Louis could feel the drops of water trickling gently down his body. Their path, guided by gravity, took them relentlessly to his feet, where they joined a small puddle. Surely the only drinkable one in the whole do, he thought.
Everywhere, the lethal deluge was falling. Even without Priam's warning, Louis had directly felt the imnse weight of the cloud. The source of the rain was a cloud in appearance only. Louis saw it as a vast, heavy mountain. Or perhaps the graveyard of a million weapons, like a battlefield.
"What a bloody day..."
Every drop hid a sword, a dagger, a bullet. Louis had lived through many wars, and liked none of them. He appreciated the violence of a good fight. That was why he had devoted his life to the martial arts. Their violence was pure and full of philosophy.
The violence of war disgusted him. It killed more innocents than warriors.
Louis was always ready to put his life on the line. But he had no desire to confront the weak and oppressed. His passion made him hate the apathy of war.
"Lives cut short by indifference..."
Perhaps that was what he hated most about this new world - and this cloud. All around him, the drops were falling, raising appalling screams. They quickly died away, like silent testimonies to the horror of the rain. In the adjacent streets, the water running down the gutters was red. The steel rain was finishing off the bodies of those who had not heeded the new Lord's advice.
From the roof of the building that housed his friends, Louis looked down on his street. The rain was attacking the white of the bones of what had only a few minutes ago been a young woman. He hadn't been able to save her. With the exception of a few bones, teeth and hair, nothing was left of her. A drop had penetrated her skull, then passed through her brain and on. The power had dissipated only after digging a hole through her intestines. A quick death.
A useless one.
On the streets of New Earth, hundreds of anonymous people were disappearing at this very mont. In soone else's war.
Louis sighed as he felt his strength decline. Each drop was imprinted with the concept of steel. The concept gave them steel properties, making them artificially heavy, hard, piercing and deadly. Without the concept, they were just standard drops of water. That was how Louis felt about them.
The old man had spent almost his entire life perfecting his art. Practicing a kind of mixed martial art, Louis had traveled the world to perfect his movents and techniques. Lucid, he had never sought to be the best fighter. He wasn't tall enough to have excellent reach, or sufficiently imposing to take the most powerful blows. An MMA champion would have beaten him nine tis out of ten.
However, Louis' body remained a formidable weapon. Coupled with his reflexes, techniques and knowledge, he was a Master. He had spent his life observing the bodies of others - and his own - ditating and following the philosophy of his art.
He'd never thrown the fastest punches, but he knew how to execute the best submission holds. At almost ninety, he was supple, agile, dexterous, lively and optimistic.
Upon arrival, the System had given wings to an old tiger.
The curtain of rain continued to obscure the world, and while Priam fought his way to the top of the do, so inhabitants tried to take advantage of the situation. Three hundred ters from Louis, a man pressed up against the buildings, moving slowly towards a house. A woman's silhouette was silhouetted against one of the house's windows. When the man knocked on the door, the shadow froze.
After a few seconds, the man pulled out a crowbar he'd been holding, hidden under his baggy clothes.
"Hard tis reveal human nature," mumbled Louis.
Maybe the man wanted to steal an empty house. Maybe he was there for the woman. Louis thought for a mont of Mirscella. She didn't need his protection. In this new world, gender conferred little advantage. The burglar was possibly attacking a tigress. But when in doubt...
Raising his right hand, Louis caught a drop of water on the fly. His Mastery annihilated the steel fragnt inside, transforming the drop into ordinary water. In one swift movent, Louis positioned it on the nail of his index finger before infusing it with his will. His whole body was dangerous, but the man could also work with tools and weapons. It was the ability he had unlocked when reaching stage 1 of his Mastery.
Today, this drop would be his weapon.
[Mastery - Body]. [Fire-arm].
With a flick of the wrist, the drop flew away. Louis' mastery allowed it to retain its shape and speed, crossing the air as if in a vacuum. Two seconds later, as the door opened under the burglar's action, the drop hit him in the back of the neck.
The man stood still for a mont before collapsing to the ground. Tipping backward, his body fell halfway into the gutter. In a few minutes, there would be nothing left of him.
Louis nodded before turning away. It was ti to go ho.
As he placed his hand on the handle of the roof door, his instinct shook.
A second later, the sky lit up.
Status: (Average value for a Homo sapiens male before integration: PHY 10 / N 10 / TA 0)
PHYSICAL:
Strength 173 ( 1)
Constitution 301 ( 12)
Agility 210 ( 1)
Vitality 319 ( 10)
Perception 380 ( 1)
NTAL:
Vivacity 183
Dexterity 236
mory 50
Willpower 335
Charisma 176
TA:
ta-affinity 188 ( 4)
ta-focus 111
ta-endurance 101
ta-perception 51
ta-chance 114
Potential: 3371 (-496)
Tier 0
[He Who Eludes Death] charge: PRID.
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