I quickly purchased a restoration. I leveraged myself up and backwards, over the pillar doing a spectacular flip. I landed on the ground and faced my nightmare.

“Divine Empress,” I said trying to draw her attention to me while Doctor Katz ran for it. His guards were already dead and while she glanced at him, she didn’t pursue him. She was smiling slightly at me, but I could tell that her eyes were full of murder.

She slowly advanced while I backed up to keep the same distance between us. She didn’t appear to be in any hurry to start a fight, but it could be that I was near the pillars. I adjusted my retreat to be an angle. It would be a big circle, but if I was going to die, then another blast might just take her with me and she would be hesitant about using wide range attacks.

“It was quite a hassle to find you. I had to kill so many of your people and then I got lucky near that one city, what was it?” she asked.

“Neo Brasilia.” She gave me a slight nod.

“That cesspool of filth. To be honest, you kidnapping my child, robbing my treasury, impersonating me, killing my advisors, destroying my capital, pissing on my bed, and ruining my empire has made me achieve a state of inner peace I never knew I had.”

“No problem, always happy to help.” That did not sound good in the slightest.

“I want you to know, that you made me so mad, that it was impossible to get any madder. All that rage, anger, well it crystalized into a realization. That you were purposely trying to enrage me, just like the Avatar,” the Divine Empress said while still advancing slowly.

This was not good. A clear-headed Divine Empress was much worse than an enraged Divine Empress. I broke her and what was forged in her place was much worse than what was there originally. “In truth, you have managed to anger me more than the Astrologer.”

“Is he really the father?” I asked. Her slight smile flickered at that, but she didn’t slow down or speed up.

“Yes. And he will pay in time. But now, it is time to pay your bill. While I called you a dog before, I recognize you, Champion Michael.” Please don’t recognize me and go away.

“Thank you, perhaps we should call it even, after all you put a hole in my chest and you don’t want anything to happen to your child. You kill me, then he will be tortured.”

“I know. It will build his character just like it built mine.” She was playing hardball. This was not looking good. Her stats were above mine from what I could tell. About double if I had to guess. That meant I was outclassed in every way.

I had circled around and came to a stop in the middle of the pillars. “If I go, I am taking you with me,” I said and she paused in her advance. “No way you can kill me without collateral damage.”

We stood there facing each other. She carefully looked around and then turned back to face me. The Divine Empress began to advance. One step at a time. Each step felt like another pile of dirt on top of my grave, weighing me down.

The Divine Empress pulled out a needle from her robe and threw it I dodged to the side and a force explosion occurred past the pillars, behind me. That had been close, it was a couple hand lengths from my face.

She kept advancing. Alright Michael, you got one trump card saved up. This is it. I kicked off the ground and quickly retreated. She kicked off the ground and was right behind me, catching up. While she was a bit faster than me, she wasn’t that much faster.

I ran for the edge of the plaza. She was closing in. Acid Shot. My attack was swept to the side, and she didn’t slow down for a second. Acid Shot. She swept the attack to the side again. Air Burst. I gained a little bit of distance, but she kept up the chase.

Danger! Air Burst! A burst of energy turned a large portion of the street to dust and some nearby buildings. A void attack of some kind. But this was good. She was pursuing me without stopping. I needed to make myself look desperate.

While she knew I had stats, I had far less than her and her skills were superior. I needed to trick her in close. She kept up the pursuit through the city of East Bastion. Force and void attacks occurred in my wake, but I kept just out of reach and dodged them with Air Burst.

I was trying to ration the skill since it cost 800 energy per use. That meant it would take 8 minutes to regain that much energy and I needed to save some for my final attack. Actually 80 minutes, since this was a level 1 zone and my Regeneration stat was capped. Thankfully she only sent out the occasional ranged attack, seemingly content to chase after me.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

My guess was that she wanted to keep her energy in reserve and force me to employ Air Burst to keep my lead. She was probably saving her energy just in case, due to the Regeneration stat cap as well. That was a losing strategy, but I had a plan. I just needed to make it seem real, otherwise she would suspect a trap.

Also, I wanted to lure her away from the pillars so she couldn’t get a quick restoration. That would be the worst outcome. I critically wound her, but then she heals herself right back up with a restoration. I also suspected that she wanted me to feel despair.

She was like a cat, she wanted to play with her prey before killing them. I had no doubt in my mind, that if she caught up with me, she would be turning me into a human nugget to suffer endlessly. I would rather die.

