No, this was no panicked move made by a guy who was in over his head. This was just Sam remembering the lessons of Heroics One-o-One.

“When you’ve got a villain and a horror in the same venue, incapacitate the villain quickly first...” Sam recalled the Warden instructor’s words back during his days in Hero Training, “Horrors are just the muscle... It’s the tricky villain you have to watch out for.”

Ironic, Sam thought. My villain’s actually called the Trickster...

With Herculean still active, a single leap was all it took for Sam to clear the distance between him and his foe.

“It’s light’s out, Trickster!” Sam yelled.

He swung his arm forward, but the villain disappeared in a shower of sparks. So Sam’s fist shattered the bookcase that appeared in his enemy’s place.

“Styx,” he breathed, remembering too late that the Trickster could substitute himself with an object of equal mass that could be found nearby. “Where did you—”

Sam’s herculean punch had blown the bookcase into smithereens, but doing so caused the books inside it to break apart, and the pages flying all around him hindered his vision enough that he barely saw the Trickster’s fist on his peripheral.

Instinct made him raise his arm to block the attack that would have socked him in the jaw. Unfortunately, Sam failed to react to the follow up kick that slapped him in his lower back.

As Sam had been struck before his feet touched the ground, the Trickster’s kick drove him forward and crashing through the first door on the left side of the mansion’s front hall where he crashed into a glass coffee table positioned between two plushy white sofas.

The words, “Ouch,” and “Yow,” escaped his lips while he tried to pick himself off the floor yet again.

“Are you ever not going to fall for that?” the Trickster asked in a mocking tone.

Before Sam could banter back, the villain kicked Sam in the gut, causing the hero to roll over from an unexpectedly powerful impact.

Sam coughed. “How in Hades... are you so strong...?”

“To be absolutely honest... I’m cheating,” the Trickster admitted conspiratorially.

Then he aimed a kick at Sam’s head, but Sam managed to catch the villain’s foot in his hands. This was a big deal. Sam recalled the useful tidbit Crow-Man had given him before they’d parted ways last night.

“Holding onto him prevents the psychopath from disappearing,” Crow-Man had revealed. “You could lure him onto an open field too, but that’s not likely to happen inside the city.”

Now, with his hands tight on the Trickster’s right ankle, Sam kicked out at the villain’s left foot, forcing the Trickster to topple over.

Then Sam scrambled to his feet, and with fingers still wrapped around the Trickster’s ankle, he yanked the villain up with him and swung The Trickster’s body around like a baseball bat into the back wall of Maeve’s living room.

“I’m also—”

He heard a satisfactory crunch as the villain’s back struck the wall so hard that cracks appeared at the point of impact.

“—pretty—”

Then Sam yanked the Trickster up and swung him down on the hardwood floor with a resounding bang.

“—damn—”

With his foe looking very disoriented, Sam twirled the Trickster around by the foot and used the momentum to throw him like a rag doll into the wall at the other end of the living room — and he’d just barely missed getting thrown out the window too.

“—strong,” Sam huffed.

He caught his breath and watched the villain slide off the wall, his face looking quite bruised from the impact.

Sam hoped this combo of violent attacks was enough to send the Trickster into la-la-land, but the villain actually sat up and laughed out loud.

“Oh, that was fun...” The Trickster grinned. Blood coated his teeth. “You are indeed very strong for a healer...”

The Trickster jerked a thumb toward the right.

“And now we find out which of you is stronger,” the Trickster chuckled.

The cannibal Boar stepped over what remained of the door Sam had broken while ripping through the surrounding wall to get into the living room.

It was bigger now, perhaps a head taller than before with a body that was jacked up to where its muscles had muscles. Oh, and the promise of gruesome death was definitely reflected in its beady red eyes.

The thing that caused Sam to take a step back though was the energy leaking out of the red-skinned monstrosity. There was way more of it than before, leading Sam to guess that the horror had risen to gamma-level. Or it was at least close enough to gamma-level that warning bells had gone off inside Sam’s head.

The cannibal Boar huffed. Two clouds of steam burst out of each hole in its snout.

“Styx,” Sam whispered.

Then the horror charged and its speed had risen to a level that it rammed into Sam before he could dodge the tackle.

Both horror and hero slammed into the wall behind them and then crashed into the room beyond it.

“Are you kidding me!?” Sam yelled as that annoying feeling of deja vu flooded his body. It had come right on the wings of back-wrenching pain. “Seriously... how many walls is this?”

Sam didn’t even get to see where they’d crashed into as the cannibal Boar’s charge pushed him along with it, and after a sharp turn right, they smacked hard into another wall and then exploded out back into Maeve’s front hall. Their momentum carried them forward, ensuring that Sam was in danger of hitting the wall at the other end of the hall too.

“Not again!” Sam gasped.

He raised both his fists high, yelled, “Herculean!” and then slammed them down on the cannibal Boar’s head. The shockwave that exploded out of the point of impact was strong enough that both horror and hero were blown apart.

