Kill the pig! Cut his throat!
Kill the pig! Bash him in!
-William Golding
In another part of the maze, Esme had two hair locks stabbed in the warhorse’s side to anchor her in place.
While her other two hair locks, which were her maximum fighting capabilities at this moment, kept stabbing the face of the horse.
Black lumps of dead metal slime kept falling in their wake, and a path of stench led to wherever they would go, which should help Dahlia find her friend later.
The warhorse tried to get Esme off of its back with all its power, so it kept scraping against each side of the wall, but Esme would lift her leg and hang onto the horse from the safe side each time.
She was the natural enemy of this warhorse, there was no saving its hide from her. Once 40% of its size had been reduced, the warhorse split again into a different animal.
This time it was wild-boars. It split into 5 of them, each one weighing 100 kilograms, each one 75 centimeters tall.
They looked non-threatening compared to the beasts the team faced so far, but easier said than done. This fight was too much for Esme by herself. She didn’t know that, though.
First thing she did was to strike the closest wild boar with all her hair hooks. This attack proved fatal for the already too small hive of metal slime. Half of them survived, but they couldn’t keep the shape of a wild boar, or the shape of anything else, for that matter.
The metal slimes divided and started wiggling in place, disoriented, after losing their collectiveness that makes them more dangerous.
Another wild boar charged Esme from her back, and launched her forward. The hit was so painful, especially because she is a frail girl.
She screamed in pain, and because of the tight quarters, the scream echoed back to Dahlia, who ran even faster toward Esme.
Esme thought, I can’t win this fight. I should retreat for now, but not too far away, since they aren’t the tall behemoth that the Minotaur was. I can just lurk on top of the wall and wait for my opportunity. Maybe someone will come to help me out of this dilemma.
She latched onto the wall with her hair hooks and perched on top of the wall. The boars screamed, grunted, and growled at her up there, but they didn’t move faraway from under where she was perched.
After a while, she could hear the running footsteps of someone coming. By how light they sounded, she expected it would be Seph or Dahlia.
Dahlia was her friend, but she hoped those two knuckleheads didn’t send Dahlia over. She wasn’t as strong. If it was up to her, she would have sent Seph for help, since Gabalawi seemed capable of taking one of these beasts on his own.
Two of the remaining wild boars ran toward the oncoming footsteps, and she thought that if Dahlia was the one coming, she would be in trouble, so she had to attack.
Luckily, two wild boars were manageable for her, and she jumped hooks first towards the closest wild boar, which didn’t have any chance to do anything before it disintegrated into the smaller seemingly harmless metal slimes.
The other wild boar tried to charge her, but she did an agile backflip posting on her hair hooks, and landed behind the wild boar, and the rest was history.
After disposing of her two enemies, she ran towards the oncoming footsteps that she heard earlier, only to find Dahlia running towards her away from the wild boars coming after her, she must have used her movement skill to get past them, and was now running away from them.
Once Dahlia saw her friend coming towards her, she conjured up a flower whirlwind on one boar, which halted its progression, and Esme latched all her hooks into the other wild boar, ending its existence immediately.
From all the excitement and adrenaline rushing through her body, Esme didn’t notice, when she practically ran towards the last boar, with all four hair hooks instead of using her legs or hands!
One hook stabbing into the ground after another. The scene was horrifying, but Dahlia was in love. She loved that her crush was stronger, was getting more acclimated to the world of cultivation, maybe even faster than her.
Esme finished the last boar, and the two girls got an alarm sound in their brain and a mental screen, the kind Seph uses all the time, that told them how many metal slimes were remaining in the trial.
Immediately the number started going down 1 by 1, and the women started doing their job as well to finish the remaining metal slimes.
****
image [https://imgur.com/GCoiLPW.jpg]
Gabalawi’s and Seph fights were much easier. Once they caught up to the runaway warhorse, they found it had recovered its head, but the horse was 15% smaller than when they fought it.
Seph launched a palm strike towards the horse’s back leg. In order to stop it from running away, the leg broke, and the rest of it disintegrated into multiple wiggling metal slimes.
This gave the chance for Gabalawi to catch up, and he wrestled the horse to the ground again, and punched its head clean off.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Seph was working on the horse from behind landing his own strikes, and as the horse got up groggily on its feet, Gabalawi landed a few punches as well, they had beaten the horse thoroughly and it had reached the point of having to morph again.
Once the five wild metallic boars split up, Seph and Gabalawi didn’t give them any time. They scoffed at their size and weakness, as each of them had taken on much tougher opponents coming up to this point.
Gabalawi would take one boar and punch it into disintegration, while Seph would take another and land palm strike after palm strike until it was no more.
The fight was over before it even began. It wasn’t even a fight; it was a massacre, a much more powerful opponent bullying a much weaker one.
And once they got the alarm and the count for how many metal slimes were left, they started smashing those as well.
Once the fight was over, they both saw a light come from somewhere, it was static in a certain area, so they thought it must be the portal out, and both of them started walking through the maze, trying to figure out the right way.
