Devastation

Soren forgot about this. His ability, God's Plea, is the one he has been using constantly since yesterday. 

He thought of something crazy. 'Can I fight her now?'

He believed it. 5x Strength was no joke and while his strength hadn't increased much from the Stats, it was still greater than it was yesterday. 

Currently, he was being dragged like a dog, so it was natural for him to try and fix this situation first.

And that's what he did. Or at least tried to do.

Lifting himself off the floor, his legs tried to explode out of her grip while simultaneously bringing him away from the cliff.

However, in his attempt to escape. The dark-haired girl tightened her grip and moved Soren effortlessly.

Soren's body which had been lifted partially got slammed back to the ground. His head hanging over the cliff now. 

Astonishment settled in.

'What just happened? Did she use one hand to counter my entire body's attempt to move? Am I so weak?'

He let his head dangle off the cliff, once again viewing the pit of darkness from a unique angle. He started to dislike the darkness severely. Looking into it, what looked back was despair.

'Nothing is working. I just empowered myself yet I'm still an object to other people. I can't retaliate or I'll be crushed.' 

His past experiences with pain entered his mind, reminding him of his personal hell. The expression on his face turned dim.

Sleeping helped sort out his mind, but he was still exhausted. The constant failing crushed his spirits into ashes. Would it ever work out for him?

Noticing the change in Soren's temperament the woman released his tunic and backed away sighing.

"You need to toughen up. Would a woman ever want to get with you?"

Soren heard her but remained still.

"No," he said barely audible. No emotion pushing through.

The woman, still unimpressed, pushed on. "My name is Avora. I'm the second-ranked fighter on our side. I can tell you that no woman would want such a pitiful man."

Soren started paying more attention, hearing that she was the second strongest fighter for the Heavenly side was important information. 

At least, if he didn't want his future to suck even more than it did now. 

He sat up and took a good look at the woman in front of him.

"How?"

"Like how I know no woman would want you?" She replied curiously to what he meant.

"No, how are you the second strongest? Isn't that reserved for the most physically strong people?"

She stared at Soren and then started chuckling to herself. 

"You're so full of yourself, you know that? Is it because my body is small? Or is it because I'm female?"

Although Avora was laughing Soren could tell she was mad. More than the usual anger though. She might genuinely throw him off at this rate. 

He immediately knew the misunderstanding.

"Uh, please wait. That's not what I meant. I mean how do you become so strong when everything brings you down?"

He regretted how his earlier question came out.

'I would get mad too.'

She appeared unhappy but answered anyway.

"My ability." She paused. "Like all of us, our abilities decide how strong we are. If it's good enough, then we can hunt ourselves to make us stronger physically."

Feeling bad still, he decided to answer her earlier question. "I hung by my sword under the cliff until they left."

"What?"

"Your first question, about escaping the ants."

He turned around getting on his stomach again, reaching for his sword. To his benefit, the strength increase from trying not to get thrown off was still in effect. Therefore, he yanked out the sword from the cliff, causing no trouble to him. 

Pulling it out and up to the mountain a hint of realization hit Avora.

"I see. You thought of that? And it worked?"

She was baffled and had a dumb expression on her face, seeming to forget the previous miscommunication. 

Speaking quietly to herself she said, "So it wasn't an ability. What a weird method though." 

She then looked up from Soren's sword and turned around, starting the descent down the mountain. Seemingly disinterested.

'That's it? I didn't die. But where is she going?'

Feeling like their conversation was abruptly stopped, he felt uneasy. 

"Why did you ask me that?" He called out. 

She turned around, appearing devastatingly short since she'd already gone down the mountain some.

"Well if you had a powerful ability I was going to bring you with me, but, well you don't. Why else would you resort to that unreliable method."

Soren's anger ignited. 

He didn't like someone else disparaging his ability, even if it sucked and caused immense humiliation.

That was his authority.

"Hey-"

He stopped himself from speaking further. He remembered this woman was much stronger than him. It didn't matter if God's Plea was in use or if he tried to use any tricks.

'Avora. Do I try to kill you? You must have a strong ability.'

Soren was oblivious to who had cast the gigantic fireball earlier. It never occurred to him that she could be the user of that. Would his train of thinking change if he knew? Probably not. 

The stronger the ability, the stronger the ability he can possess. 

As it stood, his two abilities weren't all that great currently. They would be better later on, but God's Plea was going to forever be at a disadvantage.

A magic fireball and a poisonous whip that melted things on contact. These were the abilities that stood out the most to him so far. The massive fireball was powerful, incredibly so and he had a suspicion that abilities could be enhanced. 

Be it through training with it or being upgraded through the different worlds. That also begged another question. Do only some abilities increase over time? Wouldn't it be better to have those or no?

'If the opportunity arises.'

Avora had already turned around and was staring at him with a neutral expression. It was almost creepy how long she stared without saying anything.

Noticing he made the situation awkward he spoke again. "Can I come with you anyway?"