The forest was a living blur of erald and shadow as Nico tore through the undergrowth at speeds that would’ve shattered his bones if not for Ice Reinforcent.
His Ice Reinforcent humd through every fiber of his being, turning his body into sothing beyond human, and the sheer joy of it threatened to split his face in half as he vaulted over a moss-covered log without breaking stride.
This was it, the mont every isekai protagonist got to experience, the pure, unfiltered rush of discovering superhuman power and cutting loose with it in the world.
"HECK YEAH!" Nico roared into the rushing wind, though the next three steps after the shout were clumsy enough that he nearly ate dirt when his reinforced boot caught a root.
But his enhanced cognition fired a correction, and his body twisted mid-stride while his ice-plated leg pivoted with inhuman precision without breaking montum.
The wind whipped past his face like a living thing, making his hair dance wildly while the air rushed in his ears with a constant roar that drowned out everything except his own thundering heartbeat.
A massive oak appeared directly in his path.
But Nico didn’t slow down.
His enhanced mind calculated the angle in less than a second before his leg compressed like a spring to launch him sideways, and his boots found purchase on the trunk for a single step before he kicked off to ricochet past the tree without losing montum.
"THAT WAS SO COOL!" he shouted to absolutely nobody while his glowing eyes burned brighter with pure adrenaline-fueled joy.
The forest floor had beco an obstacle course, and his body devoured it with predatory efficiency. Fallen logs beca launch pads, while low-hanging branches beca speed gates that he snapped past with milliters to spare.
The thick undergrowth that would’ve tangled his legs yesterday now parted like tissue paper as his reinforced shins plowed through ferns and brush without even registering the resistance.
He felt the density of the ice armor working with him instead of against him, adding mass to every stride that translated directly into devastating montum.
Each step kicked up dirt, leaving frosted impact craters in his wake.
And as he ran, movent exploded from the undergrowth ahead.
A deer burst from the ferns in absolute panic with its eyes wide before bolting in the opposite direction, which just so happened to be the sa direction Nico was running.
"I’m not chasing you!" he called out while closing the distance in seconds, and the deer’s ears flattened against its skull as the thundering footsteps grew louder and closer behind it.
The poor animal was running in a maddened full sprint with its hooves tearing up the forest floor in desperate bounds.
He blew past the terrified creature, catching a glimpse of its bewildernt in its eyes as he left it in the dust. He couldn’t help but grin at the ntal image of what he must look like to the poor thing... a glowing-eyed maniac wreathed in frost, tearing through the woods.
[Sorry, buddy!]
Nico banked hard to the right while leaning his entire body into the turn like a motorcycle on a track, while his boots skated across a patch of moss-covered stone. His gauntlet shot out the sa instant to catch a tree trunk to whip himself around the corner without losing velocity.
His grip alone exploded the bark, spreading across the wood like crystalline veins.
This wasn’t just running. This was sothing else entirely, sothing that made his blood sing and his heart pound with the kind of exhilaration he’d only ever experienced in fever dreams. Every molecule in his body sang with power,
"This is INSANE!" Nico gasped between breaths, pulling air in his lungs with the magical efficiency that his old, cancer-riddled body could only imagine.
He spotted a natural ramp ford by an uprooted tree with its massive root system jutting upward at a perfect angle, and his grin turned absolutely feral.
[Oh, we’re absolutely doing this!]
Nico hit the roots at full sprint before launching skyward with enough force to crack the wood beneath him, and for three perfect seconds, he was airborne.
The forest canopy rushed up to et him as the dappled sunlight strobed across his ice-covered limbs like a strobe light, while the wind pressure shifted from horizontal to vertical, snapping the hood of his t-shirt violently against his reinforced back.
His trajectory carried him over a small clearing, and his enhanced vision caught a flash of movent below. A party of four adventurers was locked in desperate combat with a hulking, bear-like Magic Beast.
One of them, a swordsman in leather armor, glanced up at the exact mont Nico sailed overhead like a human cot wreathed in frost and shimring blue light.
Their eyes t for a fraction of a second.
The swordsman’s jaw dropped in complete disbelief.
Nico gave him a cheerful wave mid-flight before gravity rembered he existed and plumted him back toward the earth.
Through his enhanced perception, he twisted his body mid-air like a cat, crashing down boots-first, his reinforced legs absorbing the impact with a thunderous CRACK that sent shockwaves rippling through the ground.
A crater of frost and pulverized soil exploded outward from the landing site, but he didn’t stop.
He shoved through the downward montum directly into a forward thrust before rocketing ahead without even a stutter in his stride, while the sounds of shouting and combat faded behind him in an instant, leaving a party of bewildered adventurers in his wake.
"BEST DAY EVER!" Nico howled, his voice cracked with manic laughter as he tore through the forest like a living missile.
This was it. This was the isekai power-trip he’d been robbed of since landing in this world, and it felt absolutely glorious.
Though the joyride ended in the span of a single heartbeat.
A blinding flash of orange light erupted from his peripheral vision from the massive sphere of roaring plasma that tore through the dense canopy with a sound like tearing fabric.
Nico threw his weight violently to the left in a desperate, mid-air maneuver to avoid direct contact, but he never cleared the blast radius and-
-BOOM!
The fireball detonated against the forest floor with the force of a tactical airstrike, ripping out a shockwave of condensed heat and concussive force that shattered the layers of his ice armor into a million glittering shards the mont they made contact, sending Nico ragdolling through the dirst across the forest floor until his back collided with the trunk of a massive ancient oak with a bone-rattling crunch.
Nico, as though dead, slid down the rough bark to land in a crumpled, sitting position among the mossy roots.
He didn’t move. Nor could he think through the severe concussion ravaging his head.
And a beat later, his world narrowed down to a single point of blinding, white-hot agony exploding across his left side where the blast ripped through his ice.
With his vision blackening at the edges as he looked down, only to find the skin on his arm and ribs blistering from second-degree burns, while the sll of burnt flesh slowly settled into his nose.
Horrified at the sight, he gasped for air that refused to enter his stunned lungs while involuntary tears of pain blurred his vision into a swimming haze of gray and green.
His head rolled forward, fighting to stay conscious against the darkness creeping into the edges of his sight before forcing his weeping eyes to scan the smoke and green, desperately searching for the outline of the Magic Beast that had just swatted him out of the sky.
But no Magic Beast erged from the haze.
What did instead was the triumphant roar of sothing worse, a man.
"Gotcha!"
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