Chapter 116: Force Stacking, Drekar’s Strength

The castle was ripping itself apart in an attempt to fly. The wind howling in Faust’s ears was deafening now. Salt and sulfur hung in the air.

When the roof of the building came off, Faust didn’t even look up. He was busy deflecting Drekar’s attacks. Sparks danced off their weapons, pure white in the light of the black sun.

Each time Drekar’s Bittersteel turned silver and elongated, snaking around his axe to just cut Faust once.

Each time Faust barely escaped.

"You never slip up, do you?!" Drekar shouted over the rain. He was grinning now.

’Of course I can’t slip up. A single cut from your blade means losing one of my abilities.’

Drekar would take his Schema if Faust had to guess. But there had to be limitations. This was just a Gold-grade Schema, after all.

They exchanged blows very quickly, figures flickering as the rain began pouring down into the room.

Nirvana, Thalia, and Greg were busy stalling a squadron of Puppet knights that dropped onto the floating hall they were in.

The rain-soaked armors of the knights gleamed as they charged. Nirvana was too slow to keep up with Drekar, but she had a small army that could stall for a long time.

The only people who could keep up were Zen and Spider.

Water arrows whistled across spaces, hidden in the roaring thunder and rain. Some found their mark, forcing Drekar to retreat or saving Faust when he was in a tight spot.

Drekar many times had hissed and turned into a shadow, chasing after Zen, but he wasn’t the only one with a movement skill.

Zen would almost fly to another spot on the flying castle. With the majority of it broken and floating, Zen had many places to shoot towards. The movement was extremely fast, and it reminded Faust of something.

’The Mage Hunter had a skill for retreat similar to this.’

Zen’s skill allowed him to fly and move extremely quickly as long as he was escaping an attack.

On the other hand, Spider fought all out—an explosion of aggression and raw power. In terms of combat power, she had the highest high apart from Faust.

[Name: Freya(Spider)]

[Level: 7]

[Combat Power: 830]

She was fast enough to keep up with Drekar before he stole the Red Wolf’s speed. But instead of shrinking back now that he was too quick, she pushed herself harder.

Overload. It was one of Spider’s Schema abilities. It allowed her to push her physical limits to the limits of her biology.

Right now, she had the compound eyes of a dragonfly to track Drekar. She pushed it even harder by using Overload on her eyes.

Then she compensated for the lack of speed and power with her skills. Faust was taken aback when he saw how explosive she was.

’Why is she that fast? Appraise.’

His eyes glowed with hidden light as he sought knowledge on the skills being used now.

[Force Stacking (Silver): The skill builds force in your muscles with each movement. Make sure to release it. If you build more than you can handle, you’ll break.]

Her face was screwed up in pain that she was suppressing. Her transformations, overload, and now this skill.

’She’s insane!’ Faust had a wide grin on his face.

He closed in and helped her as she used her air-walking skill to double-jump over Drekar. Faust dropped his axe on the ground and pulled out his Jackal Dagger and Iron Cutlass.

’Instance Replication!’

He copied Spider’s skill and felt the slight heat build in his muscles as he ran. So all he had to do was release that energy before he popped like a bloody balloon?

Easy.

Faust and Spider used Dash at the same time.

Drekar used that strange movement skill, but with Observe, Faust was able to trace the red outline of the assassin’s movement.

Faust blocked a slash meant to take off Spider’s head and yelled, "Use Observe to mark him!"

"I don’t have level 3 Observe," Spider muttered back. She attacked even while behind Faust, jabbing her dagger forward and using a skill.

Yellow energy pulsed from her dagger and darted forward. Even as Drekar jumped back, it still stabbed into his shoulder.

"You," Drekar said, wincing as he touched in shoulder, pointing a dagger at Faust. "What’s your name?"

"No appraise?" Faust asked blankly. This guy was centuries old, after all.

"I reached Gold-rank in my lifetime, of course I have Appraise," Drekar said with a deadpan look. "For events like this, the system always mandates we choose eight skills. When bringing people as strong as us down, it still reduces our skill levels."

He dodged an arrow from Zen and glared up at the roof floating far away. "So. What is your name?"

"Faust. Nice to meet you."

"You are the type of fighter that my people love to craft." Drekar’s voice dropped to a sad drone. "Vi is like you."

"Thank you," Faust said before rushing forward to decapitate the man.

Drekar dodged and swung back, and spoke easily. "But you do not have the skills yet. You know how to fight, but too crudely."

"Rude." Faust chained attacks between his dagger and cutlass, before dropping low to sweep Drekar’s legs. "I’ve been fighting since I was a kid."

Drekar jumped to dodge the sweep, but Spider slammed into him midair. Drekar blocked the dagger, but she headbutted him and shoulder-checked him into one of the crumbling walls.

The wall broke apart and it seemed like Drekar would fall, but he turned into a shadow and returned.

’He’s too fast, too smart, too experienced. We’ll make a mistake before he does. And all he needs is one cut.’

Faust dug deep. He needed a divine move now. A stroke of inspiration that changed the entire game. All the odds were against him.

The fear of losing crawled over his spine.

A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you guys are enjoying the fifth wave. If you aren’t, please tell me, but if you are, drop a powerstone or Golden ticket to support the story.