No words were needed. Conventional tactics had failed. Yasafina's perfect form, her long learned disciplined attacks, her lifetime of training. All of it had been rendered completely and utterly useless by raw, overwhelming force.
This is why barbarians still exist in a world of knights and mages, why they somehow still survive. I realized. Sometimes you need something primal. Something that can't be taught in academies or distilled into proper form.
The hulking leader turned toward us.
His muscles rippled beneath tattooed skin, and he was at least eight feet tall now. To conventional horror, his body was still expanding as dark power pulsed through the symbols etched into his flesh.
"Ah, the real barbarians," he said, his voice a rumble that seemed to vibrate the very air. "There's something familiar about you. Your stance, perhaps. Your eyes. No… It's got to be the vibe. The rumors are true. You two are Valtherians." He tilted his massive head. "Are you perhaps related to Gerholt, the Magmaborn? The Pillar of Valteria?"
I stayed quiet.
Ragna stayed quiet too, and she looked at me. The leader tilted his head, realizing I was in charge.
He knows Gerholt? The previous person who knew Gerholt was Lady Nezehra, and she was a Dragon and a Demigod. The man whose shadow falls across every conversation about strength in our tribe. Why did he let this bastard live if he’d met him?
I realized that this fool must have only seen Gerholt from a distance. There was no other way a disgusting scum like him would escape that beast’s clutches.
"No words? Perhaps you're just another savage after all." The giant shrugged his massive shoulders. "A pity. I had hoped for a worthy opponent."
Talk all you want. It gives me time to think. Time to calculate.
I glanced at Yasafina. She was struggling to rise, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her knights were still engaged with the remaining cultists, outnumbered but fighting with a precision that was admirable, even if they were having a difficult time. Ragna was already moving, positioning herself on the opposite side of the grove.
A pincer attack won't work on this thing. He's not a tactical problem. He's a mountain. You don't climb a mountain by punching it. You find a better way up… I pondered the subject. Or you become an earthquake and bring the mountain down.
The giant's patience evaporated. "Ah, that’s enough."
He charged and the ground shook. He covered the distance between us in a heartbeat, one massive fist raised to deliver a crushing blow.
Too fast.
Not fast enough. I triggered [Osmotic Evolution].
[Bloodline Skill - Osmotic Evolution (X) - activated!]
The world froze. Colors inverted briefly, then faded to monochrome. The giant hung suspended mid-lunge, his face twisted in a grotesque snarl, his fist a blur even in this frozen moment.
My awareness drifted to the dead. The pyromancer whom Ragna had killed was out of my ability’s influence. But the lightning wielder wasn’t. His corpses lay broken on the grayscale earth. Above him, ghostly lines shimmered, each a piece of his power waiting to be claimed.
I didn't need fire. I had my own. What I needed was speed.
[Since you’ve only killed one human, it has been selected as your Source for the next 24 hours.]
[Which Skill do you want to borrow?]
- Arc-Flash Step [B]
- Static Overload [C]
- Charged Blade [D]
- Voltaic Mind [E]
There it is. The key.
I reached out and seized it.
[Selected: Arc-Flash Step]
[Osmotic Evolution (B) - Arc-Flash Step.]
[Loading the Trait into your physiology…]
[Class Compatibility Detected with Draconis Stormborn!]
[Your elemental affinity has amplified the skill's potential.]
[Skill Enhanced: Arc-Flash Step has been upgraded to A-rank!]
The world lurched back into motion. Colors returned. Sound crashed back like a wave.
The giant's fist whistled through empty air where I'd been standing a microsecond before.
Because I was no longer there.
The sensation was disorienting. A violent, instantaneous rush. My nervous system felt like it had been rewired with copper and ozone. The world didn't just slow down; it ground to a near halt. I could see the individual motes of dust kicked up by the giant's charge, hanging suspended in the air. I could see the look of confusion beginning to form on his face, stretched out over an eternity.
Is this what it feels like to outrun a thought…?
I was in the midst of the cultist group, moving faster than human eyes could track. Lightning crackled around my limbs, blue-white arcs that left afterimages in the air.
I spun.
A single, complete 360-degree turn, my arms extended, hands flat like blades.
Arms. Legs. Torsos. And heads.
