Once I noticed that the split-second flash as the Bright Halo forcefield activated, caused my opponent to blink, the fight was basically over. It was a handy treasure to have if you had the skill to keep your head safe anyway. The real value in the halo was against lucky shots that happened to slip through, or against ranged ambushers. In a duel against a warrior of my calibre, it had the potential to be a glaring weakness. Whipping the but of my spear’s haft across the rubble-strewn roof, I knocked a collection of small metal pieces or shards of cement into the air. As they flew upwards, I switched my grip on the spear to a one-handed version that braced the weapon under my arm and whipped my free hand out to pluck a bunch of the debris from the air.

  All the while dodging backwards just enough to avoid the barrow king's blade, the pale young man was aggressively swinging my way. According to my HUD, his suit was projecting another ability that increased his Might each time he swung and missed, until he eventually landed a strike, which would reset his strength back to normal and begin building back up again. It was called Fury Of The Dragon Slayer, and I have to admit I was fairly impressed by it.

  Now that I had my handful of trash, it didn’t matter; I could blind the raindrop at will. Granted, it was only for a split second at a time, but in a fight that was a sizeable window. With a flick of my elbow, I launched one of the tiny chunks of metal at his head. It would have struck him on the chin, except that the Bright Halo forcefield activated and, with a flash, deflected the thrown debris.

  Seeing as that was exactly what I planned for it to do, I was already moving to take advantage of the brief window of blindness. I carved a chunk from his right forearm.

  Flash.

  I took a portion off of his chest, and then his knee as I moved away from his counterattack.

  Flash.

  I opted to keep targeting the same left leg around the knee section. After all, even my ability to fight would collapse if someone took my movement from me. Of course, the raindrop, or at least his armor, wasn’t stupid, and he or it quickly identified what I was doing and tried to mount some sort of defense of his lower half. Naturally, that just left him open elsewhere.

  Flash.

  In spite of his speed, steadily increasing might, and monstrous durability, I had soon completely taken over the duel, and still had more than a minute left to work with before my barrier fell. Around the outside of that same barrier, the eight purple scout-drones had positioned themselves so that they could attack me from all angles the moment they could.

  Oh well, as they say, the boat will straighten after crossing the bridgehead, and I would deal with that issue once it arose. For now, I had an increasingly enraged and desperate opponent in front of me. One that finally realised that he could work to destroy the barrier trapping him and potentially escape his tormentor.

  Not ideal, but as he charged past me, I was granted the opportunity to land a series of undefended thrusts into his side and back. They weren’t quite devastating enough to end the contest, nor stop him from breaking the barrier I had created.

  “Get this freak the fuck away from me.” He roared as he brought his blade down and carved through my Do Not Pursue ability. I don’t think he could have destroyed it with a single swing under normal circumstances, but his Fury Of The Dragon Slayer had been building extensively, and my HUD estimated that his Might had been temporarily increased by almost thirty points.

  I hate to admit it, but I was becoming extremely accustomed to my HUD and my A.I. Back home, I needed to figure out my foes' techniques through experience and observation. If I were extremely lucky, there might be some knowledgeable elder nearby who would gladly explain everything about it, but that only really happened if I was dueling someone in a town square, and even then, I was usually too engaged with battling my opponent to risk stopping and listening to them.

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  While the paler of the raindrops was able to shatter my Qi barrier, which would both allow him to try and escape me and let the drones back into the fight, it did two other things as well.

  It kept my opponent in one spot for a few seconds, while also tying up his weapon as he battled through the barrier. The moment his energy blade pushed through to the other side, the entire barrier collapsed, but in that moment, I had the perfect opportunity to activate another ability, so that is exactly what I did.

  [King Of Destroyer]

  [Standard Cooldown: 3 Minutes]

  [Duration: One Melee Attack]

  [Max Daily Uses: 5]

  [When King Of Destroyer is activated, the user's current melee attack is empowered by additional impact force equal to three times force generated by momentum, strength, and penetrative force of the attack. Note- Recoil received by the user upon impact remains unaffected.]

  I dropped my remaining handful of roof garbage that I had been using as projectiles to switch back to a two-handed grip on my spear. I slid one foot to the side and dipped low as I did, so that I could swing the weapon like a glaive at my opponent’s unprotected leg armor. Even with the ability activated, I don’t think my attack would have been enough to penetrate his white and blue armor had I not spent roughly a minute and a half hacking at his knees already.

  Even with the shockingly high amount of resistance still offered by the [Beowulf Mark 14-Glacial edition], the Surge-made energy blade at the end of my spear passed all the way through his leg, separating the limb just beneath the kneecap.

  What little arrogance that remained in the young man’s face fled before a wave of pain and panic. He screamed,he fell, and I offered a quick smile at the nostalgic sight of a limb skidding away from an enemy I had just crippled.

  I didn’t have time to enjoy my victory, nor finish the raindrop off. I did, however, get a little bit of extra satisfaction as I slammed the but of my spear down on his chest and used it to vault over the encircling ring of scout drones, which now found themselves able to intervene once more. As I flew through the air, I could see the obsidian-skinned raindrop in his spider armor stop being suspended by his additional limbs and drop to the roof.

  At the same time, my HUD started showing a series of alerts informing me that the pale raindrop had been telling the truth to some degree at least. The moment he had been injured, some sort of beacon had been activated so that people from the sky-tiers would come get him.

  I began to sprint the moment my feet hit the roof again. Three of the drones had pulled back to help move the one-legged raindrop out of harm's way, but the other five were still charging towards me. About fifty feet away, the teen in his [Anansie- Ungoliant Variant] evolution suit had stopped trying to put distance between us and produced a pair of pistols from thigh holsters that must be built into his armour, but only opened enough to be visible when he wanted them to.

  My HUD detected the threat of the weapons and immediately identified them.

  [Uruk Heavy Pistol- AP Drill Version]

  As it turned out, those two were only the beginning, as his now free-to-be-used spider-arms pulled out pistols of their own. Two that were identified as [Saruman Smart pistol], and another pair that were called [Simaril Personal Grenade Launcher-Pistol Variant].

  When the spider-armored man opened fire a few seconds later, I was faced with an appalling cacophony of shots that whirred and spun, or exploded upon impact, or did their best to maneuver mid-air and follow me. It quickly became apparent I was dealing with enough firepower to kill me several times over. In all honesty, I’m confident I was dealing with enough firepower to slaughter a small to mid-sized town.

  None of this meant a change of plans. I was still going to close the distance with the spider guy, rip him apart with my spear or hands, and then finally get around to slaughtering the pack of drones. What his sudden choice to deploy three pairs of high-quality pistols did change was the speed at which I needed to enact that plan if I hoped to still be breathing at the end of the day.

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