Archie activated Adrenaline RushThornscourge ExpansionSavage Charge
Crashing into the troll, Archie’s fist ripped through the stone-like skin of the troll and surged nature mana into his flame-wreathed vines to rip through its innards.
But just as Archie's flame-wreathed, thorn-covered vines tore through its purple innards, they traveled only a few seconds before coming to an abrupt stop. The troll's flesh suddenly tensed, gripping the vines tightly and holding them firmly in place.
When he became unable to move his vines, Archie thought the troll had activated a skill of some sort, but his Vital Sight
The vital energy of the troll exploded in strength and flooded its entire being with a surge of even stronger vital energy that grabbed onto the vines with a vice. Seeing that he wasn’t even able to rip the vines out, Archie dismissed them before kicking off the ground and landing a couple of meters away from the troll.
Archie thought, brows furrowed.
Archie quickly leaped forward towards the injured troll, evading a blow from a club from its partner that created a shallow crater where Archie previously stood.
Archie quickly launched a flurry of blows atop the rapidly healing troll, activating Relentless Flurry
Cancelling Relentless Flurry
The blow from its club splattered purple blood all over the right side of Archie’s armor and mask as he was pushed ten meters away from where he stood, his boots digging into the damp mud. His armor had taken the brunt of the damage, and he had to only deal with the force of its blow, which numbed his right side slightly.
The only one truly damaged was the troll he attacked. While it was recovering from its initial internal injuries and the effects of Relentless Flurry, which repeatedly slammed it into the surprisingly durable log wall, its right leg was torn off by the stone-spiked club of the other troll.
The fallen troll let out a spit-filled, shrill roar, alerting all the trolls within the outpost. Its purple blood gushed from the stump of its leg, and it thrashed around the ground, sending vital energy surging through its wound.
Archie activated Savage Charge
Orienting himself, Archie surged a large amount of stamina into his right fist before smashing it through its shattered and cracked face. He sent an even larger surge of nature mana into his fist, which made the vines around his right fist expand and rip through its skull, the place that looked to have the least amount of vital energy flowing through it.
Archie felt his thorns pierce through the vital energy that tried to hold onto them and latch onto its brain before he made them shred its brain and allowed him to hear the ding of the system informing him of its death.
Jumping off its falling corpse, Archie turned towards the amputated troll and found that it had regenerated its right leg and was far smaller than it was previously.
It shakily stood on its feet, looking as though it hadn’t eaten in months and having lost a good hundred kilos with its stone-like skin loosely hanging off its body.
“The fuck?” Archie muttered before noticing the large number of vital sparks rushing toward the entrance of the outpost.
Lunging toward the shakily standing troll, Archie smashed his left fist into its chin, grabbed its loose skin with his right hand, and pushed Adrenaline Rush
Throttling Adrenaline Rush
Standing over the regenerated troll, Archie observed the flow of vital energy coursing through its body. He ignored its muffled groans and focused on what could be enabling its explosive regeneration.
, Archie mused, tilting his head to the right.
But then his head tilted the opposite way, considering another angle. , he reasoned.
Ensuring that the quickly soldered chunks of frostiron were firmly wedged in the troll’s mouth, Archie drew his Silver Carving Knife and began hacking at its body. With his Vital Sight
For every wound he inflicted, Archie attempted to mimic the troll’s vital energy movements to see if he could replicate the effect. He noted how the severity of an injury corresponded to a proportional depletion of the troll’s body mass.
, Archie concluded. Once the troll had shriveled to a husk, he removed the frostiron ball from its mouth and crushed its skull with a stamina-infused stomp.
.
, Archie continued.
Focusing back onto his vital energy and the lipids within his body, Archie focused on connecting them together, with the lipids acting as a sort of energy booster. But after a couple minutes of nothing happening, Archie decided to take a more hands-on approach.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Taking off his left gauntlet, Archie swiftly sliced off his hand from his wrist. He ignored the pain that erupted from his hand and the blood that splattered atop the mud and focused back onto his vital energy and the lipids within his body.
Archie focused on the vital energy that coursed throughout his body, he focused on how the vital energy surged toward his newly severed wrist. Archie then focused on the lipids throughout his body, they’d been forgotten about for quite some time, as of lately, Archie rarely ate.
But Archie instinctively guided the energy within his lipids into his vital energy. He broke down the scant reserves of fat that remained and attempted to merge them with the flow of vital energy coursing through his body.
The process wasn’t smooth – it never was something Archie considered to be. While metabolism played a role in the healing process, it was not to the explosive degree Archie sought. He needed something far more potent.
As the fat within his lipids broke down, a faint warmth spread throughout his body, signaling its conversion into energy. He directed this newfound energy into his vital energy, strengthening its flow.
Archie ignored the sticky dryness in his mouth and throat, focusing entirely on the transformation.
When the energy derived from his fat fully merged with his vital energy, the regenerative process surged. The stump of his wrist, previously healing at a sluggish pace, suddenly erupted with a burst of vital energy. Before his eyes, his left hand grew back within seconds.
Staring in awe at his newly restored hand, Archie’s amazement was short-lived as a sharp pain struck his stomach. Hunger clawed at him, insistent and unrelenting. Quickly, he retrieved the thirty or so pieces of jerky he had stored in his spatial storage and devoured them in quick succession.
But it wasn’t enough. The hunger remained, like a ravenous beast gnawing at his insides, demanding more.
His gaze fell on the shriveled corpse of the troll. Without hesitation, Archie lunged at it. Deactivating Thornscourge Expansion
The acrid taste of raw, rubbery, stone-like meat filled his mouth, but he forced himself to chew and swallow. He focused solely on consuming as much as he could, desperate to stave off the insistent, screaming hunger.
