"Let's do this. You and me." Wade hissed out in Nathir. "Unless you're a weakling coward that can't fight a half-dead human."

  Whoever Not-Leon was, he was doing a pretty convincing cosplay of what Wade would have thought the Nathir would act as. So Wade decided to just lean into it.

  Not-Leon laughed, "I will be gracious in victory and allow you to be crushed in my hands. I do not need your insignificant companions. Let them choke and die here without my mercy."

  Not-Leon started walking directly for Wade, ignoring Bael as the demon raced off to help Medy survive against the monsters out here.

  Which left Wade alone against Not-Leon.

  Wade cracked his own head and took one step forward, approaching the shapeshifter.

  He did have a plan. Or at least a few dangling threads that might work if he rubbed them together the right way. More like several different individual options that could be loosely combined.

  He had magic. He had a single grenade with a longer fuse timer, and two more built with a hyper trigger.

  He had Azdrial basic enchanted armor that he knew in theory how to recharge, and he'd seen how Bael and Not-Leon handled their armors.

  But what was in his hands currently wasn't any of that. It was twine.

  He'd brought a ton of random junk with him in preparation, so tossing in string along with the climbing gear and rope had been an easy choice.

  What he was currently doing was tying a knot around the pin of his instant-detonation grenade as he took one step at a time forward, casually, as if it were just a random bit of posturing right next to spitting on the ground or cracking his knuckles.

  The issue with the gun and bullets was that Not-Leon's shields could protect against that.

  Could it protect him against shrapnel, an explosion and pressure waves at close range however?

  Not-Leon flourished his blade and charged after him all at once, done with posturing.

  Wade met his charge.

  In the opposite direction.

  "YOU WEAKLING!" Not-Leon yelled behind as the ex-retail worker ran for his life directly away. "COWARD!"

  Not-Leon was gaining on Wade, and gaining fast.

  Wade felt the first arcane bolt hit his back, but his armor's enchantments resisted it for him automatically. Power whisked away from the inner reserves, and Wade could feel the current within being easier to move around now that there was less of it inside the armor. According to Bael it didn't matter how quickly or slowly one pushed mana around within the armor, that part didn't need much focus or fineness at all. So he just kept it going without much thought. Recharging the armor was where it got finicky.

  Main point of that armor right now was emergency defense in case his plan got screwed, and to protect him from ranged attacks. The arcane bolt had hardly done much damage.

  Unfortunately, Not-Leon was rapidly right at his back, blade winding up to slash down at his body.

  The enemy swung.

  Wade suddenly increased his speed all at once, getting out of the way in one desperate leap, coming up with extra speed on demand.

  Because Wade hadn't been running at full speed. Not even close.

  His plan was to bait Not-Leon into using something he'd been abusing through the fight with Bael.

  Not-Leon grinned, freezing in place right after the swing downwards.

  Qi-Strike. The bullshit System-made ability triggered the moment he stopped moving for his first attack out of the sheathe.

  What he hadn't anticipated was Wade throwing a grenade at his face.

  Right when he wasn't moving.

  Wade dodge rolled. He didn't aim to dodge the airstrikes, nor did he think he could time some explosion manually. Especially one that would detonate the moment the safety pin was pulled. Throwing the grenade with a regular fuse would have been way too much time, four to five seconds which was a rather insane amount of time in a swordfight like this.

  So he hadn't pulled the pin on his instant-explosion grenade at all.

  He'd thrown the grenade backwards with twine knotted on the pin instead.

  And then grabbed the freely reeling twine hard in his hand and triggered the dodge roll forward. His body froze up, and he moved forward with the animation. The twine was equally yanked forward with Wade, ending up pulling the pin mid-air.

  Right in front of the frozen Not-Leon.

  The grenade exploded in the same instant that Wade dodge rolled. Shrapnel and power flashed through into both of them, going into and past Wade as if he were a ghost, while the rest slammed into Not-Leon nearly right in his face.

  Wade finished the dodge roll onto the ground, feeling the exhaustion hit faster than the pressure wave of air.

  Second dodge roll in the fight, but fortunately not done back to back. So he'd gotten some wind back in him. Enough for his water mastery boon to kick in and help.

  It left him struggling in place, which was good enough.

  He flooded his feet and legs with mana. Empowering them with a direct one-to-one spell. So long as he channeled mana into his legs, he'd burn it away as actual energy.

  Wade bolted off at full speed, the mana empowered sprint multiplied with his water mastery speedboost.

  And he started laughing all the while, turning his head to see the full damage and dead Not-Leon.

  Just shoot one lightning empowered bullet on the off chance Not-Leon had sur- Wade stopped laughing straightaway. "Motherfucker, how?"

  Not-Leon slowly stood up, eyes narrowing down with hatred. Just by his feet, Wade could see crushed up bits of metal. The shrapnel.

  It had hit Not-Leon's enchanted armor, and the armor reacted faster. Creating some kind of protective shield that halted the sharpnel, and explosion, and pressure wave too.

