Little did Gary know that him completing the quest at that moment and receiving the rewards had practically saved his life.
The Last Stand skill had been used a number of times before when Gary was in a tough situation, and it allowed him to best his opponents.
He had used it when he first went up against Olivia, and further used it when fighting against Midwak as well.
However, it was a skill that needed to be activated. When activated, Gary could receive as much damage as possible and still have some HP left.
As it leveled up, though, the Last Stand skill had grown stronger.
In one case, while using Last Stand, Gary would also have an unlimited energy pool to use, allowing him to use skill after skill during that time.
Using this along with his Claw Drain, it allowed him to regain a large amount of health.
Now that the Last Stand skill was at its max level, it had another effect.
If the user was unable to activate Last Stand in time and detected a hit that would cause death, Last Stand would auto-activate.
This is exactly what had happened when Gary had been hit by Harvor. It wasn’t Gary who had activated the skill, but the skill had activated itself, leaving him with 1 HP and saving his life.
Still, there was a drawback, and that was if the skill self-activated, it would only save the user and would not work the way it usually worked.
Now Gary had no chance to use the Last Stand skill, and it had deactivated an instant after the hit had been delivered.
It would have been almost a second chance, a near-death state, yet Gary had been hit so hard he had fainted, and now his life wouldn’t even be in his own hands.
Harvor, in the air, slowly descended with the strange gold mist that was holding him up, and he returned back into the ring.
As he landed, he was still in his strange humanoid dragon-like structure. His feet gently touched the canvas floor.
“Will you look at all your faces? I change for one moment, I throw a single hit, and this happens.” Harvor said. “This is why I don’t like transforming so much. You have to congratulate him, though. Your friend managed to make me transform.
“I would say because of that, he was certainly deserving of the title of one of the Kings. As for you two…” Harvor lifted his hand, and his long singular claw was pointed at Bree and moved over to Ylva.
“For two of the Kings to go on his side, I guess you can safely say that you guys chose the wrong side.”
The Zodiac members were all smirking at the situation, and there was a large change in demeanor for Stanley. He was clearly relieved that the situation unfolded the way it had.
‘In the past, when the One Gang was on the rise, before the AFC was even a thing, there were a number of challenges.’
‘Back then, Harvor would use his Altered form only briefly, but each fight ended just like this one, with one punch.’
‘Because of that, Harvor started to limit himself, only fighting in his human form, and looking for somewhat of a challenge, he even started the AFC.’
‘In his human form, he got what he wanted. I thought maybe, knowing this was Gary Dem who had defeated Sin, that he would have been able to take a punch.’
‘If he did, and it ended up as a large fight and breakout between the two, I could already imagine half the city no longer being here.’
As Stanley thought about it more, for as long as he had been with Harvor, he had never seen the full extent of his strength.
Which was equally why he didn’t want to see it himself.
“How does it feel? The person you had put all your hopes into is now dead!” Harvor claimed.
Xin’s eyes were sparking, and her body was still in its transformed state. Tears had already filled her eyes, and she was ready to dash forward.
Regardless of the sparks coming off her body, it was Jayden who grabbed onto her, now more so standing on his own feet.
“Xin… I don’t want to lose you too. I don’t want to lose you to that b*stard! I know you’re a smart girl. You should know you can’t face him…”
Jayden was biting his own bottom lip. After finally seeing the Altered form and a fraction of Harvor’s real strength.
If he had known there was no chance for him, and if he had known the situation would unfold into this, then he would have never attempted this.
‘Was I so wrong, though, to attempt to get my revenge, to just get some damned type of justice for her…’ Jayden thought.
‘But now, I’ve ended up dragging people that care about me, people that don’t even know me, into all of this, and all of them will be taken down with me.’
Jayden was tensing his fist. He had gained back some of his strength. His special Mythical Altered form did allow him to heal somewhat quicker compared to regular Altereds.
But he was nowhere near in the condition to fight like he had before, but he wondered if it would be enough to let the others escape.
While still surrounded, and with no one left to even face Harvor, they were all at a loss of what to do, until one person stepped forward.
“You idiots, can’t you even tell? Your friend, he’s still very much alive,” Ylva said. “But I suggest that you get to him as fast as possible.”
“As for this one… I think you haven’t been paying enough attention to me.” As Ylva said those words, her two shirtless guards had come by her side, and they started to transform, along with her.
****