Reading over the kill notifications, Logan sighed in frustration. The raptors were all Common rarity. That was an entire tier lower than the Armoured Savages that used them as mounts, but they were nearly as strong. Or better yet, the raptors allowed the Savages to demonstrate their strengths and cover their weaknesses.
After nearly twenty minutes of running, Logan figured out that much. With his enhanced mind and growing experience after each encounter, he could see precisely where the strengths and weaknesses of the mounted cavalry lay. The Armoured Savages were strong, had excellent defence that only an intermediate technique could pierce through, and were intelligent enough to leverage these benefits.
After running away from one of the Savages, Logan discovered they were slow. Their armour was thick and heavy, covering most of their body and slightly restricting their movements. Not enough to interfere with their combat ability, but it was noticeable if they had to do full-body movements like running or needed to do something that required flexibility.
Luckily for them, every Armoured Savage had a freaking dinosaur as a mount. This granted them incredible speed, enough height advantage to ignore their lacking flexibility, and the chance to multiply their strengths through team work.
Logan could still feel the depths of their teamwork in his heart. His chest throbbed and his mind ached despite the wound having recovered, making him wonder if the Armoured Savage had a third bloodline ability. Common monsters possessed one, Uncommon had two, and so on. There was no indication that this rule could be broken. Then again, perhaps its ability to injure the metaphysical was a trait inherent to its body rather than a bloodline ability.
After all, the crystal armour and their subsequently forged weapons were all made from the soul crystals that triggered their evolution in the first place. The fact that it could directly injure the soul or spirit made perfect sense. No different than being hard or transparent, the crystal’s ability to interact with the soul was just another trait of the material.
Logan sighed again, his chest aching. He was soon attacked by more solo riders and groups of two, but he quickly dispatched them all with some tricks. It wasn’t until five minutes later that he encountered a group of enemies that posed an issue. This time, there weren’t one or two riders but four altogether.
With little time to ponder, Logan decided to risk his life and trigger the inscription on Obsidian End. He waited for the perfect timing in the seconds it took to transform into a glaive. If he made a mistake and they continued to chase after him or, god forbid, managed to keep him in place, he would definitely fail to escape with his life. With their intelligence, a significant amount of pain followed by a swift death would be inevitable.
That was why he couldn’t fail. Logan spun around and swung Obsidian End, the blade sweeping out with a gust of wind. This wasn’t from the glaive. Logan was much stronger than before, but he couldn’t kick up a gust of wind even if he became ten times more powerful. Instead, it was a manifestation of his robe.
While it had failed to protect him from being stabbed in the heart, it was still a Rare item with a powerful defensive inscription. It was called Wind Wall and did exactly as expected, pushing aside and deflecting attacks with a burst of wind.
Logan used Sweep as he slashed at the two riders at the front. With Obsidian End in glaive mode, it managed to trip two of the raptors while they were running at full speed. They fell straight to the ground, but as they lost their footing and tumbled, they ran straight into the Wind Wall. This inscription was powerful enough to deflect arrows and nullify a blow with a hammer.
As such, it was no surprise what happened next. The raptors slammed into the wall and were thrown up into the air. They sailed down the tunnel along with their riders, all of them blocking the path or directly slamming into the two unaffected riders. The wind was strong, but all it managed to do was slow them down. That was why Logan had purposely tripped the other two, causing them to collapse into a pile of sharp limbs.
The delay worked, allowing him to retreat and make it to the basin. He ran down the slope and immediately grabbed onto the rope. Everyone was already up, their shadows and silhouettes appearing through the hole as they shouted at him to hurry up. The cavalry was getting closer, the beating sound of their paws echoing down the tunnels.
Logan was almost halfway up when he felt the rope suddenly move. He glanced down and found the leader of the Savages. The monster stood on the rope to keep it still while a few dinosaurs joined him. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the leader glanced at one of the smaller Savages. There was obviously some telepathy involved because it immediately hopped off its mount and began to climb up.
