The upper floor of Ashwick's skyscraper had been reduced to a skeleton of steel girders and crumbling concrete.
Jake didn't stop moving. He couldn't. If he stood still for more than a second, Mara would flay the skin from his bones with another barrage of light magic or whatever that was.
He ducked under a whip of condensed mana that sheared through a support pillar like it was wet paper, and his feet dug into the cracked floor as he pivoted.
His muscles swelled, fibers knitting together with a density that defied normal biology, even that of a human powered by the system.
Then his skin hardened, taking on the texture of polished iron. His S.H.I.E.L.D. attribute spiked, pushing his physical defense into the stratosphere to compensate for the fact that he couldn't dodge everything.
