Four furies in front of me and one behind me. I had to get them on one side, so I can see them all at the same time. Usually, my opponent's position wouldn't hinder me too much, but now I couldn't sense their life force, so I had to be careful. I thought as blood spurted out of my abdomen.
I could instantly feel my life force leak out as the blood dripped to the metal floor. With my lowered hand, I angled my palm behind me and fired a ki blast.
I pushed myself off the ground and to the right with my body parallel to the ground. I could see the woman that had assaulted me ducking beneath my ki blast. However, she underestimated my ki control, since she obviously didn't think I could control my attacks after I had launched them.
The ki blast dropped in height and arrived right in front of her face, but attributing to her skill she was already tilting her head to the side. Unfortunately for her, I didn't intend to hit her.
A massive explosion with a bright light followed. It was a crude attack, so it barely ripped open the metal floor, sending only some debris through the room, but the most important aspect of it was its brightness. With another tap on the ground, I sent myself to the other side of the hall. The light would give me some time to escape the encirclement, but it wouldn't be enough.
Hopefully, the little fake-out would give me another second to get my leaking life force under control. My body wouldn't last long if I couldn't. I tried my best to stop it from leaking and the leakage slowed down considerably, but a wound wasn't easy to fix during battle.
The light barely dimmed when I reached the edge of the explosion's aftermath. The debris caused by the explosion were easily brushed off by me and the one that stabbed me in the back wouldn't be too affected either. It was an attack mostly to distract and stun her for a moment and not to take her out.
Just as I thought I could take a breather, I heard something behind me. I almost cursed when I saw that the rope artist and the burly one were already closing in on me.
If the situation wasn't as dire as now, I would have admired the teamwork and battle awareness they showed so far. The moment I retaliated, they had already begun moving. They went as far to split the group and disperse in different directions just to cut off my escape routes. They didn't even stop after being blinded. Instead, pressing on with their eyes clenched and blindly rushing towards me.
With a glance to the other side, I saw the swordswoman and the woman with claws on the other side, where I would have been if I hadn't changed directions. Another glance at the woman wielding the spear made me realize I recognized her as Big Barda. From the stuff I had seen, I knew Darkseid had brainwashed her, but she still somehow escaped Apokolips' grasp and ended up on earth. However, that was not important now.
[A/N: Big Barda]
The train of thought ended in but a fraction of a millisecond and I returned my attention to the two women still heading towards me, almost reaching me. Their speed being slightly superior to mine, made that an inevitability. With a swift upward wave of my hand, I released a sharp psychic slice enhanced with ki at the burly one as she was behind the rope artist.
I wanted to increase their gap, so I could have a one-on-one with the rope artist. I would only need a few seconds to take her out. If I succeeded, the pressure coming from the group would lessen by a lot.
After being blinded by my attack just now, the burly one could finally open her eyes, only to see how the ground sliced open just a meter ahead. Her eyes widened and instantly raised her hands in front of her face, preventing my attack from slicing her face open as it clashed against her vambraces, barely slicing through them before cutting into her forearms.
Unfortunately, it didn't cut her arms off, but her threat level decreased significantly. The attack didn't just target her face. It sliced into her body from the top to the bottom, from her skull down along her leg. She was too tough to be sliced in half, especially with her armor taking the edge from the attack. Still, it had cut into her flesh, making it a wound difficult to ignore completely.
Pieces of her armor fell to the ground. The gaps in her armor replaced by the spurting blood of the surface level cut. Even if it wasn't a fatal wound, she was momentarily stunned. The thought of taking her out now entered my mind, but I wouldn't be able to follow up.
As if to prove me right, a possible follow-up was instantly dissuaded as the rope artist had already thrown her rope dart at my face. With a telekinetic tug at the rope, it bent halfway, making the dart return towards the owner.
Another telekinetic push accelerated it, catching the woman off-guard. She tilted her head barely enough to just let the metal dart graze her cheek. A bloody line appeared on her face, but that was all it did. Still, I had her where I wanted her. Alone with some distance from her teammates, who would be too far away to save her.
As I blocked her dart with telekinesis, I was already preparing another attack with my left hand. Fingers outstretched with my thumb slightly bent. Dense ki contracting to the utmost gathered right in front of my palm, brightly shining as a blue sphere bigger than my head condensed and expanded at the same time. A white dagger flew at my torso from halfway across the room.
