'…Unbelievable…'
Zarek dodged the swiping claw of a Turned by a hair's breadth, but a wound as thin as a papercut appeared on his nose. It inflamed his skin, and poison threatened to seep into his body.
It wasn't real poison, but instead just a particularly volatile application of Godsfall that pooled into his body with the intent to overwhelm his own.
Under normal circumstances, this claw would have never touched him. Though it was just a graze, Zarek found himself pissed.
'Every tiny little difference makes its impact. I need to be sharper…'
Zarek's heel slammed against the ground, stopping his backward momentum. He listened to the attunement and changes to his body, weaving out of the way of a second strike with a duck and erupting with a fist to the Turned's side.
This wasn't Zarek's fault. It was just really hard to be as precise as he usually was in combat when the value of his Core Stats still changed.
Every time his Growth Potential shifted, the value of his D- stats changed as well.
Zarek's stats were quite good for their value given the fact he had experienced not just one, but two Core Breakthroughs. But Growth Potential also directly influenced the weight of a given stat as well. Core Breakthroughs pushed it a little further, but a poor Growth Potential would still hold a stat down—much like a good one would raise it up.
Right now, Zarek's Growth Potential kept changing, so his Core Stats, though remaining the same, kept swapping their values as well.
Imagine being in the middle of a punch, or a roundhouse kick, or dodging an opponent, and your abilities suddenly increased or decreased in strength randomly.
The worst part was sometimes it would happen multiple times in a given movement—sometimes twice in the same direction, sometimes in opposing directions.
It was no wonder Zarek lost his Core Harmony.
Core Harmony wasn't something you grasped and just kept. That was why he didn't just immediately leap to his Core Harmony Levels in previous lives. His Growth Potential had changed compared to them, and his body right now wasn't in the exact same state as it had been either.
One had to slowly attune themselves, and there were many Core Harmony Levels that couldn't even be reached unless one had experienced a certain number of Core Breakthroughs, or a certain Class of Core Breakthrough.
Zarek had still been able to do it a little faster than others because he had experience with it. But this time he was practically flying blind.
He didn't believe even the best Core Harmony users in the past, present, or future could easily grasp this. He felt like he was losing his mind.
A normal fighter wouldn't even feel the difference. The gap between B+ Growth Potential D-Grade Core Stats and a B Growth Potential one wasn't too great. It was probably the difference between punching with 1000 pounds of force and 980.
But for Zarek, this might as well have been a nightmare, and the gap would only increase with each subsequent level. It was throwing off everything about his combat style.
Tonight, he had gone out with the intention of getting used to this new status quo, and also scouting out the regions of the other powers to see what they were planning.
But at this point, he wasn't even sure if he could get out of here.
'Fucking ridiculous…'
Zarek shook his head, finally slipping the Turned's guard and slamming a palm into its throat. He took a hard step forward and smashed the back of its skull into a brick wall just as his Strength Growth Potential flicked upward to A Class.
'Aggravating. Things won't work like this. There has to be another trick to this…'
Zarek wasn't as helpless as he seemed. He could easily change his combat style to a more brutish one where such insignificant changes wouldn't make much of a difference. That would be enough to beat 99% of the opponents he came across.
But if he fought like that, his battles would have more room for error, and against much stronger opponents like Hero Gladius, he wouldn't stand much of a chance.
That was unacceptable.
'Atom Link…'
Zarek's eyes narrowed. Maybe the secret was in the Talent itself.
Marx had already progressed Atom Link to F+ Mastery, but Zarek's own was still at F-. Between being injured and resting, not to mention going out to clear all the Tears, he hadn't had the time.
But it seemed that maybe he should spend some time—
Zarek's eyes widened as several thoughts came to mind immediately.
'Could I?'
The thought had only just come when Zarek's mind twitched. Without hesitation, he tossed the Turned to the side and slipped behind a dumpster in the alleyway.
Despite the situation in his body, he had come quite a distance already. He should be firmly within Pensare Corporation territory. If there was a chance tonight, he planned to wipe out the entirety of their top brass.
He could feel that the other groups were planning something. They had been too quiet. He also wasn't a fan of just waiting for trouble to come to him.
So he decided to bring his own trouble to their doorstep.
A group of two came to a pause at the alleyway entrance, looking at the corpse of the Turned that had just been killed. It didn't look immediately obvious how it had died because Zarek had crushed its throat, but that only made them more apprehensive.
"Isn't this our target for tonight? Why is it already dead?" one of them asked in a hushed whisper.
As expected, after the Crimson Rain, a large number of powerful Turned began to appear. Among them, there were Elite E Classes in record numbers, but also D Class threats… like the one lying limply on the ground now.
How could such a powerful Turned die just like that?
"Something bigger is here. We need to go and report it."
"Wait, we need to see how this one died first. There aren't any obvious marks."
The two bent forward to check, only to find a strong palm grabbing the backs of both of their necks. They were surely quite powerful, given the fact they had been sent here to deal with this D Class together.
Just not strong enough.
'I wonder if it'll work…'
Zarek's eyes flashed.