After seeing the Avatar, there was no way I could live like that. It would be worse than death. I wanted to live, and I planned to live, but letting this woman capture me alive was not going to happen. I would find a way to kill myself no matter what if she got her hands on me.

That was the problem when people didn’t think they could surrender, they would all fight to the death. Well for the Divine Empress that was probably a plus rather than a minus. I wanted to throw some insults at her, but her mental state was surprisingly good.

I couldn’t even imagine that. Her rage was like a star. What I had done had made it turn into a supernova and then collapse into a black hole. There was no escaping it now. If she was crazy this would have been so much easier and safer, but she was clear headed enough to make me worry.

The wall was in sight, and it was only another minute until I reached it. She was only a building and a half behind me and that distance was shrinking. I saw the tunnel through the wall up ahead. It really was a great chokepoint.

I aimed for it and turned in midair as I entered the tunnel. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. The Divine Empress swatted the attacks to the side of the tunnel with her skill. I purposely mistimed my footing and tripped backwards, forcing an expression of fear on my face.

She leapt forward, pouncing towards me. My mind had worked out her speed and the timing of my skills. Nerves don’t fail me now. “Aqua Sphere”. The water shell formed up around me as my back hit the ground, and I began to slide roughly through the tunnel. My Body stat protecting my unprotected back from getting ripped up.

The Divine Empress was like a beacon in my Sense stat. I brought up both my hands. Like I was moving to defend my self futilely. Acid Shot. I used that skill to make myself seem desperate. She slapped it aside with one of her barrier skills.

Her hand was outstretched to grab me. Just as it broke through the shell of water. I acted. Force Wave.

The wave of force energy came into being. With her hand almost touching me. I saw her wrap her arm and hand in energy she expelled and despite pausing and getting pushed back for a moment, it continued to reach forward. Her shoulder and body had entered my Aqua Sphere.

I saw energy gather in her hand and just as it was about to touch me, my two skills collided. There was a bright flash of white as I skidded to a stop. I cut off Aqua Sphere, keeping what little energy I had left. Had I done it? I quickly scrambled to my feet.

There was a wet plop on the ground. The Divine Empress’s right arm had been blown off, ending in a charred stub. Her clothing was burnt, and her flesh partially melted. But her eyes. Her eyes, were staring right at me, full of hatred.

She took a step towards me, and I couldn’t believe she was still alive. Just die! How are you still alive? “That was just my opening act.” I took a step towards her. She was frowning now and brought up the burnt up stub in front of her face.

“What is it you people like to say? It is just a flesh wound,” she replied in a slightly raspy voice. She didn’t advance and I didn’t advance. I had no energy left. I had to use everything just to make this point and wound her.

It was bullshit, that she wasn’t dead. Anyone else, would have instantly died getting caught in such a blast. Instead, she loses an arm and gets melted a bit. I took another step forward. She took a step forward matching me.

She couldn’t back down and I didn’t want to back down either. She could flee from me no problem, but if I didn’t try to kill her here and now, I knew I would always regret it. That was when I noticed she was slowly healing at a rate I could see as bits of burnt flesh flaked off of her and her stub was slowly growing.

It was very slow, but compared to regular healing, it was insanely fast. That was cheating. An annihilation should be a cursed wound. How was she healing from that? Probably a meta-point, but it was completely unfair.

I couldn’t let up the pressure for a moment and advanced. Even if she knew martial arts, losing an arm would hopefully throw her off. If I had to guess, whatever she was doing took energy and a lot of it. Perhaps it took energy to stabilize her.

Which meant that using skills would be too risky. She knew she had higher stats, so she would go into melee. I didn’t want to fight hand to hand, but I needed to put pressure on her until I got enough energy to finish her off.

I rushed forward in my bloody shorts, shirtless, and with a prayer to the Almighty System to help me out a bit right now. I kept my arms up in front of me and my hands balled into fists. I punched out and she juked to the side, kicking up at me.

I quickly focused on where she hit, while I felt it, I wasn’t blown away. I punched out and struck her face. It was like hitting a brick wall. Some of my fingers probably broke, but she stumbled back. I saw a bit of surprise on her face. While she had double my stats, with the way they worked, it was only a small gap.

That gap was small enough for me to have an impact on her. I didn’t let up and I advanced. Come on energy, regenerate faster.