Adam's instincts told him to draw in more power. The river sloshed inside, trying to become rapids. Heat infused his cells, pushing energy into them. Power cried to him.

Yet, even as Adam watched the knife coming towards him, he knew that power wasn't the answer here. At least not the physical kind. Speed wasn't giving him the upper hand. Strength was doing more damage to himself than his enemy. What Adam needed was a clear head to figure this out.

Of course, Rexus was right. Just a few months ago Adam had been a lazy teenager. He hadn't aspired to anything. Over the months since, he tried to practice fighting techniques. He had tried to learn from more experienced combatants, but how much could you truly learn when you greatly outclassed them physically?

Lucas was impressive, both with his boxing and his skills that made him more proficient with different fighting styles. But even as Lucas had a good amount of strength, Adam had never been pushed by him. It hardly mattered either, since whatever practice Adam put in was quickly forgotten as the rage took over. Fighting had just been too easy.

Now Adam faced someone with lower attack stats, and higher toughness, who was better able to leverage his abilities. Adam needed a different direction, a different set of skills.

Fighting his instincts, Adam refused the strength. He denied the cries from his soul. Using [Body and Soul Shaping], Adam closed the spigot, reducing the flow of power. The sudden reduction in stats made his body shiver.

Adam clenched his jaw and grunted as he felt the knife stab into his thigh. He fought through the pain and weakness it caused, grabbing Rexus's wrist as the man enthusiastically pushed the blade in. Then he held on. With surprise, Rexus tried to pull the knife out but couldn't. Adam looked directly in his eyes, then cast [Soul Bolt].

For the first time in the fight, Rexus screamed. He stumbled back from Adam, who pulled out the knife. Blood flowed from Adam's wound, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He wouldn't have been able to fight with it in, since the knife was sharp enough to keep tearing him up, but he was also hesitant to use the knife against Rexus since the damage reflection might be too much for him.

Adam had lowered his stats with the intention of trying to find a way to fight back. [Soul Lock] wasn't an option since Adam doubted locking a single skill would be enough to weaken Rexus. He was also concerned that using it again would somehow unlock Sgolkr's skill faster.

[Soul Bolt] was the only attack skill that his inherited Soul Forger class contained. He also didn't think that Rexus would give him enough time to infiltrate his soul and build enough power to use [Soul Shatter].

"What was THAT?!" screamed Rexus, holding his head as he tried to deal with the soul attack. "Berserkers shouldn't have magic attacks, and I still should have resisted most of it!"

Adam coughed up a bit of flem and blood stuck in his throat before speaking. "Skills can be so unfair, right?"

Rexus growled at him and then charged forward, his arms moving to grapple in an attempt to get the knife back. Seeing his aim, Adam threw the knife as hard as he could towards the wall. The movement left him open to a tackle.

Arms wrapped around Adam's midsection while Rexus's shoulder sank into his abdomen. When the tackle came, Adam's body was twisted from the knife throw. That allowed Adam to land sideways on the ground, sliding Rexus partially off him. Clasping his left hand on Rexus's elbow, he pushed it upwards, preventing the commander from getting a tight grasp of him.

Adam risked using [Arc Shockwave] with less strength to create more space between the two. He felt the reflected damage again, but it was much less this time, since his own power was tuned down. Rexus's awkward position when the shockwave hit was enough to slide him along the ground, about eight feet away. Adam was first to his feet.

Yet, Adam didn't attack. He waited as Rexus angrily got back to his feet. The man snarled at him.

"That's a nasty leg wound. I could outrun you now."

Adam shook his head. "I can teleport and catch up to you."

"Why are you so insistent on this fight?!" bellowed the commander.

"You sided with the invaders," hissed Adam. "Killed humans. I can't let you go. There's no telling who else you'll betray."

"RAWR!" screamed Rexus as he charged forward. While the commander rushed him full of his own fury, Adam was calmly counting to ten in his head.

As Rexus arrived, ready for another exchange of blows, Adam said, "Ten!"

Then Rexus stiffened mid lunge, his arm went from throwing a punch to grabbing at his head. He let out a weird noise, and Adam stepped away from him.

In the Petramus boss fight, Adam had figured out that, while he didn't have a cooldown timer for skills on his status sheet, there was still a limit for how frequently he could cast some pseudo-skills without hurting himself or significantly weakening it. For [Soul Bolt] it seemed like 10 seconds.

Nodding to himself, Adam now had a way to control the fight. Soul attacks could only be blocked by specific skills. Older Adam's status sheet had listed the skill [Mental Fortitude]. It was specifically for blocking soul attacks. Rexus had mentioned physical and magic attacks but hadn't mentioned soul attacks. He probably didn't even know those existed, since Cruxannith wouldn't have allowed him the defense against her own abilities.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Now he was fuming, his face getting red in both pain and anger.

"How are you doing that?!" he screamed once more.

Again, Rexus came after Adam. With pain still affecting him, Rexus's movements seemed sluggish. Adam watched him, once more retreating backwards to keep space between them while he counted to ten.

"Come fight me you punk!" demanded Rexus.

"Ten," said Adam, finally in control of his own emotions as he was no longer on the back foot in this fight. Then Rexus yelled when he was hit by another [Soul Bolt].

Adam danced backwards on his own stiff and bleeding leg. His attention was elsewhere though, even as the commander was practically frothing as he tried to get to Adam. The soul map that Adam used to find people was where his attention was focused. He watched as the attack hit Rexus, the commander's powerful essence easy to see while Adam used his [Soul Resonance] pseudo-skill.

