Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 300: The Boxer and the Butcher

The girl’s eyes flashed blue for a second and then she charged toward him. He was caught off-guard and didn’t have the time to block. She struck his chest.

Stanley felt a numbing sensation on his chest, and for some reason, his body began moving on its own.

The girl swept his legs from under him and then jumped over him, grabbing him as he fell backward. She flipped to the other side while grabbing him, pulling him along with her flip so that he made an entire arc through the air before coming down to the ground with a slam.

Stanley’s body hit the ground and then bounced up as though a ball and the girl delivered a final punch.

He got hit in the face and was tossed far away when he hit the barrier of the arena itself.

"Urgh!" Stanley groaned almost out of instinct, finally getting control over his body back. He quickly got up, a little disoriented, and looked at the woman.

’What happened?’ he thought. He looked at the woman’s health bar and only a single sliver of it was left. As for the blue bar, it was completely empty.

He looked up at his own health bar, of which he had lost nearly half. It was then that he also realized that the blue bar was close to being completely full.

’She... did she do something with her full blue bar?’ Stanley thought. That was the only thing that did make sense there at all. He wondered what he could do if he got a full blue bar as well.

Alas, he wouldn’t find that out in this battle. He prayed he never had to find out.

He ran up to the woman and slashed her one last time, removing all of her health from the bar, and killing her. The bright motes of light that had coalesced to form her dispersed when she died and the game master came back to congratulate him.

Stanley’s health went back to full and it was time to wait for a new enemy.

The third enemy was a giant man with a large cleaver attached to a chain at the end which was a hook. He wore nothing but a large apron with blood stains all over it. He had a feral look about him, as though he wasn’t here to fight but to butcher an innocent animal.

Stanley knew he needed to be careful here. Not only did the man seem as though he would hit him a lot, but there were also two different weapons on him which he would have to be careful about.

Also, there was the matter of the blue bar, which he would have to take care of. As long as he did that, there had to be no problems, right?

Stanley quickly got into a heated battle with the butcher, slashing him where he was open. The butcher swung his hook around to grab him when he was far away and swung his cleaver when he was close.

Stanley managed to dodge through all the attack, weaving in between the Butcher’s movement to slowly drop his health bar. There were no single big attacks he could do on him, but he managed to do a lot of small ones instead.

The blue bar began filling with each cut and Stanley paid attention to it. When it finally became full, Stanley moved far away, ready for whatever was about to happen.

The butcher suddenly screamed, roaring so loud that Stanley felt as though his eardrums would explode if he was too close. A wave of nausea hit him at that very moment.

His eyes became blurry and through that, he was the hook fly right at him.

Stanley moved on instinct at that point, quickly bringing his sword to the front to protect against the hook. The sword lay in front of him as it had before when he had protected himself against the arrows.

The hook hit his sword and dropped to the ground.

Nothing happened.

Stanley’s dizziness vanished and full awareness returned to his body. Using this moment of freedom, he ran right up to the butcher and began cutting him down, bit by bit.

A sudden piece of knowledge came to him without even looking up above him that his blue bar had been filled as well and he could do... something. He wasn’t sure what he could do, but the butcher was dead anyway, so he didn’t bother.

A few more cuts around the butcher’s body, a side step to dodge a massive cleaver attack, and then a single stab through the fat body were all Stanley needed to kill the butcher.

The butcher vanished and turned into motes of light.

Stanley took a deep breath as he won another match, this time much better than the first two times.

His opponents were getting stronger, but he was also improving his understanding of how everything worked as well. There was nothing for him to worry about just yet.

However, there would come a point where his understanding of the game would peak, and the opponents would continue to get stronger. That would be the time when Stanley would have the most problems.

Stanley’s next two opponents were a person who used a Whip as a weapon and another who used an actual flamethrower, which she used to hit him as well.

He won against the two without even having to use whatever the blue bar’s power was. However, he wasn’t so lucky on his 6th opponent.

Having defeated the first 5 opponents, Stanley could be happy that he had all but left the punishment section of the game. He needed to win this one to start getting rewards instead.

Stanley’s sixth opponent used a Shield as his weapon of choice. It was a round shield made clearly out of adamantium, just like his sword was.

It was heavy, durable, and annoying as it completely blocked all damages that Stanley could do with a sword.

This was a terrible fight for him.