The man stood up, shaking in anger.

  Half of his body was suddenly burned, but in an instant, the charred flesh faded as fresh skin rapidly regenerated.

  But... the burned flesh quickly returned.

  This cycle kept repeating. It seemed Tanya's attack was a bit much for him.

  "Sad" I mocked him. "Just admit defeat."

  Annoyed, he took a deep breath, his rising arms trembled.

  Then, with a sharp exhale, the air around him became intensely hot. Suddenly, white flames vertically erupted from his body.

  His massive form towered over us, making us look like mere ants in comparison

  "Okay, maybe we should apologize... Because, how the hell are we supposed to fight that?!"

  I had fire immunity, but even I could feel the intensity of those flames.

  With a booming voice that made the air and ground tremble, he shouted, “You mortals will pay with your lives! I will tear you all apart. First, I’ll take the clone boy and rip him in two. I’ll eat the right side and save the left for dinner. I’ll take the shapeshifter girl and use her blood for tea! And—”

  Tanya interrupted. “Heyo.”

  He paused, staring at her. His gaze slowly traveled from her flat chest, down to her crotch (there was no print, so I honestly don't understand what he was trying to leer at) and then back up.

  Suddenly, the flames disappeared, and he returned to his normal state, standing at attention. “I apologize for raising my voice to such a beautiful lady like you. How may I assist you?”

  ...What?

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing? We’re going to kill you. Do you think joking around is going to save you?!” I shouted, my flames flaring in frustration.

  He stared at me, and in an instant, became a giant of white flames.

  I clasped my hands together and lowered my head in submission. “I apologize for the tone of my voice, sir.”

  Tanya said his stats were halved. That bitch lied.

  He returned to normal, eyes fixed on Tanya.

  With a single hand on her chin, Tanya made a thoughtful sound before laughing. “You want to help me however you can?”

  “Of course! You are an evil manifestation…” His eyes moved to her wings, completely entranced by their slight movements. “I apologize.”

  Ghomas looked around, waiting for the runaway signal.

  Tanya then said, “Then please, die.”

  Pft— as if that would work—

  He made a sword of intensely hot white flames and decapitated himself.

  …

  What the fuck…?

  His head fell to the ground and rolled in a small circle before coming to a stop. Next, his body collapsed.

  Hessien turned towards Tanya and asked, “You can mind control people?"

  With a smug smile, Tanya replied, “If you mean through my sheer beauty? Then yes! I didn’t even need to modify myself.”

  Her nipple-less breasts suddenly swelled like inflating balloons, spilling over her low neckline like an invisible hand had forced them out. The heavy masses settled against her bodice, shifting slightly before coming to a halt. Then, with an unnatural, grotesque fluidity, her hips expanded—stretching to an inhuman, surgically impossible degree.

  Sometimes too much was... too much.

  Ghomas face scrunched in disgust. "Make it go. Tell her to make it disappear."

  Tanya laughed as her arms twisted into the shape of a snake, stretching unnaturally. She playfully lashed them at Ghomas, who shrieked and bolted in terror.

  Hessien muttered something under his breath. A pray?

  I moved over to the corpse and poked it a couple of times. “Ayo, if you don’t wake up, I’ll burn you alive.”

  No response.

  Hm.

  I crouched low. “I’ll burn your dick off.”

  Still nothing.

  Vacinay, in her massive tiger form, strode forward. She lifted a colossal paw and brought it down with a bone-crushing force, smashing the head beneath it.

  We exchanged a look and shrugged.

  I stood up and turned to the would-be sacrifices.

  “You’re all safe,” I said with a smile.

  Their eyes, once dull with hopelessness, began to shine with hope again.

  They cried and hugged each other.

  “Thank you!” many shouted.

  Yes, yes. I was the one who saved them, not Tanya.

  Tanya stopped harassing Ghomas, turned back to normal, and said, “Hm. No skill energy gained. He’s still alive.”

  Their cheers faded, replaced by horror. For some reason, they were looking at me with a crazed expression.

  “You’re all not safe,” I told them, then proceeded to ignore their panic.

