102 Chapter 18: New Recruit

Sadie was frozen dead in his tracks when he saw the giant descend from the sky and dropped to his level. Sir Deva was mouthing something, but Sadie didn't hear anything he was saying. He saw Sir Deva raised his hands to horizontal and spreading out in a ninety degree fashion, and prepared for an upcoming attack. His shield were still activated since he jumped off the cliff, and despite not knowing what exactly Sir Deva is capable of, he was ready for anything.

Then, he felt a sense of weightlessness as the pressure on his feet begin to reduce before he was yanked towards Sir Deva from his hips, where his center of mass roughly is. The shield was still up, but this strange attractive force that Sir Deva have just generated has already launched him towards Sir Deva. Sadie left the supply box behind and strengthened the intensity of the shields as he prepared for the impact.

Right before the moment the bubble of shield is going to ram into Sir Deva, Sadie saw him split into a lunge, digging his feet hard into the ground and cocking his fist back before launching it like a rocket into the shield! The bubble itself was distorted for a split second by the impact as Sadie's forward moment was completely halted. Despite having the shield's up, Sadie still felt the impact. The artifacts's unique scaling of impacts and forces allows for their users to experience a fraction of what the artifacts is creating or experiencing, and despite having gone through the torture chaotic seas, Sadie still felt Sir Deva's punch.

Sadie dropped onto the ground onto his feet as the attractive force from Sir Deva disappeared. Sir Deva is quite surprised by the sensation he felt by punching the shield, and Sadie is also quite surprised by how much power Sir Deva is able to generate. He is not a normal human, Sadie quickly determined, there must have been at least a few modifications to his body.

Though despite his efforts, it appeared that Sir Deva won't be able to penetrate the shields with just his raw power. Sadie may have felt the impact of the punch, and the power contained within may be on the same magnitude as crashing water pouring on top him or jumping down a cliff onto the ground below, it is still much smaller than what he has felt when mountainous waves made him a sandwich in the middle of his journey back. Sadie's smiled a little as he reaches out towards the dome surface of the Shield and pushes it out even further.

The rapid expansion of the Shield made its outer boundary reach where Sir Deva was standing and he was thrown back into the rocks behind him as the impact shattered the rocks behind him and knocked the wind out of Sir Deva for a little while. Thankfully, the nanotechnology enhancements went to work the moment damage is sensed and started the healing process.

Sir Deva grunted lowly by the impact and freed himself from the Sir Deva shaped crater behind him. There are still limits to the enhancements as given by Absolute Being. The physiological enhancements done at the first stage of the progression raises the performance ceiling drastically for the individual undergoing the procedure, though this is the extent that the ceiling can go at the moment. The nanotechnology enhancements merely make sure that the individual can quickly return to the very ceiling through maintenance and accelerated repair, instead of rasing them to new heights.

To truly go beyond the limits, another stage of advanced physiological enhancements is required, but Lady Lily haven't quite find the time to work through the issues. Perhaps the final stage would have to be done by Lady Lily herself using the Pen of Rearrangement.

Letting out a long held breath and ignoring the pain in his entire backside and the ringing in his ear that's been quickly silenced by the nanotechnology implants, Sir Deva kept a safe distance and started to think about way to take down Sadie Allen. The Shield started off as an excellent tools for defense, and Sir Deva's powerful punches that can normally do lethal damage didn't even leave a single mark on it. Though to be fair, the artifact's powers are way beyond what can be feasible generated by a single being.

The powers of the artifacts cannot be realistically overcome, but can be worked around. That's one of the first few things that Absolute Being has learned about these artifacts. That's how Lady Lily, Gold then Valerie and himself obtained the artifact in the first place.

Can the power of one artifact overcome another? Such a question is akin to a clash of the unstoppable and immovable. And Sir Deva has yet to find out. Though the aspects of reality each artifact impacts means there are always counters and match ups between one another. Lady Lily's artifact may seem extremely overpowered under her use, but even the Lightning Rod can catch her off guard and fry her up like a squid on a pan.

As each artifact are overpowered to begin with, it's really about the clever usage of them when it comes to artifact users fighting against each other.

Let's try once more and see if Sadie can sustain any damage from within the Shield. Sir Deva thought to himself, then he threw his hands forward and generated a sphere of mass right behind Sadie's position. The instantaneous gravitational pull jerked Sadie backwards at an acceleration way higher than before, and the local landscape was also snapped wide open by the pull for an instant. Sir Deva maintained the projection of the condensed matter for a few more second and moved it along to ensure Sadie has built up enough speed going away from him.

