The charge was comparatively fast for something as big as I was. Especially when you considered that I was, in fact, still growing exponentially with every passing second. My form now towering over the hotel beside the beach as my biomass continued to expand.

  I purposely refused to slow down. Allowing the momentum to keep carrying me forwards as all my layers of armor regenerated and came back stronger. At the same time, I made to grow new appendages to better keep my balance. Sprouting two dozen muscular tentacles from my hips and allowing them to jolt out towards the sand below.

  All while my human foot landed where the rest of my opponents were.

  Everyone was fast enough to get out of the way of course. With plenty of time to spare.

  Even Henry, as the weakest, should have had no problems diving for the water or for another empty patch of sand. As proven by his Status.

  He didn’t though.

  In fact, not only did Henry not move, but the last I saw of him was when his legs started wobbling. His eyes wide and his mouth hanging open as the bony, metallic, chitin and feathery bottom of my foot descended on him like a hammer from the heavens.

  To make matters worse, he had abilities like [Unburdened Conditioning IV], a combination of [Psionic Resistance], [Enhanced Balance], [Enhanced Training] and [Gravity Resistance] at 20. While he had ones like [Enhanced Toughness] at 5.

  He didn’t even activate the forcefield aspect of [Telekinesis III] or the matter phasing power of [Phantom Shift III].

  He could have also lessened the impact by dropping a field of [Gravity Well II] and reversing all that weight back up to me. It might not have worked with how much force was being dropped, but it would have thrown me off balance at the very least.

  (Gnome), he could have also simply portalled away using [Portal Network III].

  But again, Henry was too awestruck by the building-sized foot to really think of anything.

  So, yeah.

  Henry’s form crumbled like a piece of wet tissue paper carelessly discarded by an aroused teenager. Or perhaps a cockroach that had finally met its end at the sole of a great big wellington boot.

  Whatever analogy you used, the man was out of the fight. Kept alive only by the grace of him having [Flowing Vigor II] and [Surging Life III] at 15. Also, I started healing him with [Vicissitude] even before my foot landed. Having seen it all play out beforehand and all.

  Did I feel bad?

  Of course I did.

  Would I do it again?

  Probably.

  Given how he got many, many levels this little stunt earned him. That and a combined ability from [Enhanced Toughness], [Sudden Toughness] and [Flowing Endurance II]. [Awesome Resilience IV] wasn’t easy to fuse normally by any means and I had a feeling Henry would thank me later when it inevitably saved his life down the line. He also managed to form [Pressurization Tolerance] from his Shifter side, as well as [Pressure Resistance] and [Blunt Resistance] from his Enhancer side. With [Absorb Kinetic] from Projector to boot.

  Yeah, the combo came from him having his organs pulverized into a fine red mist. And yeah, Henry would soon develop a weird phobia of bare feet that would haunt him and his girlfriend Cass for the next couple of years.

  But he was advancing. Very quickly at that. And with how dazed and confused he was during the fight, something scary would have killed him sooner or later if I didn’t do anything.

  I snuck another peek just to confirm my predictions were still accurate.

  ‘Yeah, you know what? This is fine. Dusty and Slab would have killed a couple hundred people for those kinds of gains. Not to mention Charlie, Boris and Monique. Now that I think of it, I should train with them next.’

  The cells in my body were still active, even as these mundane thoughts flowed through my mind. Each one of them a shining sun in the midst of my ever-expanding body.

  I swung my right arm and knew that it had split itself into two lumps mid-swing. The upper half turning into a tumorous organ with many distinct firing holes while the lower half turned into even more tentacles. Some ending in [Pseudopods], some in [Stingers] and some in [Claws] or [Grasping Appendages]. The most dangerous ones ended in mouths however. Speaking organs hiding behind layers upon layers of jagged, hooked teeth and needle-like fangs. These surprises had been created directly through [Protean Form] and I already knew the blow would catch the others off-guard.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Which was exactly why I decided to grow them in the first place.

