BXBX NOVEL Chapter 23: Thanks Bigfoot.
There were no useless {fates}, only useless reapers.
I huffed as I ran. My legs were like pistons in an engine. Up. Down. Up. Down.
They slammed hard on the uneven ground. Surrounded by burning undead bodies and freshly brutalized reaper corpses, I pushed forward. An average person could cover about three quarters of a mile in five minutes. And right now, I was far from average.
The orange lights from the fires lit up my path. The heat and soot made it hard to breathe. In front of me were around twenty reapers who had abandoned the Formless and the reaper army. In otherworld they were scum. I had no problem sending these people to the grave.
Robyn was short, maybe due to being a kid. She was around 4'11 and had short limbs. She probably used her build to focus on speed. Maybe that was why she thought {Carry} was literally for porters or something, but to my eyes it was different. I noticed from the moment I downloaded it. {Carry} did one thing, reduce gravity.
"{Carry}," I uttered.
{Carry} used 50 souls to reduce a target's weight by three quarters for a short period. Only a fat bastard like me would think of using {Carry} on my own weight. The result? From 200 lbs I now weighed only 50, but my legs still had the muscle for a 200 lbs dude. So, like a grasshopper, my legs were far too powerful for my weight.
If you had ever seen a grasshopper running for its life, you were lying. You couldn't see them do that, since they were fast as fuck.
At this point, {Listen} and {Perceive} showed me the reactions of Assault group to my mad dash.
"Incoming bogey! Way faster than the running zombies!"
"Block it, shielders form up, spearmen next, archers after. Take it down once it stops," another voice screamed.
A fine tactic, I mused. Like a wall the shielders would stop me, then the rest would kill me. Well, they were allowed to entertain such fantasies. I bended to my left side and grabbed the foot of a zombie from one of the burning piles with my left hand.
"{Pack}."
{Pack}, the next evolution of {Carry}, able to reduce an object's weight to zero so long as held by anyone with {Carry}. I took a quick glance of the body whose foot I was holding. The speed of my dash made its limbs and clothes all get pushed back by the air resistance.
"OHH! I got a Bigfoot!"
The Bigfoot was over 6 ft, and probably weighed over 180 lbs. To me, though, it was like I had a toothpick in my hand. I began to swing the Bigfoot like one would a bat before going up to the plate. I'm sure it looked comical from their point of view.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! He is swinging a person by the foot like a bat onehanded!"
"It's a reaper! Prepare offensive skills, blast him when he gets close. I can feel bloodlust from him."
Hmm, so only I found it funny. In under a minute, I already traveled half the distance. I could already see their manifested weapons gathering energy. The attack should come soon.
"{Save}."
I maneuvered the Bigfoot to cover my body like a shield. I didn't know what was coming, but better safe than sorry.
"{Withstand}. {Endure}."
True to her occupation as a shield-maiden, Liv's {fate} was defensive in nature, but it still took skill to use it. Unlike the superheroes in comics, you did not get iron skin or glowing shields. It contributed nothing to your defense. It did, however, cancel force.
That was right, {Withstand} broke the laws of physics, much like {Carry}. Force could not be created nor destroyed. Therefore, when you punched a face, the reason your fist got stopped was due to resistance. The jaw would use its mass to deliver a counterforce that would cancel your punch.
This countering force was what gave the feeling of hitting something. If you punched an object with greater mass, your hand would break. If you hit something with less mass, your punch broke it instead. This was how physics worked.
However, {Withstand} went directly against this fact, essentially denying it altogether. It canceled the force of anything that touched it. However, the shockwaves would still enter your insides. {Endure} at this level, on the other hand, reduced internal damage.
Used in combination, {Withstand} reduced momentum of anything attacking me, making even clothes tougher than steel. {Endure} would then lessen the impact to the point I felt nothing.
The downside was with {Withstand} and {Endure} active, I could no longer change directions. It "rooted" me in the same heading. And while I can still move, if used incorrectly, I would be open to attack from the side.