He was flinging his arms around helplessly as he couldn't actually affect the travel of his centre of mass in the air except for one option, and that is to push the radius of the shield out so much that it reaches the ground underneath him. He has never pushed it so far before, and to be honest, Sadie doesn't see the need. In terms of range, Sir Deva has a massive advantage in this battle in how he is able to throw Sadie around, but the protection offered by the shield can dampen and reduce the impacts of the falls and pulls, or in essense any sort of deceleration deeemed too dangerous for a normal human body to take.

Sir Deva then created an even greater mass right in front of him and yanked Sadie towards him. Sadie was almost knocked out by the rapid deceleration, but the Shield's underlying mechanisms kicked in and protection him from it. Sir Deva was playing Sadie like a ball at the end of the string, first throwing the ball as far away as he can before yanking the string and trying to break what's inside the ball. However, that barely did anything to Sadie, except for letting him feel a little dizzy.

This seemed like it's just going to be a grind of a battle. When the shield's active, Sir Deva is going to struggle to do any damage to Sadie over it, but Sadie also can't do any damage to Sir Deva without getting in close, at which point Sir Deva can just push him away.

It is true that artifacts cannot be overcome, only worked around.

Sir Deva stopped his attacks, and looked down at his hands, now slightly shaking a little bit from using the artifacts quite intensely in quick succession. The nanotechnology enhancements will kick in shortly, but he knew this is an endurance battle that he will not win. Like before against Zel, raw strength and power will not win him this battle, he will have to be tricky.

Speaking of being tricky with the artifact, Lady Lily did mention after the skirmishes on planet B1 that one of the bearers of the artifacts uphold the philosophy of being tricky in a fight to a T, he was the one that completely disfigures Gold despite his combat ability, stole the equipment back from a great thief like Zel, and was able to get away from the first encounters between the two groups unscathed. Somehow, Sir Deva has a feeling that if he faces that guy, he would be defeated or at least damaged in the most unconventional and unsatisfying way.

Due to his lack of physical strength, he needed to develop a style of combat to work around the superior skills and power of those around him, and that style actually coincided with the best way to use the artifacts so far. The bearers preaches shaping the person's combat style and instinct around themselves and the artifact, while the Absolute Being takes the opposite approach, making the person as powerful as they can get before the inherit the artifacts.

Which approach produces better artifact users? Only time will tell.

'You cannot win this battle if we are just talking about wasting each other's time.' Sadie said, walking closer towards Sir Deva to make sure that he will hear exactly what he was saying, 'so why don't you just walk away?'

Sir Deva shrugged and ignored the question as if the answer has always been obvious. He reached his hands directly towards Sadie like many times before, and forms his finger in a claw shape as he activated the Mass Projector one mroe time. This time, he was going to be tricky.

Unlike Rydel's glove, the location sensitivity for the Mass Projector is a lot less accurate, so while Rydel can actually snatch fast moving items from the sky after months of training, Sir Deva can only project the sphere's of concentrated matter to create a gravitational pull at a fixed location at any point in time. However, with Sadie now standing only in one place, his plan should be a lot easier to enact, though he needed to be really careful, or the results of that attack is going to be rather messy.

With his intentions aimed at the centre of Sadie's body, Sir Deva projected a tiny amount of mass for an instant before deactivating the artifact. Sadie made a face as he felt like his insides are turned upside down before a mysterious force folded him in half and dropping him to his knees. Sadie grasped for air but his lungs don't seem to function as it would at this moment. In that very second, the concentrated matter projected into Sadie's body has cause so much damage that he immediately released the shield. When he finally regained regular breathing and blood began to return to his now pale face, he saw a pair of thick military boots in front of his eyes.

He looked up to see Sir Deva with a fist cocked back, and that was the last thing he saw.

'You were right about artifact combats.' Sir Deva rolled over from on top of Lady Lily from the bed of the principal's building up the hill in Absolute Being days later. Lady Lily grabbed a towel and started wiping sweats along her forehead as both of them tried to regain their bearings after the intimacy moments ago.

She let's out a long breath and replied, 'you can not overcome it, you can only work around it.'

'Precisely.' Sir Deva said, putting both hands underneath his head as Lady Lily turned and wrapped both her arms around him. Her hair smelled just like when he left for Hercules 2, 'Sadie Allen was a hard opponent and I did seem like a good match up against him.'

