Chapter 76: Batter Up, Slum Rat!

Up there in the air, Caelem’s velocity increased and he descended like a falling meteor. The wind pressure alone made Lancet’s uniform snap against his chest. His hair whipped backward, but right in time, he activated Thor’s Thunder Step.

Blue-white lightning crackled up from his calves to his thighs, and Lancet vanished with the sudden speed of light.

He blitzed diagonally left and forward, appearing like a bolt of human-shaped electricity leaving afterimages burning in the air.

One instant he was directly under the strike, staring up at danger. The next he was twenty feet to the left, boots skidding across cracked marble, white sparks still dancing off his shoulders.

Lancet smiled. Using Thunder Step always made him feel like some kind of super speedster.

Where he had been standing earlier erupted outward in a radial explosion. Caelem’s gigantic fist slammed into the floor like a siege hammer wielded by a giant.

Dust billowed in a thick grey cloud, swallowing the edge of the arena.

Lancet locked his stance, watching the Beast Tamer carefully to prepare for an attack. The Phantom Ring had 21 charges left, and he was ready to use just about anything on Caelem.

But Lancet felt his hair rise again. The dust had barely even settled when a high-pitched cackle split the air above him.

Lancet quickly looked over his forehead.

Linzley dropped from wherever like a broken marionette. Her messy pigtails whipped wildly around her face, her eyes—too wide, too bright—locked onto the back of Lancet’s skull.

In both hands she swung a nail-studded metal bat, a weapon that he wasn’t too surprised that someone like her would wield.

The bat whistled.

"Batter up, slum rat!" Linzley shrieked.

Lancet almost gave in to his former habits of falling to the ground. But he adjusted, leaning into the change that Astensia’s training had hammered into his reflexes.

He made a low duck, knees bending sharply, spine folding almost like a pocketknife. The bat passed over his blond hair with inches to spare, close enough that one that strands of hair moved from the wind.

Then he stylishly pivoted on the ball of his foot.

Linzley landed, her momentum carrying her forward, and Lancet stepped sideways—exactly the direction she didn’t expect. She stumbled, her bat arm overextended, her pigtails swinging into her face. For half a second she was completely open.

Lancet’s hand shot out to grab her wrist.

He didn’t get the chance. Muskard was already there.

The Spirit Caller had a wickedly curved black katana in his crimson grip. He lunged in an arc seemingly meant to kill, and fully aimed directly at Lancet’s exposed ribs.

No battle cry. No warning. Just the shing of a blade cutting air.

Lancet’s eyes widened. He threw himself into a forward and under roll. The katana sliced through the space where his ribs had been, close enough that he felt the cold whisper of the blade against his back.

He tucked his shoulder, rolled across the fractured stone, and came up in a low stance with his ring hand forward.

Exactly as he had practiced against the simulation wolf packs. Dozens of times. Until his muscles remembered what his mind didn’t have time to think.

The Terrible Three closed in.

Now as one, they attacked just like a park of wolves would. They circled, spreading out in a loose triangle around him, faces twisted with rage and something else—something that looked almost like respect, if respect could curdle into hatred.

Caelem shook stone dust from his monstrous arm, then returned it to his normal size. "You think you can keep dodging forever, slum rat?!"

​"You’re fast, I’ll give you that," Muskard hissed, spinning his blade. "But you’re one man. We’re the Terrible Three. You don’t walk out of here until you’re broken."

Linzley’s eyes bulged with psychotic glee, her bat resting on her shoulder. "Sunshine’s gone because of you!" Her voice cracked. "I’m gonna stitch your skin into a new doll! A lifeless one!"

"I’ve had enough of your ’invitations,’"

Lancet rolled his shoulders. Then, after a moment to breathe, he bent his knees, adjusted his feet then poised his arms. Both were circled into fists, his left arm bent to the chest, his right firm across his face.

The Phantom Ring glinted from the pouring light. This was the stance Astensia had taught him.

"It’s time I dealt with you three once and for all."

​"Do you need help, Master?!" Astensia shouted over her shoulder. She was currently locked in a power-struggle with the Big Foot, her shield vibrating under the beast’s hammer-fists.

​"No," Lancet replied, a sharp, cold confidence settling into his chest. He looked at Caelem, Muskard, and Linzley. "I’m about to turn these three losers into ground beef."

​He paused, a look of genuine annoyance crossing his face. "Ugh... now they even have me doing the meat puns?!"

​"DIE!" Caelem roared.

​The trio charged simultaneously.

The madness of battle shook the underground arena. Lancet had never been in a fight before. He always made sure to avoid them back in his former world.

But even if he had, this was by far the biggest fight he had ever been a part of.

Still, he didn’t overthink it. He let his muscles do the lifting, moving exactly as Astensia had drilled him during training sessions.

Do not be the one to react. Always force them to react to you.