Sam stumbled backward, tumbled, and then slid over to the opposite end of the hall.

“I am... seriously in danger of... accumulating brain damage... from... blunt force trauma,” he huffed.

And, as if in response to his whining, Triple-A sent him a notification.

[Regeneration (ζ)] guarantee’s that the hero’s health will regenerate over time as long as the hero’s body doesn’t incur catastrophic damage. This includes external wounds, broken bones, and internal injuries.

“Now I feel like a jerk for complaining,” Sam said as he sat up. “Sorry about that, Triple-A...”

Instead of directly responding to Sam’s apology, Triple-A sent him a more interesting reply.

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve accumulated enough experience to unlock a new power from the [COMBAT] tree. [Bulwark (ζ)] received.

The cannibal Boar was already on its feet and lumbering toward him, which meant Sam had mere seconds to figure this new power out.

POWER: Bulwark LEVEL: Zeta (ζ) DESCRIPTION: The hero’s body has evolved to endure strong physical attacks, allowing him to stand ready to finish the fight through a bonus to physical resistance. ACTIVE ABILITY EFFECT: In exchange for a moderate portion of life-force, an invisible aura of power wraps around the hero, protecting him from physical attacks for a short duration. At zeta-level; [Effect: 30% Physical Attack Resistance], [Duration: 8 Seconds per 100 HP and 50 SP], and [Power cooldown: 58 seconds]. PASSIVE ABILITY EFFECT: The hero’s body has been reinforced by Bulwark’s presence, giving him a 15% passive bonus to Blunt Damage Resistance. WARNING: Passive ability effect is ineffective against piercing or slashing attacks.

“Sure could have used this earlier...” Sam’s gaze turned to the hulking red beast charging toward him. “Although it looks like it’ll come in handy right now too.”

But Sam didn’t get to test Bulwark out this time as the cannibal Boar’s charge was broken by the third Boar’s body crashing into its left side, causing the bigger and meaner-looking Boar to fall to its knees.

“Oo~~okay,” Sam’s eyebrow rose an inch high, “that was unexpected.”

As for that third Boar that had been missing since vanishing into the kitchen, it lay twitching on the ground beside its brother, its body covered in wounds that seemed to have been made from something very sharp. That wasn’t all though. There were several fine red threads wrapped around its limbs that disentangled themselves from its body and were pulled back to wrap around the wooden staff in Maeve’s hand.

Backup had finally arrived.

“Hey, little piggies,” Thunder stepped into view next to Maeve. “The farm just called...”

She wore a thick leather vest over her jacket. In her right hand was a shiny silver spear.

“...they say it’s time for the slaughterhouse,” she taunted.

Then Thunder dashed forward while arcs of electricity trailed after her.

You idiot, don’t use your powers! Sam thought.

No, he didn’t say that out loud, although he wanted to. But there were just some things one didn’t say out loud, less one risked getting their butt blasted with a lightning bolt.

The cannibal Boar was quick to rise, trampling over its weakened companion in its effort to meet her charge with its own.

“Whoa, I’m your opponent, big guy!” Sam yelled.

But it paid him no attention as the cannibal Boar’s attention was focused completely on the blonde warrior running straight for it.

The cannibal Boar swung a beefy arm forward, but Thunder lowered her head and ducked underneath its swing so she could drive the tip of her spear into the back of the horror’s right leg.

It let out a pained grunt before attempting to slap Thunder away, but she’d twirled out of its reach like a dancer in the middle of a fiery waltz routine.

“Whoa,” Sam whispered. Crap... don’t get excited, lame-brain. Thunder’s using her powers... why in Hades is she using her power!?

He watched as Thunder’s twirl ended at just the right spot for her to send her spear tip swinging up to the cannibal Boar’s head — and it was the kind of sweeping haymaker the horror might have been able to dodge too if its arms and legs hadn’t suddenly gotten entangled in the red threads that sprang from Maeve’s staff.

Dark ichor flowed out of the jagged cut that Thunder ripped into the cannibal Boar’s snout. It let out a furious roar that was cut abruptly by Maeve’s red threads closing over its throat.

This brief moment of paralysis was all Thunder needed to jump over the horror and land on its shoulders.

“Shock!” she yelled.

Blue sparks raced down her arms and onto the spear in her hands, coating it with crackling energy. Then Thunder plunged her spear down into the horror’s chest.

The cannibal Boar dropped to its knees while Thunder stumbled off it and into Sam’s arms as he noticed how she’d lost her balanced and jumped in to catch her.

Thunder’s hair clung to her sweaty brow. Her face was deathly pale too. Yet the smile she gave him would have lit up a room.

“Using your powers in your condition... you’re crazy,” Sam said.

“Nothing new there,” she replied, breathless.

A thick red arm reached out for them, but it was too slow now to catch Sam as he moved away from the horror that refused to die. In fact, it was already attempting to pull Thunder’s spear from its chest.

“Seriously,” Sam helped Thunder get back to her feet although his eyes stayed glued on the hulking beast. “We gotta go... now.”