Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

As the ten-minute countdown ticked away, the arena's oppressive heat created by the hot sun above slowly began to cool.

Archie took the moment for what it was, a brief reprieve and a bit of time in order to replenish his stamina and mana pools. Vital Metabolism was still in tip-top condition after having eaten and drunk a bit over four hours ago. He even felt that if push came to shove and he would lose a limb or two, it would still be fine.

What the hell was in that beer and in those snacks for me not to feel the slightest bit winded from constantly regenerating?

All around him lay the remnants of Wave Two – dried insect blood caked into the sand, pools of acid, and stray pieces of cracked exoskeleton half-buried in sand. Not to mention that lingering stench of burned chitin and scorched stone that was being emitted by them.

Vul hovered nearby. "You're calm," the spirit observed. "Too calm… Are you used to fighting many at a time?"

Archie opened one eye and smirked. "Oh, yeah. Plus, honestly, today has been an amazing day after the past couple of months I've had."

"You're barefoot, by the way," Vul pointed out with a hand made out of magma.

He grunted. "Yeah, I didn't expect to come without any of my gear to this trial. I had everything stored in my Spatial Rings."

"You mean those rings," Vul pointed at the two rings on Archie's fingers, with the same hand made out of magma.

A moment passed between them, and then Archie exhaled slowly. Without another word, Archie quickly accessed his spatial storages and reequipped his armor, Embergrasp Gauntlets, and accessories.

"Let's not speak of this ever happening," Archie said while putting away the sweatpants and shirt.

Ember veins from the Thornscourge Expansion still curled around his body; however, this time atop his armor.

"Great, my contractor is as smart as a goblin," Vul groaned. "Please, just don't die until I get my first payment at the very least."

[Wave 3: Begin]

Stone plates shifted along the arena walls, looking like something straight out of a sci-fi movie to Archie. Smoke hissed outward from the opening of the walls. Then, from the smoke, five figures emerged.

The Red-Eyed Reavers stepped into view.

Each stood at the same height as Archie, but with different builds, mostly. They moved in perfect unison, with their cloaks trailing behind them like banners in slow wind that brushed over the arena. Bone-white half masks covered the lower half of their faces, and their armor shimmered in tones of black and red in order to accentuate their bright red eyes.

What the hell type of discount superhero walkout is this?

Each Reaver bore a different weapon. A long sabre crackling faintly with violet static. A hooked glaive that shimmered like obsidian. A pair of short blades smeared in dark toxin. A wicked bow strung with what looked like silver thread. And the last one was unarmed, like himself, wearing gauntlets wrapped around his fists.

The formation they took was a good one; two flanking, one high mobility behind, one hanging back, and the gauntlet-wearer at the front. A classic spread that was sound.

No one moved at first.

But after half a minute of their standoff, the gauntlet-wielding Reaver stepped forward and drew a faint circle in the air with one fist. The others immediately responded. The bowman darted back and loosed a silent arrow, not at Archie, but at Vul.

"Shit," Archie hissed, already moving.

He dashed forward, weaving between a sudden flurry of projectiles, the Reaver with twin knives had lunged in low, spinning midair and slashing in a tight arc. Archie twisted, narrowly avoiding the sweep, and countered with a backfist laced with magma vines. The strike connected, but the Reaver deflected most of the force with one blade and twisted away from Archie's following follow-up strike and backstepped away from him.

Vul, meanwhile, intercepted the arrow mid-flight with a burst of heat, scattering it into ash midair. But the distraction worked. The glaive-bearer closed the distance and swung in a vicious downward arc at Archie's exposed side.

He raised his forearm, and the glaive struck his guard with enough force to make the ground crack beneath his feet.

The moment the glaive struck his guard, Archie released a faint grunt as his feet sank into the stone beneath him, cracks webbing out from the impact.

He quickly twisted his body in the opposite direction of the glaive after it slid up his bracers, narrowly dodging a follow-up strike from the glaive and shoved the wielder off-balance with a surge of strength, gaining a second of space.

From the edge of the arena, the bowman loosed another shot, faster this time, charged with a glimmering red sigil midair.

