I’m not a person anyone has ever called small, even going back to my days growing up on the outskirts of The City of Deer, I was always amongst the largest children. I mean this both in terms of height and mass, as the other kids rarely had the strength and the skills that I did to keep themselves fed through both times of plenty and of hardship. Believe me, there were a lot more times of hardship than there were times of plenty. So, unless they belong to the local sect or were from the city interior, even boys who had my height rarely had enough resources to match my power.

  Ever since coming to the Abeyance city I am generally larger than those around me. My HUD informs me that I am six feet and two inches tall, and that I weigh two hundred and one pounds. I still don’t really know what those numbers mean, but I am not small by anyone’s estimation. Except looking at the man who rules Clan Irons alongside my daughter, I think perhaps that might not be true. If there is one man who might look at my form and think to himself that I am neither tall nor broad It is this man before me. He and I have locked our eyes and I absolutely am not the one who looked away first, however the second he glanced over at the store owner, I shot a look at what my HUD had to say about his physical stature. It probably wasn’t important compared to his class and levels and that sort of thing, but I already had that information, so it didn’t interest me.

  [Paul Bunyan]

  [Folk Hero]

  [Subclass: Street Titan]

  [Level: Eight]

  [Height Seven Feet Four Inches]

  [Weight: Four Hundred and Forty Pounds]

  ?

  “Mr Wu,” he said to the man behind the counter. “Bu, here is an old friend. We have a few things we need to urgently discuss outside, could you please wrap up my order and get your delivery kid to bring it back to my place? I’ll pay him then, plus a delivery fee.”

  The bearded old man frowned and shook his head. “ Don’t be stupid, you know the rules. I can have it delivered, but we don’t do credit.”

  I slowly turned my head and leveled a stare at the old man behind the counter. My eyes were those of death itself, and I think Mr Wu got the memo from the way his flinched.

  “If you want this store to still be standing, and your merchandise undestroyed, I highly recommend you accommodate Paul just this one time.”

  I think the store owner noticed how both of us had placed a hand on our weapons. Me gripping my inactive spear, and the giant of a man placed a threatening hand near the haft of an axe at his belt, well, it would be an axe for anyone else, for him it was barely a hatchet.

  “Alright.” Mr Wu said, looking slowly between us. “You can pay the boy when he arrives at your clubhouse. For now, you two talk outside.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Eyes still locked, and weapons still gripped, the pair of us slowly made our way out onto the street. He was level eight and an important gang leader in the nearby area; I obviously was Lu Bu. With the honed instincts of anyone who had spent their lives in a city slum, the people on the street outside picked up on these facts and made themselves scarce.

  “So.” He said as we separated. “ Lyn tells me you are her dad.”

  “I am,” I confirm.

  “She also says you are a pitiless monster who ignored her pleas not to betray your friends and allies in a ruthless power grab.”

  “I’m working on it with my A.I’s therapy module, but yes, I am that too.” That was mostly a lie; I had spoken to Diaochan about the existence of a therapy module that she could activate, but I had made no use of it, nor did I intend to.

  With what I considered a casual movement, I tossed my [CRYS?ALxCORE] backpack onto the ground next to the entrance of El Naturale. I hadn’t yet reloaded The Conqueror, and there wasn’t much chance I would get the chance to, so I simply slipped my spear from its holding loops on my back and activated the weapon’s red blade as I leaned it on my shoulder one-handed.

  “We don’t have to do this, you know?” The huge man said in a voice like falling rocks.

  “We don’t?” I asked with a dubious smirk.

  “You could just surrender your weapons and come see your daughter. I know she thinks you are too dangerous to be left running around, but this is your chance to prove her wrong. She hasn’t said it , but I know Lyn would jump at a chance to reconnect.”

  I looked up at the man, still smirking. He was making a classic mistake in presuming that because he outweighed me and may even be stronger than me, that he had the advantage. I have often been called the strongest, but when people say that, they aren’t referring to my physical power alone, but my overall prowess. I have fought people stronger than I am before, or faster, or with better timing, or even more efficient techniques, both in terms of Qi usage and mundane martial arts.

  The reason I am called the strongest, the reason I am the peerless one beneath the heavens, is my ability to shift a fight so that it becomes contested on the terms I desire. If someone is faster, I turn it into a contest of grit. If they are stronger, I make it a contest of timing; if they have better timing, I make it about who has the superior techniques and so forth. There is always a path to victory, and I am the man who rides down it without fail.

  So, as you can imagine, I was feeling confident enough that even though Paul was five levels higher and however much bigger than me, I would prove to be too much for the man, as I had with virtually every enemy I had ever faced. My HUD gave all sorts of warnings about how he was a Paradox Incursion, too, but I didn’t care; other incursions weren’t Lu Bu.

  “I am going to prove her wrong, but not about my character,” I told him. “ I am going to prove my daughter wrong for ever, thinking she, you, or any of the pitiful weaklings she calls her Clan members has a chance to stand against me. “

  Behind his beard, the big man frowned, but I pushed on before he had a chance to truly respond.

  “Before I kill you, though, would you do your murderer one favor and answer me a question?”

  “I can’t promise I’ll answer, but you can ask.”

  “Good,” I said with a nod. “Though I confess it is actually two questions, are you fucking my daughter? And if you are, am I a grandfather yet?”

  In case you are wondering, Paul didn’t answer me, but he did roar indignantly and the metal-plated fingerless gloves he wore glowed blue on his right hand and red on his right. The axe on his belt glowed an identical blue along its metal handle, and then leaped from his belt to the giant’s waiting grasp. The red glow in his other hand formed into the ethereal shape of a similar axe, and Paul brought them together like he was imbuing his hatchet with the spiritual idea of a hatchet. It was very much the sort of thing you saw a sage or someone particularly far down the path of a specific weapon Dao do. I was glad to see that the man my daughter had chosen to be with was more than a mere brute; what's more, the fact that he did this whilst charging at me made the whole thing quite impressive.