Chapter 161 - G-force

"What was that?!" Tom shouted, amazed by the ability. 

For some low-leveled spell to be able to affect him to such a degree...

To say that he never heard about something like that would be an understatement!

"Are you okay?" Cleo asked, approaching the place where Tom fell. Right now, his vision was still flunky, making it hard for him to stand up.

"Yeah, I'm just confused..." Tom replied, shaking his head to get rid of the nauseating feeling that this spell induced in him. 

'Not only does it blind everyone who sees the explosion but also confuses them,' Tom thought, finally opening his eyes and looking in the direction where the spell fell. 

Rather than disappearing as soon as the explosion happened, the red orb of Cleo now turned into a dense cloud of red smoke, making it impossible to see what was on its other side. 

'I wonder if that smoke will induce that confusion effect as well,' Tom thought, grabbing Cleo's extended hand and using her help to stand up. 

"Give me a moment," Tom muttered, unsteadily walking towards the smoke. 

A single whiff...

And Tom fell on his bottom once again. While the confusion wasn't as powerful as the one caused by the explosion, it still managed to mess with his sense of space, making it feel as if he was standing on a massive earthquake. 

"Seriously, what are you doing?!" Cleo shouted, panic mixing with amusement and confusion in her voice. 

"Wait, you can't see it?" Tom asked, crawling away from the smoke. Even though it was quickly dissipating, every breath of it only made Tom's confusion worse. 

"See what?" Cleo asked, putting her hands on her hips and looking around. "We are still in the boss room. The only thing I can see is you and our clothes," she said, pointing with her hand at the place where they recently fucked. 

"I see," Tom muttered, finally taking a breath of fresh, smoke-free air. "I think I know what your ability is all about," he added, once again using Cleo's help to stand up. 

'Wait, isn't it a great opportunity?' Tom thought, his playful side waking up. 

While his confusion was mostly gone now, he still used it as an excuse, tripping on his own feet and falling right into Cleo's arms. 

"Seriously, what's wrong with you?" Cleo breathed out before enclosing Tom within her embrace and carrying him away. 

Stuck between her soft chest and her delicate arms, Tom allowed the girl to help him move before she finally forced him to sit down right where their clothes were. 

"I will dress up," she said, letting Tom take some time to come back to his senses. 

"If you keep stretching like that, I will get hard again," Tom commented after carelessly throwing a single glance at the changing girl. As she was currently reaching for her pants to pick them up, she, intentionally or not, exposed every last part of her secret place to Tom's eyes. 

'Seeing my sperm still flow out of her hole... How can this be so erotic?' Tom thought before courtly averting his eyes to give the girl some privacy. 

"What, don't tell me you fell in love with me now," Cleo said, turning around and rolling her eyes. 

From how her face was perfectly calm, it appeared she didn't feel any shame parading naked around the place. 

"You are crushing my heart right now," Tom replied with a sneer, finally gathering himself up from the floor of the boss room. 

"Isn't this what all the girls are good at?" Cleo asked jokingly, pulling her pants up and reaching for her shirt. 

"What a sexist view. I didn't expect you to present it," Tom countered. 

"Those words would hold more weight if you didn't stare at my boobs all the time," Cleo pushed back. But before they could continue any longer, she burst out in laughter and approached Tom. 

She grabbed him by the edge of his pants only to pull him closer and place a deep, wet kiss on his lips. With her shirt still in her hand, Cleo's chest flattened on Tom's chest as her tongue forced its way inside Tom's mouth. 

"Pwhaaa..." Cleo sighed when the two of them finally separated their lips. "Happy now?" she asked with a small smile, finally putting the rest of her clothes on. 

"That's more like it," Tom replied, reaching out with his hand and patting the girl's head. "Anyway, do you feel like you got another skill or something?" he asked, zipping his pants back and reaching for his own shirt. 

"I kinda do," Cleo replied before turning silent as she pulled the shirt down her head. "But I can't really put my mind to it. Like, some kind of condition is not satisfied," she added, putting a thoughtful look on her face. 

