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Burk - 1594
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Neoriceisgood's avatar
Monday, July 6 2020 - 12:00 AM
By: Neoriceisgood

Emergency Escape.

Burk was the emergency.

22542: Someone - Monday, July 6 2020 - 12:20 AM

Burks power is that his body ignores magic to an extend. He is like a blackhole for magic and that's why he can't use magic at all, because it absorbs his own magic as well. That, or gold actually missed at this range.

22543: Jack - Monday, July 6 2020 - 12:24 AM

I was expecting it be one sided, but not to this degree.

22544: Dr. Doom - Monday, July 6 2020 - 12:28 AM

That man is bleeding.

22545: Drakian - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:00 AM

Goldman appears to be bleeding from his emergency escape. that, or Burk successfully punched him before he teleported away. so he can probably teleport at the cost of harming himself

22546: Bogg - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:03 AM

That was either not quite fast enough, or using that ability hurts.
Either way, doesn't look so good for good ol' Goldman now.

22547: someone - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:08 AM

Goldman isn't very confident in his ability to tank a Burk punch.

Looks like he hasn't practiced his "emergency escape" skill enough if it still makes him bleed out of his eyes and nose, though. If they repeat the golden bullet / it was not very effective / emergency escape pattern for 15 minutes, Goldman will appear visibly beaten up at the time limit.

22548: Darius Drake - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:24 AM

Burk's ALWAYS an emergency. Otherwise he wouldn't be Burk.

22549: random - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:32 AM

Physical toll for exerting energy (aka bleeding), Mr. Goldman? Nice. I hope you perform a disgraceful plop at the end, giving you PR lady quite a work to do.

22550: Ajonos - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:40 AM

I see Goldman doesn't know that his opponent's special Burk senses make him immune to telegraphed attacks!

22551: Personthing - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:46 AM

Hmm. Seems like the Golden Bullet might be an attack that homes in on spirit (like the magiball), and therefore misses Burk due to the fact he isn't a spirit user.

22552: Mohegan - Monday, July 6 2020 - 2:24 AM

Whoa, looks like that emergency escape move took a lot outta Mr. Goldie.

22553: giovanni - Monday, July 6 2020 - 2:41 AM

goldman got some self-inflicted damage with this move

22554: Yes - Monday, July 6 2020 - 2:48 AM

Gueas that confirms that Burk has a spirit nullification power, then!

22555: Daran - Monday, July 6 2020 - 3:58 AM

Goldman is bleeding .... without getting hit. Is he a Relative of Chaz? :)
Joke aside .... bleeding from using such a Power is disconcerning.

22556: Greenwood - Monday, July 6 2020 - 4:20 AM

Perhaps Burk has some form of spiritual sight that allows him to predict magical abilities. That might explain why he charged at Goldman despite not planning to actually hit him in order to keep his promise to Pablo. Goldman's Emergency Escape prevented Burk from needing to strike him.

22557: someone - Monday, July 6 2020 - 4:29 AM

Hey, look at that. Goldman's got one small thing in common with someone else we know from a different storyline.

22558: Candor_Zofain - Monday, July 6 2020 - 4:31 AM

Is his eye bleeding now? That must mean he can't "emergency escape" too often.

22559: Briggs - Monday, July 6 2020 - 5:14 AM

Oh wow golden boy is bleeding.

22560: Anon - Monday, July 6 2020 - 5:35 AM

Is Burk... just immune to spirit? He was shrugging off Aria's punches but I thought that was just because he was incredibly tough, but here it looks like he didn't even notice.

22561: Woodledude - Monday, July 6 2020 - 7:00 AM

This is going worse for Goldman than I thought it would.

So, on the commentary around Burk's ability to shrug off the Golden Bullet, I feel like there might be something similar going on here to Noah's "accidental" masking. As in, Burk is using some kind of spirit power without realizing he even has the capability.

I wouldn't be surprised if the notion that he's basically a magical black hole is fairly accurate - That is basically the spirit mask in a nutshell. I feel like that doesn't necessarily explain *all* of Burk's... Burkiness. But it goes a long way towards it, at least.

I have a feeling Burk also has some kind of innate magical enhancement he does. That, or he was just raised pretty hard-knocks and thinks that's very normal. That would also possibly explain his martial skills, if not explaining how he's able to fight heroes/spirit users the way he does.

22562: Some guy - Monday, July 6 2020 - 7:34 AM

I'd say Burk is a spiritual Null. Can't use it, can't be affected by it.

22563: Pablo360 - Monday, July 6 2020 - 7:35 AM

In the last panel, Burk is smiling. Obviously, he never intended to hit Goldman with that attack — he can't fight, after all. With Goldman's cockiness, Burk should have no problem playing the scrappy underdog sticking it to the man and winning the crowd's affection, even though we both know Burk isn't an underdog at all.

