Lowe barely had time to shout a warning before the Nurse lunged for him.

  One moment, she was standing at the threshold, smiling and the next she was a blur of motion, her body expanding mid-step, shifting from lean medical professional to something bigger, broader and not at all someone he’d be willing to accept a bedbath from. The fabric of her uniform stretched, then tore, splitting apart as she grew, her bones reconfiguring with a series of grinding pops.

  The sword in her hands was a massive slab of black metal which she moved far too fast for its size towards Lowe’s ribs in a sweeping horizontal slash. He barely dodged in time and his shoulder screamed as he twisted away, momentum carrying him backwards in a staggered roll across the polished floor. The blade slammed into the doorframe behind him, splinters flying as half the fucking doorway exploded away.

  The Shimmerskin didn’t slow its attack. She - Lowe thought he’d go for that right now. Finding the appropriate pronoun wasn’t an absolute priority considering what was going on - moved like a wrecking ball, following the swing as her body was already shrinking back into a more compact form as she adjusted to close the distance.

  The counter-cut came immediately, this time aimed for his throat.

  Lowe’s legs collapsed from under him, saving him from a beheading as the sword whistled overhead, slicing clean through the wall beside him and into the table beyond. Alchemical fluids burst from the beakers on it, spilling across the floor in a mix of blues and greens.

  Lowe kicked out as he rolled, somehow managing to catch his attacker in the knee. It felt like kicking a fucking boulder and Roll with the Punches sprang into action to repair a bunch of snapped bones.

  And the Shimmerskin barely twitched. But her return strike was not a joy. It was a completely untelegraphed punch that caved in the tiles where his head had been a second earlier. Lowe twisted, barely keeping his footing as he skidded backwards over the spilt liquids from the previous attack, teeth gritted. Trust Coda to be in the only hospital without some sort of guard. She was fast. Too fast. And the level disparity between them was glaring.

  But then—

  She hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second. Her head tilted and her eyes flicked up and down, measuring him again. She could tell there was something . . . off about him. The Shimmerskin knew she’d hit him. Could tell her blows had landed. Maybe not full force, but enough that a puny Level 26 should be a smear on the floor. But he wasn’t. And she couldn’t understand why.

  Surprise bitch, Lowe thought, almost giddy as she charged forward before his attacker could resume her attack. And that she wasn’t expecting. Neither was she expecting him to be able to match her speed. And she especially wasn’t expecting Slugger.

  The impact was like he’d brought a whole battery of cannons to the party.

  The Shimmerskin’s body folded around his fist, ribs snapping, torso compressing like an accordion before she launched backwards down the corridor, slamming through a wall which caused the entire hospital to shake.

  Chunks of marble and wood exploded outward as she crashed into the next room, sending a rolling bed flying into the far wall. A patient inside—a man wired up to half a dozen mana monitors—screamed in terror before trying to flee in his gown.

  Lowe staggered, breathing hard, hands clenched. His knuckles hurt, even as Roll with the Punches repaired his hand. His entire arm felt like he’d just tried to punch through Arkola itself. His HP had dropped significantly, but it was already climbing again, as he pushed even more mana into Roll with the Punches, to restore the damage at a ridiculous pace.

  The Shackled Grasp hummed with Pressure against his chest, invisible chains tightening around his bones, collecting the damage he’d already taken. He used some of it to refill his rapidly vanishing mana, but stored the rest. He figured he was going to need it.

  Which was lucky, because the Shimmerskin was already coming back for more. And he didn’t think she’d be underestimating the poor little Level 26 anymore.

  The attacker’s form shifted, bones knitting, her frame adapting as she straightened. Much taller this time. Latham tall and broad. More mass packed onto her shoulders, skin rippling as she adjusted her core to compensate for the damage. The dented side of her ribs popped outward and reforming as she exhaled. Then she grinned again.

  The hallway blurred as she attacked. She expanded mid-motion, surging forward with impossible momentum, sword flashing this way and that. Lowe barely sidestepped in time, and the blade ripped through the wall behind him like paper, severing leylines in a shower of mana.

  Lowe fell back. Dodged a second strike. Then a third. Feinted left—ducked a rising knee—stepped inside her guard and . . . A palm caught him mid-dodge. The force was like being hit by a speeding carriage. It wasn’t quite as hard as when Drefleck had hit him. But neither was it a loving kiss from Arebella before bedtime.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Lowe flew.

  His back caved into the far wall, air ripped from his lungs as the impact cracked the stone panels behind him. He hit the floor with a bone-jarring thud and his vision momentarily whited out.

  His HP plummeted. Then surged back up as Roll with the Punches kicked in. No Blood of the Phoenix today. At least, not yet. He spat blood onto the polished tiles. Okay. That one fucking hurt.

  The Shimmerskin was already walking toward him, sword dragging against the floor, the metal screaming against tile. She was moving mockingly slowly. She thought she had him. She didn’t have shit.

