Chapter 113

It wasn’t that Luke expected to get away, though that would have been the best possible outcome. Enough of the Blacktongue mercenaries had run off that he’d accepted he wasn’t going to kill all of them, and that it was a distinct possibility that they’d continue to be a problem in the near future. Killing one more right here and now wasn’t going to change that.

But no, he didn’t think he was going to get away without another fight. His goal was to catch up to the one who was holding onto Zea before that merc escaped, and to give himself a better arena to fight in. The hallway wasn’t exactly narrow, but it favored the merc fighting with his bare fists far more than it favored Luke. He could barely get half a horizontal swing in before he hit one wall or another, and while it was easier to predict what direction a hit would come from when his opponent had no choice but to be right in front of him, it also made it easier for the merc to predict his attacks.

Assuming the merc could keep him with him, Luke just wanted more space to swing his big, heavy, pokey metal stick around. Plus, he had four different skills that helped him avoid attacks, one of them at rank 4 and another at rank 3, and he needed to play to that advantage.

He sprinted away, trusting in his agility and [Peripheral Awareness] to keep him safe. The merc, perhaps surprised by the sudden retreat, hesitated a second before chasing after him with a strangled, “Hey, get back here you little shit head!”

Luke followed the other merc up the stairs, took a beat to locate the sound of Zea’s breathing through the gag they had on her, and rushed off to the right. He hadn’t gotten the full layout of the compound while he was rampaging through it, but Luke didn’t mind crashing through a window to get back outside if he needed to. Zea was being carried off in a straight line, the same direction all the other lower level mercs had retreated in, which was another reason to catch up to her before the merc rejoined the rest of his team.

An instant’s cracking sound was all the warning he got before the floor next to Luke exploded and the high level merc was in front of him. The merc grabbed him by the shirt, but Luke threw himself backwards. The fabric was no match for the strength of the two men and tore like paper, leaving the merc with a scrap of cloth in one hand and Luke with a V-neck cut top.

The wood splinters hadn’t even come back down to the floor yet, and the merc was already coming in for a second attack. Luke blocked it with his mace, mostly by slapping the man’s outstretched hand aside. If being battered with a piece of heavy metal moving at high speeds bothered the merc, he didn’t show it. Fighting someone with just as much stamina as Luke was a pain in the ass.

Luke darted off to the side, set his shoulder, and activated [Power Strike] just as he impacted the wall. His rush took him right through it and into the next room, where he rolled into the air in a sideways flip that sent him over a dinner table. By the time his feet were back under him, the merc had landed on top of the table and already had a fist coming for Luke’s face.

“Shit!”

Luke ducked the attack and brought his mace up to crash through the bottom of the table. It snapped apart easily, and the force of the upwards strike threw the merc into the ceiling. The man bounced off and was on his way back down before Luke could even scramble back upright, this time with his foot lined up to drop an axe kick onto Luke’s skull.

Things got hectic for a few seconds as they traded blows and broke through furniture and walls. Despite his agility advantage, Luke found he was having a hard time keeping ahead of the merc. No matter which way he moved, the other guy was always working to cut him off before he’d even started. Luke was almost positive the merc had his own version of [Tactical Foresight]. Hell, it might even be the same skill, and probably at a higher rank too.

The worst part of it was that this was turning into by far the longest fight he’d had against any of the mercs. The guy’s build practically seemed designed to stall Luke and frustrate him until he made a mistake, not that that meant he couldn’t kill Luke too. Just, that wasn’t their aim. They’d made it pretty obvious they wanted Luke and Zea alive for whoever had hired them.

The important thing was that this asshole was stopping him from even making it out of the compound so they could make a proper fight of it, and while Luke was a bit hesitant to use [Life Surge] in the middle of a fight, they had tested it and found that the rank up had drastically lowered the side effects. That had admittedly only been when it was used for healing, not in live combat, so there was still some risk of it behaving differently, but he was pretty sure it would work.

If it didn’t, there was no way he was catching up to Zea before the skill gave out, not even with the extended duration. It was a gamble, but his bid to break away from the grabby merc had failed before he’d even gotten out of the compound. Luke activated the skill.

The merc seemed to slow down as all of Luke’s stats skyrocketed. He reached out and casually grabbed an arm that was lunging for him, the spun and hurled the big man through the wall. Luke chased after, and hammered his enemy with his mace to drive him back to the floor when he tried to bound up to his feet.