  One commonality that all the Drake’s memories shared was the constant fury he felt upon being underestimated. Time and time again, idiots and would be champions would come up to him and try to freeze him all over, like that baboon guy I saw in the visions below the pyramid, or to burn him up like so many others tried before. The Drake kept them all as furniture, because of course he (Gnome)ing did, but it always nagged him that no one ever got the hint. Indeed, for whatever reason, most guys out there in the Labyrinth used their Shifter side for healing, and in order to complement the powers they got from their Enhancer side. A winning and obvious combination, of course, but that meant they were missing out on a lot of flexibility and individual perks of what Shifter could do. Mr. Park had seen it and embraced it with gusto. As had Raj and many, many others among humanity. But the prevailing theory out in the Labyrinth did not agree with them.

  In contrast I, as a Telepath, had never experienced this before. Quite the contrary. People like Granny Golden and Principal Banerid and even Hazimon were always all too aware of how much of a nightmare Telepaths could be. The fact that only Hazimon felt so strongly about the potential of Shifters in general told me that most of the commons in the wider Labyrinth were coocoo for cocoa puffs. Just because Shifters were not as strong as Enhancers in a direct fight didn’t mean you could just see them as those guys who heal and could occasionally be a bit tough.

  Ironically enough, Vince and Thunder Fist had both fallen for this trap in their thinking. Even when Vince had first awakened as a Shifter. Somewhere, in the chaos of fighting gnomes, he had decided that being able to heal and blend in well with his environment was much less useful that simply using [Hide] and [Faint Presence] a whole bunch, while investing the points he would have put into Shifter powers into being an overall better Enhancer and being more resistant to things like fire.

  On the one hand, yeah. This was an easy way of staying alive. Especially when gnomes could still use things like [Sense Heat], [Sense Electricity] and [Sense Kinetic] to spot guys using [Camouflage]. On the other hand I, with the Drake’s memories, could easily come up with dozens of ways a pure Shifter could have massacred their way through the previous gate. It wasn’t about being as strong as Enhancers, Shifters could never do that. It was about using one’s powers creatively, and in ways Enhancers could not replicate.

  After all, even Hazimon had been forced to flee from the Drake on several occasions, and the other times they fought, the Drake had always been able to regenerate one way or another.

  Vince and Thunder Fist focused their efforts on throwing lightning bolts to the tentacles now swirling around them, while Luigi sent a wave of searing white fire to eradicate the tumorous lump above the tendrils. No doubt realizing that they were inflating with air in preparation of firing out a series of projectiles.

  Puffin paid no heed to their struggles however. She charged me again as soon as she was able to turn around. Twisting the air in front of her through [Telekinesis III] even as she launched herself at me like a green-haired rocket.

  Which meant she didn’t see the other arm coming.

  It moved much too slowly to block her. As her whole body moved faster than my muscles. However, it was still able to get close enough so that the detonation caught her before she reached my torso.

  [Solomon’s Bio-Chemical Thaumaturgy X] had filled the limbs with explosive chemicals. While I also turned all the bones therein into very tough, very sharp shards of shrapnel. And since [Thaumaturgy] was composed in part from [Hijack] and [Infection]…

  Well. That was not going to be a good time.

  Oh, she still went straight through me and the explosion and the tiny shards of bone didn’t manage to embed themselves very far into her. Barely piercing the skin in fact. But that was enough.

  Her flesh began turning into slurry. Her bones coming apart while still in her body. Her own powers retaliated and tried to keep her in one piece. Her healing and her Enhancer side trying to fight me off. But at that point, it was two of my Tier 10 abilities against her own healing and that was battle she was not going to win.

  She charged again as my arm was starting to heal. Despite her bones and marrow failing her. She managed to make herself stand with [Telekinesis III] and then launch herself forwards.

  [Awesome Resilience IV], [All-Toxin Resistance IV] and [Resist Physical Damage III] working overtime to keep her in the fight.