Logan stopped gawking and started climbing again. The rope was much more stable now, allowing him to ascend even faster. He felt good about his odds of escaping until he took a moment to look down. The monsters had closed half the distance, ten more Savages climbing up after the first as they slowly gained on him.
He made an estimate on how fast they were moving and realised that he was screwed. The Savages were moving almost twice as fast, reaching the halfway mark while Logan still had another quarter to go. That meant he would get the top and almost immediately be within arm’s reach of the Savages.
Logan made a snap decision and pulled out a kitchen knife from his ring. He held onto the rope for dear life and reached down to start cutting, but as the blade touched the waxed fibres, a rock flew into his hand. It broke his thumb and knocked the knife flying away, Logan wincing in pain.
The broken bone mended itself in seconds, allowing him to glance down at where the rock came from. He found the leader of the Savages watching him, the humanoid clutching another rock in its hand. It raised its arm to throw the next rock, but Logan was already moving. The rock harmlessly bounced off his shoulder despite the situation being nearly hopeless.
Standing still made it much easier to aim at him. The egg also boosted his strength to the seventh stage of Body Tempering, which was the start of the late stages. He was more than powerful enough to climb the entire way up without slowing down or needing a break, but it may not be enough to reach the top before the Savages caught up.
With the egg providing near-infinite stamina, he swiftly reached the top and started climbing up over the ledge. The moment his head poked over the edge, he felt himself relax. Surrounded by trees and grass, he breathed deeply as a warm breeze rushed over his head. It felt like the first time he had ever tasted fresh, clean air.
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That sense of calm was destroyed by a hand wrapping around his ankle. James and Amelia reached down to grab Logan’s collar and arms when he screamed. They pulled with all their strength, and he was also trying his hardest to pull himself up, but it was all to no avail.
Even the flames weren’t burning the Savage, its hand encased in a thick layer of crystal. With no way to free himself, Logan kicked out with his other leg. His heel smashed into the goblin’s nose with a crunch. The Savage grunted in pain and reflexively closed its eyes, but Logan didn’t care and neither did he stop, his foot coming down again.
It weathered all his kicks and barely reacted until it suddenly roared and yanked on his leg. Multiple hands were grasping his upper body, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from falling. Even Logan lost his grip on the lip of the hole.
Before he knew it, the Savage let go as he plummeted to the earth. Everything slowed down as adrenaline filled his body. There was nothing he could do in the air, so he did the first thing that came to mind.
He activated the Wind Wall inscription on his robe.
Logan would never admit it, but all he wanted to do was cushion his fall. The drop was over twenty metres high, and while the egg would likely be able to keep him from dying, it would still take a while for him to recover enough to stand up and run away. By that point, he would be surrounded by at least twenty dinosaurs and their riders, all of them wanting a piece of him for lunch.
Instead, Lady Luck smiled down on Logan. The Wind Wall was much more potent than he expected. While it was solid, that aspect of the inscription only remained for a set amount of time or until it got disrupted. And with him falling onto the surface, Logan compared his landing on the ‘wall’ to something like jumping on a bouncy castle.
The next thing he knew, the Wind Wall fell apart and released a blast of air directly into his back. He didn’t really go up so much as fly horizontally into the rope. Of course, he first slammed into the Savage bastard that had pulled him down in the first place.
It yelped in surprise as Logan wrapped his arms around its neck. And while the monster had ample body armour, it wasn’t enough to protect everything. The flames covering his body were seeping into every gap it could find, searing its skin and boiling the flesh underneath its armour. The grey-skinned goblin went from wide-eyed shock to ear-piercing screeches of pain in a matter of seconds.
The wind also kicked up a breeze in the cavern, knocking a few Savages off the rope. Despite his mild success, the gaps were quickly filled, and another hand was reaching up to grab him. Seeing the same event playing out before his eyes, Logan grabbed onto the rope and activated Wind Wall again, directing it to form beneath his feet.
The eruption threw the Savage down, giving him a moment to finish off the one he was holding onto. It was so severely injured that Logan didn’t even have to do anything. The Savage went limp and fell down, taking out the next highest on the rope with it.
