to come back off of cooldown before I threw as hard of a punch as I could, burning every last bit of my stamina in a final Gravity Punch against the now cowering Soldiers. There was a chorus of trumpets in my head as several notifications opened in rapid succession. A second Exhausted debuff was layered over the first and I found myself needing to take long, slow breaths as I let Angie read the notifications off to me.
“Viper Den Completed! You did not report this den to the 10th precinct. No additional rewards will be granted. Hell’s Kitchen Viper’s Dens: 8 of 8 completed!”
“Phase Points Gain Updated! Territory Claimed: Extra-Large Neighborhood: 1000 points, no longer halved due to being Contested.”
“New Achievement! Territorial! You have fully claimed your first territory. With the Viper’s no longer having points to operate out of, this territory will not experience a game related Crime Alert for the next 24 hours. This is a Gold level achievement. Reward: You have received an A+:Tier loot box.”
I was just about to send Jon a text to celebrate having fully claimed my territory when there was the crackle of a speaker. It wasn’t like the one that happened whenever Axio started to talk, this one was actually coming from inside of the room from unseen speakers. There was a slow, mocking clap that echoed in the room and I looked back up toward the camera I had noticed earlier in the fight.
“Well that really was quite the show Loophole, I gotta say, I am impressed,” the unfamiliar voice said. It was almost… sophisticated? I still wasn’t sure if Sal was a clone of SnakeBite or something else, but the elegant timbre that came from the speakers wasn’t what I expected the real version to sound like. Maybe that was just my own expectations based on Giada and the Vipers I had interacted with so far, but it still had left me feeling unbalanced. I shook it off as fast as I could and tried my best to glare.
“No you don't get to be fucking impressed by me, SnakeBite. I’m coming for you. I don’t know what fucking sick game you’re playing, but I think I’ve finally figured something out,” I said, slowly walking toward the camera as it swiveled downward to keep me in frame. “Your power or whatever it is you’re doing with this snake vampire bullshit that Hydramental told me about? It’s because you’re weak. You have to hide behind these men that you treat as disposable because you can’t fucking fight at all. It’s why no one has ever heard of you. It’s why no one is afraid of you. I don’t think it’s going to matter even a bit that you’re higher leveled. I’m going to crush you.”
“Oh you are amusing!” He laughed with a disturbing amount of glee and the sound echoed off the walls. “You think I’m scared of you? That I’d have to face you to defeat you? That you’re actually worth my time? No, as easy as it would be, I don’t want to crush you. You see, I’ve been watching you, seeing how you’ve grown, and just so quickly too. Your power… it’s just so… so interesting. Every time I throw something at you, you adapt, you evolve. You’re not locked up to one specific tactic like so many of us Augments no… you get to change don’t you? No, I don’t think I’m done with you just yet, there are just so many things I could do with a power like that and I just can't do my experiments if you're dead.”
I felt a chill run down my spine and I felt the prick of my nails pushing into my own skin. I swallowed what little spit was in my mouth, “Big talk for someone hiding behind an army of minions.”
Silence seemed to linger for a minute and when he did start to speak again, the speakers actually had to crackle back to life.
“SO YOU WANT TO FIGHT THE GREAT SNAKEBITE, LEADER OF THE VIPERS? YOU WANT TO SEE JUST WHAT I CAN DO?” HE CONTINUED, THE MIRTH IN HIS TONE VANISHING COMPLETELY. “WELL YOU’VE GOT THE KEY. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?”