  “But where is he?” I asked.

  Tanya glanced up at the sky, then tapped the ground. A white crack of energy spread across it.

  She quickly pointed behind us, opposite this mountain.

  I rushed to the edge of the mountain(we were relatively close to it) and saw the bastard running away, his body horribly burned.

  He must’ve been faking his attraction for Tanya.

  “Hessien, free the sacrifices and help them down.”

  If Tanya hadn’t mentioned she wouldn’t be helping us, I would’ve left Ghomas here and but take his strong clones.

  Hessien sighed. “Got it. As soon as I’m done, I’ll be heading to you all.”

  I nodded. “Do that.”

  Vacinay was back in her human form, standing near me. “What’s the plan? The one you’re actually going to stick to.”

  Ghomas asked the same.

  With my body still ablaze, thanks to my EP generation being at 11 EP per minute, I said, “We kill him. Real good.”

  Vacinay grinned. “I like that.”

  Ghomas clicked his fingers and in an instant, the ground shook violently. His two giant clones charged forward.

  I turned to him and asked, “They can survive from that height?”

  “I mean, if they were in a Marvel movie, they would.”

  I stared at him, unblinking. A second later, he caught the hint and turned away. His giant clones froze in place.

  Whatever.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  I strode up to both clones and slapped their calves, igniting them with Fire Skin. Flames burst to life, coating them in an instant.

  “They can survive now. Send them.”

  Fire Skin was a tricky skill to push to its limits. I found myself pondering how much imagination and desire played a role in how skills functioned.

  I thought of Vacinay. It wasn’t just her shape-shifting abilities—it was her self-repair and partial transformations too. She was a walking testament to the idea that skills were more fluid than they appeared.

  Anyway, my approach was to think about all the layers of skin and their functions for the body, hoping my skill would affect them in unique ways.

  With a slow nod from Ghomas, the clones sprinted toward the cliff’s edge and launched themselves into the void with a dramatic leap.

  Vacinay dashed forward, grabbing both of our hands.

  “You can generate wings now?!” I shouted over the wind.

  “Nope!” she replied cheerfully, and then she jumped off the cliff, dragging us with her.

  The wind wreaked havoc on my flame-covered body. It was like trying to keep a campfire alive in a hurricane.

  Ghomas was screaming in panic, though he paused occasionally to clutch his throat in disgust. No doubt he’d swallowed a bug or two.

  “What’s the plan?” I yelled at Vacinay.

  She didn’t seem to hear me, but she gestured toward the clones and then pointed at us.

  Oh.

  I tapped Vacinay and Ghomas, activating Fire Skin on them. Well, it wasn’t like they could breathe while free-falling anyway.

  Then we hit the ground. We should have gone splat. Instead, the clones had spread out like a fiery net and regrouped beneath us, cushioning our fall.

  My 'injured' body slowly reformed, and the same happened to the other two. I deactivated Fire Skin on them.

  My plan had worked. Fire Skin did more than just wrap the body in flames; it turned the exterior into fire itself. This raised the question: why didn’t our blood and organs rain out of us?

  When that drill guy had killed me, I hadn’t bled. Instead, I’d died by having my flames snuffed out. That moment had added to my theory about how Fire Skin could be used.

  Maybe Vacinay wasn’t as unique as I’d thought.

  Skill descriptions might not have been entirely accurate. They were probably more like basic manuals—simple guidelines for how a skill was supposed to work.

  Vacinay transformed into a tiger. “Let’s move fast!”

  I turned off my Fire Skin and waited for her to start running so I could follow. Then I created a time modulation barrier around us. The barrier was essentially me narrowing the range of my skill’s effects.

  Instead of slowing anything down, I sped us up by 3x, which drained about half an EP per second. Surprisingly, Vacinay and Ghomas didn’t notice the buff to their movement.

  Oh, and Ghomas gave me his shirt and pants—the ones he wore under his armor—so I wasn’t running around naked anymore.

  Following Vacinay, we ran deep into the forest, constantly leaping over corpses and fallen trees. After about a minute, we found him. He was leaning over with his hands on his knees, gasping for air.

