Cursing quietly, Arthur limped up the hill, using the spear to help hurry him along. He had taken too long, both between trying to draw more energy out of the stones to refuel himself and to just generally cultivate. So long that if the jenglot hunting squad hadn't sent out a scout, he would have been caught out.
Killing the creature had been simple enough - a single REED going into it's chest at close range had finished the creature, though not before it screamed it's death throes. The problem was now, he could hear the rest of the hunting pack rushing after him.
Arthur was not certain if crossing through the archway would stop the monster's from pursuing him, but he had to chance it. At the least, if he was on the road and across it, he could force the creatures to bunch up as they came through the archway. Make it easier for him to use his REED and other skills.
The fight was going to be tough, either way.
A glance at his resources made him wince even further. He would have to try to finish this fight without using his techniques, if that was even possible.
Energy Pool: 4/30 (Yin) + (7/7)
Refined Energy: 0.04 (40) +(0/3)
He would have to be careful, of what he utilized. A tug on his refined energy formed another Energy Dart inside his Pocket Simpanan in his middle dantian, stored away for when he'd need it next. He had eleven minutes of fighting energy, or eleven uses of Focused Strike, or a mixture of both.
Good enough to deal with the... A glance backwards, a quick count, a grimace. Eight jenglot, including an alpha.
Yeah, that should be enough.
Passing through the archway, he received a small notification. Barely worth noting and dismissing, before he turned around and set himself just pass it. Ready for the fight.
And everything had been going so well...
***
Leia crashed into the ground, rolling once and then again before she found herself flat on her back, staring up at the sky. Numerous wounds dotted her body, lifeblood flowing away from a stab deep in her chest at the upper part of her traps, a cut that had pierced her lung and was slowly filling it.
Damn it.
She coughed, saw the descending foot and rolled out of the way. Twisted her body so that her legs swung up and sideways, such that she helicoptered the attacking appendage, sending her opponent crashing down too.
Pain wracked her body and she gave up. Utilized her body technique, Full Throttle. Felt the pain fade away, as adrenaline and other chemicals flooded her body and blocked off the pain receptors. She bounced onto her feet with a simple flip, ignoring the ripping feeling along her lower back where another wound re-opened.
Grabbed the pair of knives she had belted across her front, knowing her spear - a bare two meters away - was useless to her. She had a minute to finish this, before her body came apart and she did damage even her Junior's healing ability couldn't fix.
Fifty nine seconds now.
***
Jan ran. Breath panting, the heat from behind blistering her back, her hair – what was left of it – in complete disarray. Behind her, the forest fire kept growing, flames jumping from tree to tree without stop. Monsters and animals scrambled alongside Jan, even their natural aggression disrupted by the natural fear of being roasted alive.
She understood entirely. One side of her body blistered still, clothing burnt off, her bra barely containing her after half of its strap having melted into her skin. The pain of the polyester blend being burnt into her body, sticking to her and – even now – working itself out as she healed it away would scar her for years, she knew.
“Bodoh. Sangat bodoh!” she cursed herself out as she ran. Bad luck and bad use of her techniques had caused the raging inferno behind her, one that clouded the entire area with smoke and choked her with each breath.
Why did she have to get put into a too dry jungle? What kind of rainforest was it, that was facing a drought? How did that even make sense? She cursed beneath her breath, as she ran at the idiocy of such a thought.
But here she was. Running from a forest that ran along dry vines and across branches, even the mild sap inside trees burning off as the heat from the inferno swept onwards. She could run, but the flames were being fed by a wind and she could see, in the distance, how it had started to rise ahead of her.
Forcing her to cut across the ground, to bushwack and hope that she could outrun the flames before it caught her.
Because that would be a really bodoh way to die.
***
The portal glowed before Eric, taunting him. All he had to do was get into it, crawl through it and he would be out of the Tower. His enemy was down, the final thing to block his exit.
It had been there, for the last day. Hanging in space, waiting for him to exit. In the meantime, Eric was pulling energy into his dantian, cultivating and absorbing as much Tower energy as he could. No more monster cores to acquire, of course, but in the meantime, he could at least empower himself.
Get himself ready for the kinds of battles he expected to see when he exited the Tower. Buy himself time, before his body began to breakdown and they would have to enter another Tower again.
Outside, there would be enemies and complications. A Master who would be angry and proud at the same time, a girlfriend who – he hoped – would exit with him. Exes, of course, that he would need to speak with and try to handle their appeal to him.
And, of course, whatever trouble Arthur had brought with him.
His damn Junior was a trouble magnet, and still the best fighter of them all.