  I overstuffed all my defensive powers with far too much Psy, but otherwise left her alone. She was down and out, only she hadn’t realized it yet. The others still needed to be seen to.

  Luigi was now using [Solar Manipulation VI] on overtime. Combining it with [Gravity Well II] to both keep me in place and fry me with his burning beams. His Psy draining his reserves like a waterfall would a river as he tried to microwave me all over.

  It worked, for a few seconds. But all it did was give me more levels as Puffin pierced my chest for the third time.

  Already, her strikes had gotten to the point where she was no longer gouging chunks of flesh from my body. Instead, her latest escapade ended up with her barely getting out through the other side of my ribcage. My bones and muscles growing around her as she left in order to leave her several parting gifts.

  More festering wounds and a single poke that did manage to pierce the skin after weakening it.

  Also, she barreled right into Luigi’s ongoing attack, so that couldn’t have been fun in any case.

  She screamed and fell and tried to get up regardless.

  All this time, my many tentacles had been pursuing both Vince and Thunder Fist as they ineffectually tried to shock me. Now, they too decided to enter into melee. Augmenting their strikes into shattering blows that still delivered a whopping cocktail of electricity and kinetic force.

  Each one was like a wrecking ball. Pulverizing the cells they touched and many, many more, deeper into my body.

  That was when I triggered the surprise.

  All the mouths hidden among the [Stingers] and the [Claws] stopped dead. Letting the oxygen I inhaled from my main mouth and the backups near my hips and limbs carry over to them. After that, the overinflated muscles tore with effort as they worked much, much harder than they should have. The inside ripping and tearing as the force built up.

  But then, the mouths opened. And the screams echoed out.

  To my ears, it was something like an Aztec death whistle. The sound of a banshee in the middle of a misty, moonless night.

  To their ears, it was probably something quite different. What with them having burst and all.

  Now, did I feel bad? Kinda.

  But again, this was for Vince and Thunder Fist’s own good. The sound, empowered both by [Solomon’s Perfect Vicissitude X] and [Solomon’s Protean Form X] would have been deafening if it had been coming from one direction. From one mouth. Add in the fact that I was a couple hundred meters tall and that all the mouths I’d grown were similarly massive and the hit was more akin to a wave of force flying at the speed of sound.

  Sure, they had all kinds of defensive abilities, but they had both neglected a few staples from Shifter. Specifically, the pairs [Pressurization Tolerance] and [De-Pressurization Tolerance] as well as [Low-Frequency Hearing] and [High Frequency Hearing]. Both of which could have helped a lot. They were also inexplicably missing [Pressure Resistance] from Enhancer and [Absorb Sound] from Projector. On top of that, which also wasn’t ideal.

  Case in point, both men staggered a couple steps after the first shout. Their brains struggling to regrow enough of themselves from the melted ice cream they had become. After that, the stingers got them and pressed them down. Only one in several dozen actually pierced the skin, but again, that was more than enough.

  Then came Luigi, who…

  “I surrender!!” He yelled from the side.

  I looked down at him. A speck of dust to my growing form.

  “I do not want to fight! My ears have popped and I’m afraid I (Sully)ed myself! I can’t hear you, but please start shrinking again! Do you hear me!? Me no want fight! Me no want fight!”

  I stopped attacking Vince and Thunder Fist. Making my body small again.

  Luigi sighed upon seeing that and dropped down to his knees. Heaving as blood fell from his ears.

  “So?” I asked mom and dad as soon as I was back to my usual size.

  “What did you think?”

  “What!?” Dad shouted. His own ears still bleeding as well, despite how far away he’d been and despite me having gifted him and mom a couple pairs of ear muffs.

  I’d told them they were leather, which was kind true. Only, the leather had come from me and I’d grown them specifically to keep them safe and keep healing them on top of that.

  “I can’t hear you!”

  I didn’t answer, nor did I get in their heads with a message. Instead, I went over to the both of them and healed them myself.

  “Can you hear me now?”

  “What!?” He shouted again.