Even as they attacked him, he still went in for the offense.

Lancet took one measured step forward, angling his body at forty-five degrees. It wasn’t toward any single enemy, but into the gap between their attacks. The motion was subtle, almost invisible, but it changed everything.

None of them expected it.

Caelem’s werewolf claws came in from the right, like he meant to take his head off. Muskard’s katana slashed from the left, a horizontal cut aimed at his waist. Linzley’s bat swung from above, a wild overhead chop that would have caved in his skull.

The three attacks converged on the space where Lancet would have been if he had stood still. And if he had run away, then they could have easily recuperated and made chase.

But what were they supposed to do if he was stupidly pressing in?

’This fucking kid!!’

Lancet’s forward step carried him into the narrowing cone between them, and so, their own momentum betrayed them.

Caelem’s claws, already committed, clipped Muskard’s shoulder; it didn’t slice the Spirit Caller to halves but it struck him off balance.

Muskard’s katana veered wide, its tip carving a harmless arc through empty air. Linzley’s bat, aimed at Lancet’s head, whistled past Caelem’s ear as the Beast Tamer lunged forward.

The three of them stumbled into each other, a tangle of limbs and curses.

Lancet was right in between them.

He twisted his hips, transferring power from his legs through his core and into his right elbow.

The strike drove into the soft spot under Caelem’s ribs, exactly where the simulation Lycanthropes had been weakest. The Beast Tamer’s breath left him in a wet huff, his werewolf claws fading away.

Lancet transferred the momentum into a spin kick, slamming into the back of Muskard’s knee. The Spirit Caller’s leg buckled. His katana dropped as he crashed down on one knee, his red arm flailing for balance.

Linzley screamed and swung again.

Lancet stepped inside the arc of her bat. The weapon passed behind his back, useless. His left hand shot up, caught her wrist, and pulled down.

Her own momentum—all that wild, psychotic energy—became a weapon against her. He spun around with her, finding her surprisingly light, and hurled her straight into Caelem’s path.

All three collided in a tangled heap.

Slowly, they started to stand up, unknowingly positioned behind each other.

"You bastard!" Caelem, who stood in front of others, cried, pointing like a child. "How did you learn to fight? You’re a Summoner! A piece of shit slum rat!"

Lancet smirked. "Look at that. A perfect funnel."

The Beast Tamer frowned. "What?"

Lancet suddenly thrust his right hand forward, the Phantom Ring blazing like the sun on his finger.

He aimed the attack at Caelem. "Piercing Lightning Blast!"

A burst of sharp heavy bolts of blue-white lightning tore from his palm.

The lightning bolt was as thick as a dozen spear shafts, lancing through the cone Lancet had created.

It struck Caelem’s chest. But since it was Piercing Lightning Blast, it didn’t just stop there.

Electricity arced from Caelem to Muskard to Linzley in a blazing web of chain lightning. The three of them were hurled backward first, but Linzley not only suffered the lightning, but she suffered the two men in front of her crashing on her as they all hit the floor.

Smoke filled the air, but quickly began to clear. Lancet heard Caelem’s coughing. And Lancet knew an attack was coming.

"Hahhhhh!"

Three claws were thrown at him from the smoke. Lancet’s eyes widened. Those were sharp enough to tear into and out of his body.

He quickly activated Thunder Step, seeing the glistening claws slow down in the air. He moved past one, but needed to activate the Step two more times to move past the others.

Caelem had smartly thrown them in different directions.

But Lancet was successful, unscathed as the claws struck the far walls and fell uselessly.

From the dissipating smoke, only Caelem and Muskard arose.

As a Beast Tamer and a Spirit Caller, Caelem and Muskard were natural conduits; their bodies were built to resonate with their summons’ powers.

But Linzley, like Lancet, was different. Puppeteers, Machinists, the Architect, and some other Summoner Classes couldn’t naturally wield the powers of their summons.

Without that Phantom Ring, Lancet would have been a sitting duck. And that was why Linzley was the first to fall.

Caelem and Muskard weren’t far behind though. They looked like they had just been taken out of an oven. Their uniforms were scorched, blackened holes smoking where the lightning had entered and exited.

Caelem’s werewolf arm trembled violently, fur singed down to the skin. Muskard’s red arm smoked even thicker now, and his katana had dissolved back into whatever spirit-realm it came from.

"How—" Caelem gasped, blood trickling from a split lip. "How the hell are you moving like that?!"

Muskard’s eyes were wide, pupils dilated. "You’re just a Dull-Rank Summoner! You shouldn’t be able to do any of this!"

Lancet smirked. "Guess you didn’t receive the update before ambushing me, huh?"

Caelem stared, then growled in rage. "You’re going to pay for this!" He leaped and ran towards him, legs gaining the speed and agility of his Lycan Lord.

Muskard extended his hand and multiple spirit hands raised from the ground and reached for Lancet...