This power of 16,381 units was then stored within his body for future use.
That future happened to be less than a second after he was hit by the attack. In that brief period before he used the stored power, he sprouted wings from behind him, then he shot forward towards the slow giant.
The slow giant was about to get too close for his flak gun to be able to target her. If there was someone driving the airship to create distance between them, he would be able to bombard her all he wanted. Unfortunately, he was the only one in the airship.
Since he couldn’t do two things at the same time and since he didn’t dare give up the flak to control the airship and make it move back to create some distance between them for fear that they would take advantage of that time to board the ship, he decided to deal with one of them with his full power first.
So he descended from the ship and quickly approached the axe-wielding giant. He approached her with only his two bare arms and no weapon in sight.
The slow giant saw him coming and grinned in anticipation of his arrival, as she raised her axe above her head in preparation to deliver a thunderous strike.
As she grinned, she said, "Prepare to meet your end, loud-mouthed fool."
Her grin was ferocious because she was bloody from head to toe. There was no unharmed spot on her exposed skin, and she looked like someone had stopped midway in skinning her, but this didn’t diminish from her fearsome appearance.
If anything, all her wounds made her more fearsome. She looked like nothing could stop her from attaining victory.
Unfortunately for her, battles were only half won by appearance. When her axe descended and struck Loki’s arm, her power was found wanting and lacking.
Loki had positioned his left forearm horizontally across the path of the axe. So when the axe struck him, it struck his forearm.
The axe had struck him with a power of 3(Status) × 4(Giant Bones) × (5 Body + 4 Strength Amplification + 70% Energy Well) × (4 Elephant Strength + 4 Crocodile Strength + 4 Tiger Strength + 4 Rhino Strength) × (370% Overdrive + 70% Energy Nexus), which is 8,194 units.
She had used her full strength for that attack, but it failed in harming him. The only thing she succeeded in doing was giving him a power of 20,074 units to store for future use after he combined her power with his.
Just as the axe struck his left arm, he punched out at her with his right hand. She didn’t understand why her axe had failed to cleave him in two or elicit a physical reaction from him, but she believed that no one could compete with giants in terms of strength, especially not a rank 3 brat with a big mouth.
So she curled her lips in a mocking sneer as she punched back at him with her left hand. This way, the fists of the two of them were on a course set for collision.
While this was happening, the second giant was running up to them to catch up to the fight and assist her partner. But Loki kept her at bay by shooting in her direction.
He couldn’t see her since he was focused on the slow giant, so he could only shoot randomly at her. This wasn’t able to injure her like before, but it was enough to delay her.
With the fast giant delayed, Loki’s fist struck the slow giant’s arm. Even though he was armored to the teeth, her arm and fist were still bigger than his. So she was confident of victory.
But the outcome was far too different from what she expected. Instead of two fists smashing into each other, it was a knife piercing into her fist.
Loki never planned to fight her in hand-to-hand combat. He only appeared to do so in order to deceive her.
If she knew that he wanted to hit her with a knife, she would have tried to avoid the knife. But she didn’t know, so she thought it was a good idea to strike his fist head-on.
So, just as their fists were about to make contact, he let his armor shift and create a knife on his fist. Even as the knife pierced her fist and impaled her forearm, the knife was still elongating.
The goal was for the knife to elongate into a spear. So even if Loki’s punch was weak, her would still succeed in destroying her arm because the spear would impale it all the way to her shoulder.
But his punch was by no means weak. His punch carried the stored power of 16,381 units. So it carried immense power that crushed her arm as the spear pierced her arm.
When the ordeal was over, the slow giant had lost her entire arm. Everything attached to her shoulder was simply gone.
As painful as this was, she only grunted in pain. She gritted her teeth and refused to do anything else. Then she swung her axe and let it strike him again.
As her axe descended for a second attack, she gritted her teeth and said, "I refuse to believe in witchcraft."
She refused to believe that her axe would hit him again and still fail to harm him. She wanted to believe that her initial attack had been effective, but she hadn’t seen the effect because he had done something to hide it from her.
This time, she aimed for his neck and was sure that he would be split open like a watermelon. She could even see this happening before the axe struck him.
So when the axe struck him and failed to pierce his armor, her eyes widened in shock, and she said, "How?"
Loki’s reply to her was to punch her chest. Or at least, that’s what he wanted to do. The fast giant wasn’t going to give him the chance.