The charge almost killed Tier. Even not being squarely hit had thrown him away rolling on the grasses. 1700 HP disappeared in such an instant.

Tier growled, his whole body ached. His long fingers desperately tried to grip the tall grasses to stop his body from rolling further. At that moment, Tier realised his bow had fallen off. He wasn't sure if it was his mistake or the minotauros attack had a disarm effect.

The minotauros bellowed loudly. The mighty creature turned and dashed to give another brutal charge.

“[Mimic switch: Cheetah!]”

With the aid of the cheetah's silhouette, Tier ran as fast as he could towards where his bow had been lying. He rolled on the last second to avoid collision with the minotauros, also to quickly grab his bow.

Tier was taking chances due to the minotauros requiring a wider arc to run due to its speed. He unleashed a couple of shots, before taking a deep breath and preparing a steady aim as the minotauros finally dashing straight at him.

“[Eagle Aim]!”

A vocalisations of an eagle heard as its dark blue silhouette spread its wing along Tier’s bow. At Tier’s zoomed vision, a box and circle appeared around his crosshair. As his aim was getting steady, his vision zoomed further at the minotauros’ head, and the two geometric markers moved slower towards the conclusive weak point. A high pitched noise was heard in Tier’s head when the box, circle, and his crosshair locked at the minotauros left eye.

Target locked.

As Tier released his arrow, the eagle silhouette cried once more. Its body soared and combined with the arrow, hitting the located organ for 1600 points of damage. The minotauros roared as it was startled for a moment, but then continued dashing forward.

“[Ankle Break]!”

An accurate shot to its ankle caused the minotauros to tumble down. Bringing the momentum it had before, its body kept rolling forward. Tier sidestepped to avoid it and unleashed arrows as fast as he could even though their distance was not far. He was confident he would just need to put a trap and move again as the creature arose.

Yet, what the creature did right after was outside his predictions. It rose its hands high to the air then smacked the ground with such a brute force, releasing a shockwave that launched everything around it including the soil and Tier. In an instant, another 2000 points were cut from Tier’s HP.

The hunter hurried to stand up, wishing to avoid the impending doom. And at that moment he froze.

The minotauros charged with its full might accompanied by deafening roar. The condition reminded him of a near miss that happened years ago. The memories came much more clearer for it was almost the same condition. He stood frozen againsts an impending demise despite time slowed down as his brain tried it best to avoid certain fate. His body refused to move because his mind was acknowledging that it was his foolishness that brought him to this condition. He will die to his own stupidity.

Watch out!

Another memory came by. There was a saviour, a girl pulled him off the road. Despite clearly being in pain and covered in bandages, she offered her hand to Pras who was lying down on the sidewalk. She had a such sincere and sweet smile that masked a deep sorrow.

Fight on, live on….

Tier exhaled. The passage of time remained slow, yet he felt a complete control over his body. There was something else that he felt.

In fact, he was conscious of everything.

The minotauros, himself, every other creature, the soft blowing wind, and even the smallest friction happened was clearly felt. As if those pieces of information were torrenting down his brain in the most peaceful manner.

Tier spun on the balls of his right feet then jumped away. He picked a spear that currently served as his melee weapon and threw it at the minotauros neck for 1200 points of damage. And, just like an eagle being guided by the wind, Tier unleashed three consecutive shots that finally took down the minotaur.

“Argh….”

Tier groaned when his body felt so weak, he let himself lie on the grases. Catching his breath, he tried to remember the smile of his saviour. Whose mere shadows also saved him again.

Reaching out to the sky, he pleaded, “Can we meet again, just for once? So I can properly thank you…”

But he knew that such a wish wouldn't come true. Thus he felt like giving up and just closed his eyes to try to calm himself.

As if not wanting to let him rest, a loud rumbling was heard which was probably a magical portal. Then there seemed like heavy footsteps of an orc approaching. Tier decided to ignore it since an orc won't be allowed to mess with him. Unless the person wanted to get on the wanted list.

It took him a while to realise that a wizard cannot open a portal to a remote place like this. Mostly they open it from a remote place to reach a city or town, not the other way around. Thus, sudden realisation propelled him to open his eyes and the subsequent view he saw was even more confusing.

