John was fairly sure he would have died in the first exchange without Level 1 Agility. Even with it, he barely got out of the way in time as a grey figured blurred at him. If you counted the sudden burning pain that slashed across his flank just above his pelves, you could make the strong argument that he didn’t get out of the way in time.
The monster didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. He only had a second to even assess what the hell he was dealing with. Without Mind, that wouldn’t have been enough.
It was a dark grey hairless quadruped creature that appeared to be made entirely out of lithe muscle, like a boar-sized rabbit on steroids. Its hind legs were thicker than John’s torso, its front legs were buffer than a bull, and its head looked like a horror from the depths of the ocean, all disjointed and crooked needle teeth inside a semi-translucent skull. It made no noise. Barely even seemed to breathe. Blood dripped from its open maw, and John realised some of it had to be his. Feverish eyes were fixed on him like nothing else in the world mattered but his death.
Sharp claws skidded across the pavement, scoring deep lines as it slowed its momentum. It dug those claws in, crouched down, then launched itself back at him, all in the span of a second, no hesitation.
Even though he was more prepared this time, it still came close to disembowelling him. Improved reactions and mental processing meant little when there was such a disparity in physical capabilities. His side burned as he threw himself in the other direction, narrowly avoiding another agonising wound. It sailed through the air where he’d just been standing, and it turned its head to snap at him as it passed, coming within inches of his left leg. He hit the ground with a wheeze of pain.
-100 Aura
Having barely had a few seconds to comprehend the deadly situation, that notification shocked his mind into overdrive. This thing was too fast to fuck around with. It was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to act like any kind of badass here, and was only going to lose Aura, if that was enough to penalise him.
As such, he wasted no time throwing the first chunk of his Aura into Vitality.
Vitality Level 1 -> Level 2!
-200 Aura
Ecstasy flooded his body once more, attacking his lungs, heart, muscles, and even the blood in his veins. Energy overflowed in his body, but it didn’t stop there. To his surprise, some of the energy devoted itself to his new wound, and immediately the burning pain in his side subsided like it had been bathed in soothing salve. He could feel it closing, like it was rapidly accelerating through the healing process, turning days and weeks of recovery into seconds. Not satisfied with just that, it took aim at the little scrapes and bruises he’d gained from throwing himself recklessly to the ground.
It heals me, he realised with awe. Was that a new thing, or had he just not noticed minor injuries being dealt with the first time?
Either way, the monster was launching itself at him again before the healing was even done. John threw himself to the side once more, this time heading in the other direction. That decision proved to be a good one, because the monster’s lunge turned out to be something of a feint; it hadn’t aimed right for him, but slightly to the side. If he’d rolled in the same direction as last time, it would have collided with him head on.
Again, there was no time to pat himself on the back. A few of his golf clubs had tumbled out of the bag due to his desperate dodge rolls, and he snatched one up and threw it at the monster before it could right itself for another attack. It hit the monster in the back, but didn’t really do any damage.
-300 Aura
John snarled a curse, snatching another club and rapidly backing away, keeping his eyes on the monster. He needed to somehow negate its ability to launch itself at him. Open space like this was obviously to its advantage. He slammed the last of his remaining Aura into Agility, needing to increase his ability to physically react to the monster’s superior speed.
Agility Level 1 -> Level 2!
-200 Aura
Again, energy cascaded into his body, directing itself to specific points with surgical precision. Again, the monster left him no time to complete the change. Luckily, it happened rapidly enough that he was able to just about comprehend the bunching of its muscles and spot the way its eyes were looking. Moving on Agility-powered instinct, deducing it was going to attack to the right, John went left.
It turned out the monster was smarter than he’d expected. Or it was dumb as fuck, and he’d played himself by overestimating the complexity of its thoughts.
Either way, his newly-increased Agility and Mind allowed him to comprehend his situation with horrifying clarity as the monster rocketed right towards his helpless torso.
But not completely helpless. Mind might have been entirely mental, but Agility gave him reflexes far superior to what he’d ever possessed. The club in his hands came up just in time. The monster’s razor-sharp teeth closed around a putter rather than John’s flesh.
It didn’t completely stop the monster’s momentum. Not even close. But a combination of Agility and Strength let him keep his grip even as the monster collided with it and shoved it into him, slamming him back to the floor. It ended up acting like a pole vault of sorts, simultaneously shoving John to the ground and diverting the monster’s maw over him, and it went flying further on, crashing through the boundary wall of some house’s front garden.