Logan grinned at that but didn’t waste any time. He immediately started climbing back up. A few seconds later, his hands grabbed onto the lip of the hole while a few sets of hands grabbed him. It was difficult to get up even with help, but with no freakishly strong goblin to grab his ankle, he succeeded with only some aching ribs.
Logan rolled across the grass with a sigh. He lay on his back and looked up at the sunny sky, wincing as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. The feeling of sunlight on his skin was also too nice to ignore, allowing him to calm down with just a deep breath.
It felt like he was being embraced by the world.
A sudden bang pulled Logan out of his reverie. He sat up and found an axe buried in the ground where the rope had been. One half was still tied to a boulder, and the other fell and disappeared into the hole. Logan blinked and was surprised to see that Betty had been the one to decisively cut the rope.
The closest Savage had been reaching out to grab onto the lip of the hole when it suddenly fell. Several yells echoed as over fifteen Savages fell down on the rocky floor below. It was a big enough fall to kill a regular human being, but none of the Armoured Savages were injured aside from the one he had kicked in the face and then burned. They were merely groaning in pain and examining their cracked armour.
Logan clicked his tongue in frustration.
“You think they will make it up?” Amelia asked, leaning over the edge of the hole.
“I don’t think the rope is long enough,” James replied, also taking a peek.
“It may not be long enough,” Ron muttered, “but what if they climb on top of each other or build a platform?”
Stephanie nodded, her eyes brightening. “That’s true. They might fill the basin with rocks and boulders and use the rope again to climb up.”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Logan said, turning around and walking over to the closest boulder. It still had the severed rope looped around it. “Help me push this thing further away.”
Logan burned the rope for good measure. It was easier to set it on fire than untie the thing. James had tied it in a big loop and thrown it up, which wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. Even Logan could see the boulder’s shadow when he was standing in the basin. Now that they were done using it though, it was best to push it away and make it harder for their pursuers to follow.
Once everyone was ready, they slowly pushed the boulder away and into a ditch. There was a small clearing around the hole roughly ten metres in circumference. Past that, however, was dense jungle. Birds squawked in the distance, beasts roared occasionally, and the trees rustled as the wind blew past. Despite all of that, there was no echoing.
The biodome was so massive that they could barely see the distant walls. It was easily tens of kilometres across in every direction, creating an incredible sight that was only made better by the ceiling. It was made out of crystal or some kind of transparent rock, and it appeared to be tens of metres thick. Somehow, it was clear enough to allow light to shine through and illuminate the biodome.
As Logan admired the scenery, so did everyone else.
Stephanie even spun around like a ballerina in the knee-high grass. “Ah, the breeze is so nice.”
Logan trembled, his mind racing as he thought of something. For there to be wind, shouldn’t there be some kind of pathway to the surface for the air to move through? After thinking about it, he quickly called Amelia and James over.
Amelia was pursuing a teaching degree, and James wanted to become a doctor. While neither of those qualifications were explicitly related, Logan assumed that a teaching degree covered basic knowledge about a wide range of topics. While James was studying the human body rather than the weather, he almost married someone who was studying a related field.
Mel was studying geology before she died, and she most likely knew quite a bit about how weather impacted the formation of caves and tunnels. While her expertise and personage were sorely missed, Logan hoped that James had been able to pick up a bit of her knowledge.
After some back-and-forth, James concluded that there was most likely a series of tunnels leading up to the surface. Logan was incredibly excited about that. All they had to do was follow the direction of the wind, and they would be able to find their way out of this underground forest.
Suddenly, Logan’s head snapped to the side as Betty walked over to the hole. He had warned them all to stay away for various reasons, the main one being how dangerous it was. But when he opened his mouth to call out to her, a vibration rippled over his skin like the sonic boom of an explosion.
Logan spun around in shock. He found Amelia and James casually discussing something, the both of them completely unaware of what he had just felt. They continued talking about nothing of import until a scream finally drew their attention. They all looked over and found Betty standing beside the hole, her arms waving about as she lost her balance.