“Duuude.”

It was Steven’s broad face that greeted him. The flicker in his eyes was rather maniacal like protruding a malicious intent to mess with Tier.

“What just happened, duuuuude?”

.”Happened what?”

“Just now,”

“You opened a portal to the middle of nowhere?”

“Stop playing dumb!” Steven grabbed Tier’s shoulder and shook him. “Are you using a cheat? I could ban you for that!”

Confused, Tier reflexively countered, “Pardon my French, but what the freaking heck are you talking about? What cheat?”

Steven opened up a window and showed it to Tier, there was a graph of some sort that showed a sudden spike near the end. He didn’t have the chance to properly read it before Steven demanded explanation.

“This, what is this?”

“That’s your graph, how on earth would I know what it means!” Tier retorted.

“It shows an accelerated event happening right here in this spike, there was a crazy amount of data transfer between you and the server in a very very short time. Now, explain to me what happened?”

“I don’t know! I ‘m almost dead from a minotauros’ charge, then counter…”

Tier stopped for a moment. He tried to remember what just happened. When he fully regained control of himself, he remembered that his attacks were not superbly fast.

“... my attacks were normal, but everything else was much slower, I even could still see my spears and arrows mid flight. Even the minotauros’ charging speed was so slow that I could avoid it.”

Steven released his grip on Tier’s shoulder. He looked back at his graph and seemed to check an earlier part of the graph.

“On January 6, right after you created a character, did you experience something similar?”

“When I almost got mauled by a bear, I think something similar happened.”

“Oh no, not another case similar to Rosdan’s,” Steven sighed. His little dragon flew around Tier and started scanning.

“Who?” Tier asked as he tried to stand up.

“It’s okay.”

Steven proceeded to check something on his window while the dragon kept scanning Tier. He explained, “I’m checking your recent history, it seems that you have some sort of acceleration in your brain’s processing speed, making everything much slower than it should. However, in your case, it seemed to happen only twice and I can’t figure out the reason. If it was indeed a cheat, there should be a third party intervention here, thus I think it is not a cheat. Do you have any idea why?”

Tier shrugged. The only thing he remembered happened was the dire situation had triggered his memories. “Perhaps triggered by past trauma.”

“Who are you, Rambo?” Steven rambled, “Anyway, we need to put certain limitations on this thing, I’ll take one of your custom ability slots. So you can utilise it at will but it will have a drawback to avoid you abusing it or causing problems with your brain.”

“Based on the triggering situation you’ve experienced, the limitation is that you can only use this accelerated stance after being attacked and the effect will cease once you launch a counter attack.”

Tier didn’t bother much by his custom ability being taken. He hasn't thought of any additional custom ability anyway. On the other hand, it was Steven who was being more invested in this whole acceleration thing.

“The ability also needed to be activated as some sort of self buff before such effects take place. Keeping the buff active will quickly drive you into bloodlust. And you can’t use it during bloodlust, duh. Thank God you already took the necessary path bonus in Predator’s Tactics.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of limitations,” Tier said in a very flat, unamused tone.

“Of course,” Steven groaned, “Rosdan can utilise it very well as a frikin’ healer. This kind of stuff is insanely good. Anyway, have you decided on the name?”

“No, give me some time.”

“Now.”

“Alright,” Tier sighed. He tried to remember what animal has such lightning speed reflexes that can evade and strike so fast. “Perhaps… Cobra…”

When looking at the sky to think, Tier remembered some fighter planes flying in certain manoeuvres.

“Cobra’s Maneuver… hahah, but that will be ridiculous, cobra’s maneuver is just for show and got nothing to do with such reflex….”

New ability acquired: Cobra’s Maneuver.

“Hey! I’m not done with the naming.”

“Time’s limited,” Steven shrugged. He uses his GM capabilities to open a portal to Grandar. Before he jumped into the portal, Steven asked Tier once more, “You sure you don’t want to join Clashing Realms? Also have you checked on the two beasts I mentioned?”

“No.”

“Aw, come on.”

Steven grumbled and jumped into the portal. Tier, on the other hand, was still irritated by the ability’s name forced by Steven. At least the portal was still open, thus he jumped in and immediately logged out.