  "Time to pay for your evil deeds, mortal!" Vacinay shouted, her head shifting back to its human form.

  So gross...

  He turned toward us in a panic, half of his face still charred. I deactivated the time modulation and immediately conjured a fireball, hurling it into the sky.

  Let’s see how much those level-ups had boosted it!

  He spun around and… dropped to his knees, hands raised in surrender. “I’m the wrong guy, I swear! I’m just a humble man who… uh, accidentally burned himself.”

  What?

  While he rambled, my fireball split like cells under a microscope, encircling him in a two-meter radius.

  Vacinay shifted back to her human form and pointed her broken sword at him. “Stop lying. We’re going to kill you.”

  “B-but, I swea—“

  I launched a fire bullet straight at his head. It hit its mark, sending him into a screaming fit.

  He staggered to his feet, tears streaming from his one unroasted eye. “Damn you all! I’m going to make sure you all die in the most painful way possible; you hear me?!”

  Time to release control over those fireballs.

  Time freeze.

  In two seconds, I was standing in front of him, his furious expression crystal clear. I moved behind him, raising my left arm near my neck—ready to block in case he countered with a throat-slitting strike.

  With my guard up and my hand pressed against his back, I deactivated time freeze and activated Fire Skin on him.

  “I’m going to—“ His sentence was cut short as he realized he was feeling… unusually warm.

  Time freeze again.

  I retreated to a safe distance and unfroze time.

  Of course, the skill itself didn’t directly cause harm.

  “Why am I on fire?!” he shrieked in panic.

  Too late!

  With a flick of my finger, his body obeyed my command and hurtled toward one of the existing fireballs.

  Vacinay looked partially confused. “This isn’t going to be this easy, right?”

  I shrugged. “Shit, I don’t know. I actually wanted to try crafting a pseudo-fire sword using fireballs, but this works too.”

  “Oh, wow. And I thought the way I made self-repair work on other people was creative.”

  Hmm… she was right. Her skill was called Self-Repair, not Body Repair…

  How the hell did she—?

  The man I’d turned into a fireball suddenly exerted some kind of willpower, making the fireball feel impossibly heavy.

  “Damn it…”

  I slammed him into the ground, scattering his fiery form in every direction.

  I rushed towards patches of flames and tapped them, canceling my skill. One by one, the scattered flames transformed into chunks of meat.

  “Holy shit. When this is over, we’re going to have to crown you Queen of the Flame,” Ghomas said, utterly baffled.

  I couldn’t help but smirk. “I am a natural-born genius, yes. But we can save the praise for later—as much as you want.”

  “Dude, I—“

  A white light flashed, and the man reappeared, his face drained of color. "What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how many lives it cost to give me two extra?! And you’re just—"

  Ghomas’s giant clones charged in at full speed, still on fire, which meant they were setting the surrounding trees ablaze... But I had it under control.

  Before the man could bolt, the clones stomped on him. All we heard were his agonized screams.

  We stood there until another white light flashed, but this time, it fled.

  Of course, we hunted it down and found the man once again.

  He looked around, exhausted. “Okay…”

  “Die!”

  Vacinay suddenly appeared beside him and slit his throat. Of course, she didn’t actually appear out of nowhere—I’d frozen time the moment he started talking.

  Just like before, he tried to escape, and we kept hunting him down like a pack of rabid wolves, killing him in increasingly creative ways.

  We kept a fireball around his head, electrocuted him, Vacinay’s summoned dogs mauled him.

  It had been over two hours now…

  We were starting to wear thin, and unfortunately, my EP generation was barely keeping up.

  Each time the bastard respawned, his mental state deteriorated further.

  By the 33rd kill, he was calling Vacinay his mother and begging to know why she was killing him like she’d killed his father.

  Did that make us feel bad for him? HELL NO.

  Then we heard noises behind us. At first, we thought it was reinforcements, but no—it was Hessien and the people who were supposed to be sacrificed.

  Hessien stared at the man tied to the tree.

  “Where the hell did you get that weird-looking… rope? Tendons...?”