Archie saw it coming at him from the right side of the glaive wielder's head, and this time, he thrust his left arm forward.

The arrow struck the Reinforced Bracers of Deflection with a sharp, crystalline-like clang, and not a moment later, a ripple of heatless red energy ran across the bracer's surface, and a sigil of a red arrow engraved itself atop the middle of his bracers, signaling the arrow had been caught and stored.

Archie cocked back his left arm back before sending out a punch into the bowman's direction, just as just arm was fully extended, the bracer discharged.

The arrow launched back, faster than it had arrived, trailing with a lacing of magma-imbuement. It tore across the battlefield and struck the bowman's center mass, blowing him off his feet in a burst of redirected kinetic energy and magma infusion.

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He didn't get up, but he wasn't dead either, else he would have received a notification.

Archie exhaled through his nose, then cracked his knuckles.

To his left, another Reaver now wielding dual daggers, previously noted by Archie as the one with the twin blades that, judging by the faint sheen of purple on them, were coated in some sort of poison, spun into view, hurling a pair of throwing knives mid-movement. Each glinted with an equally colored poisonous sheen, and both were aimed at his neck.

His bracers hummed again.

He angled both forearms forward just enough.

Tink – tink.

Two knives caught. Two runes glowed.

"Return to sender," Archie growled, twisting his wrists outward.

The knives fired back simultaneously, curved midair by the shifting heat of Vul's influence. One struck the Reaver in the thigh, the other buried itself in his shoulder, causing the Reaver's eyes to widen in shock, but other than that, he looked fine as he had already gained immunity to the poisons he uses.

Behind him, Vul was playing keep-away with the glaive-wielder, generating burst jets of steam and heat to throw off the Reaver's rhythm.

And Archie? He was already rushing toward the downed bowman, who was receiving help from the gauntlet wielder, who, midway through charging at him, changed his mind to go help his fallen comrade.

The gauntlet-wielder crouched by the downed bowman, hands covered in some sort of green paste – potentially some sort of healing salve. Archie wasn't about to let that slide.

He kicked off the ground, activating Savage Charge without another thought.

The archer locked eyes with him, still dazed, and reached for another arrow.

Too slow.

Archie jumped, twisting midair, and slammed both Embergrasp Gauntlets down like meteors.

A burst of superheated flame erupted on impact.

The gauntlet-wielder tried to intercept him, but the explosion of flame and pressure knocked both Reavers backward, with the bowman catching the full brunt of the damage and thrown like a ragdoll against the arena wall with a wet crack.

*[Red-Eyed Reaver - Bowman Lv 101] has been slain – XP has been given.*

Archie didn't get a chance to smile. The gauntlet Reaver recovered fast, faster than expected he expected him to, and was already in front of him, fists enshrouded in flames.

He threw a right hook, but Archie caught the forearm with both hands. The impact still made his arms jolt, but he planted his feet and twisted, letting the kinetic enhancement from his boots add a brutal torque to his next move.

He headbutted the Reaver with all the force he could muster with the distance he had between them.

The impact cracked bone and splattered blood onto Archie's face. His Headdress of the Savage Ursine snarled in spiritual resonance, with its hair lengthening ever so slightly and the beginnings of a jaw bone growing beside Archie's sideburns.

The Reaver staggered, dazed. Archie grabbed him by the collar and punched him in the gut, once, twice, each hit igniting Embergrasp's passive heat cycle, until the third punch exploded with a burst of flame, sending the man airborne.

However, before he could even fly higher than five feet, Archie grabbed his ankle and whipped him into the stone floor with a thunderous crack, which created a crater beneath Archie's feet.

Not wasting a moment, slammed his right foot into the reaver's face and pulled his left arm, holding the reaver's leg back, and with a loud squelching, crack the gauntlet-wielding Reaver was pulled in two.

*[Red-Eyed Reaver – Brawler Lv 101] has been slain – XP has been given.*

That was three left.

The dagger/ twin sword Reaver had vanished again, leaving only the glaive-bearer and sabre-wielder standing between him and wave completion.

But where–

A flicker of motion to his right.

