Chapter 61: Weird Magic
It felt like some sort of delayed impact strike. As though the first impact had only been a teaser and this second one was the main attack.
Is she some sort of... force user? Uhtred thought in alarm. Her ability allows her to manipulate force?
Uhtred’s right arm flung backward from the impact, the force rattling his entire arm to the joints. A sharp hiss escaped his lips as he saw her continue to bear down on him with another strike again.
"Fuck this..."
He immediately discarded every remaining reservation he had toward the girl. He had not been going all out, hoping to try and calm her down, but now he could see that if he didn’t put in effort, things could actually get dangerous.
With a grunt, his left palm shot forward as if to meet the girl’s incoming fist, but then, instead of directing his palm towards her, he spread it wide open, directing it at the floor.
From the ground, his battle-axe shot upward in an instant, flashing up into the space between him and the girl, taking her totally by surprise. She pulled back her charging fist as quickly as she could to prevent the battle-axe from slashing her arm in two.
Her reaction had been quick, but the abrupt change in momentum threw her balance off-center. And Uhtred, with his battle-axe now nestled perfectly in his left hand, did not waste the opportunity.
This was one of the abilities he had developed with his Metal Sense skill over his grind to Level 17. Within about two feet or three of himself, he could manipulate any metal he could sense, moving them about within this field.
It was only basic manipulation, and the range wasn’t large enough to change the tide of a battle. But just like now with his battleaxe, it was something he could use to stun his opponents if they were not vigilant.
The moment his battleaxe settled into his grip, he didn’t even waste a single second and brought down the flat side of the axe at the girl who was beginning to retreat. However, it was too late for her. One of the benefits of a weapon like Uhtred’s star-metal battleaxe was its long reach.
The broad side of the weapon came crashing down at her head, not giving her any wiggle room to dodge. Realizing this, she raised her hand to block, seemingly willing to take the damage she was sure to receive from tanking such a powerful hit.
Yet, at the exact moment of impact, the flat side of Uhtred’s battleaxe suddenly shifted. It overshot her arm entirely, sending the long metal shaft of the weapon slamming into her raised arm instead.
This time, though, Uhtred was not as surprised. He dragged his battleaxe back, pulling it across her arm, intending to use the sharp points of the blade to pierce her arm.
And for the very first time, panic seemed to flash in the girl’s expressionless blue eyes. She pushed the shaft of the battleaxe off her arm immediately, but Uhtred simply responded by twisting his grip on the shaft, changing the orientation the blade faced from horizontal to vertical.
From the look in her eyes, this was exactly the outcome that had made her expression flash with panic earlier. She had seen this coming and knew there was no dodging this.
Those blue eyes of hers seemed to reassess Uhtred and how he had been able to come up with such a sure-hit-attack in the span of a few seconds. It had looked very simple at the beginning, but his battle instincts had to be truly terrifying for him to have come up with this in that instant.
And that wasn’t the end of it.
While he dragged the battleaxe backward, with the longer vertical reach of it sure to cut across the girl’s arm. He also dashed forward in that instant.
He was going for a two-pronged attack. Her raised arm was sure to get cut if she didn’t do something, and he was moving in for an attack at her midsection. If she was somehow able to divert the first attack, she wasn’t going to divert the second.
Uhtred was essentially posing her the question: "Which attack do you think you would take less damage from?"
And she got the message very clearly.
Just as Uhtred had expected, the blade of his battleaxe that on a sure path to cut her arm suddenly diverted unnaturally. It curved in an arc around the circumference of her arm, as though there was some sort of frictionless barrier surrounding it.
The feeling was extremely weird and trippy, as the force of Uhtred’s pull had nowhere to go, making his entire balance shift downward. But Uhtred had anticipated such a change of balance.
He countered the change in his center of gravity by spreading out his leg, still following through with his fist that was swinging towards the girl’s midsection without hesitation.
He cycled his cosmic essence, packing a shitton of it into his fist, intending to end the entire fight in this one single blow. He had worked hard to create this opening, and against an opponent like this girl, Uhtred was sure he would have a hard time creating another one of such opportunities again. So, he had to make this one count.
And he did exactly that.
With a resounding thud that nearly folded her from the side, Uhtred’s fist landed squarely on her lower ribs. The sound of several bones shattering from the impact could be heard very clearly. It was a sickening sound to all that heard it.
Uhtred was not holding back at all despite the fact that this was a woman he was fighting against.
The girl keeled over in an instant, her weird magic failing to activate to block Uhtred’s blow. She collapsed to the ground despite her fierce will to remain standing and fight.
Her entire mid-section spasmed as the muscles there contracted violently. Just looking at it alone made Diya and the other two watching from behind suck in cold breaths.
They had heard the sound of bones breaking, and they could see the effects on the girl’s body, and it was almost as if they could feel the pain themselves.
Yet, the girl who had borne the brunt of the blow didn’t let out the slightest whimper. Her expressionless blue eyes were entirely focused on Uhtred as she keeled over to the ground.
He stared right back at her, not saying anything for several seconds before he shook his head and finally spoke:
"Sorry about that... but I did tell you to calm down..."
The girl’s blue eyes flickered slightly at Uhtred’s words, and her lips parted open for the first time to speak.
"...Strong."
"What?" Uhtred raised a brow, staring at her lips intently. "What did you say?"
"You... You’re strong."
Uhtred could only stare blankly in response. It was bizarre enough that her first instinct was to praise his strength instead of crying out in pain or cursing him for breaking her ribs. But as he watched her mouth, another detail caught his attention.
He could understand her clearly, but she hadn’t been speaking English at all. In fact, the movement of her lips hadn’t followed the pattern of any language he was remotely familiar with...