22564: Luminous Lead - Monday, July 6 2020 - 8:31 AM

Maybe Gold Bullet scales based on how wealthy the target is? Burk's got that massive painting but aside from that he's probably dead broke.

If it scales on how much richer Goldman is than the target then Burk might be the secret son of a business tycoon or otherwise the heir to some vast wealth.

22565: Deliverance - Monday, July 6 2020 - 8:39 AM

@Anon - Might be a different effect. He certainly is incredibly tough, but Ariana with soul magic support did manage to kick him hard enough to knock out a tooth http://www.neorice.com/hoh_burk_918

At the end of the fight he's got scratches all over him from her flying blades/girders/whatever http://www.neorice.com/hoh_burk_925

Burk's observed abilities so far: Extreme jumping attack range, nimbleness, and toughness. Unarmed attacks that hits harder than strong magical attacks. Burk-o-vision.

To that we now add "Somehow unaffected by Goldman's bullet"

22566: Mike - Monday, July 6 2020 - 8:43 AM

See, this is good storytelling, 1500+ pages in and people are still theorising on the nature of the first character we're introduced to, instead of telling us he's overpowered, why ,and then watching him tank everything.

22567: Sporf - Monday, July 6 2020 - 12:27 PM

I'm pretty sure neorice said Burk doesn't have magic and his abilities are all 100% him. I still speculate he is somehow been trained in a similar manner to the Imperial Guard of Justopia. It apparently requires being trained practically from birth to accomplish what they do and Burk's snippets of his upbringing imply something similar to me. It doesn't explain why even Burk seems surprised that he didn't even have to dodge though. Also I'm curious how powerful a magic user could an Imperial Guardsman take on. It's implied in Noah's story that the main reason the Empire wants magic soldiers is because Imperial Guard take to long to train so can't be mass produced, but I don't recall any estimation of what threat level they can handle. If Burk is similar then they can theoretically handle quite a lot.

22569: beep - Monday, July 6 2020 - 1:34 PM

this page has a lot of speculation about Burk having a special power... I hope that he doesn't though. characters who are introduced as having no special abilities turning out to have the most special and interesting ability of all is my least favourite trope. sometimes I just want to see magic users defeated by the power of muscles alone! maybe Burks abs are so rock hard the golden bullet bounced off! Muscles Only Burk for the win!

22570: SilentWrangler - Monday, July 6 2020 - 2:50 PM

There's also that backpack full of gold, and, as we know, gold breaks magic.

22571: Sporf - Monday, July 6 2020 - 3:01 PM

@beep I agree.

22572: James brokanon - Monday, July 6 2020 - 3:03 PM

What if burk is like Noah, and from another world, except hes a brawler and that's it, which is why he doesnt have any spirit which is equivalent to spirit nullification/ masking

22573: Nitrotetrazole - Monday, July 6 2020 - 6:32 PM

I second beep's opinion. In a world full of magic and superpowered individuals, sometime its just fun and nice to see a dude with nothing but overwhelming martial skills take the piss out of them

22574: James brokanon - Monday, July 6 2020 - 8:11 PM

Pop, that almost sounds like he reportedly shoot himself forward, which could explain the injury if he did it rushed

22575: Brilliand - Monday, July 6 2020 - 8:22 PM

@James brokanon - You mean like Tobi? Noah isn't from another world.

22576: David Argall - Monday, July 6 2020 - 11:08 PM

I will go with Burk is just that tough that he doesn't even notice being hit.

22577: noname - Tuesday, July 7 2020 - 1:12 AM

Ahh, I think I get it: This has nothing to do with Burk having some hidden special ability or anything, but rather it has to do with the way Goldman's abilities work: I suspect they run on something like accumulative luck and have a "chance" and "risk" value to themselves based upon how good his odds of winning are... Ergo, he's much likelier to miss (the risk) with his Golden Bullet if he goes up against an opponent likely to ultimately defeat him. Likewise, I suspect his Emergency Escape is far more taxing (risky) against an opponent whose attacks Goldman would've had difficulties dodging on his own... If Goldman's so much stronger than his opponent that he wouldn't need luck to beat them, then his luck-based powers are at their strongest. If, however, Goldman's odds of winning are low, then his abilities get a proportional risk of failing him... And since, like, everyone fights using spirit power in this world, Goldman thought he had this in the bag when he was informed that Burk is basically a muggle... What he didn't and couldn't know is that Burk is all Burk: Goldman's odds of winning are significantly lower than he thought they were, and as such his Bullet missed and his Escape hurt him...

22578: Netraam - Tuesday, July 7 2020 - 1:26 AM

Hey Neo, have you read the Study series perhaps? Burk starts to remind me a little of Vanek. Except Vanek was a master tactician and also pretty good at armed combat, of course.

22585: Cluedrew - Tuesday, July 7 2020 - 4:41 AM

@beep: I've seen it done well but even then I find its prevalence a bit disappointing. What we need to be special in a distinctly quantifiable way to succeed?

@noname: That actually makes a lot of sense.


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