Something changed, and the merc sped up to something approaching Luke’s new speed. The pair went through another wall, and this time Luke took the brunt of it. Before they could land, he rolled and threw the merc off of him. They hit the floor at the same time with about five feet of open air between them. The merc had struck a couch on his way down and was shoved up hard against a wall, while Luke crashed through some sort of end table and broken it to pieces.

There were hundreds of little splinters caught in his clothes, but none pierced his flesh. Even without the boost from [Life Surge], he would have stood back up without a scratch. With it, he barely even noticed the wood bursting apart when he crashed into it. Luke’s focus was solely on the exterior window the room boasted, his ticket to freedom. Once they were outside, he’d see if the merc could keep up with his enhanced speed.

Luke crashed through the window before the other guy had even recovered. It seemed like his bursts of speed were extremely short duration and had to be used strategically instead of just poured on. That was better than an alternative where the man somehow kept up with him, and also gave Luke a bit more hope that he might make a clean getaway. Zea was getting farther and farther away the longer he delayed going after her. Already, he was only making guesses as to which direction he needed to go.

The merc put on another burst of speed and landed next to Luke, but those brief instants weren’t enough to keep up while [Life Surge]was still running. Luke gave him the slip, again, and shot off at full speed away from the town. He tried to pick up some sort of trail with [Survivalist], but he was moving too fast and the skill just didn’t have enough ranks to function when he was running faster than a car could drive down a highway. All he had to go on was what his ears were reporting back to him and a vague, lingering smell of metal and oil that got stronger the closer he got to the trees.

Luke hit the woods at a run, the merc in hot pursuit behind him. With each passing second, the distance between them grew. Despite his little speed burst skill, the merc just didn’t have the raw stats to keep up with Luke in a long-distance sprint, and that wasn’t even factoring in the boost [Life Surge] was currently giving him.

Part of him wanted to stand his ground and use the buff from the skill to finish off the mercenary. If his only goal was to kill the man, that’s exactly what he would have done, but finding Zea was more important. He could hear mercenaries in the woods, running and calling out to each other to coordinate their retreat. Somewhere in that mess was a man carrying a dwifkin, and Luke was determined to find him.

And then he’d probably bash the man’s brains out, just for good measure. He wasn’t feeling too lenient towards the mercenaries, considering they’d attacked him and abducted Zea. Anyone who got in Luke’s way would receive a similar fate.

Luke chased after the fleeing mercenaries, who seemed to be moving in small groups and converging on each other in a central fallback point. At least, that was the picture he got of it based on what he could hear. There was a spot a mile or so away that was crawling with mercs. That was his best option for finding Zea, but also kind of a worst-case scenario. Fighting that many enemies at once was about the best way to get himself killed.

Maybe he’d get lucky and they’d have another building they could divide themselves up into smaller groups inside. Then all he’d need to do was keep up his momentum and kill them as faster than they showed up. It didn’t seem very likely, but a man could hope.

“Luke,” a voice said from up in a nearby tree.

His head whipped around, and he blinked when he spotted Zea sitting there, or rather, hanging there, still tied up and draped over a thick branch. Her gag had been loosened enough that it was over her chin now. “What the actual fuck…” he whispered as he watched her sway a little bit, the branch creaking.

“Uh, yeah, hi. I… um, escaped?” Zea told him.

“Fucking how?” Luke asked. Then he shook his head. They didn’t have time to stand around discussing it, not with that merc right on his ass. At best, they had four or five seconds of lead time.

Now that he’d found Zea though, he could shift his priorities. He had about thirty seconds of [Life Surge] left and one annoying merc he’d like to kill before they left. If he came at the man aggressively, he might be able to end the fight that quickly. He might get Zea down from the tree and keep running, if he acted quickly enough.

Someone crashed through the trees a hundred feet away, heading straight for them.

“Shit, out of time,” Luke said, his decision made for him. He spared a second to leap up into the tree, grab Zea, and break the rope binding her with brute strength. Then he dropped back to the ground and squared himself with the source of the noise. He could see flickers of movement behind a screen of branches and underbrush, and an instant later, the merc burst through them.

“Both of you together? Can’t those idiots do anything right?” the merc said.

Then he rushed forward, his speed far in excess of what his agility should offer him and his hands extended to grab hold of Luke.