His thoughts accelerated as he immediately began formulating plans in his head. How could he help his Legion Members in this battle?
Unlike how the Vine Stalker had fought directly the last time, this time it stuck to its role. It didn’t approach the man directly; instead, it remained distant while continuously revolving around his opponent. With each revolution a vine is dropped.
’How can I help them, how can I help?’ Ashton thought.
This was the first time he was actually going to fight together with his legion members, and he had no idea what to say or instruct them to do.
In his opinion, the two were already working together extremely well.
The Plant Knight continued its crazy pressure; even the crack in his bark armor was already healing again, though it cost Ashton a little Willforce.
The more it came toe-to-toe with the Man, the more aggressive and adaptable it got.
In the backline, Ashton watched the two come together and fight with the kind of synchrony he hadn’t expected in a million years.
Seeing his Legion Members holding up combat-wise, Ashton tried helping in a different way. He wants to try and guess what his opponent was.
From the information he could remember reading in the book about Lords, determining your opponents’ abilities will go a really long way.
But the more he watched and gauged, the more shocked he became.
From what he could see, his opponent’s ability seems to be extra increased strength, but that wasn’t what was shocking him. What shocked him was the way the man used Willforce.
’Doesn’t he know that the usage of Willforce is permanent?’
Since the battle had started, the man had been using his abilities back-to-back, and if he guessed right, the man must have consumed a lot of Willforce by now.
’So he would soon reduce the usage or go a hundred percent in and try to win the fight as soon as possible so he could get the recovery and increase in Willforce from winning.’
All of Ashton’s thoughts and considerations were strangely based on the conclusion that this man actually had no knowledge of being a Lord, since he was obviously a new Lord.
"Ease a little on the attack and focus more on control and restraint," Ashton suddenly shouted.
The intense battle was not too far in front of him; he skipped slightly after he gave that call, but everyone quickly recovered, and a smile formed on every one of the participants’ faces, for different reasons, though.
The Plant Knight smiled because it finally got an order from its Legion master; as a Knight, he really needed that. The Vine Stalker smiled because the power over the battlefield was slowly tilting into his own hand after that instruction.
Lastly, the man was smiling for a whole different reason.
The Vine Stalker didn’t waste any time, and the Plant Knight also did its part. It stopped attacking with so much enthusiasm and focused more on keeping the man at bay.
The Vines it had been. spreading all around finally showed their use. They all roared to life before wildly charging at the man.
They crawled on the ground at insane speeds, and in no time the leading ones had made contact and were now spreading all over the man’s body.
They were ready to immobilize him completely.
’The Vine Stalker is actually really scary; if I were to get trapped in that, I certainly won’t be able to get out.’
’And this skill helps me confirm my thoughts. If it was actually increased strength, then he should at least be able to put up a fight against the Vines.’
Contrary to Ashton’s expectations, the man wasn’t able to resist that much; he showed no sign of exerting extra strength in other parts of his body except trying to punch and destroy the Vines off.
He wasn’t trying to pull or tear them away; he was trying to punch them.
’Now that is strange; with the way he is reacting, it is confirmed that he didn’t have increased strength but something else.’
’But what?’
He tried analyzing every action and every response to determine the man’s abilities; it would give him the perfect edge he needed.
Ultimately, the man’s efforts were nullified as he didn’t manage to get enough of the Vines off to prevent himself from being fully bound.
Ashton waited to confirm that his opponent was actually fully enclosed before turning to the side and approaching a tray of medicines.
He wasn’t here to fight but to get the remedy for Selene, and also he was already feeling slightly down from the Willforce drain he was receiving from Selene’s condition and his Legion Members using their abilities so much.
The Vine Stalker had left the man’s face open so the man could see Ashton’s movements, and instead of frowning, he smiled again.
"You know something, Crazy Loner? living alone for so long must have made you forget something extremely important about your fellow humans."
Ashton reluctantly stopped what he was doing and began listening to what the man was saying.
"People lie, people pretend, and that’s exactly what I want to show you, you know."
"Do you think I only increased strength or something?" the man asked in an increasingly loud voice. It was obvious he was doing something.
"I don’t want to do this, but you have forced my hand. I guess there’s no helping it; I only have to win, and it won’t matter."
The moment he said that, Ashton noticed the man’s face scrunch up almost as if he was tightening his muscle or flexing his whole body. And the next instant all of the Vines around him burst apart.
"Engage," Ashton suddenly shouted with his eyes wide open.
The man’s face grew hysterical after escaping, his smile widening even further as he opened his mouth to explain.
In his mind, he had already won.
"My ability was never increased Strength,"
"it is.....IMPACT AMPLIFICATION."