Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

'I might be in trouble here.'

Avery ducked out of the way of a heavy blow from Iniquus and received another with Ezra's hard light shield.

He had figured that Iniquus might have some combat ability considering the man's massive build, but he never expected him to be this capable.

Compared to Urs and Ezra, his blows were a little weak, but he still possessed a similar raw power and intimidating presence thanks to his size.

There was also no doubt that he had received augmentations of some kind to further strengthen his body and speed up his reaction speed and agility.

Avery was completely on the defensive, and if not for his intense matches with both Urs and Ezra in the past, he probably would have been beaten in only a few moves.

Fortunately, he had the most experience dealing with this type of opponent, and the added protection gained from a hard light shield was letting him stay in the fight.

Still, without much cover to hide behind and pretty much no room to counterattack, it was only a matter of time until Avery exhausted himself and was caught.

"Stop scurrying around you rat!" Iniquus shouted in frustration as he slammed one of his gauntleted hands into the floor where Avery had been just a moment before.

Any semblance of class he had been exuding before had been fully replaced by a hulking berserker going on a rampage. Avery had so thoroughly enraged him that the only thing Iniquus saw was the target he wanted to tear apart.

'Sh*t.'

As Avery was running around and trying to keep his distance, Iniquus suddenly held up one of his hands and a familiar glow started to come out of the center of the gauntlet.

Avery was uncertain of the exact configuration of this weapon, but he did know that it fired a powerful explosive laser that he could barely withstand even using Ezra's hard light shield to protect himself.

Obviously, this attack used up a significant amount of energy, otherwise Iniquus would simply constantly be blasting away until Avery fell.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the interval between the first and second shot had just ended, and Avery was once again on the receiving end of the powerful strike.

Bracing himself, he waited for the heavy impact, but it never came.

Iniquus had cancelled the shot midway through and was rushing towards Avery now that he had firmly planted his feet on the ground.

'Not sure if this will work, but it's my only option.'

Avery needed to be light on his feet and always anticipating Iniquus' next move to stay ahead of the far stronger and faster adversary he was currently facing.

Yet, he had just fallen for what he should have realized was an obvious bluff and been forced into an unfavorable position.

Iniquus already knew that Avery could block his ranged blast with his hard light shield, so it made no sense to use something that took a good deal of time to charge up when his opponent was ready to receive it.

Of course, Avery had a few tricks of his own and took a large step backwards and slammed his hard light shield into the ground in front of him.

"I've finally got you. Don't think that you'll be able to hide behind that thing." Iniquus yelled, his lips twisted up into a sadistic grin as he imagined finally getting his hands ahold of Avery.

Except, he had missed one minor detail. When Avery taken a step back, a small spherical object had fallen loose from his belt and was currently situated right in front of him.

This just so happened to be a laser grenade that was primed and ready to go off.

When Iniquus was just a single step away from Avery, a bright red flash engulfed them both.

Avery pushed himself up against his shield as closely as he could get and felt his feet sliding back by the impact.

'Fu*k this hurt!'

Avery screamed in his head as he felt the searing light pass by him.

Thanks to his combat clothing and personal shield generator, he was able to avoid the worst of the blast, but his exposed skin did end up a little seared.

Nevertheless, he managed to hold out against his own weapon set off at close range. The hard light shield he had received from Ezra took the brunt of it, and his other protections kept him from ending up fried.

Once the bright light had faded, the question that remained was whether Iniquus had survived or not.

Avery knew that the man possessed a strong personal shield generator of his own, but it preposterous that it could have fully blocked such an attack when Iniquus had been right on top of the grenade when it went off.

However, contrary to Avery's expectations, Iniquus was not even injured by the attack.

An unexpected green energy field being emitted from his gauntlets had surrounded his body, and it seemed that this had somehow managed to completely protect him.

'I don't know what sort of tech he is using, but I wish I had it about now.' Avery thought, feeling his body's exhaustion.

What he did not know though was that he had also just pushed Iniquus to his limit.

To create the shield protecting him, he had needed to overload the gauntlets he was wearing and the generators providing their power.

After this point, they would just be lumps of metal around his hands without any special properties to speak of.

His shield generator had also taken a heavy hit and was currently down while it attempted to gather enough power to remake the force field it could emit.

All in all, they were both about in equal positions after Avery's dangerous gambit.

'Let's see how he deals with his now.'

Avery swiftly drew his laser pistol and started firing.

Without his shield generator active, every shot would prove lethal if it hit, and Iniquus was forced to use his speed and quick reaction time to read the trajectory of Avery's shots and avoid them by a hair's breadth.