Not before kicking out with one of its beefy back legs, though. John saw it coming but could do nothing to block it, both of his hands dedicated to holding off the handle of the putter, which had halfway buried itself in his gut. He turned away from the blow, taking it on his shoulder rather than his face. That was bad enough.
Dull agony erupted in his shoulder. It felt like he’d been donkey kicked by the world champion kick boxer of mules. John gritted his teeth as he rolled away. There wasn’t any time to scream or assess the injury. The monster’s momentum hadn’t been halted, but plenty of it had been bled away by his impromptu parry, meaning it hadn’t landed as far away as it had on its previous attacks, and would be ready for another pass much sooner. He had no choice but to endure the pain and scramble to his feet to prepare.
+100 Aura
What?
For what felt like the dozenth time in less than a minute, the monster left him no time to process new information. It was a relentless beast. Silent save for its claws scraping on the pavement, it was focused on him with unerring intensity, and it didn’t appear it would ever let up until he was dead.
Without Level 2 Agility, John was sure it would have achieved its goal on the next pass. Starting off closer than the previous attacks, there was barely a blink between it launching itself and its maw snapping around the space where John’s head had just been. Rather than throwing himself out of the way, which surely would have been a bad move with his shoulder and sternum in their current states, John had pivoted himself out of the way, stepping to the left and turning his body sideways.
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Once again, though, the creature’s teeth weren’t its only weapon. The blow wasn’t anywhere near as powerful this time due to the awkward angle, but its flailing back leg still dealt him a blow in the ribs, winding him. It sent him stumbling back, but he kept his feet, biting back on a groan of pain. Glaring at the creature, he tensed his jaw and waited for its next move, holding his golf club up like a baseball bat.
+100 Aura
John’s eyes widened. He didn’t know what the hell he’d just received Aura for, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He wasted no time in shoving the Aura into Mind. The ability to react and dodge seemed to be the most important thing right now.
Mind Level 1 -> Level 2!
-200 Aura
The monster still gave him no respite, but this time he was better prepared. Mind’s upgrade happened so fast that even the monster couldn’t interrupt it, and he also got confirmation that it wasn’t just Vitality that healed him up: the agony in his shoulder and ribs numbed like he’d just been put on the world’s best painkillers, and a second later they were gone entirely, restored to perfect health as if he’d spent months in recovery. The little scrapes and bruises that had barely registered before in comparison vanished too.
In that second, the monster was already flying for him, maw gaping wide. Mind’s upgrade proved its worth immediately: that second stretched out to what felt like three or four as it sailed through the air, and combined with Agility he was able to bring his golf club around for a deadly swing and pivot himself out of the way at the same time.
It slammed into the monster’s face with a satisfying, meaty thud. Unfortunately, he knew straight away that it wasn’t enough to harm the monster severely. He might as well have just smacked a solid rock with his club. The haft of the club bent at a ninety-degree angle.
Worse, the monster reciprocated the attack, snapping its leg out as it sailed past him. John had anticipated it this time, dodging back, but it still dealt a glancing blow to his hip that sent him stumbling away, dropping his ruined putter. He clenched his jaw, enduring the pain.
+100 Aura
That was when he finally understood. Three data points was enough to form a hypothesis, and his first idea struck him as the right one: he’d tanked several serious hits without any cries of pain, and he supposed that struck the Aura system as cool. It did probably look pretty badass. He was once again glad that the system couldn’t see inside his mind, because he was sure it wouldn’t be giving him anything if it knew how much he wanted to cry. Without the upgrades healing him, he would’ve been in big trouble.
The monster’s next attack pretty much went the same way. He wasn’t able to get off a counter hit, instead wasting an exchange with having to reach back for his clubs and get one out of the bag. However, he tested another tack, holding out an arm to block the blow he knew was coming.
Sure enough, the monster’s leg struck like a horse kick as it passed him by, and he was able to get his arm into the right place to block. It turned out to be the worst one yet. Burning agony erupted in his forearm as he felt both bones there snap like twigs. The sickening crack it gave would undoubtedly haunt his nightmares for years. His hand fell limp, forearm bent at a ninety-degree angle.
