Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

"Vul," Archie said, not glancing away from the two boars in front of him, "cover me."

One of the two boars remaining was already charging right at him, while the other dug its hooves into the earth and began to circle him slowly.

"You got it," the spirit said, rising higher into the air. His heat pulsed outward and began to send sprays of magma at the other boar, who decided that they would rather circle Archie than charge at him.

Archie ran toward the charging boar head-on, and it, in turn, tilted its head slightly to aim its twin tusks at the side of Archie's rib so it would still be able to feast on his innards while having him pinned.

He took the hit.

The tusks scraped and cut into his ribcage, but Vital Metabolism kicked in immediately and stymied his blood; the actual muscle regeneration would have to wait until Archie physically removed the tusks lodged into both sides of his ribcage.

Oh, how he wished he had his armor with him.

With a snarl, Archie slammed his fists down on the boar's snout, forcing its head into the dirt with a crack and a cloud of sand.

Retaliation.

The force of the boar's momentum reverberated through his frame, surging into his fists as they smashed its rock-like skull into paste with a sickening crunch.

Its twin tusks punched into his ribcage, lodging deep but missing anything vital as he intended them to. He yanked them free, letting the blood flow from the puncture wounds for a brief moment, then, as if on cue, his muscles began to knit themselves back together, the regenerative hum of Vital Metabolism kicking in.

*[Lesser Rockhide Boar Lv 100] has been slain – XP has been given.*

Only one left.

And it hesitated, its rockhide back was covered in chunks of slightly cooled molten stone.

Archie smirked, blood still trickling down his side. "Oh? Lost your nerve?"

He stepped forward slowly, magma-infused Thornscourge Expansion vines coiled tighter around his form. The boar released a nervous snort from its snout and pawed the ground, uncertain of what to do now after the death of its packmates at the human in front of it.

He blurred forward, fists a flurry of strikes, Relentless Flurry having activated.

The killing blow was a downward hammerfist that landed straight between its eyes, cracking its stone-covered skull without much resistance, causing the boar to smash into the sand floor with yet another loud crack.

*[Lesser Rockhide Boar Lv 100] has been slain – XP has been given.*

[Wave 1: Completed]

The arena dimmed slightly, dust swirling, the heat haze giving way to a slight wind.

"Wave one down," he muttered. "Four more to go."

[Wave 2: Approaching: [Sandstriders Lv 100] × 5]
Spirit Contract Functionality: Active
Core Usage: Disabled
Countdown: 00:00:05...

Not a second later, tall, insectoid creatures with wiry limbs, dagger-like legs, and elongated jaws that dripped with steaming acid began unfolding from the sand in front of Archie's very eyes. Their eyes were pale, and each and every one of them locked instantly onto Archie, ignoring Vul entirely.

Their limbs moved in twitchy, alien sync, bodies built lean for speed rather than brute force. Each of their clawed feet pressed into the packed sand with an insectoid click that echoed faintly across the arena walls.

They weren't charging, not yet at least. Judging by the slight tilts of their heads, the spacing of their formations… they were trying to get a read on him, studying the movements he was making and the current state of his body.

The Sandstriders spread into a loose crescent around him. Their fangs hung low, long threads of bubbling, translucent acid hanging from their mandibles and pooling onto the scorched sand beneath them. That acid hissed and burrowed into the ground with every droplet.

Best not get touched by that, Archie noted to himself, eyeing how easily the acid burrowed into the packed sand.

Before he could make the first major move toward them and break their formation, the Sandstriders, seemingly having gathered enough information about Archie, moved.

Three darted in at once, two from the flanks, one directly down the center. Their top speed was at least double his own. They obviously have a large chunk of their stats into Agility, Archie noted.

In the time it took for a human eye to blink, he surged into a low crouch and pivoted toward the center attacker, his knuckles already tightening mid-swing. And just as he was in front of the closest Sandstrider, he had a right hook reinforced with the superheated tendrils of Thornscourge Expansion, magma-lined vines snapping forward with explosive force.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The fist collided with the Sandstrider's mandibles. Bone and chitin cracked audibly, acid spewing out in all directions as the insect's head whipped sideways, its entire body cartwheeling mid-air and slamming against one of its companions who had been circling wide, a ding echoed in his head to which he ignored.

However, as a result of his strike, acid splashed across Archie's arm.

He hissed through clenched teeth as the acid ate into his skin with ease, thin white smoke rising from the sizzling flesh.

Jesus, what the fuck is in that acid? Some sort of bullet ant-laced venom? Archie hissed as he grabbed a chunk of sand from the floor and smeared it into the acid, grinding it into a makeshift buffer while his skin knitted itself back together

A barrage of magma rained down from above, slamming into a Sandstrider just as it lunged toward Archie's crouched and distracted form.

"Behind you!" Vul shouted as he dragged the Sandstrider's attention somewhere else and focused its attacks on it.

Archie ducked just in time as another Sandstrider lunged from behind. Its bladed legs sliced through the air where his head had been a half-second before. He launched upward in a fluid spin, bringing both fists down in an overhead arc onto the creature's abdomen mid-air.

A heavy crunch followed by a splatter of acid and insect ichor.

The thing shrieked in a high-pitched screech and flailed as it hit the ground, twitching violently. Its twitching didn't last long as Archie stomped down hard on its insectoid head, his bare foot now covered in brain, blood, and sand.

