Chương 64: R&R Ch. 3 — Bask in the Glory

Nicholas couldn't remember where he had left his super suit, and in all likelihood it was in Jasmine's soul forge. And while he could bother her for it, there was a much easier way to do so." Retort" The world fuzzed, and Nicholas was now clad in his costume. One ear had the telepathy link for Jasmine's costume and the other had the communicator for the train. It wasn't particularly useful to leave the telepathy link in since Jasmine would not be playing with her powers like he was, but it was a habit.

He idly considered summoning Book, but he eventually decided against it. He needed a baseline for what he could do now at the top end, and that would only screw up his testing, as fun as it would be to use the book to blow something up. As soon as Nicholas reached the airlock to go outside, there was a beep from his ear as his communicator connected.

"You're not on shift. Reason for coming out?" Coordinate asked. Nicholas wasn't sure why Coordinate had always been up, but his leading theory was a high enough rank to not need sleep for weeks at a time or a team of clones. Regardless, it made things easier that the person coordinating their defense was always around.

"Recently leveled up to E-rank and want to see what I can do," Nicholas said, not feeling a hint of shame. He wasn't even the first today to do something like this, so he doubted anything was going to happen.

"Are you looking for sustained output over an hour or one big showing?" Coordinate asked. Nicholas could do sustained output. That was well within his abilities, especially after the practice he got for the wave. But that wasn't what his power naturally leaned towards doing. And with his new upgrade, that was even more true.

"One big showing." A screen fuzzed into existence before Nicholas. It showed the train and had an area near his position highlighted.

"Tech based Beyonder has been bombarding us with missile drones. Could you take out as many as you can?" Nicholas thought this was the perfect chance for him to play with his ability, but he had one question.

"Does it have authority over the tech or a different type of tech-based power?" If the Beyonder was out here, that meant it was likely rank four or five, and he couldn't overpower that authority even with Book helping. But tech-based powers had tons of variations, and a lot of them didn't involve authority.

"No authority that we can detect."

"Then yeah, I can take out as many as I can. Just show me where to go," Nicholas said confidently. Without the flying sword, navigating the train was far more difficult, but having superhuman speed and strength was a trade that at least made the situation less awful.

"Can you see them now?" Coordinate asked, they hadn't had any problem continuing to talk with Nicholas even when he had reached his top speed. Another thing for later. He eyed the sky, finding the swarm of drones out of range of most supers and defenses, continuing to shoot rockets down at them. People with the range to hit them usually had better things to do, and it wasn't causing much damage. A perfect target for Nicholas.

He had to wonder if it was left there for supers who wanted to try out new toys or if it was just a coincidence. Nicholas doubted it was a coincidence; just a passing look from Rend would have taken care of this, so that meant there was something going on. It was easy to pick the word he wanted as he swept his gaze through his targets, as he arranged his visualization to perfectly execute his plan. More and more power flowed into the card, more than he could have dreamed of using in one go just three hours ago.

Nicholas kept going until he reached his limit; he would not stop. His power started flowing into his body at that point as he reached the limit of what he could handle naturally. Now the river split, part of it flowing into his working to create the biggest command he had ever done. The other half into his flesh to support his body and make sure he survived the endeavor. Nicholas ran out of targets before he hit his limit." Break" The word tore through the air as space fractured around the drones.

That was just the pre-show. The drones weren't actually what Nicholas had targeted; breaking several things above his tier was likely still too much for him to do even with his power up. But all the missiles set on a hair trigger to explode? All he needed to do was break a little bit of them and cause the explosions to cascade down. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it A drone fired. The missile didn't launch, exploding in place, and the fireworks began.

Nicholas sagged to the ground as his power left him. He had been so drunk on his own ability that he hadn't realized he had used almost all the power his spirit contained. But he didn't hurt. For the first time since getting his ability, his throat wasn't strained by the use of a command he considered powerful.

"Fucking a kid that was awesome can you do that again?" Coordinate asked.

"No," Nicholas said, habitually keeping the word short and clipped to not strain his voice. Except he didn't hurt.

"Sorry, habit, but no, that took everything I had."

"Can you walk back?"

"Yeah, I can manage that. I'm just going to lay here for a bit until I can stand again." Nicholas said laughing.

"Those of you that take the support to release crazy output rarely realize how much physical strain there is from it, so I figured this would happen." Coordinate said with a laugh.

"You'll be in the clear to lay there for the hour."

"You knew what I would pick?"