My limbs, moving perhaps faster than the speed of sound, cut through flesh and bone like they weren't there. Blood sprayed in slow motion. Bodies fell apart in segments. By the time I completed my turn, every cultist within a ten-foot radius was already dead, their bodies just beginning to register the fact.
[You have slain a Black Concord Cultist – Level 32!]
[You have slain a Black Concord Cultist – Level 35!]
[You have slain a Black Concord Cultist – Level 29!]
[You have slain…!]
Notifications blinded me. More came.
…
[You have Leveled Up!]
[You have Leveled Up!]
[You have Leveled Up!]
[You have reached Level 46!]
The knights froze, staring at me with naked shock. One moment they'd been fighting for their lives; the next, their opponents were falling to pieces around them.
I turned back to the giant. He was still processing what had happened, his tiny eyes blinking in confusion.
"Looking for me?" I called out. "Sorry about your friends. I got bored waiting for you to finish your speech."
His face contorted with rage. "You fool…? Are you mocking the Concord?"
I grinned. "The Black Concord? You guys are a bunch of absolute disappointments who couldn’t even convince a kid to sell land. All that mystical bullshit, and what do you send? A muscle-bound idiot who can't shut his mouth long enough to land a punch."
"I'll tear you apart!" he roared.
Good. Angry enemies make mistakes. I was surprised he got angry so fast. It must be a side effect of all those muscles, of whatever skill he was blessed with.
"You couldn't tear apart a piece of paper without reading instructions first," I taunted, circling him. "Come on, big man. Show me what the ‘Grey Sentinel’ or whatever gave you besides an oversized body and an undersized brain."
He charged again. I was ready.
[Arc-Flash Step] activated instinctively, and I sidestepped his rush with contemptuous ease. As he passed, I swung my axe, channeling [Elemental Fury] into the blade.
Unlike the useless attempts of Captain Yasafina’s sword, the edge of my axe bit deep into his flesh, drawing a line of fire across his shoulder blades. He howled in pain. But the wound began to close almost immediately, the flesh knitting together before my eyes.
So he’s got regeneration, too. He was a difficult opponent. It's like trying to chop down a redwood with a hatchet. The cuts are there, but the tree doesn't care.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The giant spun with surprising agility and launched a flurry of attacks. I dodged most, blocked others with my axe. Each time my blade connected, it cut deep, but the wounds sealed themselves within seconds.
"Is that all you can do, barbarian? Run and scratch?" he taunted. "Your weapons are useless against the blessings of the great Grey Sentinel."
I jumped back, creating distance. I looked at my axe. Then, with a casual flick, I tossed it aside. It embedded itself in a tree trunk with a solid thunk.
"You're right," I said, rolling my shoulders and cracking my knuckles. "Let's try something else."
The giant laughed, a sound like stones grinding together. "Bare hands against me? You truly are insane."
I smiled. "Insanity is a barbarian tradition."
We charged simultaneously. His fist came down like a meteor; mine shot up to meet it. When they connected, the impact created a shockwave that flattened the grass in a twenty-foot circle around us.
Pain lanced up my arm. His strength was monstrous.
But I didn't budge.
I pushed back.
His eyes widened in shock as I matched his strength. For a brief moment, we were locked in a stalemate.
Then the stalemate broke. His raw, divine power was still superior. My arm screamed in protest as he forced it back, inch by agonizing inch. He was a walking avalanche of divine rage. I was a barbarian who refused to be buried.
With a final roar, he broke the lock. His fist slammed into my chest.
The world vanished in a flash of white-hot agony. I was airborne. The sensation wasn't of being pushed, but of being deleted from one spot and reinserted in another, violently. I smashed through the trunk of an ironwood tree, the "indestructible" wood exploding into splinters around me. I hit a second, then a third, before crashing into the rocky wall of the grove in a shower of debris.
...Hah. I slid to the ground, every bone in my body screaming. The taste of copper filled my mouth. So this is a 6th Ascension cultist. Really dangerous.
Before the dust had even settled, I was moving. [Arc-Flash Step] ignited, and I vanished from the crater I'd made, reappearing directly in front of his face as he turned to gloat.
His eyes widened. He didn't have time to react.