He felt violated as he felt sand get in between his toes and cling onto them.

"I miss my boots," Deacon muttered. Do I not have my armor, because I wasn't wearing them?

Another burst of acid leapt toward him from the side, a ranged attack from one of the two circling Sandstriders.

Archie didn't have time to dodge cleanly, not without giving up his current stance and leaving an opening for the other Sandstrider to take advantage of with its superior speed.

Instead, he twisted, shoulder rolling in toward the splash, and brought up a piece of the downed creature's shattered chitin like a buckler.

SSSSSSSHHHHTT!

The acid struck his improvised shield not a second later and sizzled violently atop it, melting straight through in seconds, but not before buying Archie enough time to leap back and regain his footing.

Acid splashed onto the side of his neck. So even their own chitin is weak to their acid? He grunted, teeth clenched, as Vital Metabolism kicked into high gear again. God, I miss my armor, my gauntlets…

"Persistent little shits, aren't you?" he muttered, eyes flicking between the last two Sandstriders, who now moved in parallel arcs – one testing the perimeter from afar, preparing more ranged attacks, while the other inched in closer with a twitchy, stalking gait.

"Vul," he called out through gritted teeth. "Split 'em. I'll handle the closer one."

The spirit responded without hesitation, having killed the last Sandstrider that charged at him.

Vul shot forward in a spiraling flame-trail, his molten form whipping past Archie like a meteor flare and crashing into the farther Sandstrider, sending it reeling with a blast of concentrated heat. Molten droplets hissed into the arena sand, and the insect screamed, albeit to Archie, the damage Vul caused to the Sandstrider looked more superficial than anything actually damaging.

The nearer one took its chance.

It lunged forward in a sudden burst of speed, its wiry, chitinous legs stabbing into the ground just before it vaulted high into the air, twisting mid-leap in an attempt to land and latch onto Archie's face.

Archie met it head-on, but not in the way the insectoid wished him to.

He activated Relentless Flurry again.

His body moved, fists blurring as he intercepted the Sandstrider mid-air with a rising uppercut, vines of magma bursting from his elbows and coiling around his arms like living streamers. His second punch hit just beneath its mandibles. The third shattered one of its legs as it landed awkwardly.

He pressed further.

Fist. Elbow. Backfist. Open palm. Every strike sent pulses of molten force up through the creature's body. Magma-infused vines pierced through its chitin mid-sequence, tearing through it with ease and flaying its innards.

Acid dribbled down in ropes, each drop sizzling into his shoulders and arms, but he didn't flinch. His focus was entirely on the creature in front of him.

For some reason, it felt as though some invisible block on his mind had vanished, and fighting just felt… more.

The seventh strike sent the creature's head snapping backward, neck twisted grotesquely, its screech caught somewhere between a rattle and a wet choke. It stumbled.

Archie jumped, twisting midair as he brought down a hammerfist lined with magma-empowered vines and drove it directly into the top of its skull.

CRACK!

The Sandstrider's body collapsed inward, like a beetle crushed beneath a boot. Its acid glands in its throat burst, Archie leapt away just in time, only getting a few stinging flecks against his thigh.

Only one remained.

Vul had kept it busy, but the creature was adapting. Now it was circling fast, moving just out of the magma spirit's radius, darting in and out, testing for gaps.

"I'll end it," Archie growled, licking copper from the edge of his teeth. "It had been a while since my last, decent fight."

He dashed forward.

The Sandstrider reacted instantly, spitting a tight stream of acid that lashed across the air like a scythe. Archie dove under it, sliding low across the sand, magma vines uncoiling from his wrists like whips. As he passed beneath the creature, he lashed upward, the vines spearing through the gaps in its chitinous underbelly.

With a guttural snarl, he wrenched them back down.

The Sandstrider shrieked, legs curling inward. It tried to leap away, but Vul intercepted, launching a focused beam of pure heat straight into its thorax.

The blast tore the creature in half mid-air.

Its upper body crashed to the ground a few feet away, twitching weakly, ichor pooling in a steaming mess. Its jaw worked open and closed in the final, spasming seconds before going limp.

*[Sandstriders Lv 100] has been slain – XP has been given.*
***
*[Sandstriders Lv 100] has been slain – XP has been given.*

[Wave 2: Completed]

The stadium dimmed once more, but not before the invisible crowd erupted in another frenzy of cheers, much to Archie's personal ire of still being unable to see them in the empty stands.

All around Archie, the arena lay in ruin: shattered insectoid limbs, snapped mandibles, pools of still-hissing acid, and scorched trenches where Vul's magma had carved clean through the battlefield.

His sweatshirt hung in tatters from one shoulder, and the ends of his sweatpants were melted off. He wiped a crust of dried blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and surged them with his mana, and felt them begin to repair themselves.

[Wave 3: Approaching: [Red-Eyed Reavers Lv 101 × 5]
Spirit Contract Functionality: Active
Core Usage: Disabled
Countdown: 00:10:00...

"You're burning through stamina like an open furnace," the spirit warned, its "eyes" narrowing. "You need to start conserving, we still have four more waves to go."

Archie raised a brow at the Magma Spirit. "I've barely used 5% of my total stamina, not to mention, I haven't even activated my boosting skill."

"Truly?" Vul asked, looking at Archie thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Archie nodded before pointing at the slightly pink skin on his neck. "I'm already back to full health."