Luckily that was not an issue right now.
"ATTACK!" shouted one of them.
Like a kaleidoscope of brilliant lights, projectiles of every shade of the rainbow flew towards me. Arrows, sword slashes, round spheres, transparent axes, the attack comprised of an assortment of elements. They seemed to have no commonalties with one another. {Fates} really were personal.
'This is going to fucking hurt,' I thought.
Right, the worst downside to {Withstand}? It did not mitigate damage or pain. Only momentum. This was the most spartan way to defend against an attack. What the hell did Liv even wish for to have something like this?
I moved Bigfoot closer to cover my body as we charged. I kept an eye open to ensure I could respond to anything I couldn't anticipate. The moment the projectiles smashed onto bigfoot. I almost got blinded by the light show. A sharp pain ran through my right thigh, left shoulder, and left earlobe.
The pain was so intense, I nearly bit my tongue off. I began to feel weak from the damage. My every step began to send fires into my veins. I felt blood running down the side of my head. It seemed my left ear got chopped off.
'FUUUUUUCKKKKK!!!!!!' I screamed internally.
Besides the pain, though, the attack did nothing to slow me down nor did Bigfoot get torn to pieces. I didn't know the extent of the damage, but he was still in one piece.
"HE IS STILL COMING! ATTACK AGAIN! HURRY!"
"Thanks Bigfoot. Give them hell," I whispered.
After the volley of attacks, I wound up my left arm and threw Bigfoot like I would a baseball. Due to {Withstand}, my entire body didn't even shift one bit. Due to leaving my hand, Bigfoot lost the weight reduction of {Pack} and flew like a ragdoll hit by a truck.
With {Aim}, I threw Bigfoot in front of the shielders. My momentum, Bigfoot's velocity, and the zombie suddenly increasing in mass all added up to create a makeshift battering ram. Like a bowling ball, Bigfoot smashed into the reaper army and knocked several of them down while disorganizing the others.
The chaos that ensured was hilarious. They were all scared shitless that an undead got so close. The ones around Bigfoot began to slash and hack him to pieces just to be sure. While they were preoccupied, I leaped through the hole Bigfoot made and got to work.
I kicked down the one immediately in front of me and shot him in the face.
"Hello!" I greeted.
"WHAT?! Oy! Ignore the zombie! Focus on the reaper!" one shouted in panic.
Another benefit of {Withstand} and {Endure}, the 1911 no longer had any recoil. Without the hassle of re-steadying my gun after firing it, I could now handle like an airsoft toy instead of a firearm. With {Listen} and {Perceive}, I knew exactly what was going on around me.
Unable to turn, I fired my gun like an action hero without looking just from the sounds of their breathing. One after another I shot three people dead. Being unable to turn was troublesome.
A guy then stabbed me in the flank as an arrow buried itself on my back.
"{Withstand}, {Endure} Cancel."
The pain that I felt right now made me want to die. Like having molten lava melting my limbs, everything just hurt, yet I could not stop. Without {Withstand}, I could now turn. The first thing I did was stab the 1911 towards the fucker who wounded me and fire my gun into his eye.
"{Pack}."
I grabbed the swordsman's corpse and turned it into a shield. Three people came for me with spears, and I used the corpse to block their strikes. Unfortunately, one pushed through the body and stabbed me in the chest as well. While the leather armor blocked it, I vomited blood from the shock.
I quickly used my gun to kill the spearmen in rapid succession.
"{Reload}."
I then threw the corpse I held towards the archer knocking their group down. In such proximity, the ones around him might as well have been sitting ducks. With both hands on my weapon, I fired repeatedly until all the archers were dead.
"How is he still alive?!" someone cried, clearly agitated as hell.
Perhaps they saw hope because I was bleeding all over. Another man rushed at me and then stabbed me in the neck. I smiled as I shoved my gun into his mouth and blew his brains out.
"{Rewind}."