The Rising of the Fisticuffs Hero

Chapter 7: The First Wave of Catastrophe (Part 1)

It had been a week since the battle the the black dog. They levelled up, grinding monsters for ages, and gained so many skills and weapon variants that they had to keep an updated list of what they had got. Well, it was mostly for Naofumi's benefit, since he had gained over twenty shields in that week. On the other hand, Cadver had gained some gauntlets, he now totalled 13, which wasn't very lucky. He even had two cool new skills, which he had put to use a few times.

The first was the opposite to his Rising Uppercut and could combo out of it. Simply named, 'Plummet Slam', it was an ability which saw him jump to just above the enemy, SP is then deducted for the distance he jumps, and then he slams both fists down on them. This causes them to plummet to the ground or the nearest surface directly under them. They then take damage equivalent to his Attack, modified with additional damage equal to how far they fell. Problem was Cadver ended up high in the air either way, so could be badly injured from the fall.

The second was a weird one. It was simply titled Crazy Rush, but it seemed to have two different modes. The first he couldn't use. One of his stats or his level wasn't high enough to use it yet. The second he could use. It involved dashing past an enemy and hitting it once. He would then keep his momentum by hitting another, then another, then another. Each hit dealt more damage, and each hit also consumed gradually more SP. The draw back was that the more hits he chained, the longer he would be locked to a single position after the move ended, leaving him virtually helpless.

And that was how they got into this situation. He had tried out his new Crazy Rush, completely missed the spiney monster he had been aiming at, then had the porcupine charge right at him. This then led to Naofumi leaping in to block the attack, and having the monster imbed several spines in his upper arm. Now Raphtalia was running around in the tall grass after the monster, while the two heroes were either immobilised or injured.

The first to recover out of the two of them was Naofumi. He pulled the last remaining spine out of his arm, then, as he turned to face the noises of the running monster, fed the spine to his shield. It was an almost natural motion, feeding the shield everything and anything that might help improve it. The porcupine rushed out of the grass and charged at Naofumi.

"SHIELD PRISON!" Naofumi yelled,gesturing with his shield arm. Chains and armour plates magically appeared and surrounded the creature, before interlocking to form an impenetrable metal sphere. Raphtalia burst out of the grass and left high above the sphere. She swung down as if to cut straight through, before the sphere disappeared and she sliced the monsters head clean off. Cadaver finally managed to move, stumbling over to get his share of the materials. Most didn't do anything, but you never really know until you try.

Raphtalia was showing the creature to a tired Naofumi. He broke off several of the spines and chucked them over to Cadver, who dropped them straight into his gauntlets. They didn't unlock anything, so he just shrugged and helped clean the skin and meat from the corpse.

As they made their way back to town, Cadver finally finished wearing the Black Biters for the required amount of time so they him a constant buff. Each gauntlet boosted two of his stats by three when he wore them, but if he wore each specific gauntlet for long enough he gained the stat adjustment permanently. His stats were quite a bit higher then they were, being level 16 certainly helped.

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Name: Cadverus Argosa
Attack: 37 +12
Magic: 23+6
P. Defence: 38 +21
M. Defence: 32 +9
Dexterity: 51 +12

Additional points: 11

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