Primordial Awakening: I Breathe Skill Points!-Chapter 22: Battling The Scouts! (2)

Chapter 22: Battling The Scouts! (2)
Ice erupted from every direction at once—ground, air, surrounding buildings. Not attacking, but containing, creating a prison of frozen energy that sealed off escape routes and compressed the combat zone into a killing box.
Inside the domain, the Ice Lady’s power multiplied. Her movements became faster, her skills more potent, her control absolute.
Zeph felt his Force enhancement begin to falter as the domain’s energy drained his resources at accelerated rates.
’Domain skills,’ his little knowledge supplied. ’Environmental manipulation that gives massive advantage to the user. A-rank minimum, usually requires level 40+ to learn—’
HISS!
The assassin struck from his blind spot again, venom-coated blade seeking his heart with perfect precision. The Titan Man charged from the front, fists glowing with enough power to shatter mountains. The Ice Lady formed spears of concentrated cold that moved like guided missiles.
Coordinated assault. Perfect timing. Zero escape routes!
Zeph’s mind went cold and calculating.
’Can’t dodge all of them. Can’t block everything. Can’t match their technique or skill variety.’
’But I can do one thing they can’t.’
He stopped trying to fight smart and just let go.
Force reactivated. His careful control over his overwhelming strength disappeared. His 999 stats, previously restrained by fear of collateral damage, unleashed without limitation.
Zeph exploded.
BOOM!
Not metaphorically. His body became a blur of pure kinetic violence moving at speeds that turned him into a living projectile. He didn’t dodge the attacks—he moved through them faster than they could track!
The assassin’s blade scraped across his ribs but couldn’t penetrate deep enough before Zeph was already gone. The Titan’s punch created a shockwave that hit only empty air. The Ice Lady’s spears struck nothing but afterimages.
And then Zeph was inside the assassin’s guard.
His hand, moving at supersonic speeds, punched clean through the man’s barrier like it was made of tissue paper. The defensive skill shattered under sheer overwhelming force that exceeded its design parameters.
Crack!
His fist continued through the barrier and into the assassin’s chest.
The man’s eyes went wide. Blood sprayed from his mouth. His torso simply ceased to exist as kinetic energy transferred through his body with catastrophic results.
[Ding! Level 47 Awakened Defeated]
[+5000 EXP]
The Ice Lady screamed, her domain intensifying as rage overwhelmed tactics. Ice spears multiplied, becoming a forest of frozen death that filled every cubic inch of space.
Zeph ran through them.
His 1998 Vitality tanked impacts that would have killed baseline humans a hundred times over. Ice shattered against his skin, leaving wounds that regenerated almost as fast as they formed. Pain was irrelevant when you had durability measured in hundreds of hit points.
He reached her in three seconds of pure acceleration.
She tried to activate an escape skill—some kind of ice-substitution technique that would replace her body with a frozen decoy.
Too slow.
Swoosh!
Zeph’s hand closed around her throat and squeezed.
The crunch of collapsing vertebrae was sickening even to his enhanced hearing. Her domain collapsed as her concentration shattered. Her eyes went glassy as oxygen stopped reaching her brain.
[Level 48 Awakened Defeated]
[+5200 EXP]
The Titan Man roared, his stone skin cracking to reveal magma-like energy beneath. Some kind of final transformation, burning through his life force for one last devastating attack.
The ground itself rose up to crush Zeph, tons of concrete and steel animated by the man’s desperate will. Buildings collapsed inward, creating a tomb of rubble designed to bury him under weight that would overwhelm even his enhanced strength.
Zeph looked at the descending avalanche of debris and reactivated Force one final time.
Then he jumped.
BOOM!
The force of his leap shattered what remained of the street, launching him upward faster than the collapsing buildings could follow. He punched through falling concrete like it was foam, his trajectory carrying him above the destruction.
At the apex of his jump, he twisted in mid-air and drove back down like a meteor.
The Titan saw him coming, raised his arms in final defense, and screamed defiance even as Zeph’s Force-enhanced descent turned him into a living kinetic strike.
KRAKOOOM!
The impact created a crater fifty feet deep.
The Titan’s stone skin held for exactly 0.3 seconds before physics overwhelmed biology. His defensive physique, rated to tank B-rank attacks, simply wasn’t designed for the kind of force Zeph generated by combining 999 Strength, Force enhancement, and gravitational acceleration.
When the dust settled, only pulverized stone remained.
[Level 49 Awakened Defeated]
[+5500 EXP]
[LEVEL UP! Level 2 → Level 19]
[85 Attribute Points Available]
Silence fell over the devastated street. Zeph stood in the center of his self-made crater, breathing hard, covered in blood and frost and the pulverized remains of his enemies.
Three B-rank awakened. Dead in under two minutes.
’I won,’ he thought numbly, staring at the carnage. ’Against technique, against skill, against experience—raw power won.’
But the victory felt hollow. He’d taken damage that would have killed him without his absurd Vitality. His resource pools were nearly empty from Force spam and Phantom Step usage. His body ached from impacts that had stressed even his enhanced durability.
And worst of all—he’d had to fight like a berserker, abandoning control for overwhelming offense.
Three years of survival instincts screamed that this wasn’t sustainable. Eventually he’d face someone who could match his stats AND had the skill to exploit his inexperience.
’But for now—’
His soul-sense exploded with alarm.
The presence from the north was close. Not miles away anymore, but hundreds of meters and closing fast.
And the aura it radiated made the three B-rank scouts feel like children playing at war.
S-rank awakened. But that wasn’t what made Zeph’s instincts scream.
It was the physique.
The man’s soul burned with elemental power so pure and concentrated it warped reality around him. Fire that wasn’t just hot but absolute—the conceptual embodiment of combustion made manifest in human form.
An attributed physique!
A physique that had reached the pinnacle of its development. One that probably granted effective stat multipliers in the thousands. One that could turn entire city blocks into molten slag with a thought.
Zeph didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t consider fighting. Didn’t try to assess capabilities or plan tactics.
He just ran.
His enhanced speed carried him away from the crater at velocities that left sonic booms in his wake. Buildings blurred past as he pushed his 1998 Agility to absolute limits, focused entirely on putting distance between himself and the approaching S-rank.
’Can’t fight that,’ his mind chanted like a mantra. ’Don’t care about the stats. Don’t care about the power. That thing will kill me.’
Behind him, he sensed the S-rank pause at the crater, examining the remains of the three scouts.
Then the presence’s attention locked onto Zeph’s fleeing form.
And the hunt began in earnest.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​