This time, I didn't dodge and just smacked it aside with my free hand. Having hastily blocked it at a weird angle, it cut into my palm. I ignored the other furies that were rushing towards me as I pointed my hand, holding the little bundle of destructive energy, at the rope artist, whose eyes widened as she realized nothing would save her this time.
[Big Bang Attack]
A quickly condensed energy sphere which wouldn't just tear the ground open like my previous quick attacks, but would obliterate anything in its explosion radius. The first proper technique these furies would see and, for some, hopefully the last time. It was a quick finishing move which travelled the distance towards the rope artist too quickly for her to react to.
Just as the attack was about to hit her, a white energy beam appeared from the side, slammed into her, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her out of the way. The moment I saw that the attack would miss, I released the energy in the attack and let it explode.
Unlike the previous distractions, this attack had much more power behind it. I jumped backward almost to the edge of the room to distance myself while the [Big Bang Attack] annihilated anything its energy could reach. I could see how the other furies across the room were pushed backwards by the intense shock wave. They were lucky that they were still a distance away or they would have suffered for it.
Although the rope artist was barely brushed by the attack after being saved by that energy beam, she still suffered from the attack. Her armor bracelet and most of her skimpy armor, if her outfit could be called that way, were gone.
Her entire right arm was covered in tears and burns on top of being bent in the wrong way. She could not continue her fight, at least that was what I thought and I would have been correct if she was a normal person.
She rolled uncontrollably on the metal floor until she rammed her metal dart into the ground, slicing through it as she slowed down her momentum. With fairly great speed, she impacted the far wall and went through it before stopping several meters behind it.
When she looked up, she glared at my direction. Her glare directed at me and the way she grunted as she corrected her arm with a slam on the ground made me realize it would take a harsher beating for her to give up.
The burly one that should have been barely in the attack's range as well heaved heavily as she held her bleeding shoulder. Blood was leaking over her forehead and down her cheek. Her armor was in shambles. Unlike the rope artist, at least she kept her decency with her black underclothes. She snarled at me as she slowly stood up while the other furies approached me in a half-circle.
That attack took a bit more out of me than I would have liked and did less damage than I had hoped for. Not to mention that I now got another problem to worry about. I looked at the person who had arrived on a hover-bike with a white glowing sword in hand. Although I hadn't seen it entirely, I knew the sword was capable of long-distance attacks, evidently by having saved the rope artist by shooting at her.
If what I was previously told was correct, this one should be Steppenwolf. Goblin lookin' ass.
[A/N: Steppenwolf]
Looks like they were going all out for me. Now I have to fight off the five female furies and Steppenwolf. At least I didn't need to worry about an ambush from Granny Goodness.
Though, the worst was probably that I couldn't sense any of them. With the expenditure of my attacks coupled with my wounds, I was already growing weaker. I would have to hurry if I wanted to come out on top. The less ki attacks I used, the better as well.
It really sucked that I couldn't go Super Saiyan right now or I would have already whooped their asses, though I couldn't really complain. After all, I couldn't say I didn't enjoy this. Nothing greater than a challenging battle. I would say six New Gods against ol' me sufficed as much.
They were looking put out as they halted their approach at the same time. Maybe it was the manic grin that I could feel spreading across my face.
I crouched down slightly as I felt the muscles in my legs contract before the power in my legs erupted like a spring. My path heading directly at Steppenwolf, whose eyes were calmly looking at me as if he had expected my reaction.
He didn't move to dodge, he just raised his sword at me and swung it at me just as I arrived in front of him. I blocked the sword with my forearm, covered in ki and psychic energy, and punched his face with my other hand, sending him off his hover-bike flying towards the wall. With a kick, I destroyed the bike since I wasn't sure if it had any other function that could be used to surprise me later.
Unfortunately, he didn't let go of his sword and it sliced its way out of my arm. I had been lucky that it wasn't as sharp as the other weapons of the furies and wasn't able to cut right through my arm despite Steppenwolf being stronger than the furies. Maybe its ability to slice was sacrificed to have it shoot an energy beam out of it.