  Wade turned aimed his glock and opened fire as fast as he could. The bullets slammed into the enchanted armor and was blocked by a flash of blue, failing to do damage on Not-Leon himself. There was at least a crackle of electric power around the shields, so Wade's dodge roll lightning attack did do something when Wade was close enough to force the shield into protecting the full damage rather then deflection.

  Good information to add, useless right now.

  He had no idea if he was forcing the enemy's shield down low enough to matter, or if bullets were too small of a thing to actually cost the armor much mana. He had zero ways to tell.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  But a seriously pissed off Not-Leon came charging after him, trying to cut him off. Pen him up against the mana lake, and put Wade into a situation where he'd need to run past Not-Leon or get tossed into the liquid mana.

  Wade turned and ran for it, abusing his infinite mana. Sure he was burning through minutes of his overall lifespan each second he did this, but if he didn't that lifespan was going to be measured in seconds.

  Not-Leon's speed was on the same level, equally able to use mana empowered speed.

  Except that he didn't have that multiplicative addition that Wade had with the water master boon.

  That meant Not-Leon could never catch up.

  Real issue with this was that Wade's time was unfortunately a gamble every second. Eventually nausea, a coughing fit, dizziness, or loss of balance from the mana necrosis would catch him. And Not-Leon would obviously pounce after.

  He scanned around frantically while he raced away, going through the plans and options he'd come up with while on the wheel pushing the bridge up.

  Bael wasn't here anymore, but the sounds of fighting from a more distant cave sounded off. And it sounded like there was more than one creature. So he was around, but occupied. Which erased a lot of backup plans Wade had.

  Fuck.

  How about Eri?

  Nowhere in sight, and Wade didn't have a minimap to tell him where his favorite friend was currently lurking. Gut feeling told him Eri wasn't too far behind. He was a skeleton, monsters out here didn't want to deal with him since there wasn't anything to eat and they ran into skeletons all the time out here so they'd have learned by now. Eri could also use magic and spells, so he was likely sprinting at full mana-empowered speeds.

  He'd be here soon, but it was a gamble on when.

  Off to his side Medy was frantically trying to raise the bridge, slowly adding inch after inch. Looks like Bael had covered her enough that she was free to act, and this was what she thought would help the most.

  It was a valiant attempt, but with Not-Leon here, it made things… complicated.

  Something the asshole seemed to realize at the same moment Wade did.

  "Enough!" He slid to a stop, blade tip pointed straight at her. "Stand and die or my blade kills her. I will make it painful."

  Fuck. He couldn't afford to let Medy die. Finding her again would be a crapshoot. Even his luck might not be enough.

  So Wade had execute his backup plans early.

  He equally slid to a stop, reaching into his backpack at the same moment. "Alright, alright! I'll stop running!" He turned his head to Medy and swapped from Nathir to Demonic. "Run after Bael, memorize the direction, you won't be able to see." Wade pulled out one last change of magazine, then slammed it home into his Glock, making sure that was fully loaded. "Got that?!"

  It didn't matter if Not-Leon was actually some kind of Nathir terminator robot or an Earth Player with a Nathir boon of some kind - neither of those two options would know Demonic.

  "Okay!" She called out, then ducked slightly behind the wheel, as Not-Leon hissed in her direction.

  Wade turned to his backpack and yanked out a water bottle next. "I stopped running, see?" He said, keeping the man occupied with idle chatter.

  "Craven cowards with your well known lies." Not-Leon hissed back at him. "You take a single step to run, and I will hunt your kin first thing."

  Normally these water bottles were meant for his boots. But those were still mostly filled up.

  No, he had different plans for this water. Mana cycled out of the air, into his body, up his arm and flowed into the bottle, powering a free magic spell within, while he stood back up, hands and water bottle high in the air as if he were surrendering. "Come on then you asshat, get over here. See? I'm not running."

  Not-Leon did exactly that, racing straight for Wade, sword raised up to slash down.

  Wade threw the water bottle straight ahead.

  It exploded into a massive mist of hyper dense fog, magically empowered.

  Everything was choked and visibility went completely dark. The light here was already low enough, with this much fog it became utterly impossible to see anything.

  In that fog, Wade opened his eyes.

  Water mastery (Common) - While swimming, running, or standing in water: Gain increased movement speed, waterbreathing, clearsight, enhanced stamina efficiency, and immunity to barotrauma and nitrogen narcosis.

  The gift that kept on giving.

  Most of his use of this boon had been just for the stamina and movement speed increase. The barotrauma had come in clutch with his current explosives. Water and liquid was a far better conductor of pressure waves since it was incompressible, but the air had worked good enough so far.

  And there were still a few things he hadn't abused yet. One of which was a single word in the description: Clearsight.

  When Wade opened his eyes in the water vapor fog, he saw directly through it without obstruction.

  The same couldn't be said of Not-Leon.

