Her movement had not gone unnoticed. Several beasts noticed her approaching and swerved to intercept, each of them howling and charging with reckless abandon. They all reached forward with their claws and teeth, ready to rip the Wushi apart.
None of them proved to be a challenge to her at all. She easily dispatched each of the monsters with a single strike. None of them were even an obstacle in her path as she kept on moving forward towards the giants, though they were beginning to pile up more and more.
Sweat poured down her body as she did her best to get past the mob, but there were just so many of them that the effort felt nearly worthless. Hell, she hadn’t even gotten a single step closer to those giants as she was forced to stay in place and back up to avoid getting swarmed by the incoming horde. However, that was something that she knew couldn’t last for long, as they kept on coming.
Multiple monsters flew away, some of them howling from the injuries they sustained while others turned into dust mid-flight. She fought until she could create a small bit of space, then forced her will onto the earth. Within seconds, a giant platform formed underneath her, allowing her to fly up into the air.
She took the moment to take a deep breath, before making the floating earth rush towards the giants. Several of the beasts rushed in to try to intervene, but fortunately for the Wushi, none of them could fly or jump high enough. Thus, she was allowed to sail through the sky undeterred.
She breathed in deeply once more, before narrowing her eyes. Once she got within a good distance, she launched herself off of the platform towards one of the giants present in the area. The foothold transformed into a spear, which launched itself at another giant’s head.
She couldn’t help but scream as she went flying through the air at high speeds, her hair going wild in the air and her body maneuvering to make the most use of the momentum to do massive damage. She didn’t know if she could come out of this unscathed, but she had confidence. After all, her physical prowess had definitely gotten much better after coming to the underworld, why wouldn’t this action of hers be allowed?
She found out her answer soon enough.
She slammed both of her feet into the side of the giant’s head, causing it to roar in pain as it collapsed towards the ground. The projectile from earlier slammed into the other giant’s head dead-on, but did not cause any kind of obvious damage. In fact, the spear shattered upon impact, unleashing a torrent of dirt and dust as the monster staggered back from the impact zone.
She bounced off of the beast and found herself falling to the ground. She called upon the world and a pillar burst from the ground, catching her mid-fall. She gasped as she slammed into the raised earth, before staggering up to see what kind of damage she had done.
Surface level. That was all she could say. The giant she had hit personally seemed to have fallen down, but was getting back up. The other one seemed almost fine, merely growling as it slapped away all the dirt that had accumulated on its head.
The Wushi grimaced as she picked herself up. This was going to be a lot more difficult than she had imagined. In fact, now she wasn’t even sure if she could win.
There was one single silver lining out of all of this. The giants were no longer focusing on the walls, which meant she could go ahead and close up the gaps and stop the endless horde from rushing in.
No, the big problem was that all of those monsters now had their attention on her. Sweat poured down her brow as she realized all of them started to stomp towards her slowly and patiently.
She idly noticed that the beasts on the ground moved and swerved to avoid getting stomped on. She realized that this was the one opportunity she was going to get to give a moment of brevity to the defenders at the cost of her own abilities. She could either save the villagers and be exhausted fighting these dangerous foes, or she could reserve her energy to have a fighting chance.
She didn’t know. She didn’t know what to do at all. Thankfully, that choice was taken away from her.
Out of nowhere, black plants began to cover up the holes in the wall, preventing any of the beasts from entering. The monsters that were unfortunate enough to be unable to get out of the way were subjected to getting impaled or smothered by the swarm of vines and plants, all of which seemed to come out of nowhere. Within seconds, the wall was patched up and the horde was now stuck outside, desperately scratching at the new defenses to try to get in, with no luck.
A moment of confusion. Then, clarity.
The Huntress! Her powers that revolved the plant life of this underworld, she was able to pull through! She must have been able to find a breakthrough to be able to achieve such an achievement!
The Wushi couldn’t help but feel so proud at that moment. She took a deep breath, then turned back to the giants. They seemed to have their attention snatched by the plants that now covered up parts of the wall and each of them reared their weapons back, ready to inflict some more damage again.
Oh no. Absolutely not. She was not going to let some mindless brutes ruin her student’s work!
The world moved to her will and the earth surged. Giant pillars slammed into each of the giants, never-ending and continuously flowing in as large waves that threatened to consume their being and swallow them whole.
However, the behemoths weren’t just going to stand and let themselves be drowned. They began thrashing and slamming their weapons into the ground, causing large shakes and tremors to erupt throughout the area.
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Each one of their hits ruined her concentration and loosened her control over the world. She gasped as she fell forward, feeling the contents of her stomach threatening to come back up and out her mouth. Her whole body was beginning to weaken from the exertion from her mystic arts and each impact from those giants weren’t helping.