What followed was a storm. A hurricane of fists. The air filled with the sound of sonic booms as our blows met, every impact like a miniature explosion. We were a blur of motion, a chaotic dance of destruction.
My punch shattered the ground beneath his feet. His backhand sent me skidding thirty feet, carving a trench in the earth. I used [Lightning Step] to flank him, landing a dozen rapid-fire strikes to his ribs, each one cracking like thunder. He spun, catching me with a clothesline that sent me tumbling end over end, my vision swimming.
The grove was being unmade around us. Trees were uprooted. Boulders were pulverized into dust. The very ground buckled and cracked under the sheer force of our exchange. This wasn't a duel of skill. It was a contest of raw strength.
Although I was here for judgment, I loved every second of it.
My body screamed. Ribs were definitely cracked. My left arm felt numb. Every impact sent a jolt through my system that would have turned a normal man into a sack of broken bones. My Valtherian Physique was working overtime, knitting tissue and reinforcing bone even as it was being shattered.
But it wasn't enough.
He's still stronger. His power source is divine. Mine is just... me. The thought was a shard of ice in the inferno of the fight.
I couldn't out-punch him. I couldn't break him. Not like this.
But this feeling... this was a little familiar. The screech of protesting muscle, the grinding of bone, the sensation of my very cells being pushed to the point of disintegration. Was it not the same edge of annihilation I'd felt when I was weaponless and surrounded by direwolves? Yes, yes, it was.
It was the same helpless, grinding punishment I'd endured under Allister's blade.
Both times, when I was pushed past that limit, my body had... answered. It had broken and remade itself stronger. After all, according to my Status page, I wasn’t full yet.
Can I make it this time too? The question struck me with the force of Vorlag's own fist. This didn’t just have to be a beating; it could be a forge. This monster's divine power could be the hammer, and my body the steel.
The two previous upgrades weren't random, when the Valtherian Physique rose from E to D, and then D to C. There was a pattern. A struggle.
A new, terrifying plan formed. If it didn’t work, I’d die, and Ragna being weaker than me would also die. I must win. This was a strategy of surviving the breaking point to force an evolution.
I pushed myself to my feet, a bloody, savage grin stretching my lips.
“RAGHHH!” I charged back in, no longer trying to just dodge or parry. I met his blows head-on, taking the brunt of his power, letting his divine force hammer against my very bones. I needed this. I needed the pressure. I needed to be broken to be remade.
We met in the center of the clearing for one final, cataclysmic exchange. Our fists collided in a vortex of raw power.
The world exploded.
A dome of pure force erupted from the point of impact, leveling every remaining tree in the grove. Ragna, Yasafina, and the knights were all thrown back by the sheer pressure.
I was sent flying once again, crashing into the earth and carving a long, deep furrow before coming to a stop.
I pushed myself to one knee, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the corrupted soil and bubbling out a laugh. The world spun. My body was a machine of pain. My muscles, bones, and every nerve ending were screaming their protest.
I had reached my limit. But… I had to keep going!
[Willpower met! Detecting Extraordinary Physical Resistance! Your body has endured punishment beyond its designated limits, incredible!]
[Valtherian Physique Condition Met: Clash Against Divine-Enhanced Strength and Refuse to Go Down.]
[Valtherian Physique has ranked up to [B]! You’re a step closer to its true rank.]
And then, the pain vanished.
It wasn't a gradual healing. It was a fundamental reset as if I’d leveled up.
A wave of cool, clean power washed through me, extinguishing the fire in my nerves. Bones hardened to the density of forged steel. Muscle fibers, torn and bleeding, twisted into cables of raw, explosive potential. The world snapped into focus, sharper and clearer than ever before.
Ah, it’s been so long since an upgrade. The wait was worth it. Suddenly, the fight’s equation has changed.
I pushed myself to my feet. Across the clearing, the giant was doing the same, a look of triumphant fury on his face. He thought he had won.
He was wrong.
I grinned, a bloody, savage expression that held no humor.
I kicked the ground and blitzed near his head. My shin slammed against the side of his head, and he was shot like a cannonball through the forest line. My allies gasped in shock.
I rushed behind him. I didn’t plan to let him regain his composure at all. What followed wasn't a fight so much as an execution. I became a storm in human form, my punches recreating thunderclaps, and my movements as fast as lightning strikes. I didn't just hit him, no, I flowed through him, a relentless barrage of strikes too fast to see and too powerful to block.