  The Shackled Grasp coiled tighter around him, the invisible chains aching now, Pressure mounting with every second. The damage he’d taken—every single bit of it—was sitting there, waiting. Banked. Waiting to be spent. Lowe grinned, spitting more blood onto the pristine floor.

  “Let’s see how you fucking like it.” And all at once, Retaliation Strike was unleashed

  His entire body whipped forward as the chains blasted from him, a raw shockwave of force rolling outward from his core as a single devastating explosion right between the Shimmerskin’s eyes.

  The damage hit all at once, overwhelming whatever defensive measures the assassin had.

  She crumpled, face imploding from the accumulated Pressure of their fight. Bone fractured, skin ripped and her entire head collapsed inward with a meaty crunch. She didn’t fly anywhere this time. She just broke. The light flickered in her eyes. The shifting of her form faltered and then failed. The Nurse sagged forward, mouth slightly open, the edges of her body losing all sense of cohesion. And then—

  Her body settled.

  And the corpse which fell at Lowe’s feet wasn’t a nurse anymore. It wasn’t anything recognisable. Just yet another non-descript man, faceless in every possible way.

  Rook was standing in the doorway. “I take my eyes off you for five minutes . . .”

  ***

  “I mean, I’m not against any of my Investigators kicking arse and taking names,” Staffen said as she watched the remains of the Shimmerskin get bagged up and carted away for Lant to poke and prod at. “I think my record is fucking clear on that.”

  Lowe made a vague noise of agreement.

  “But it’s a bit of a fucking headspin,” she continued, turning to look at him, “that you, Jana Oh-I-have-No-Class-I’m-Ever-So-Fragile Lowe, apparently have the moxy to take down a Level 50 assassin. I mean, bore the fucker to death with all your ever-so-clever banter, sure. But beat the bastard to death with your bare hands?” She whistled low. “Nah. That’s a bit of a surprise.”

  “You wound me, Commander. Truly.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” she said. “Seeing as it appears you’re completely invincible now.”

  “Let’s not get carried away.”

  “No, let’s,” she countered, stepping closer. “Let’s get carried away, Lowe. Let’s really dig into how my Classtrated, de-statted, barely-qualifies-as-a-threat Inspector just went twelve rounds with a fucking apex predator and walked away not looking like freshly processed burger meat. And I’ll throw in a few idle worries I have about how every mental Skill I throw at you is bouncing off like you’re made of fucking rubber. Let’s talk about that, shall we?”

  “Well,” Lowe said. “Now that’s just natural talent.”

  “Fuck off, wanker!”

  “Pretty rude, boss. Especially as I’ve just been quite the hero of the hour.”

  “Lowe!”

  “Staffen?”

  “I swear to all the fucking gods, if you make me start waterboarding you for your own fucking benefit, I will do it with a smile.”

  “Which sounds deeply unethical, boss.”

  “Sounds deeply fucking likely, at this rate.” She turned and put her fist through the wall. This appeared to calm her down plenty. “So? Come on, then. What little secret weapon are you sitting on? Some dodgy artefact? A cursed blessing? Have you been getting freaky with powers beyond our ken? Again?”

  “To be fair, boss, what’s just happened here was barely my fault. All I can say is that—” He gestured vaguely at the mess of the corridor. “—sometimes, the wrong man in the right place can make all the difference.”

  “You are such a fucking prick!”

  “And yet,” Lowe said, “you continue to employ me.”

  “Only because the paperwork to get rid of you is even more annoying than dealing with you directly.”

  “And here was me thinking it was love.”

  “Fuck off,” and with that, she stomped off towards Lant and his team muttering under her breath.

  Lowe watched her go, exhaling slowly.

  “You should have told her,” Rook said.

  “What about?”

  “Fucking hell, Lowe. About everything! Cenorth and Coda. Arkola’s missing statue. The fucking deadline until the end of Soar!”

  Lowe shook his head. “No. Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Lowe glanced into the room where Coda still lay, the chest of his ruined body rising and falling in slow rhythm. The sight didn’t get easier the longer he looked at it. “Let’s just say I’m having all sorts of trust issues right about now,” he said. “I’ll tell her when I actually have something to report. And, you never know, if things don’t work out, I might not even have to do that.” He turned back to Rook. “You know, if everything goes boom. Speaking of which, did you manage to Threshold Guardian anything up from Coda?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s a shit answer.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got a shit headache,” Rook said. “But before we get into all that, can you do something about all the fucking level-up blinking you’ve got going on? It’s giving me an aneurysm just looking at you.”

  Lowe sighed. Ah. Yeah. There it was. That constant, nagging flicker at the edges of his vision, a low, rhythmic pulsing, like a heartbeat he couldn’t ignore.

  Quickly glancing at some of the wording in the notifications he’d received as the Shimmerskin died, he suspected this wasn’t going to be one of his more straightforward level-ups.