Archie dropped the bisected reaver and raised his bracers just in time as the poisoned twin blades clanged against them. The Reaver appeared out of thin air, likely cloaked via a short-range blink or her stealth skill.

Two thoughts surfaced in his mind. That was close, and I really should keep Vital Sight active.

Archie pushed forward into the clash, his Wardenplate of the Briar's Shroud of Thorns activating in a flare of white quills. The moment the Reaver pressed in with another strike, five thorns embedded into his wrist and forearm.

The paralysis itself was minor, especially for the poison-using dual wielder, but even she couldn't help but have her movements become sluggish as the effects of Shroud of Thorns activated immediately.

Archie seized the opening, slipping his leg behind the Reaver's and tripping her backwards.

With a roar, Archie raised both gauntlets and brought them down onto the Reaver's exposed chest, easily shattering their ribcage and exploding their heart.

*[Red-Eyed Reaver – Assassin Lv 101] has been slain – XP has been given.*

Now, there are two left.

The glaive-bearer and the sabre-wielder were regrouping, standing shoulder-to-shoulder now, both watching Archie warily as he'd easily killed three of their comrades.

Vul hovered beside his head.

"I take the flashy one," Vul growled, eyes locked on the sabre crackling with violet lightning. "I don't like the lightning he's wielding."

Archie cracked his knuckles, then his neck. "Got it, I'll break the other one."

Without another word, they split.

Vul surged forward, body cloaked in an aura of white-hot flame. The sabre-wielder responded by coating himself in lightning and sending out an arc of lightning to Vul. To which Vul sent out a large barrage of molten spears at the sabre-wielder.

Archie closed the gap with the glaive-bearer, who let out a sharp exhale and spun his polearm, using the hilt to kick up a spray of sand into Archie's face before lunging in a brutal arc.

Archie ducked the swing, ignoring the sand, the glaive-wielder kicked at him, as it did nothing to hinder his perception. He felt the wind shear over his head.

He launched a low punch at the Reaver's thigh, but the glaive-wielder twisted, using the pole as leverage and drove the haft into Archie's sternum.

Archie grunted. The hit landed hard, real hard.

His heels skidded across stone.

But instead of backstepping away, Archie reached up and grabbed the polearm's shaft, locking it between his gauntlets with brute force. He yanked hard, dragging the Reaver off-balance, and headbutted him once before following it up with yet another headbutt.

The Reaver tried to disengage, but Archie simply kept smirking.

Behind them, Vul and the sabre Reaver had turned the arena into a cyclone of fire and lightning. Magma geysers rose and fell, and violet arcs leapt across stone like snakes. Vul's body glowed, shrugging off glancing hits, retaliating with pillars of steam that blasted outward with thunderclap force.

Archie kicked the glaive Reaver's knee sideways, felt the joint pop out of place. The man roared in pain but still fought to stay upright, swinging the blade at a tight angle, aiming for Archie's neck.

But he was much too slow.

Archie raised his bracers and caught the blade edge-on. Embergrasp flared. Magma coiled up his arms, melting a groove into the Reaver's glaive mid-clash.

The weapon snapped in two.

Archie stepped in close and drove a burning fist into the Reaver's stomach, deep enough that flame erupted out of the man's back. His scream was guttural and short-lived. Archie twisted his arm as he yanked it out, and the body collapsed, steaming.

*[Red-Eyed Reaver – Glaiveman Lv 101] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*

He turned.

Vul was surrounded by smoke and arcs of fading static. The sabre-wielder was limping, his weapon flickering, burns crisscrossing his arm and neck.

"He's yours," Vul called, voice gravel-sharp. "I'm going to go recover my reserves. Lightning doesn't mix well with magma."

Archie didn't waste a second, he closed the distance between them in three steps.

The sabre-wielder swung at him desperately, clutching painfully at his third-degree burns.

Archie dodged left, ducked under the horizontal sweep, and uppercutted the Reaver so hard the sabre flew from his grip and his body became airborne for two seconds.

As the sabre-wielder's toes touched the ground, he was greeted with a punch from Archie that crushed his skull.

*[Red-Eyed Reaver – Stormblade Lv 101] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*