Chapter 72: Round 2

Theres no such thing as a ‘fair fight’ with William Oh. Merely being his opponent has already put you at a disadvantage. What did you expect? A fight where either side has an equal chance of losing? William Oh doesn’t lose.

• level 15 Climber in a second Floor Inn.

“Alright, where are the drugs?” Ria demanded, grabbing the Ear Collector’s hands and twisting them up behind him. “I know there’s a surge around the tournament. People like to get high and watch the fights.”

“Exactly. People like to do that, why are you being a killjoy?” The Ear Collector asked, struggling to move and finding himself overpowered. “Listen rookie, you’ve only been a guardswoman for like, two months, and they only let you in ‘cause you got that retard strength. Maybe keep your head down, lift heavy things for your superiors for a couple years and learn a bit more about how Akul works before you try to singlehandedly stop all crime everywhere.”

“If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it, what I want right now is to know where you keep your stash.” Ria said.

“Why, you wanna get lit? Ow, ow, ow.”

Ear Collector winced as his bones creaked in Ria’s hands.

“Oh, sure, let me just abandon my reputation and the business I’ve been cultivating for thirty years because a pretty girl in a uniform asked. Let me tell you honey, that ain’t the right uniform. But I hear 5^th Floor Fantasies is hirin- OW OW OW!”

“Wait wait!” The Ear Collector shouted, prompting Ria to ease up the pressure.

“You gonna talk?”

“Obviously not. No, do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Ria asked, but a moment later the wind over the alleyway carried the sound of steel clanging against steel and screams of pain, followed by a series of distant explosions.

A moment later, William Oh jumped over the alley, pursued by nearly a dozen armed men.

The slightly cool, and slightly heroic young man glanced down at them as he passed. Ria would never admit it to anyone, though.

“Ah crap,” Ear Collector muttered.

“What, why?” Ria asked.

“INCOMING!” Will’s voice came an instant before he looped back around towards them, sprinting into the alley from the main street, thugs hot on his trail. “Two freebies!” Will held up a leather-clad hand with two fingers extended.

Ear Collector shook his head.

“Three!” Will held up another finger.

“DEAL!” Ear Collector shouted back.

“Hey! Are you guys crime-ing? Hey!” Ria demanded, suspecting she’d just witnessed an illicit deal go down…but no context for what it might’ve been.

“Gonna wanna leggo ‘fore they get here, sweetheart.” Ear Collector said.

Ria’s eyes widened as she spotted the ten or so men charging after Will, their eyes crazed, practically foaming at the mouth with the desire to kill.

“WILL, WHAT DID YOU DO!?” she demanded, shoving the Ear Collector aside and grabbing her halberd.

***William Oh, 30 seconds before***

“Fighters, BEGIN!” The announcer cried, making a chopping motion.

Will immediately tensed his legs to leap upward and turn this fight into a chase.

A pulse of energy washed over him and his body froze in place.

Eh?

The nearest thug wound up a beheading strike as Will struggled to move, while another aimed to gut him.

He wasn’t frozen so much as he was slowed to a ridiculous degree, moving at a snail’s pace regardless of how hard he struggled to move. It was as if the air itself had turned to pitch.

Phantom Hand was slowed as well, but since the Ability was already blindingly fast, it moved at a brisk jog.

Which…wasn’t nearly fast enough to save him.

Move MOVE!

Stevie emerged from the wall beside the beheader and grabbed his arm, sucker-punching him in the side of the head, while Billy-bob yanked the other one’s feet out from under him, causing the thug to crack his jaw open on the cobblestones.

Together the two spirit butlers grabbed Will’s glacially slow body under the arms and prepared to throw him high into the sky.

…I still got those smoke bombs, yeah?

The instant before he was launched upward, Will released a present from his Dimensional Storage, preserving it’s Starter with Sourdough.

Now that he knew he could direct Charges and certain Abilities through his Phantom Hand, there was no reason not to. Will tried to do something he’d never tried before: Using Sourdough to retain the starter of the new item as he released it from Phantom Hand’s dimensional Storage.

Sourdough

61->60 charges remaining.

The alleyway erupted into smoke and screaming as the smoke bomb blinded them to his escape.

Only temporarily, though.

