Chapter 474

It would have been amusing to Arthur, how damn tropey the entire thing was; how predictable the Tower could be. Through the night, they had trudged, fought off ghosts that made their appearance as they drifted close, forcing them to always pay attention. Forced them to drain their energies, ever so slowly.

A secondary bundle of meat had been offered at some point, close to what Arthur would assume was midnight and been gratefully consumed. It refreshed their buff and provided a boost in energy for the pair, refilling their dantian with Tower energy; but it was insufficient to combat the slow drain the pair was experiencing.

Even so, the majority of the creatures coming for them had yet to arrive; and tension and exhaustion continued to climb through the evening, till it could no longer be called evneing and instead, morning.

The hour of the wolf, they called it. That time an hour or two just before dawn, when the watchers were most exhausted, when the hope of a new day had begun to creep in. At this point, both of the cultivators were exhausted, the long hours of being on bodyguarding the bomoh draining them.

The shaman herself did not seem to be affected by their long walk, trudging on and on with barely a break. Only once in a while did she stop, and only then to drink water or move on. Head lowered, cane stomping on the muddy path, she seemed oblivious to the gathering danger beyond the occassional acrebic comment when a ghost got too close.

The first to attack, when the hantu did choose to finally launch themselves at the pair were the wisps. At first, only a few, such that the pair did not realise there was a change in tempo of the attacks. Arthur swept his spear through them, empowering the spear for a brief moment to dash them aside, trickling the barest amount of energy that he could into it.

Even as they exploded in a shower of ghost dust and brilliant light, more arrived.  These Arthur killed with another sweep of his spear, an inkling of what was happening begin to arrive.

More creatures, and more, such that they became a flood. His spear began to blur, the energy required to block the attacks no longer eked out but thrown outwards with all the skill and speed that he could generate, even as he warned his partner.

“They’re coming. Aura, now!”

A too long pause, a deep contemplative pause as she grasped his intention. Then, power flared around her, her aura wrapping about the group, pushed to the limits even as the Yang energy, the flame aura began to burn.

Yin energy ghosts, striking the edges of the aura let out a low keening that set Arthur’s teeth on edge. He groaned, feeling as though his ears were burning, his own skin on fire as the flame aura combatted his own, improved resilience.

At the same time, Bomoh Umi muttered curses, stumbled under the attack. They knew they could not keep the aura at this extent for too long, not and risk killing the woman. However, the aura itself was doing its job as the wisps, weak as they were to the aura struck the edges and plunged inwards, desperate to end her only to burn up.

One after the other, like a private fireworks display. Each death reduced keening noise, but the flow of wisps and semi-corporeal ghost seemed to be never-ending. Glancing over the side, gritting his teeth through the pain and squinting through the glare, he noticed how Jan was sweating.

Energy, poured through the surroundings, driving her to exhaustion as she tapped and tutlized the last of the Tower Energy that she had been conserving for just this moment. It was only a question of which would end first, the flow of ghosts or her energy output.

At the same time, Arthur extended his own aura. It was like trying to see through a tropical thunderstorm, the flare of dying ghosts, the empowered outburst of Yin and Yang energy as they fought one another battering his secondary sense.

He preserved, though it hurt him on a deeper level, in his soul and his nascent energies. He pushed on, waiting. Knowing how these creatures thought. Waiting for that moment.

It arrived, all too soon. Nearly a minute after the start of the outburst of energy; when the aura faded and the heat began to plummet. When Jan sank to her knees in exhaustion, weakened and unable to continue pushing out the aura.

That was when the tiger, waiting for so long for its chance, acted.

The creature pounced, blurring through the air, coming in from Arthur’s side to cross the ground in an attempt to reach the weakened woman, to take Jan out of the equation. It was typical, of course, of predators. They never sought the strongest to kill, but the easiest to end.

It would come for Arthur, eventually, of course; but first it would take her.

Typical of the Tower, pretty much exactly as expected.

And planned.

His spear, angled slightly and pointed near horizontal swept up. He poured energy into the weapon, extended the spear with the Heaven Beating Stick technique. Watched as the glowing extended spear head punched through the ethereal body of the tiger as it leapt, throwing it off course as well as tearing a hole through the body as its momentum carried it forward.

The tiger stumbled, missing its target as Jan rolled out of the way, her movements suddenly more explosive. Exhaustion – not all of it faked, but enough – fading away as she swept her own parangs into the air, slicing apart the remaining few ghosts that darted over.

For all that, the ghost tiger was not done.

Not at all.

It roared, swiping at Jan, batting aside one parang and leaving long claw marks on her arm. She stumbled back, only to be saved by Arthur as he surged forward, throwing himself behind his now normal sized spear into the creature’s body. Punching it through the tiger and driving the semi-corporeal creature away.

Moving the ghost was both harder and easier than it should have been – harder, for a creature that was half-physical; but easier than moving a real tiger. He pushed, and the monster shifted, struggling against the spear that tore it apart, managing to clamp a mouth down on an arm.

The movement tore a scream from Arthur’s mouth, but it did little to save the ghost, not when Arthur tore his spear upwards through the body and then reversed the spear, holding onto it by the end and plunging it through the monster’s neck.

The explosion of light that surrounded him signalled the end of the tiger’s portion of the battle. Though not the end of the fight – for there were still others ghosts arriving. Staggering to his feet, one arm not functioning properly, Arthur pulled forth his Refined Exploding Energy darts and let loose.

No more time to husband his resources, neither he nor Jan could afford it.

Not if they expected to survive this night.