After the majority of the troll was consumed, Archie felt the hunger that gnawed at him recede. Laying on the blood-soaked mud, Archie stared up at the stars that glimmered above him while patting his stomach.
While he considered the troll to be shriveled, that was relative. Previously, it looked to weigh around at least a ton and a half, and its shriveled form looked to weigh at least 300 pounds.
Looking at his semi-bloated stomach, Archie chuckled as his armor adjusted itself to his slightly bloated size.
Looking at his notifications, Archie took in his newly evolved skill.
Skill Evolution: [Pugilist’s Grit (Rare) → Vital Metabolism (Epic)]Vital Metabolism (Epic):
Channel the resources you have stored within your body into accelerated regeneration. Upon taking damage, you regenerate a portion of your maximum Health each second, fueling your recovery at the cost of your natural resources. The resources consumed will scale proportionally with the severity of the injuries sustained. Should your reserves be depleted and you wish to recover from injuries inflicted on your person, your body will start to cannibalize itself to fuel your regeneration.
“No more flat percentages when regenerating,” Archie said, closing his eyes for a moment. “Not bad, with this super regeneration. Just gotta eat my fill.”
Getting off the ground, Archie ignored his mud-covered form and sprinted toward the outpost. “I mean, I just gotta keep a large reserve of food in my spatial storage, and if I run out, I can just take a bite out of whatever I’m fighting.”
“Unless they’re made out of something I can’t eat like rocks or fire,” Archie continued.
Arriving around the outpost, Archie reactivated Thornscourge ExpansionSpirit Bond
Archie rolled his shoulders before taking a deep breath and pushed Adrenaline RushSavage Charge
Archie soared through the air before smashing his fist into the head of a troll and launching its head off its body, past its partner, and into the jungle.
Reactivating Savage Charge
Mid-charge Archie cocked back his fist and smashed it against the club, creating an explosion of wooden fragments that embedded themselves into the exposed skin of the troll and smacked themselves harmlessly across Archie’s armored form.
Still mid-air, a meter away from the troll, Archie extended his fist and surged with nature mana as the vines atop his fist exploded forward, wrapping themselves around the extended arm of the troll. Once wrapped around the troll’s left arm, Archie yanked the troll closer to him before vanishing the vines and latching onto the troll's head.
Ignoring the troll’s large hand that pulled at his back, Archie shoved his right fist into the troll's mouth, shattering a couple of teeth, and activated Impact Dynamo.
Not a moment later, the head of the troll exploded, sending flesh and bone in all directions. Archie ignored the splatter of troll head on his mask and felt as the minor fractures on his knuckles healed instantaneously from his newly evolved Vital Metabolism
Archie landed on the ground for only a moment before leaping onto the outpost walls and quickly scaling them. He took advantage of his ability to see vital energies and sparks from behind walls and jumped over the wall as three of the trolls ran out of the outpost, leaving him with the remaining half of the trolls.
He took advantage of the chaotic shouting of the trolls and how they focused on the entrance of the outpost. He grabbed a fist-sized stone and chucked it to the opposite side of where he stood, grabbing their attention instantaneously.
, Archie smiled as he took out his Mana Revolver and fired a nature manabolt into the leftmost troll’s popliteal fossa. Ignoring the shrill screech the troll gave as the nature manabolt severed its calf from its thigh, Archie quickly fired five more shots into the popliteal fossas of the trolls before charging at them.
As Archie charged towards them, just as he was about to dismiss his Mana Revolver back into his spatial storage, a shiver arced across his back.
Sending a surge of stamina into his foot that remained on the ground, he launched himself forward into the air, dodging an attack that exploded where he had stood previously. Twisting himself midair, Archie identified his attacker.
[Orgamine Troll Chieftain Lv 99]
Archie was only able to see the large and obscene vital energy of the troll high above in the farthest tower, hidden under the shadows. The only thing he could properly make out was that the chieftain was a female; she held a large bow with both hands, and a lot of giant arrows lay beside the railing of the tower she stood on.
“Fuck me,” Archie muttered as he twisted back to the three fallen trolls and landed on the head of the leftmost one, crushing it before he bent down to crush the middle one with an Impact Dynamo downward punch.
Just before he was about to lunge towards the remaining troll that was crawling away with his hands, Archie felt the goosebumps on his back flare once more. Snapping towards the chieftain, that cracked numerous vertebrae and caused him an ungodly whiplash. Archie snapped his fist forward, flooding it with all the mana and stamina he could muster within moments.
Archie’s fist collided with the projectile shot at him, creating an explosion of both gore and wooden shrapnel.
Archie’s right fist smashed into the chieftain’s giant arrow, and both struggled against each other for a moment before both Archie’s fist and the arrow exploded.
Archie whipped his wooden, shrapnel-covered nub toward the crawling troll, launching the larger spikes of shrapnel at the back of its head. The spikes sank deep, killing it instantly as its vital energy surged toward its legs but failed to reach its brain in time to repair the damage before brain death occurred.
Archie quickly regained his balance and dashed toward the tower where the chieftain stood, his right fist fully regenerated by his fifth step, with the gauntlet atop it not far behind.
His eyes sparkled with joy as he let out a triumphant shout and activated Savage Charge
Thanks for Reading!
Read ahead on Patreon: 10 ahead for $5 and 30+ ahead for $10
Patreon:
New Goal: 750 Followers -> Bonus Chapter
Current Number of Followers: 580
Don't forget to follow, comment, and favorite if you are enjoying Adrenaline Junkie!
Let me know your thoughts, theories, and cool ideas that you'd be interested in seeing in the comments—I read every single one!