'Do you think anyone else could have beaten him?' He asked, looking down at Lady Lily who's rest her face on his chest, 'could you?'

'Guess we will find out soon enough.' Lady Lily said, 'from what you told me, I think it would be quite easy to convince Sadie that our goals align, with a little persuading that is. With that in our hands, we are finally not losing artifacts after what happened this year.'

'Is there any news of any other users?' Sir Deva asked, and Lady Lily shook her head.

'Master had a feeling that quite a lot more is going to show up very very soon, so we better prepare for that.'

Moving away from the steamy bedrooms on Absolute Academy, something similar is happening in a spinning spade station that's located on one of the medium level orbital rings around Olympus Zero. With the current budget of Rydel and company, that's the kind of accommodation they can afford. It was a small apartment hotel overlooking the orbital rings down below and the capital city planet of the galaxy. The closer you are to the surface, the more expansion space is, and the near trillions of beings living down on the surface as business owners, political leaders or governmental employers and their families is what's running the galaxy so far. The advent of faster than light communication through quantum entanglement made a 'geological' central government ruling over the galaxy possible, and the shear amount of parks, monuments and museums at the planet level is just too much for the three to visit.

Zel was always a loner and happy to look around all by himself, and he visited the entertainment district the very first moment he landed on the planet.

'I will just go earn a few thousand credits quickly.' Zel said before diving head first into the casino building that are painted gold with a giant snake's head looking structure. He has learned a few tricks throughout his time in the wild regions, he would be walking around the expensive city planet quite a bit richer.

Valerie and Rydel was expecting something crazy when they arrived on Olympus Zero, but the sights of Wolfana is nothing compared to this. Their first stop were the famous Museum of First Contact before going through to the Olympus park, where layers of ecosystem from all three species are interlinked with one another, and the wild life from all three species are all seen in a single thirty minute shuttle ride. For the first week of their stay there, they have barely scratched the surface of what the planet has installed for them. They have found a camp for Vel to stay in and socialize with people her age for a bit, and getting some time to themselves. That's when they have heard from Cellica.

'So you are saying there is another activation of an artifact, or a crazy usage?' Rydel said, dropping the finely diced onions and garlic into the frying pan for Valerie to sauté. Zel is just lying on the couch in the living room and listening in to the transmission.

'I can confirm that it was one of them.' Cellica said, 'the last known location of this user will be transmitted to you shortly.'

'Did you eye ball the location?' Rydel asked as the knife in his hands danced through the spring onions.

There was a silence from the other side, and Cellica returned a hesitant yes.

'it sounds bad when you put it like that.' She protested.

'Hey, I trust your eye balls.' Rydel said with a chuckle and looked up from the chopping board, 'we will go check it out. If everything goes according to plan, then it looks like we will have a new recruit!'

'Be careful.' Cellica said, 'we are not sure if Absolute Being will get their hand on her first, seeing as her energy output is the most powerful we have seen so far, including yours.'

'Actually, hers was a lot stronger than yours.'

'Well, it's not about the raw power but about how you use it.' Rydel said with a shrug before sending a jolt of lightning into the frying pan and freaking Valerie out for a second. She delivered a spinning kick towards his buttocks and made Rydel squeak, 'now, I'd like to think I have both.'

'How'a the practice coming along?' Cellica asked, 'you are the only one with two artifacts so how are you holding on?'

'So far it has been fine.' Rydel said, conjuring the Aquarian blade into his hand that's formed by the Lightning Rod, the artifact previous owned by Dolon the Aquarian. He performed a series of swings and jab of the blade before dissolving it away back into his body, 'no excessive fatigue, no sudden urge to fight or kill, just ready for the next mission.'

'Valerie and Zel, could you keep an eye on him?' Cellica turned towards the other two in the living room, 'we know the body will adapt, but sometimes we wonder if two artifacts in a single body would be too much.

'You got it.' Valerie replied with a smile, and Zel nodded hard from the couch.

After the transmission is ended, the meal was also completed. With the plates of food set up on the table, and three sat around and enjoyed the dinner together. There weren't as much talking as the devouring of the food, as Rydel's cooking skills become better and better each time he does it. The nanotechnology enhancements seem to be able to enhance the quality of life too.

After the plates are cleaned up, Zel finally spoke first.

'So.....where are we going?' He asked.

'Old..... Solar system.' Rydel pulled out the files Cellica sent to him and drags it over to the hologram projector on the dining table. The map of the solar system is shown, and the second planet away from the sun is highlighted.

'Ah...Old Venus.'