Meanwhile, in another part of the maze, Esme held Dahlia close to her side, before using her hair to climb on top of the wall. They saw from their vantage point the right way and started moving towards it.
With this advantage, they arrived first, and found four pedestals with a prize on top of each one.
Esme got attracted to a bottle that seemed to contain oil for her hair. She thought it must be useful for her cultivation.
Dahlia found a flower kimono among the items. Since her current kimono was mundane, and had no magical properties. She thought, 'After this dangerous fight, there is no way the prize is a fashion item,' so she took the kimono.
To Esme’s ultimate surprise, Dahlia took off her old kimono right there in the open. She was wearing only a sexy koshimaki. Despite wearing a sarashi breast binding, her breasts were still huge. She didn’t wear it to bind them and cover them completely or futilely attempt to flatten them, but to constrict their natural movement to allow her easier time during action sequences.
Esme’s cheeks became a deep shade of red, and her head felt like it was steaming. She couldn’t stop looking for two minutes straight.
Dahlia was amused by her effect on Esme, so she feigned stumbling with the kimono, trying to find its front from its back. Once the twenty-year-old took control of her faculties and looked away, Dahlia started putting the kimono on properly.
The men arrived while Dahlia was tying her kimono while her back was to them, so they saw nothing, but they noticed how flustered Esme was and how red her cheeks were. They innerly wondered what happened, but not for long as they saw the prize pedestals.
Gabalawi ran immediately towards a helmet that looked to be the same design as the rest of his titan gear.
That left only one prize for Seph, who couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he lost a wonderful prize that he could have taken.
On top of the pedestal was a very weird, big circular metallic contraption, with many arrows in the middle.
Seeing the words 'north, south, east, west' made him realize that it’s some kind of compass, but it was much more complicated, with one arrow only dedicated to pointing direction, but there were four more arrows on the contraption.
All of them looked to have no particular direction, so they kept on moving wherever.
Seph wondered if maybe the cause behind that is that they are inside a legacy trial.
He used the Eye of the Appraiser on the compass.
Appraising…
Name: Feng Shui compass
Type: Compass
Quality: Super Rare
Want, Need, Desire
Magical Ability: Karmic connection to the owner.
Okay! That doesn’t really tell me much about anything.
Seph was thinking to himself, before he noticed the group had converged around him.
“Great job in the fight, Seph. I am not sure if you have grown stronger, but you are definitely more accustomed to fighting now.” Gabalawi said with a hard face as usual, he really carried himself like he had a stone wall between him and other people, maybe afraid of getting hurt like he was his entire life in the tribe.
“Thanks Gabalawi, you have grown as much, or even more. Having you with us in this fight guaranteed that we lost nobody. I hope we collaborate again in the future outside of these trials.” Seph said while smiling.
“I hope that too!” Esme said loudly suddenly, before she realized everyone was looking at her now, and she became shy again, and hid her face with her hair, peaking shyly from behind it.
“Esme is right, I am sorry I wasn’t much help in this fight, but I’ll work to improve more, and next time you guys will count on me, guaranteed!” Dahlia said with a glint of challenge in her eyes, before she continued, “But I don’t think I can continue with these trials anymore, this fight was too dangerous, I am gonna leave the trials, no need to go after the grand prize, what I got is already plenty enough, and once outside, I’ll work vigorously on cultivating to hone my skills, and figure out how to get new ones.”
“Me too, I don’t want to continue anymore, good luck to you guys, I can’t imagine after your impeccable performance that you would give up, but I have to leave, I would also love it if I don’t lose touch with Dahlia anymore, me and her are friends now.” Esme told them while looking at Dahlia with puppy eyes.
“I don’t want to lose touch with you anymore as well darling, together nobody will beat us outside.” Dahlia said while smiling sweetly to her friend.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Esme, you did great. I can’t imagine facing the Minotaur by myself either, and you took care of one warhorse by yourself.” Seph said encouragingly to Esme before he continued, “And you Dahlia, you were a great help, the way you distracted the Minotaur, and the way you drove away the foul stench with your aromatic winds helped us in the fight. We can’t imagine what would have happened if these foul smells had another effect that would harm us. I wish you both the greatest of luck in the future, but yeah, I am not leaving the trial. I am continuing.”
At this moment Sun screeched approving his master’s decision from his shoulder, he didn’t take part in this fight as it was too dangerous so he spent most of the fight watching from the top of a wall, trying to find the moment where maybe he could join in and fight as well, but there was no such a moment the entire fight.
The four yin cultivators said their goodbyes and continued through the portal.
****
image [https://imgur.com/GCoiLPW.jpg]
“Congratulations on making it this far. This is the last challenge in the trial, and this is the last chance to leave early. If you wish to leave early, decide now.” Seph heard the detached voice of Scorn. He voiced he wanted to continue, but he had to wait for one minute before the voice continued speaking.
“Next are three trials back to back. First is a heart test. Second is a mind test. Third is a soul test. The tests are a mystery even to me, as they are very complicated, and we used high-level specialists to make them. Good luck in the last trial. We only need one person to win. A few of you made it this far. May the best man win.”