She needed to change her approach. She had to swap out how she was fighting. With a grimace, she felt the earth once more.
The pillars she made all froze, before turning into spikes. However, she wasn’t able to make them stab into the giants. The demand was too much and she couldn’t endure anymore.
She felt the recoil from such a demanding act. All the contents of her stomach came out right onto the floor. Blood started to pour down her nose and her ears began to ring. Her vision got blurry and she could barely hold her thoughts together.
She moaned as she struggled to keep her mind together, she needed to recoup and–
She had to move. Her instincts screamed at her. If she didn’t move, she’d die.
Without a single bit of thought, she jumped off the platform. A split second afterwards, one of the giant's weapons cleaved right through, splitting the entire pillar in half unceremoniously.
She gaped at the damage done to the pillar, before realizing that she was completely defenseless in the air, especially as the giant was preparing to slash at her again. Despite her body screaming at her and her mind feeling like a mess, she forced her will onto the world once more.
She wasn’t able to be as precise as she usually was, nor could she be as confident as before. No, the best she could do was summon an earthen wall between her and the incoming strike in hopes of mitigating the possible damage done to her.
That was the biggest mistake she made in this entire situation.
The weapon slammed into the wall and cleaved right through it. She barely avoided the blade slicing through her entire body, but the impact had created large amounts of earthen projectiles that were coming her direction.
She raised her arms up to defend, but even she knew that was a desperation move. They all slammed into her and caused her to fly away, her arms and body burning in pain as she could feel her bones creaking. She landed harshly onto the solid ground, gasping as she rolled for a good while, before finally coming to a stop.
She gagged and struggled to get back up. However, her arms and legs were like jelly and the very action of moving felt like wading through a thick pool of mud. She wasn’t making much progress and she couldn’t help but fight every last moment to pick herself up.
She looked up and what she noticed made her heart drop. The four giants had turned towards the wall and were getting ready to attack once more, with the archers on the walls frantically shooting and having no effect at all. The hordes were all getting ready to rush in once more and launch another assault, each of them sporting a look of pure sadistic joy at the thought of slaughtering the villagers inside.
She wasn’t safe either. Right now, she could see five of the beasts surrounding her, each of them drooling and getting ready to strike her down with their teeth and claws. She stared at them laughing cruelly, their roars of joy drilling into her very soul.
This was the second worst situation she’d been in thus far. There didn’t seem to be a way out of this whole dilemma. If anything, this was the end. The finale for her run as a Wushi, the inevitable death that came for someone like her.
At that moment, she should have felt despair. She should have cried and sobbed like most of the other students did when they found themselves at wits’ end. She should have called for the teachers to help her or even try to crawl away in fear and terror.
Except that wasn’t what happened. She didn’t feel sorry, she didn’t feel scared, and she most definitely didn’t feel any despair.
No, what she felt was rage. Pure, unadulterated fury that coursed through her veins and evaporated all of the weakness in her body.
How could she just lay there when people’s lives were at risk? How could she, a Wushi that had trained her whole life for saving people and fighting, fall like this? She could no, no, she will not fall like this.
She couldn’t die. Not while she still had something to do.
And with that thought, her body surged forward and she grabbed the nearest beast’s head. The creature howled and rushed to swipe at her face with its claws.
She didn’t allow such an annoyance to get away with that. She tightened her grip and let all the blood and brain bits flow through, before they all turned to dust. She turned to the other three monsters, who hesitated.
She didn’t. Within seconds, she was covered with dust, but she didn’t let that stop her at all.
She found the second wind she needed to keep on going. And so, with her energy restored and her resolve renewed, she called upon the world once more.
The earth underneath her launched her away towards the giant at high speeds. This time, she had a decent amount of dirt with her as she formed a spike in front of her, aimed at one of the giants.
However, she knew that she had to change things up. The previous projectile proved that the current material wouldn’t do.
So, she improvised. She put in more effort to change and warp the state of the earth. The dirt needed to be compacted, it needed to be heated, it needed to become stronger, harder, durable.
She forced her will and the earth became more and more dense, until finally…
She had the spike transformed into pure rock. And with that, she launched the projectile forward to one of the giants.
This time, she chose not to hit the giant while flying. No, she grabbed onto its loose hair and used that to slow down her speed. It worked, as she was able to swing back and forth for a bit, before finding herself on the shoulders of one of the giants.
Just in time for her projectile to hit the other behemoth. This time, the spike punctured flesh. This time, the giant staggered forward, before falling to its knees and turning into dust.
The other three turned in shock, before they all looked at her. The Wushi snarled as she reared her arm back, this time ready to launch more precise strikes to cause even bigger damage.
The giant tried to react, but it was too slow.
She threw the first strike.