As if realizing the exact same thing Uhtred had concluded, the Neanderthal warrior shifted his stance, his expression turning ice-cold as he gripped his bone club with both hands.

He took off, speeding toward Uhtred with heavy, ground-eating strides.

Here he comes!

Uhtredreadied himself, dragging his limp, bleeding right foot, and shifted the vast majority of his weight onto his left leg instead, trying to anchor himself as firmly as possible to the ground.

He spread his senses outward, hyper-focusing on the minute shifting of the dirt and stones beneath his feet.

He knew he had already lost the utility of one foot and the Neanderthal would undoubtedly target his remaining good leg to render his mobility entirely useless. That was the logical play. If that happened, he would simply be a sitting duck.

The Neanderthal closed the distance and slammed his heavy club into the earth with a resounding thud.

Instantly, a light fracture opened in the ground, spreading outward and traveling rapidly toward Uhtred before materializing directly beneath his good leg as a sharp, upward spike.

Anticipating the trap, Uhtred launched himself backward, but the earth magic did not stop there. It tracked his movement, almost like it had a homing effect.

Sharp, jagged stone spikes jutted out of the ground in three consecutive sequences, puncturing the surface precisely where his feet landed, matching his movements a mere fraction of a second after he touched ground.

How Uhtred managed to move that quickly was a miracle, considering his right leg was completely out of commission.

He moved entirely on one leg, using his limp, bleeding right foot only to briefly touch the ground and maintain his balance, while using raw, explosive bursts from his left leg to hurl himself backward, barely escaping the sharp stone spikes by the barest fraction of an inch.

The Neanderthal grunted in pure frustration under his breath, the sound driven by a manic, mounting urge to slaughter Uhtred right here and now. Uhtred was adapting at a terrifying pace, fighting far better than any baseline human had a right to, despite carrying a crippling injury.

The ancient warrior knew Uhtred was only a Level 10 cultivator. He himself was Level 13. Yet, despite the gap in cultivation and experience, Uhtred was actively matching him blow for blow.

The Neanderthal’s eyes narrowed into slits as he watched Uhtred perform another instinctive display of his natural battle talent.

Just as the last of the stone spikes was about to puncture where Uhtred’s foot would land, he drove the head of his star-metal battle-axe into the ground, using the handle like a vaulting pole to hoist his entire body into the air to evade.

The Neaderthal warrior hissed under his breath, but he did not let Uhtred’s quick adaptability break his focus. In fact, seeing Uhtred keep pace this much made him even more intent on ending his life here.

Shifting gears instantly, he abandoned his direct charge and swept his massive hand downward, scooping up a giant fistful of loose dirt and stones from the ground. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

With a brutal, whiplash motion, he hurled the debris directly at Uhtred while he was still suspended mid-air, completely unable to change direction.

Uhtred’s eyes widened at the velocity of the incoming projectiles.

Saturated with earth magic, the loose stones moved at nearly untrackable speeds, whistling through the air like a spray of shrapnel.

As his body descended toward the floor, his hands still tightly gripping the very end of his axe handle, Uhtred executed a movement that pushed even his current superhuman body to the limit.

Without any ground leverage to aid him, he violently wrenched the long shaft of the battle-axe upward right in front of his face.

BANG.

A sharp-edged small rock that would have tore through the center of his skull smashed directly into the star-metal handle, shattering into a cloud of sharp dust and sand, making Uhtred’s eyes snap shut instinctively to protect his vision.

However, that was the only projectile he could block. All the others found their mark. The rest of the stone barrage slammed into his exposed chest and body with furious, kinetic force, pelting him like a volley of bullets.

They couldn’t pierce through the fabric of his custom-made black attire, but the impact was still hot as hell with kinetic force.

The rocks pelted his ribs and muscles behind the vest, forcing a pained grunt from his throat.

Gritting his teeth, Uhtred rapidly forced his eyes open despite the stinging dust and sand. Losing his vision in this life-or-death struggle against a superior foe was an instant death sentence.

The moment his sight cleared, however, he realized the Neanderthal had not used the opportunity to launch another physical charge.

Instead, the ancient warrior was still kneeling on the ground several paces away, a single, large stone clasped firmly in his right fist.

His absolute focus was poured entirely into his hand. Under the heavy pressure of his earth magic, Uhtred watched in real-time as the large stone rapidly warped, compressing and shaping itself into an extremely long, hyper-sharpened small javelin.

The Neanderthal warrior had intentionally used the shrapnel attack to buy himself the precise seconds he needed to manifest a truly lethal projectile.

Every single alarm bell in Uhtred’s mind went off at once as the Neanderthal locked eyes with him and hurled the sharpened stone javelin with terrifying, explosive momentum.

The ancient warrior poured every single drop of his earth magic into that single, decisive throw, intending to drive the projectile clean through Uhtred’s chest.

As if that was not enough, the moment the projectile left his hand, the Neanderthal exploded into motion right behind it, his heavy club gripped in his left hand as he launched a follow-up charge.

It was a flawless, two-step attack.

Uhtred had less than half a second to calculate a response. The stone javelin was heading dead-center for his chest — a wide, unavoidable target.

Crippled as he was on one leg, there was absolutely no way he could weave his body out of the way in time. No matter how fast he shifted, that stone would tear through at least some part of his chest.

To make matters worse, parrying with his battle-axe was also impossible. The heavy axe-head was still resting against the ground from his mid-air vault, and there was no physical way he could raise the wide, heavy head quickly enough to intercept the projectile.

The narrow handle of the shaft was also simply too thin to accurately block what was essentially a missile moving at blistering speed.

All of these thoughts flashed through Uhtred’s mind in a matter of milliseconds. Within that tiny, microscopic window of survival, he had to make a choice.

Abandoning his weapon entirely, Uhtred moved his left hand and thrust it bare straight out toward the incoming spike.

Seeing the desperate move, the eyes of the charging Neanderthal widened slightly in confused surprise.

Did this modern human actually intend to catch an earth-infused speeding bullet with his bare hand? What kind of suicidal, idiotic move was that?

A look of calm, arrogant assurance finally eased into the Neanderthal’s expression in that split second. It seemed he had severely overestimated this human.

Uhtred was physically strong and talented, yes, but completely lacking in fundamental cultivation logic.

Against a high-level warrior armed with an array of techniques, he who had only been integrated into the Grand Multiverse for twenty-four hours was simply insufficient.

Or so the Neaderthal thought...