Regardless, it could still slice into my arm, despite my ki and my psychic energy forming a protective aura around it. The strange energy emitting from the sword, tried to invade my body but was quickly neutralized by my ki.
The furies were already on the move to intercept me, but with a flick of my wrist I send out several spheres of ki before following Steppenwolf, who was still dazed by my attack. With full momentum, I crashed into him. Palming his face with one hand and controlling his sword-wielding wrist with the other, I used him as a shield as we tore through the spaceship-turned camp walls.
The impacts were heavy, but this would be far from enough to put him out of commission, much less kill him. I could tell that he was a notch stronger than the furies. If I was in peak condition, I could defeat him with ease, but now in this weakened body of mine and with furies behind my back, my win as I was now was increasingly unlikely.
As we exited the camp, I was kneeing his guts, but it felt like I was hitting dough. My attacks seemingly not doing any damage to him. It looked like he had enough of me and leaned backward. With me holding onto him, my body followed his motion involuntarily.
He twisted his body slightly before lashing out with a kick into my sides, sending me to the comparatively soft mountain underneath us. I continued to crash through the rocks before my momentum finally halted. I groaned and tried to take a breather, but his kick literally knocked the wind out of me.
I shook my head heavily. Little pebbles falling out of my hair. I propped myself up and powered up. Life force refilling me as I dug deeper into my Ikari state, something that I hadn't achieved beforehand. I didn't know what changed for me to be able to do this, but I could only give the credit to being in a challenging battle. Actual battles were after all the best teachers.
The mountain he sent me into was cracking and trembling as I pushed the surrounding stone away with my ki. At some point, it wasn't able to contain my force, and the mountain cracked open. The outside shining light into where I was kicked into.
With a push, I jumped through the top of the mountain, and with a telekinetic tug, I picked up the pieces of the mountain and directly hurled them at Steppenwolf, who was hovering nearby, having expected a sneak attack. With a bright white light, the boulders previously part of the mountain exploded one after the other before they could reach Steppenwolf, but the mountain was just a distraction.
My [Destructo Disks] were already heading towards him, hidden behind the giant boulders that he destroyed. The moment he destroyed the last chunk of the mountain, his eyes widened as he looked at the one finger-thin disks of energy.
He tried to dodge, but I restricted his movement with my telekinesis as strongly as I could. It only slowed him down. However, he knew he wouldn't be able to dodge in time, so he slashed out with his sword to block the humming disk.
Unfortunately for him, this attack was one technique that was easier to control. A swerve in its flying path easily dodged his blocking sword and diagonally sliced off his shoulder. His arm wielding his sword fell from the sky. He grimaced, but he didn't dare to focus on the pain as the other disk was about to slice him into two halves.
I lamented when I saw a now-familiar metal dart hitting the disk's bottom side, shattering it before it could reach Steppenwolf. The furies had already caught up to us. The rope artist told Steppenwolf that they were even now and handed him his arm that I had sliced off.
He was to retreat and heal. The furies would deal with me. He grunted but didn't complain as he made his way back towards the camp, undoubtedly wanting to use the portal to get away. Tough luck.
I didn't have time to deal with him, as Big Barda was already engaging with me while I kept the others busy with my [Destructo Disk] which had sliced off Steppenwolf's arm, though that only gave me a few seconds. We were back on the ground while we fought as I retreated to delay the approach of the other furies as much as I could.
A whirlwind of spear thrusts, putting me on my back foot. Her spear grazed me from time to time. She was better than the other furies. I grabbed and pulled on her spear. I struck her knee with a stomp. But she wasn't as good as I was, I concluded.
It wasn't quite enough to break it, but it forced her to half-kneel on the ground and lose her grip on her spear. I reversed my grip on the spear and stabbed at the downed Barda when a sword intercepted me for the umpteenth time, hitting the spear out of my hands. However, this time I didn't need my body. I just had to wield the spear.
The spear stopped midair before shooting at Barda again. The swordswoman was surprised but didn't have time to intercept it again as I was pressing her in the other direction.
Truly a shame that Barda was one of the only two with an armor that covered her entire body. She obviously hadn't remained on the ground and was on the move the moment I was about to attack her.
