Chapter 146 146 Her Strength



Zach hurriedly grabbed the reins of the warhorse and took control of it when he felt a severe earthquake shake everything around him. Even the warhorse almost lost its balance and almost fell to its side. Thanks to its good training and battlefield experience, the horse only kneeled to regain its balance before getting back on its feet again.

Zach looked behind him and found the reason for the earthquake to be Clara who had stomped on the ground as soon as she jumped off of the horse. The stomp was violent enough to shake the land and leave a permanent crater in her landing zone.

Zach turned the horse towards the Rhino who was somehow persisting among the earthquake due to its excessively high weight and stable centre of gravity.

The effects of the earthquake weren't diminishing at all. In fact cracks began to extend from the ground below Clara as they ruptured through the earth in the direction of the rhino that was struggling to maintain its balance amongst the shaking.

The force behind the cracks didn't diminish at all until the cracks extended all the way to the rhino and successfully grabbed one of its feet.

Unfortunately for the rhino, it was as if the ground itself had opened its mouth and swallowed its foot whole. No matter how much it thrashed around like a fish outside of water, its foot was completely stuck in the ground and could not be freed even with all the force it applied.

Diana had never seen combat on this level before. She deduced that there was a huge gap between her and Clara based on the prowess of a single stomp of her foot which horrified her and made her feel miserable at the same time. If possible she wanted to take the place of Clara but unfortunately, she didn't have the ability to keep the rhino in its place at all and she didn't want to risk the safety of Zach by exaggerating or falsifying her abilities.

Bruce on the other hand had a smile on his face as if he had already expected such an outcome from the moment he had seen Clara set out with Zach.

Diana found it annoying as she stared intently at him as if asking for an explanation. She was shaken from Clara's surprising strength but as a hardened soldier herself, she calmed down soon after.

Bruce couldn't handle her piercing gaze and raised both his hands in front of him in surrender as he explained patiently, "Her inhuman strength isn't very surprising considering the fact that she comes from the prestigious Windsor family. Among all the families that I know of or have read about, Windsor family is quite unique in the way that their descendants are generally very short in height and petite in their bodily features which makes them look quite young compared to their true age. Despite their appearances, the strength wielded by each of these members is enough to shake the very earth when they make a move. Each of the Windsor family members is required to start strength training at a very early age. The exceptional amount of physical exertion in the growth phase of the body forcibly distorts the direction of growth and instead of growing and aging the focus of all that growth becomes the strengthening of the muscles and the bones. Therefore, most of the strong members of the Windsor family had a short stature and a terrific amount of strength to go with it. The shorter the height of the person, the more pronounced the strength hidden in their body would be."

Diana heard her brother's explanation but could not help but label such a practice inhumane. Even if it produced results and gave their descendants exceptional strength, she could not bring herself to understand how this family could let their young undergo such a torture in the wee years of their lives.

She unknowingly cast a pitying glance in Clara's direction because the girl seemed to have gone through the same kind of torture. She wondered how much physical abuse it took to permanently set the bones of the kids in their early age which hindered the further growth of their bodies.

Zach didn't waste the opportunity due to Clara's surprising strength. Instead he spurred the warhorse on and rushed towards the Rhino. Just when he felt that he was close enough, he brought out the lightsaber from the Weapons Arsenal and jumped off the back of the horse and straight on top of the rhino's wide and spacious back.

The rhino almost went berserk at this blatant invasion of personal space and tried to pull itself free from the ground using all the force of its body.

Zach felt the rhino underneath him shaking and moving unpredictably in a vertigo inducing manner. Therefore, he jerked his wrist and a three meter long glittering blade of plasma emerged from the hilt of the lightsaber in his hand.

Without wasting the opportunity, Zach stabbed the lightsaber into the back of the rhino's head. As expected, Zach felt almost no resistance at all as the sword made its way deeper into the head of the beast. Even though the penetration power of the weapon was immense, the force behind the stab couldn't be compromised on either. Therefore, Zach bent down his waist slightly and widened the gap between his feet to lower his center of gravity for increased balance and better application of the force behind the lightsaber.

While the rhino had no way of shaking Zach off of its back, Zach couldn't deal the killing blow to it either. It turned out that the back of its head was not the ideal place for Zach to stab it. The reason was that the base of the rhino's horns was far sturdier and far stronger than his imagination. The Lightsaber could not pierce through the base of the horns of the rhino no matter how much force Zach applied to it. He could only attribute the exaggerated defense on the back of its head to be the result of some kind of mutation in the beast. The defensive power of the beast was far too absurd for it to be considered normal.

The rhino shrieked in pain as its body swayed from one extreme to the other as it tried to get rid of the pest attacking it while lounging casually on top of its body.

Zach felt a bout of vertigo taking over his senses as the rhino swung its huge body in retaliation to the pain it felt on the back of its head. It seemed determined to get rid of Zach this time.

Zach tightly grabbed on to the lightsaber that was stuck in the body of the rhino in order to keep his balance but the vertigo inducing motion was making him sick. It didn't take long for the rhino to shake Zach off of its back.

Unable to keep his foothold on the rhino's back, Zach landed on the ground next to its body as he rolled on the ground twice before he could get rid of the momentum of his fall. Zach tried to get his footing even but his brain was still spinning inside his head and made it difficult for him recover to his perfect state.

The rhino on the other hand looked like it had been waiting for Zach to appear in front of it. It was like the raging bull had seen red right in front of it and was fully provoked.

Without waiting any longer, the rhino lifted its free foot as it shifted the weight of its humongous body onto its hind legs and stomped with all its might in order to crush Zach with all the strength it could wield. It wanted to show him despair for daring to injure it.

Zach was completely vulnerable in his shaken state and could do nothing to defend himself. It was unknown whether he could even determine the extent of danger he was in at the moment.

Thankfully, Clara had been witnessing the whole situation and was on standby. She immediately took action and pushed the ground underneath her body backwards with the entire strength of her body concentrated into her right foot. The action gave her enough burst speed to reach Zach before the rhino could complete the stomping motion.

Zach was still preoccupied and was unable to witness the feat that Clara had just pulled off in order to rush to his aid. Otherwise, he would have definitely been impressed by the finesse of her actions and the fine control that she had over the strength she wielded using that tiny body of hers.

While Zach was busy adjusting his gyros, Clara took on the tremendous pressure of the rhino's stomp by herself using nothing but her own body. The difference in the raw strength and the endurance of the beast and Clara couldn't be considered close at all. It was so pronounced that it couldn't even be considered to be in the same dimensional spectrum.

Therefore, in order to resist the tremendous pressure from the stomp, Clara had to utilize every ounce of strength in her body that she could muster. So she couldn't keep this up for very long. The rhino on the other hand wasn't the least bit bothered about stamina consumption as it rampaged about with all its strength. Even though it wreaked destruction all around it, its endless stamina and endurance allowed it to be so unscrupulous.

It didn't take long before Clara began to lose the battle of both endurance and strength. She couldn't keep up the same strength as before and slowly began to be suppressed.