"Maybe it's a shield, then?" Tom asked, leaning his head. "Guard yourself," he requested, standing just two steps away from the girl. 

Instead of replying, Cleo simply raised her hands as if she was about to enter a boxing match. 

'Let's see,' Tom thought, bringing his fist to the girl's face with all his might. 

He intended to stop right before actually hitting his friend. 

'Haste,' he thought, accelerating his own reaction time and movements for the sake of stopping the attack. 

Yet, before he could actually do anything, his hand suddenly froze. 

"FUCK!" Tom yelled out in pain, feeling the strain suddenly placed on his bones. 

'It feels like hitting a piece of steel!' he thought, lowering his arm and grabbing it with his left arm. This moment of confusion also forced him to end his haste, dropping him back into the natural flow of time. 

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" Cleo shouted, noticing that something had just happened. "Are you okay?" she asked, kneeling right beside squatting Tom. 

"Yeah," Tom nodded his head, allowing his magic to work the pain away. "I'm not exactly sure what happened. It felt like hitting an immovable wall," he added, massaging his own arm. 

"Here, let me do it for you," Cleo muttered, grabbing Tom's arms and pressing her delicate fingers against his pained flesh. 

'Huh?' Tom noticed that his arm... was all turning violet. As if every last bit of his flesh in the arm was beaten up to the point where bruises covered every last inch of it. 

'Bruises?' Tom thought, recalling the lecture about this topic from back at school. And then he realized. 

It wasn't just the tip of his fist that hurt. That ruled out the possibility of Cleo's ability being a simple barrier. 

Now that he focused on the pain, he realized that he could actually feel it not only in the arm but even at the shoulder and partially at the right side of his waist!

'The pains align perfectly with the muscles I moved to execute a punch!' Tom realized, his eyes opening wide from the shock of the meaning behind this information. 

"Hmm?" Cleo muttered, raising her eyes at Tom's face as soon as she noticed something was wrong. "What happened?" 

"I think I know what your new ability is," Tom whispered, too shocked to reveal it just like that. 

"Is it bad?" Cleo asked, a new hue of worry appearing on her face. 

"Bad?" Tom shouted, only to take a deep breath and calm himself down. Then, he shook his head. "No," he said, lowering his sight. "It's more like, I can't believe how damn overpowered it is," he added in a weak voice. 

'I was so happy with my own abilities, respected Claudia's skills, enjoyed Marvin's ones... And then there is Cleo,' he thought, gritting his teeth in frustration. 

"Tom!" Claudia shouted, most likely recognizing the state of his mind from the expression on his face. "Just tell me," she requested in a meaker voice,  raising her hands and placing them on Tom's cheeks. 

"I'm still not sure, so take it only as my guess," Tom said as he grabbed Cleo's hands and removed them from his face. He then stood up and sent her a mysterious look. "Can you try to use it again?" 

"The condition..."

"I know," Tom cut Cleo's protests before moving a few steps away. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah...?" Cleo replied with hesitation, not sure what to expect. 

Tom charged forward, right in the direction of the girl, as if he wanted to slam her down to the ground. 

And just as he was about to hit her, his entire body froze in place, only to explode with pain a moment later. 

'Just like I thought.' Tom's happiness from the discovery was muffled by the overbearing pain penetrating through every last tissue of his flesh and bones. 

"Is it making others stop?" Cleo attempted to guess her skill herself. 

"Close, but not exactly," Tom muttered, pouring all the magic that he could to heal his injured body. "It's more like you forcibly kill the momentum of an object heading towards you... or so I think," he replied. 

"Then your injuries..." Cleo cried out in protest, only for her face to tense up as she realized exactly the same thing that Tom had in mind since a few moments earlier. "The rapid change of momentum..."

"Yeah," Tom nodded his head. "The g-force is the culprit of all those," he said, raising his arms to show the bruises they were covered in. 

"Ah!" Cleo suddenly sighed, her knees giving up. She then fell to the ground, right on her shapely ass.. "I think I also discovered the cost of using it," she said with a weak smile before her consciousness faded away.