I Reawakened as an Inferno Hero-Chapter 58: Monseryan Monster: Embercollosus [2]

Axel squinted his eyes as he scanned the monster’s powers. He was doing so to know what would be coming at him. He wouldn’t want the monster to attack first. He would have to be the one to do that. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

His victory actually depended on that. On if the monster attacked him first. Scanning the monster’s profile, he even saw that they absorbed shards and essence.

Making a face, he remembered that it sounded familiar. He had read about it in one of those novelkisss he usually read when he was bored.

Well, he wasn’t going to allow the monster to use it or even do anything related to it. He didn’t have time for that. At least the monster could absorb whatever it wanted to absorb if only it could defeat him.

The monster seemed like it was drawing closer to the end of his long boast-laden and victory speech, and Axel knew that he had to be quick in whatever he was doing. He had to act fast.

He quickly scanned the monster’s weapons:

Voidsteel Harpoons – Weapons that stop its regeneration and bind it temporarily.

Ashbound Ritual – A dark ritual that severs its connection to the ember-void, weakening it.

Axel found it interesting, although the ritual stuff was just weird, and he didn’t see the monster pulling it off here.

What he worried about was the voidsteel harpoons. It was good he took note of that.

Axel blinked now, and doing so, he realized that everything was suddenly slow.

It applied to literally everything, though—living or nonliving, including himself. He realized that this certain power was a kind of speed-related thing.

Everything was slow, of course. But it actually wasn’t really. He had gone over this each time this certain power came, but with each study, he realized that it was more unique. And so he had to, yet again, go over it.

This superpower was, to him, simply the best because it gave him enough time to think about his next action and the current situation facing him.

Without this superpower, he would have been killed long ago. It was the best-fitting power. Best fitting because it suited him. It could pass for best-suiting power instead.

As a teenager, he was often reckless, careless, and even childish in behavior and actions. And that was more evident in his superhero life. He seemed to make shocking decisions, even ones that people seemed to be so shocked at times. As he had just done now.

And in some situations that required thinking very fast, with his almost childish brain, he wouldn’t have been able to do so, as it would mount on him a certain amount of pressure that would overwhelm him and make him make mistakes. And by mistakes, not necessarily a small one. It might as well be a grave one that would put the world in danger.

And so, that was where the superpower would come in. He would be so fast that everything would pause.

It seemed like physics had killed biology and then intertwined with chemistry. The time-stopping superpower would then seem to have no real correct explanation.

One didn’t know if he was too fast or if time had stopped. Because, during those times, Axel would be able to think at a normal rate, but his speed would be a blur. He would be extremely slow.

But that wasn’t even the point. When he became slow, others would literally just pause. So he would be faster than his movements with thinking, and at the same time, be faster than reality (people, literally everything).

He still didn’t understand these powers of his very clearly, even till now.

He tried to shrug it off, but now, he was even too slow to do the act. With the way he was raising his hands, it would take ages to do it, and so, he just stopped entirely.

And one last thing!

He couldn’t use the superpower when he wanted to. It just happened on its own.

Axel squinted his eyes and scanned the monster’s powers.

[SCANNING]

[ANALYZING]

[Scanning and analyzing complete]

[Monster’s powers]

Combat Style: Cataclysmic Brute, Area Denial

Agility: Low

Intelligence: Mindless, but capable of cunning

Resilience: Near-Immortal

Axel almost gasped.

Mindless, but capable of cunning?

Well, that sounded ridiculous.

So the monster was just being cunning all along and was actually mindless?

He almost laughed. So the monster was just bluffing?

The system seemed to hear his thoughts because now it said:

[Underestimate at your own risk]

’Damn!’ Axel thought. ’The words sounded so grim it gave him the creeps.’

He was thinking of scraping his plan now. It wouldn’t work with this monster.

But what would he do?

He decided to ask the scanning/analyzing thing.

"How to defeat?" he asked.

[A cautious, tactical, and yet brutal approach]

The words seemed to haunt him.

’Brutal?’ he asked, a touch of surprise in his voice.

"But, but, I’m not a superhero? Isn’t my job to protect and not to kill?"

The system was genuinely surprised with Axel’s words, and later on, after the system had replied, he too was shocked.

He was clearly too naive and, at times, too dumb of late, trying to be a good guy.

Or are superheroes not to care about lives anymore, even those of monsters?

Axel’s superhero duty seemed to lean on being dark and gritty rather than saving broomsticks from dustbins or shoes from the shelf (sarcasm).

[Then why are you here], the system replied. [You aren’t actually killing humans but monsters, so my advice for you is to quit the over-nice act.]

It was blunt but true.

And note, this system isn’t Axel’s normal system; this is more of an analyzer that scans monsters and then analyzes them and brings out their powers, weaknesses, and the rest.

To Axel’s surprise, it could talk, and to him, that was some sort of bonus, as the former couldn’t.

Well, this was, to him, more of an artificial intelligence than a system, even though he referred to it as so.

Axel was still polishing his plan now and so asked the analyzer (from now on, it’ll no longer be referred to as ’system’ but instead ’analyzer’).

"What is the monster’s weakness, how do I get it down?"

The analyzer replied:

[Just poke its eyes and see the surprise.]

Axel was nodding his head now.

’Fascinating,’ he thought.

With that, everything returned back to normal.