What surprised Adam was that after the [Soul Bolt] hit, there was a bit of a disruption in the intensity of Rexus's soul on the map. The intensity dropped just for a moment, flickering, as if the soul had lost some power before returning. It was different than the damage Adam was probably doing. [Soul Bolt] could hurt and damage, but with someone as high a level as Rexus, it was unlikely to be enough to kill him for quite a while. But the flicker of power in the soul was almost like when the power to a house goes out before being picked up by a different circuit on the electrical grid.

That gave Adam an idea.

Adam continued his jerky dodging, limited by his leg. When his count reached ten, he planted his feet and punched towards the approaching Rexus. Surprise showed on Rexus when he saw Adam square up to punch, and the man didn't shy away from the fist, instead aiming right for it. Just before the fist connected, Adam cast [Soul Bolt].

Rexus stifled a cry but allowed his body to continue right into the fist. The impact was nowhere near what the earlier punches had been since Adam was just testing this out. He had timed the soft punch so the soul flicker on his map happened right as the punch landed.

The blow might have been weaker than Adam's attacks usually were, but it still had enough force to conk Rexus on the top of his head and knock his face down into the dirt. Adam once more backed up, but no pain struck him. Rexus looked up at him from the dirt, his eyes wide.

"What…did…you…do?" gasped Rexus, wincing as he pushed himself to his feet.

"I see," said Adam to himself. The [Soul Bolt] seemed to disrupt the passive abilities in Rexus's soul for just a second, preventing the damage mitigation and reflection, if Adam could strike during the flicker. This time it was Adam's turn to smile.

Rexus was still staring at Adam in confusion, but he didn't have time to think as Adam once more got close and pressed the attack. Unsure of how Adam had bypassed his skills, Rexus responded in a safer manner.

Forced to move to avoid Adam's grasps, it was now Rexus's turn to try and stay out of Adam's reach. Adam might be faster, but his leg wound was still preventing him from using his full speed or planting strongly on it.

Things were frantic for nine seconds as Adam would try to grab him and Rexus would try to move away, all the while Adam counted.

"Ten!"

Rexus groaned in pain once more, his body jerking from the soul attack that he didn't understand, and then a fist hammered on his jaw. There was no time to recover as Adam started counting more loudly while reaching for Rexus.

"…seven. Eight. Nine. TEN!"

The counting echoed in Rexus's head as the pain from the [Soul Bolts] kept building with each use. He folded at his stomach as the punch connected immediately after the pain struck.

"What IS this!?" shrieked the commander, fear building in his eyes as the opponent he had looked down on had taken the upper hand. There was no way to know what was happening since Adam now seemed able to negate all of his abilities while using a weird attack with no skill flashes.

"You wanted to know why the invaders fear me," said Adam with a predatorial gleam. "Now you know."

"How can I know when this doesn't follow the rules of the [System]?" demanded the commander as Adam backed off from him.

"That's exactly it," agreed Adam. He opened [Soul and Body Shaping] pulling in the power. He drew in 30% of older Gregor's stats. Adam's skin turned red, then steamed, then sizzled as the power became more than his body could handle. Even the blood on his leg evaporated.

Next, Adam turned on [Power Through]. His strength shot up even higher as the level difference between him and Rexus was higher than when he used it against the Scyrric Base Overseer. It was a struggle as Adam felt his intelligence dropping, but he focused on a single thought. A set action that he wanted to take.

"I don't follow the rules of the [System]," mumbled Adam, his pseudo-skills making him almost unable to speak. Then, with his mind turning feral and his strength rising, Adam pulled back his fist.

Rexus raised his hands to block, unsure of whether his skills would work. He was still unsure how Adam was able to cancel them, but clearly Adam was building up to something now. For the first time since he was a young man on a battlefield, bullets flying around him, Rexus wondered if he would survive the next few moments.

Adam began a staggered run, a growl rising in his throat. He stepped towards Rexus, using [Gladiator's Approach] to skip the space between them. His fist lit up with [Kinetic Impact].

"[Soul Bolt]," muttered Adam, the words lost to the explosion caused by his arm tearing through the air with the compounded strength he had summoned.

It was only for a moment, but Rexus's eyes opened wide at seeing the power coming towards him. The fist had the force of a rocket. Even with his high vitality stat, Rexus knew this was it. His arms dropped and his expression blanked for a split second.

Then there was no expression left as Adam's arm passed through his face and head. The wind shear from the punch threw the headless body dozens of feet away from Adam while it also blew the dirt into a cloud around him.

In the fading light, Adam's body disappeared from the view of the onlookers on the wall. All they could see was an outline as Adam's arms reached out to his sides and he raised his chest and head to the sky, releasing a bestial roar that shook the air.

On top of the wall, the captured cronies of Rexus, and those who had worked with him, including General Carmichael, Gregor, and the other officers shivered as if the hand of death was resting on their shoulders.

The others who were there, the tens of thousands from the Sentinel Army, both on the wall and those within it, all released an answering cheer. Feet stomped. Weapons clanged on shields and other objects. Victorious screams cried out.

Adam turned slowly and looked at everyone. They all looked back, raising their voices and making as much noise as they could. With [Power Through] turned off and [Body and Soul Shaping] once more reducing his power now that his fight was done, Adam raised a fist into the air.

"For Jackson!" he yelled.

The crowds roared with their approval.

"For the Sentinel Army!" Adam yelled.

The cacophony increased.

"FOR HUMANITY!" roared Adam with everything he had.

The noise that erupted was levels louder than before. For miles around the base, the world vibrated with the sound. Even though they couldn't make out the words, the Scyrric army felt the very air of this world turn hostile and hasten them as they retreated.

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