"Everyone who's seen you fight knew. And I watched the videos of every super on this train so I could lead them." Point. Nicholas lay there for the next forty minutes, just enjoying the breeze and the ability to swallow without pain rippling through him. But his time was up and his test was a major success, so he returned inside the train before a stray explosion could take him out." Nicholas" And now he was back in his regular attire.

He had thought about making several words change into normal clothes word but none of them had been great. Just using his name worked, though. It wasn't like he imagined saying it that often. A quick stop at the dining car, Nicholas got something to eat before nudging Jasmine through their bond to ask if she wanted to be brought back anything. Getting the to-go order was easy enough, and Nicholas returned to their quarters, opening the door to reveal Rend just lounging there without a care in the world.

Nicholas's mood soured as he plotted how to take his revenge for the day. He knew he had been forgetting something about why he rarely hung out at their quarters.

"Where's your partner in crime? You two are always attached at the hip," Rend said as Nicholas entered their team's quarters.

"She's upgrading all her gear. We just had the rank up, so we split off to figure out where we're at now," Nicholas said, rolling his eyes. He had a really easy way to mess with his mentor now. He wasn't supposed to be that antagonistic, but Nicholas couldn't bother to care anymore, especially after the fight. If you had to bully someone to prove your point, you were just being an ass.

"Hey train can you pull up the footage of what I did to the drones about an hour ago now?" Nicholas asked, gesturing to the wall that would show said footage.

"Acknowledged," the voice of the train said. Nicholas enjoyed the shocked look on Rend's face as the video showed the hour earlier with the word break echoing through the speakers oddly as the fireworks show started.

"Well, would you look at that? Raw power, didn't have my teammate with me, didn't use my cheating soul-bound book. Just what I could do. What was that? To reach the end, you need to be strong?" Nicholas asked, brushing past his mentor.

"Glad to see that I am more than strong enough, especially when I am more than twice as effective with my actual team."

"You've already shown you two refuse to listen to me."

"No, I listen. I just refuse to acknowledge your lie. I'm going to go to the end. Jasmine and I are both going to become pinnacles. As a team."

"You're going to need to work three times as hard."

"For someone who hasn't reached the peak, you sure seem to know how it works," Nicholas said sarcastically.

"Thing is, Rend, it doesn't matter. I am ravenous, and I won't stop until I'm sated. You're the only one here in this trio who's lacking in the hunger to run forward." Rend stared at Nicholas, mouth agape.

"What did you just say?"

"You heard me, Jasmine and I have been running forward since the starting line. How long have you been spinning your wheels looking for apprentices to mold so that you can live vicariously through them?" Rend's mouth clicked shut with a snap. Nicholas laughed as he went to Jasmine's room to drop off her food before heading to his.

Rend didn't care that he wasn't supposed to be on duty right now. He was pissed, and the only way that could sate him was if he got stronger. Rend Level: 5 Belief: 7, 000, 873 Karma: 10, 189, 879 Power: Sever Reforged Body: Throughline Sight Body Localized Domain: 10 Meters All other information restricted. His progress to the next level was good, but he was stalling. More than that, he was pissed off because of what Nicholas had told him.

The brat wasn't wrong; Rend had been spinning his wheels for a break after his own mentor had died. Worse was that if things didn't change, he was going to have to confront the fact that he was wrong. And that it hadn't been because working with people had been a flawed strategy. He doubted that would happen. The nine pinnacles had all walked their paths alone.

And the two teams that were equivalents, from everything he had seen, were separate supers who joined teams later in life when they had found themselves unable to improve anymore. Using the method that had gotten his mentor killed, Rend decapitated a Beyonder, absorbing and purifying the power before letting it flow into his belief. It wasn't as effective as getting belief from actual humans, but it was pretty good.

And when you killed things that were rank four, even at reduced efficiency, they gave a lot more than just one belief. The biggest problem was going slow enough that nobody realized that he knew the method required to cheat advancement. The pinnacles had tried so hard to keep it under wraps, but they couldn't do anything but try to contain the damage if someone learned it on their own. Once the power settled into his existence, Rend looked for his next target. He could do it, just one target at a time.

And then he would use Brynhild's beloved granddaughter against her. The witch's marks were all over Jasmine's soul, so it would be easy enough to use her as a connection to make sure his strike landed. Rend would just need to keep his mouth shut around the two so they didn't risk a chance of figuring things out. They already made him eat his words once. How was he supposed to know they linked their souls without ruining their foundations? That was widely considered impossible.

He had no plan to let the two catch him off guard again.