So even with the spear wielded by my telekinesis, it wasn't fast enough to hit her exposed parts, mainly her face. She dodged the attack and let her armor take the brunt of it. In the end, I had just delivered her spear back to her.
I dazed the swordswoman with an elbow to her chin and directly distanced myself again as the burly one tried to collide with me. The blood leaking from the burly one's forehead was dripping into her left eye, which gave me some opportunity to get some hits in, but was forced to jump away when the green-haired one clawed at me.
Their teamwork was truly impeccable. It was like they were reading each other's mind. So it didn't surprise me when a metal dart penetrated my thigh the moment I jumped into the air. The dart penetrated my thigh from the side. Before I could grab it and pull it out, the rope was given a good tug at an angle. It sliced deeper into my flesh and killed my momentum until I had to drop to the ground, close in front of them.
They were adapting to my battle style. Doing their best to keep their weapons from being grabbed while intercepting me when they could. They refrained from overreaching before forcing my attention to switch between them. Only using a direct clash to give the others time to catch up. They were whittling me down like I was a ferocious beast, exhausting me and wounding me with a hundred cuts.
I waved my arms. The ground in front of me cracked open in a half-circle before my life force exploded out of it, turning into a greenish wall that separated the furies and me for just a moment.
After backing up for a moment, I raised two fingers to my forehead. Ki entered my fingers before manifesting in the outside world as crackling-lightning like energy. The green wall of life force vanished quickly, but the furies hadn't waited for it to dissipate in the first place. They were already bypassing it at the sides.
[Special Beam Cannon]
My target was the blonde swordswoman that appeared first. She barely raised her sword as she blocked the spiraling force of this attack with the flat side of her sword, trying to angle it so it would deflect to the side. Her effort was rewarded, but not because it was deflected.
Her sword gave her just enough time to lean away from the attack before shattering. The beam just impacted her pauldron, destroying it and burning through her shoulder, but that was it.
"Fuck!" I cursed, having failed to take one of them out once again. What did I have to do to get a kill around here??
The attack was exhausting like the Big Bang Attack. It left me with a brief moment of weakness, but at this close of a distance, it was enough for the other furies to capitalize on it. I blocked the claws of the green-haired one with my forearm. Ignoring how her claws ripped off a piece of flesh as I buried my leg into her stomach, blasting her away.
Having gotten rid of one momentarily didn't help me much, as someone directly decked me with a punch to my temple. My vision blurred for a moment. I pushed off the ground as I dazedly tried to take this back into the sky.
I blinked heavily, trying to correct my vision before my ascent was promptly stopped, directly being punished for trying to escape into the air twice already. I looked down and saw a dart piercing through my calf. Before I could react, it pulled me down and slammed me to the ground.
As fast as I could, I pulled out the dart before a white dagger embedded itself in my shoulder. I staggered to the side before a spear pierced through my thigh and into the desolate rocky soil behind it. My vision was still blurry and strength was leaving my body.
My life force that had been moving my body was slowly leaking out, returning from where it came from. I was already too weak to resist, a rope wrapped around my neck. With the spear in my thigh and the rope being pulled behind me, they propped my torso up. The burly one and the green-haired one immediately aided by taking an arm each and pulling it to my back.
"It was more difficult than I had thought it would be." Barda said as she approached me before pulling the spear out of my thigh. She pointed her spear at my exposed neck, "You are lucky that Lord Darkseid has some use for you."
I couldn't help but snort, "Is that all you have to show for yourself? Aren't you supposed to be gods?"
Barda raised an eyebrow as she looked at me in disdain, "Are you still not accepting defeat? You are bound and riddled with injuries. It would be easy to kill you now. You are at our mercy"
I chuckled slightly, which earned me a stronger pull from the rope artist that seemed keen on strangling me, "I am sorry, but this will be the end of your 'victory'. Was fun playing with you, though."
As if on cue, the camp, several kilometers from here, erupted in a gigantic explosion, enveloping the entire camp. After the explosion cooled, it would leave nothing behind.
The furies looked at the camp before returning their attention toward me, "Did you really think we care about the invasion of this planet? No, this was just a trap to lure you away from earth. We were targeting you from the beginning."
"Hahaha- That's not what I meant." I let go of my control over my ki and let my resistance against the rope fade.