  I, sitting on the ground, replied, “Don’t ask Ghomas. He’s been taking his powers to the next level.”

  “Ugh…”

  Tanya was now the size of a fairy; she sat perched on Hessien’s shoulder. She asked in a tiny, high-pitched voice, “Why is there saliva running down his chin like that?”

  His eyes were also twitching randomly, and a massive bald spot had formed in the middle of his head.

  “I think we broke him. We did it before we could even ask how to kill him properly,” I said.

  Tanya hummed thoughtfully. “So, no skill energy can be gained from him?”

  Hessien crouched down in front of the man and glanced up at Tanya. “Can’t you kill him with your negative skill energy?”

  “Yeah, existence attacks. But I’ve been overdoing it lately, and it’s weakened me. If I kill him, I’ll absorb everything, and you’ll only get, at most, one level up. You can have all the skill points, though. I don’t need such trash.”

  Only… one level up?!

  I raised an eyebrow. “How does that work? Giving us skill points as if they aren’t tied to levels, I mean.”

  “If you kill someone who hasn’t used their skill points, you inherit them,” Tanya explained.

  Oh…

  She floated over to the crazed man, her hand glowing white as she plunged it into his head. His eyes fluttered shut the next moment.

  With a snap of her fingers, Tanya returned to her normal size. Suddenly, I felt a surge of energy—I’d leveled up and gained over 25 skill points.

  Tanya fluttered around Hessien. “I gave you all 25 skill points, except Hessien. He got 30.”

  Vacinay grunted. “What’s this? Is she some kind of simp? Trying to…”

  Ghomas finished her sentence with a smirk, “Get into Hessien’s white lace panties.”

  “Fuck you, you ***** ***** ****!” Hessien shouted, which sent Ghomas and Vacinay into fits of laughter.

  I was grinning from ear to ear, of course.

  But I had to be reasonable.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “She’s not a biological being. She’s made of skill energy. Her kind clearly can’t reproduce.”

  Tanya shrank back down and settled on Hessien’s shoulder. “Oh no, you’re wrong. That’s my goal.”

  Wait. Hold on a second. What the fuck?

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  Tanya scowled mockingly. “Obviously not, you filthy monkeys. My kind feels no real lust. But I do enjoy the reactions. I’m giving him extra points because his success benefits me.”

  Ghomas placed a hand on his chest and exhaled in relief. “Oh, thank god. I was wondering why that bastard had to be the lucky one.”

  Yeah, that was cool and all, but what the hell did she mean by filthy monkeys? It felt like I was watching an episode of Dragon Ball Z, where Frieza is trash-talking Saiyans.

  Then, one of the people Hessien had rescued finally spoke up—a young brown haired boy.

  “Um… is he dead?”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “Oh… And that little miss who looks like a fairy… is she… an evil manifestation?”

  Tanya grinned wickedly. “Yeah, I’m going to hunt you down and—”

  Hessien covered her mouth with his finger. “She’s a fairy with split personalities. She has a hobby of scaring kids, and she uses my skill to enlarge her body.”

  An older woman frowned. “But… why are her wings black? And didn’t that evil man call her an evil manifestation?”

  Vacinay and I stepped forward, standing straight like professional guards in suits.

  I pretended to adjust a pair of sunglasses. "We understand your concern, truly. However, it seems there's been a misunderstanding. As much as we'd love to answer your questions, we're simply not in a position to do so right now."

  Vacinay chimed in, her tone calm yet firm. "Furthermore, given the stress and fear of death you've all faced, it's possible our words—and his—may have been misinterpreted

  They exchanged nervous glances.

  An old lady nodded vigorously. “O-of course! W-we must have misheard!”

  Ah, she caught on quickly.

  The others followed her lead.

  “Well then, we’ll leave you all to return to your homes,” I said.

  The little boy raised his hand. “Can you tell us who you are? You guys don’t look like knights.”

  Me, Ghomas, Hessien, and Vacinay glanced at each other before turning back to the group and declaring in unison, “We are the Reality Defenders.”

  Though I couldn’t resist adding, “I’m the best one though.”