“Godsdamnit how- Where did he go!?“

Will was ever-so-slowly pushing himself to his feet on the slanted shingles as a trickle of men began streaming out of the smoke. The ones that had either seen where he went or simply jumped upward to get out of the smoke.

The first one out got a faceful of Aetherhawk, summoned by his glove. The thug tumbled back, throwing others behind him back into the smoke as Magnus did his best to claw and peck his face off, sending his victim shrieking back to the ground.

What a cutie.

Will saw the announcer and Priestess erupt from the smoke, landing on the roof with grace and power that far exceeded that of a typical level 25.

The priestess clasped her hands together and waited patiently for either of them to suffer lethal damage, but the Announcer was fired up.

“And William Oh counters the powerful slow effect with pre-summoned minions, retreating to the roof above the alley for a strategic advantage!”

“He’s on the roof! Get up there!” his opponent’s voice called out.

As the slow debuff waned, Will gave the announcer a hard look before pulling his mask out and slapping it down over his face.

She had the decency to shrug and look a bit sheepish.

Sourdough

60->57 Charges remaining.

The three fireball beads he’d purchased from the consumable store in Coalton sailed down into the alley, exploding with vibrant flashes of orange that lit up the thick smoke from the inside, catching any of the attackers who hadn’t immediately jumped for the roof.

About half of them were dissuaded from continuing pursuit, but there were still twenty or so remaining.

Best purchase in recent memory. Aside from Jason, I suppose.

The slow effect was fully gone by the time they located him and began chasing.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

He must be using something like the Ring of Curse Concentration to trade duration for potency.

Five seconds of 95% speed reduction was more dangerous in practice than 100 seconds at 5%, since it allowed for a coup de grace.

Will didn’t have any way to prevent getting hit by the slow whammy again, nor did he have a good answer to it. Now that Stevie and Billy-bob had revealed their presence, they would only be able to help minimally if he were slowed that much again.

Need space and maybe I can find a better spot to fight them, Will thought, lowering his head and breaking into a sprint across the roof tiles.

Come to think of it, I run across roofs more than the average Climber, don’t I? Will thought.

“And William Oh seeks to take advantage of the ringless arena and his superior maneuverability to buy some time!” The announcer shouted, running along beside him, effortlessly keeping up with his full-speed dash.

Will felt the familiar pulse of energy and his body locked up halfway over the spine of a roof, causing his foot to catch and sending him tumbling headlong down the other side, unable to move his arms fast enough to catch his fall.

Wonder if this is how Hiro felt? Will wondered as he approached the edge of the roof, the alleyway spinning closer and closer…

Will caught himself by the belt with the Phantom hand, preventing himself from tumbling off the edge, only to glance up and spot half a dozen thugs cresting the roof behind him, eyes inflamed from the smoke bomb.

Homefield Advantage

56 Charge remaining.

“AAAA-EEEEEE!”

Their war-cries devolved into shrieks of terror as their headlong sprint down the slope of the roof turned into terminal velocity plummets towards the unforgiving stone three stories below.

One of the flailing mercenaries got a lucky flail as he went by, carving a deep gouge into Will’s side. It bled pretty good, drawing a line of blood across his shirt, but it didn’t cut through his ribs, so it wasn’t inherently lethal.

Another tried for his neck and Will yanked himself to the side at the Phantom Hand’s subdued pace, only getting a shallow graze across his neck and nicking his mask where it guarded his jaw.

The merc ‘tsked’ an instant before he disappeared off the side of the roof into the alleyway below.

A moment later, the slow effect was gone and Will scrambled to his feet, lunging to the next rooftop over while the dozen or so remaining thugs went around his ice slick, aiming to surround him.

That felt about a second less than the one before. Four seconds instead of five.

Was the Ability built to have diminishing returns in exchange for a stronger initial effect on the – generally correct – assumption it wouldn’t need a second application?

He might be bluffing. Always assume it’ll last the full five seconds. Or more. A relic could come into play as a trump card.

A few of them had gotten ahead of him, and Will pointed at the one covering the largest gap with his thick leather glove. An ethereal hawk dropped out of the sky, claws extended towards the man’s face.

To his credit, the Merc saw it coming and reacted with superhuman speed, blocking the attack with the flat of his blade, catching Magnus’s semi-physical claws an instant before they landed.

An instant later he unleashed an Ability, a massive flaming purple hand erupting from his wrist and crushing Will’s hawk.