As they listened to the outlaw's story, the four captives felt a growing sense of disbelief. Could such a man truly exist? He sounded less like a frontier Sheriff and more like a hero from a work of fiction. No wonder so many outlaws had come to ambush him.
A tiny, fragile seed of hope began to sprout in their hearts. The hope that this legendary Sheriff Henry would defeat these bandits and rescue them. It was a faint hope, but it was enough to lift their spirits.
It took Henry about an hour to climb to the summit of the mountain. He maintained a steady, energy-conserving pace. An ordinary person would have taken twice as long, if they could have made the treacherous climb at all. They likely would have ended up in the belly of a wolf, bear, or cougar.
Henry had encountered all three on his way up. He had simply ignored them, and they, in turn, had not attacked. Perhaps it was his utter lack of fear, or perhaps it was the palpable aura of death that now clung to him. Animals have stronger instincts than men; they know when to avoid a predator.
He reached the spot Charles had told him about. The path ended. Before him stood a massive white fir tree, nearly fifty meters tall, its trunk two meters in diameter. From about two meters up the trunk, a thick branch extended outward, fifteen meters long, reaching toward the opposite cliff face.
The end of the branch was less than three meters from a square, stone platform that jutted out from the other side. This was the natural bridge.
For an ordinary man, the jump was a terrifying prospect. On flat ground, most men could manage a 2.5-meter standing long jump. But from a swaying branch, hundreds of meters in the air, with a good chance of plummeting into the abyss below, only a fool or a madman would attempt it.
But for Henry, it was no problem at all. He had tested his own standing long jump at 4.22 meters, and that was before he had acquired the Agility talent. Even with the poor footing, he was confident he could clear the gap. Besides, if he did happen to fall, he had a dozen lassos in his storage space. With his LV 4 Lariat skill, he could easily snag the branch. And if that failed, he had his Super Reflexes. Failure was not an option.
But before he could make the attempt, he had one more obstacle to overcome.
Coiled at the base of the massive fir tree was a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. Its body was as thick as a grown man's wrist, its tail held high, rattling its warning.
This creature was lethally venomous, with a strike speed of five-hundredths of a second. An ordinary human's reaction time is 0.3 seconds. A trained athlete might manage 0.2. Henry knew his own was now somewhere under 0.08. And with his Super Reflexes talent, his theoretical reaction time was a mind-boggling 0.008 seconds.
It was the perfect test subject.
Henry drew the 1.2-meter-long rapier from his space and advanced. The snake's rattling grew more intense.
The moment he stepped within its 1.7-meter strike range, it lunged, its fangs bared, a blur of motion aimed at his wrist.
Henry focused his mind.
Instantly, the world slowed to a crawl. The snake's lightning-fast strike became a slow, deliberate glide, like an old woman reaching for a cup of tea. He felt as if he could have put a dagger in its mouth, pulled it out, and stepped aside with time to spare.
Instead, he made a minuscule adjustment to the angle of his rapier. The snake's own forward momentum did the rest. It impaled itself on the point of his blade, the sharpened steel sliding effortlessly through its neck. It looked for all the world as if the snake had committed suicide.
With a slight twist of his wrist, he absorbed the force of the strike, then flicked the twenty-pound snake from the end of his rapier, sending its body tumbling into the canyon below.
He stored the blade and checked the tree for any other unwelcome surprises. Then, he focused on his internal panel.
Health: 95%
The feedback was immediate: using his "over-limit" talent had induced a minor abnormal status. His body would recover on its own, but he wouldn't be able to use the talent again until his health reached 99%, which would take an hour. The last one percent, he mused, was always the hardest to get.
He focused on his remaining grey pearls and used one.
A greyish light washed over him, and a soothing warmth spread through his body. In less than half a second, the feeling was gone.
Health: 100%
He was whole again. The cooldown was gone. The synergy was perfect.
He walked out onto the branch, stood at its edge, and prepared to cross the void.