Chapter 149: Back Off!!

Chapter 149: Back Off!! Ruby had been triggered by Orions words which had unintentionally touched a sensitive part of her. Her one fear that wasn’t actually a Gale, only adopted into the family.

Despite having lived there for several years and accepting the love the family had given her, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t fully one of them. Even Jake didn’t know she felt this way.

BANG!

Orion’s fist landed on the stage, and his eyes narrowed when he felt a cut appearing on his face. One he couldn’t dodge in time.

’Finally’

Kieran thought, seeing that she was taking the only approach someone like her could.

"I still don’t get his ability fully. They said it was called overdrive!"

’That’s a rather fitting name!’

Kieran thought, hearing Jake say from the side.

"Well, it’s quite simple, but that’s what makes it hard to counter."

Kieran said, his eyes still trained on the fight on front of him.

Now that Runy was using her ability more, she was finally turning the tables, successfully landing attacks on Orion. None of them were fatal, but it was better than not landing a single attack.

Kieran still felt that this wouldn’t be enough if she really wanted to come out on top. Orion hadn’t gone all out yet.

"You know what it is?"

Jake asked, more than curious.

The higher a person was on the ranking list, the harder it was to figure them out.

Many of them in the top 50 were like Dain who just chose to secure a spot and remain there. A lot of them had surpassed the typical strength someone of their rank would have, but being secretive seemed to be the trend amongst most of them.

It made sense considering how much they plotted against each other outside the rankings. They couldn’t reveal all their cards to the enemy.

Despite all the research Jake did, he still wasn’t able to get a clear view on Orion’s ability. The clips of his fight all showed him ending it on a few minutes with the same explosive movements that were hard to follow.

"Well. He has a very large energy base. The only reason his ability is possible to use."

"Just as it’s called, ’Overdrive’ let’s him pump a crazy amounts of energy into specific parts of his body with precision. You can guess the results"

Kieran said, leaving the rest to Jake to figure out. And he did that pretty fast.

Once a person Awakened, there was a specific percentage of energy which was channeled into reinforcing their body and boosting their base stats.

If not, just like the humans who had been used in experiments, their body would blow up from the influx of energy and mutations which gave them their ability.

That said, their internal energy could only be used to activate their ability and nothing else.

They couldn’t use it to improve their defense, physically strength, endurance or any of those stats manually. Those only increased naturally as they advanced.

This was why those whose who wielded physical abilities had more physical stats than those with other abilities. Because they could use their internal energy to activate their ability which was linked directly to those physical stats.

It could be speed, strength, endurance, whatever their ability gave them. They couldn’t choose.

That was what made Orion’s ability feel like a cheat in the physical class. Because his ability gave him the chance to do just that.

Select what physical aspect he wanted to enhance and flood it with an insane amount of internal energy, shooting that aspect up to a crazy level.

For someone with an average energy reserve, this ability didn’t really mean much as they would only be able to raise the stat to the level a normal awakened in their stage, wielding an ability related to it would be able to.

In basic terms, with his immense energy reserve, Orion could raise his physical stats to a level above his, making him superior to physical ability users in the same stage as him.

Unless Ruby had the experience and confidence to battle against people above her stage, the chances of her winning were very low.

"If that’s the case, she still has a chance. Its not the first time we’ve faced these above us!"

Jake said a little more confident than before.

Kieran on the other hand didn’t share the sane opinion.

’We’ve? That just makes things worse!’

If they had been fighting together against those above them, it didn’t mean much when they had to face the same situation individually. Kieran had no doubt that Jake was far stronger than Ruby.

The fight he had lost during the first ranking tournament was probably intentional. It was nowhere as intense as he had seen Jake be.

And if these thoughts of his were right, then Ruby had been lured into a trap with whatever Orion had offered her in the first place.

SLASH!

"Ughh!!"

Orion grunted in pain, seeing a large cut apprear on his shoulder from Ruby’s attack.

Unlike his unscathed appreance from before, there were a lot of cuts and injuries all over his body, making him look like he was nearing his end from all the bleeding.

"Well, this wasn’t how I expected this to go at all!"