The rope artist was still pulling on it hard, so it was just natural that it snapped my neck. My vision faded to black as I died on the spot.
...
I stretched my arms as I felt my strength rise from one-third to my peak condition again. The experience of my clones returning to me, while a dead Granny Goodness that another clone brought over from another camp and an unconscious Steppenwolf were lying at my feet.
Before I had entered the camp I wanted to scout the area and assess the level of threat with my clones and perhaps use them to clear more camps at the same time, but in the end, I was ambushed by the furies, which had been a pleasant surprise.
With Steppenwolf, they were able to best me when I was operating on a third of my strength with Ikari. Although the clones still couldn't transform after they were created, I could transform beforehand and divide the strength then.
With two clones, I had divided my strength by three. With my clones' power level being around 15 million and the furies with a power level about 16 million, it ended up being quite the even fight.
If they were capable of ki attacks, it would be difficult to know if my clone could fight against two of them at the same time. A million difference in power level wasn't much the higher one went, but it was still an advantage.
I could only hold my own because I could use ki and psychic attacks from the distance, coupled with attacks that were able to punch above their weight like my [Destructo Disk] or [Big Bang Attack] gave me enough room to wiggle.
Still, fighting several people that were around my level showed me several gaps in my defense. This fight had also shown me I needed to use the other capabilities of ki as well. I had used some flash grenade-like attacks to stun my enemies, but maybe I should train my [Thunder Shock Surprise] more to have another stun ability.
I wasn't quite used to the attack, especially with the Ikari's state properties hindering me, so it wouldn't be easy to release it quickly, but it would definitively be a valuable technique. The perhaps greatest insight was me regenerating my life force. Clones ran out of the life force the more they use it, so they had to carefully what attacks and how often they used them, but that seems to be a thing of the past.
I raised my hand and fired at the dead Granny Goodness, obliterating her body. I wouldn't put revival technology above Darkseid's capabilities, so it was better to eradicate any trace of her.
Her use had already expired after I went rampant through her mind and accidentally killed her in the process. Her mind was heavily protected against mental influence, so I was lucky that I got some information at least.
Steppenwolf might become useful in the future. He was stronger than the furies with his usable strength, approximately hovering around 22 million. It was quite fortunate that my clone had forced him to retreat, otherwise, my clone wouldn't have lasted as long as it did.
With my telekinesis, I dragged the unconscious Steppenwolf with me as I made my way towards the furies, who were in a daze as they looked at the place my clone had been.
It must be strange to have their opponent that they had fought so hard against vanish suddenly.
Big Barda somehow noticed my arrival and turned around. The others were following suit. Their shocked expression was a sight to be seen. I said nothing and just rushed into the center of their group.
I kicked out and hit Stompa, the burly one, right in the chin. Her head wobbled for a moment before her eyes glazed over and she collapsed on the spot as she fell unconscious.
With a backflip, I dodged the spear thrust before landing behind Big Barda. A single well-placed chop to the neck took her out. She fell flat on her face without a sign of getting up again anytime soon.
My green glowing finger pointed at the temple of Lashina, the rope artist, attracting her attention. She tore her eyes away from her two downed colleagues as she disbelievingly turned toward me. Despair and anger filled her eyes, but she couldn't react before I shot her, knocking her out instantly.
Gilotina, the swordswoman, had picked up her dagger that she threw into my clone's shoulder, trying to do the same to me. I casually twisted my body out of the way before side-kicking her solar-plexus, which immediately dropped her gasping to the ground. I kicked her head like a football, knocking her out instantly.
Seamlessly, I raised a hand and blocked the claws that went for my throat from the side. I twisted her arm, making Mad Harriet, the green-haired one, grimace and drop to the ground. She growled, but a kick to her face silenced her swiftly. I let her hand go, and she joined the heap of unconscious women. I threw Steppenwolf on the same pile.
Through my telepathic connection with the others, I got to know that they were already cleaning up the smaller camps and it wouldn't be long until the invasion was completely thwarted.
I was ecstatic, but not because of the news. For some reason, Darkseid was already paying attention to me and I now had defeated a significant portion of his important circle of subordinates.
If I had his attention, then I probably gained his ire now, but it didn't frighten me. Instead, it put a smile on my face.