[Tempest Strike] left craters in his flesh that no longer closed. My [Storm Call] created a swirling vortex of elemental fury around us, amplifying my strikes with ice, fire, and lightning. At the same time, [Elemental Fury] coursed through my fists, making each impact a detonation of primal force.
The giant fought back, but his blows, which moments ago could send me flying, now felt like pushes. I absorbed them without flinching, my newly upgraded physique dispersing the force.
This is it. This is the feeling. Not struggling. Not surviving. This is the sheer, exhilarating joy of overwhelming power.
A particularly savage exchange left us both staggering back. The giant's face was a mess of wounds that refused to heal. The dark tattoos on his skin flickered and died. He was weakening.
"You… you savage monster!" he gasped, genuine fear in his voice.
I didn't answer. The time for talk was over. He's a vessel of divine power. I can't just break the vessel. I have to shatter the very concept of it.
I took a deep breath. The air itself seemed to still, drawn into my lungs. Power, primal and ancient, gathered in my chest. It was not the raw fury of the fight. This was something colder. Something more absolute.
The roar that escaped my throat wasn't human. It was the sound of a storm given voice, a draconic decree that shook the very foundations of the grove. It was a pressure wave so thick that it was a physical force rippling through the air.
[Storm Sovereign's Edict].
In simpler words, it was a Dragon’s Breath.
The pillar of energy slammed into Vorlag who staggered back, not from the energy alone, but from the authority behind it. The divine protection granted by his master, whoever it was, sputtered like a dying flame. His muscles began to twitch as he screamed in pain as the pillar of storm energy burned his skin. The writhing tattoos on his skin sparked and short-circuited. Cracks of frost spread across his arms. Tiny embers ignited and died on his chest.
His divine resistance, the very law that made him invulnerable, had been shattered. By the time my breath ended, I was panting. Barely anything remained in my channels. But… the same must be true for him. He was vulnerable. He was just a man again.
So I attacked.
[Arc-Flash Step] ignited, and I was in front of him before his mind could process his own vulnerability. [Storm Call] created a storm around me, and I tried to mold that. I didn’t know why, but I tapped into [Tempest Strike] out of instinct.
My fist became wreathed in the swirling chaos of storms, became the eye of a hurricane. Fire, lightning, and ice converged into a single, incandescent point of annihilation.
The final, desperate roar died in his throat as he swung at me with all his remaining strength. I caught his fist in my hand.
The impact should have shattered every bone in my arm. It didn't even hurt.
"You wanted to know if I'm related to Gerholt," I said calmly, tightening my grip until I felt bones cracking beneath my fingers. "The answer is yes."
I pulled him forward. My other fist, now a contained supernova of elemental fury, slammed into his sternum.
There was no sound. Not at first. Just a flash of impossible light that bleached all color from the world. A vortex of elemental energy erupted from the point of impact, not outward, but inward. Fire burned away his flesh. Ice flash-froze his bones to absolute zero. Lightning disintegrated his very atoms.
His torso, his arms, everything from his neck to his waist, was simply... erased.
The vortex collapsed in on itself, leaving a perfect, horrifying void.
For a single, surreal moment, his head remained suspended in the air, a look of utter disbelief frozen on his face. Then gravity remembered its job. It fell, landing on the corrupted earth with a soft, wet thud. His legs, now disconnected from anything, stood for a second longer before buckling and collapsing into a heap.
He didn't get up.
Oh. I should name that attack.
[You have slain a Black Concord Domain-Lord – Level 77!]
[You have gained experience points!]
[You’ve leveled up.]
[You’ve leveled up.]
[Level 48.]
I stood over the grotesque remains, blood dripping from my knuckles, my breathing steady. The storm around me slowly subsided, leaving only an unnatural silence in its wake. I could feel eyes on me. Ragna's savage approval. The knights' stark terror. Yasafina's stunned disbelief.
The Captain of the Veridian Guard was being helped to her feet, one arm clutched around her ribs. She stared at me as if seeing something impossible, something that challenged everything she believed about the world.
"But how?" she asked.
I met her gaze steadily.
"I'm a barbarian," I said. "It's about time you remembered what that means."
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