"That ability of yours is pretty effective against me. I’ll admit, very few in the same stage as you could beat you"

Orion said looking at Ruby while was panting at the side, her face filled with sweat.

Her eyes narrowed at Orion’s words.

"You’re looking pretty tired, you know. It’s so sad your revenge shit show has to end now. I can’t really say I was entertained much!"

Orion’s voice was was filled with energy, same as his actions, both of them betraying his appreance.

Ruby once again took the initiative to make the first move as she lunged at him, spinning one end of the weapon.

Orion also responded in kind.

BANG!

He surged forward, faster than before, the crater he left in his wake the only thing which told them of his advance.

Ruby didn’t care that she had lost track of him, she could feel his presence closing on her anyways. That was all she needed as her body went fully translucent.

She was investing all her energy in remaining in her Phantom state. It was the only way she had come up with to counter Orion.

"Useless!"

Orion’s voice came out, distorted by the speed at which he moved.

"!!"

Ruby’s eyes widened, feeling herself being pulled in.

Orion had grabbed hold of the end of the kusarigama she had sent flying and pulled with such strength she just couldn’t resist.

"Flaw number one"

Orions voice was cold, as his figure slowly reappeared, showing him twisting his upper body.

"You can’t make your weapon phase too!"

BANG!

"COUGH!!"

Ruby splurted a mouthful of blood as she felt Orion’s fist push into her torso, knocking the air out her lungs.

’How?!’

Ruby tired to wrap around how Orion had manged to lay his hands on her while she was in phantom state.

CRACK!!

A disturbing sound could be heard clearly as Orion pushed his hand further, cracking her ribs.

BANG!

The chair Jake sat on was blown to pieces as his expression warped seeing what Ruby was going through.

If not for Kieran’s solid grip on his shoulder, he would have burst onto the stage. He didn’t even think about how Kieran was able to keep him from moving.

Kieran looked at Jake who was starting to show signs of transformation, the aura around him growing darker by the second.

Kierans face was also dark as he watched Orion continue his speech.

"Flaw number two!"

He said, grabbing Ruby who was no longer in her Phantom state by the head and smashing her face on his knee.

"You can’t phase through pure energy attacks! It’s a quite big flaw of your ability, don’t you think?"

He said, sending another knee strike to her cracked rips and she grunted in pain, feeling the bones piercing into her lungs.

She couldn’t understand how Orion how seen through the biggest flaw her ability had. A flaw she had yet to make up for. There was a reason she used her ability so scarely and focused on her combat skills.

’That’s how it is!’

Kieran’s eyes narrowed, understanding that he had completely underestimated Orions capabilities.

He was also able to weild pure energy outside of his body. That was beyond broken.

"Now that you’ve been defeated, why don’t I do the Gale family a favor!"

"I WONDER HOW GRATEFUL THEY WOULD BE WHEN I SEND THEIR LAST MEMBER TO ACCOMPANY THEM! HAHAHAHA!"

Orion looked like he had completely lost it.

"DON’T YOU DAREE!!!!"

So did Jake, as his transformation came even quicker and Kieran was finding it harder to suppress him without taking extra measures.

’Strong!’

His eyes narrowed, feeling the amount of strength Jake had been concealing.

"Time for you to die, little one. Your revenge plot was cute!"

Orion said with a savage smile as his raised his fist, ready shoot it through Ruby’s heart. Kieran could see the immense amount of energy gathered there.

Without any concern in the world, his fist came down!

BANG!

A loud sound was heard and the entire arena fell into state of stillness as the scene on the stage was slowly revealed.

"Isn’t this too much?"

Orion said with a small chuckle.

Kieran and Jake had both appeared on the stage, both fully transformed, their pressure filling the space around them.

Kieran’s scythe had found its way to Orion’s neck, drawing blood. And Jake, holding Ruby in his arms had his fist right above Orion’s chest, ready to blow a hole through it if he did so much as twitch a muscle.

"Back off, Orion. This isn’t a death match!"

Kieran’s voice was below freezing as his gold rimmed eyes warned Orion.