  Wade dove straight forward, ducking slightly, Glock out. If he couldn't land a shot with this at a distance, then he was going to shoot this asshole point blank, right at the back of his head. He'd put the barrel of the gun directly touching, let the armored shield protect against that.

  A blade swung straight through the vapor and it collided directly, and unerringly, into Wade's face.

  That's when he remembered Not-Leon didn't actually need to see with his eyes to fight. Azdrial melee combat was far more advanced compared to Earth history.

  They had fields of control here. They trained specifically opposite to how mages trained, and even the slightest movement of someone else within their cloud of mana, they'd notice.

  The blade rammed right into Wade, and his demonic armor triggered fast, taking the blow head on, burning through mana to protect him. He saw the blade lift back up instantly after and slam down on him again, and a third time. The attacks were methodical. They clearly assumed and worked around the bounce back against Wade's shield.

  He made a single attempt to duck a blow and scramble backwards in the fog, and Not-Leon proved right away there wasn't any escape. The blade caught him no matter how he tried to avoid it.

  Wade knew enough about max-level tactics to recognize when someone else was using their field's most effective tactics. The practiced hits were too methodical to be anything else, and Wade was right in the center of that blender of hits, his armor draining fast.

  The fifth swing came straight for him again.

  Trying to avoid or deflect it like anyone else half-panicked was playing right into Not-Leon's training. Wade had to evade in a way this asshole could never predict or prepare for.

  Which meant the System.

  Wade dodge rolled the fifth slice, his body passing through the incoming blade.

  That… actually worked. Not-Leon clearly expected his blade to bounce back after eating away at the shield, and yet it went straight through Wade without resistance.

  That threw off his groove.

  Wade completed the roll, and flooded his body again with mana. Forcing himself back up, half-scrambling on the ground, staggering.

  But Not-Leon didn't pursue.

  Instead, Wade saw that he held still.

  Wade felt his armor drain away further even at a distance. All the hits breaking it down.

  A moment later, there was a popping sound and Wade felt his armor was completely drained.

  Not-Leon stood up, smiling wide, hand lifting up.

  An arcane bolt. Or some kind of ranged spell. It was over. He didn't need to cut Wade in half to kill him anymore.

  "Grant the world your last words, slave." Not-Leon chortled. "I'll be sure to forget them."

  "Okay, I… do have one." Wade wheezed, forcing the mana to hold him steady on his feet. Exhaustion from three dodge rolls was a hell of a strain on him already.

  Wade ran through his options. One plan left, and it could be extra effective.

  Because he was now almost certain Not-Leon wasn't from earth. He'd fought in the way Azdrians did, and that wasn't something that could be trained in three short days. Not-Leon knew how to use magic, knew how to power both the armor and his weapons, and now also knew how to fight like an expert swordsman?

  Not human. And not from Earth.

  "Speak and die." The Nathir continued to laugh, relishing in the coming bloodshed.

  Wade stared down at the man ahead, and slowly pointed a finger. "You… get a blessing."

  You have applied Market's Language Blessing on Level 4 Player.

  Not-Leon furrowed his brows for a half-second, not understanding what was going on.

  Wade gave him a bloodthirsty smile. "Rickroll."

  The context hit Not-Leon like a sledgehammer, rushing into his mind all at once. The concept of the internet. Videos. What Youtube was. How internet commenters would bait one another to click unknown youtube links. And only after, the prank itself. The man flinched in place as it all came to him at once.

  Wade didn't stop there. Out of his mouth came more words of terrible power. "Leeroy Jenkins. Numa numa dance."

  Market's Blessing didn't care how difficult it was to understand. It would translate what all of this meant. Even if the bare minimum was overwhelming.

  Wade yanked out his last normal grenade, still speaking arcane gibberish from the deep recesses of the internet. Requiring far too much context to even begin understanding. "Nyan Cat! Ea-nā?ir's shitty copper! MMO. FPS. RTS. BADGER BADGER BADGER!"

  Wade threw the grenade with a shaking hand, pin off. "YEET!"

  It flew off way over the target, landing directly behind into the mana lake with a heavy plop as it sank.

  Not-Leon stared into the darkness of the fog, head throbbing, sword shaking in his hand. He couldn't focus enough to command his attuned mana around him. "Weak....ling..." He groaned.

  Even with the System granting him a free master level field of control, he simply couldn't process anymore information. To much things from this alternate world Earth was flooding into his head.

  Wade appeared at the very last moment to his senses, coming out of the dark fog from nowhere, screaming like an unhinged lunatic.

  One last battle cry.

  "NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!"

  He tackled into Not-Leon directly with a roar, sending them both backwards - right at the lake behind.

  "You… lost the game." Wade hissed while in mid-air.

  They splashed hard into the lake and immediately sank under it together.

  And just ahead, already dropping like a slow rock through the liquid, illuminated from all directions by the dim glow, was Wade's earlier grenade.

  Four seconds had passed since the throw.

  It detonated.