His conscious mind briefly fled, active processes shutting down. For a heartbeat, his entire world was that pain in his arm. A brief, hysterical thought passed through his mind, that his arm now matched the putter he’d discarded, and he wondered grimly if he’d need to discard it too. He couldn’t have hoped to say what he’d looked like, what face he’d been showing or what noise he’d made, but it must have met the system’s approval, because when his senses returned to him a millisecond and an eternity later, it was to this notification:
+300 Aura
He hadn’t so much endured the injury as lost his mind to it, but he didn’t give a single fuck at that moment. That 200 Aura went straight to Strength.
Strength Level 1 -> Level 2!
-200 Aura
Energy flooded his body, but for the first time he barely paid any attention to the upgrade itself beyond vaguely noting that his muscles had grown again. The relief of his bones snapping back into the right place and knitting together with an accompanying soothing sensation entirely overwhelmed the ecstasy of his increased strength.
John clenched his fists around his new club, distantly noting it was a 5 iron. He’d had enough of this monster’s shit. Upgrades now cost 400 each, tentatively confirming they doubled each level. He couldn’t afford to spend them willy-nilly any more. Time to end it, one way or another.
The monster attacked again, and John was ready for it. With all four ‘main’ stats at Level 2, he was able to see it coming, react, aim for its head, and dodge any serious damage from the blow, even turning his body so the monster’s retaliatory kick only dealt him a glancing blow, scraping against his back. It still hurt, but nothing like what the other hits had done.
+100 Aura
He smirked. “Is that the best you can do?”
+100 Aura
This time, it was he who left the monster no room to recover, chasing after it as it landed. When it pivoted to face him, its bloodshot eyes widened, not expecting him to be in such close proximity. It had no time to react, his golf swing already inches from its face by the time it realised its predicament.
It was hard to say from the feeling of his own body how much Level 2 Strength had improved him. The hit he’d just dealt had certainly felt stronger than when he’d been Level 1, like he’d chipped away at the skull rather than bouncing off it. But being able to put all his weight and momentum into an attack was a different matter entirely.
The monster’s translucent face snapped to one side with a dull crack, spittle flying from its mouth. He could see bits jiggle around inside its skull. It stumbled, off balance, and John went in for another attack.
It wasn’t so easily defeated, though. Both its hind legs kicked out at the same time, taking John off guard. Thankfully, it wasn’t able to generate much power while unsteady. They struck him in the stomach and sent him stumbling back, more of a push than a kick. Still, its clawed feet scratched at him a bit. He endured it.
+100 Aura
It felt viscerally wrong to be receiving Aura for taking hits, but he was hardly going to complain in the circumstances. He’d be dead without it.
The monster had been seriously discombobulated by his full-strength blow, but it didn’t give up. It looked drunk as it readied itself for another leap, and John could see what one of its eyes seemed dull and unfocused. He prepared himself, golf club held like a baseball bat.
When it attacked, he barely tried to dodge, pivoting only a foot to the side and throwing all his strength and momentum into attacking from what he hoped was the creature’s new blind side, aiming for the same spot he’d struck before.
The monster’s skull burst like an egg, spewing red and purple yolk across the pavement as it crashed to the ground in an unholy tangle of flailing limbs. Its chest rose and fell shakily only a few times. One of its legs twitched faintly as if to push itself back up. Then, it lay still.
+300 Aura
John’s legs felt like jelly. His heart was beating so wildly he was sure it was going to bruise itself. He resisted the urge to sit down on the ground and rest and process, instead taking stock of himself.
At 800 Aura once more, he was basically back to square one on that front, but with a bunch of upgrades to his stats banked. He was a little scraped up and bruised, but the upgrades had healed anything serious already. For a moment he was tempted to upgrade Arcane or Talent just for more healing, but he held off. Better to save it. None of his injuries were serious. And besides, he was once again close to Spells and Skills. Hopefully, he could build up that 200 Aura some other way than fighting and see what those unlocks were about.
Looking down at himself, John noted the state of his clothing. There were multiple tears in his jeans and hoodie, with still-wet blood staining the hoodie in particular. They looked threadbare on the arms and knees from all the times he’d thrown himself to the floor. Even his boots were scuffed up, the laces on the left undone and fraying.
Overall, not exactly an outfit that screamed ‘cool’. John grimaced, wondering how much that affected things. If this Aura bullshit was taking his appearance into account, then he needed to freshen himself up ASAP.
Looking around at the broken doors and windows almost every house sported, he figured that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
