Ning Xin’s concentration spiked and time slowed down for her. She could see Hector’s moves in the past but not how his punch worked.
‘Fast!’ Hector was still moving in her heightened alertness. The sheer physical prowess he had was concerning, she wasn’t sensitive enough to the changes in mana so she wasn’t sure how Hector was dealing with such intense mana enhancement. Even if he had maxed Fortifications to resist mana poisoning, it didn’t seem enough to deal with such a chaotic mix of elements. Unless his Physique was more refined than she imagined and he had some skills that helped with expelling the dangers of mana poisoning.
Hector looked as if he was punching at twice the speed that an unclassed human could and this was in her vision where everything slowed. He jumped off the platform Ebony made for him so that his body was parallel to the ground. Two black spheres were conjured in front of him at chest level and he punched into it, withdrawing his fist and punching it again.
In his third punch, she sensed fire mana and in the fifth, she sensed lightning mana. Hector jammed each element into the spheres with each punch but the black spheres was already flattened into a thin disc by his third punch. It also expanded as it thinned out. By his fourth punch, the original black sphere became a round black film that could cover Hector’s whole body.
By his sixth punch, the black screen could cover Arti’s wing span.
She learned to read a person’s body movements and could tell the seventh punch was the last one. Whether or not it was to unleash the congregation of elemental mana or to add another element, she wasn’t sure.
Both of his fists punched out at the same time. She was sure Ebony was thinking that there would not be much power within both punches but he shouldn’t complain if it was more of a spell than a punch.
Three Trolls remained near their entrance but there were another two that remained close to each other. These Trolls didn’t know what was coming and only reacted after the black screen extended as a ray of darkness.
They reacted too late. Otherwise, they should be able to dodge it.
Melt? Disintegrate?
It was close to erasure as the ground was completely torn. She could only take note as the world moved slowly for her. As expected from King ranked Trolls but they didn’t die immediately. The black ray of darkness vanished as quickly as it came, she didn’t even blink but was barely able to chase the ray of darkness with her eyes.
Her spike in concentration was exhausted but she saw what she wanted.
“They got pushed into the sea.” She stated.
Compared to the past destructiveness of the move, the current version was more ‘piercing’ than ‘destructive’ but it only appeared that way because of how tough the Trolls were. The other battles were completely disrupted due to the rings of light.
“I got it. There’s two more, can you distract them?” Koawe volunteered to take care of all five that got knocked back into the sea.
“The earth’s repairing.” She was more than happy to stay away from the water and had no issue taking one of them on. The Troll’s lagging reaction gave her the confidence to win an actual fight but their durability was off the charts considering they were cursed and had their defences reduced.
Ebony didn’t stop her and they took one each. Koawe should have his methods of handling the rest that got pushed into the sea.
Arti swooped in to catch Hector’s sleeping figure. The careless man must really trust Ebony, perhaps she was included. She was never particularly close with Hector but he was also one of the first few friends she made. She had some level of trust for him but not enough to fall asleep right here and trust him to protect her.
Ebony was a bit too paranoid as he stayed within a few girs away from her. She didn’t mind but was he planning to draw the remaining 2 in to fight together?
‘It’s a bit reassuring...’
“Your mana’s not back right, stay closer. I’ll protect you.” She teased.
❅❅❅
“Sure, I’ve got your back.” Ebony took it well. With his current state even controlling a few Glacial Models was a problem, his domain was weaker so he didn’t think he could handle the Troll directly. He could try figuring out what was wrong with Battle Song as well.
Using gravity to assist her was a bit difficult because of her equipment but he could still slow down their enemies with it.
They were shaken to see their allies getting sunk but they recognised the threat coming after them and reacted in time.
However, they were powerless without water and could only use their arms to protect themselves. A small cut on them burned them so badly they cried and panicked. Both of them rushed to the closest escape route to the sea but only the one they came out of remained. The other entrances were in the midst of repair.
Ebony had no chance of breaking through to the sea even with his strongest attack. He had no time to ask or consider if he could take the punch. It actually brought into perspective how much of a physical beast Commander Wil was, the old man’s landing caused shocks that reached the sea and even made sea water splashing up.
He didn’t let his guard down despite how clumsy the Trolls appeared. Their giant opponents quickly figured that their higher levels didn’t mean much when they weren’t underwater.
Ebony quickly expended some mana to freeze the gush of water they blew out to envelope themselves. Xin ignored the ice and slashed through them. These underwater Trolls got hurt pretty badly now that their defences were reduced. Their clumsy movements were getting better over time but Xin only got faster and stronger while they got slower from weight and cold.
Her lightning seemed to work best and she dialled it up. Ice elemental enhancement at a certain strength actually made lightning hurt more but it didn’t increase in effectiveness against him when he cast Frostblaze Augmentation.
Even so, he wasn’t sure if his freezing made any difference to Xin’s lightning. They didn’t conduct enough experiments to tell.
‘Ice’s not working so well, they must have naturally high cold resistance. I’ll sharpen the edge of the internal freezing.’ He noticed that their movements didn’t change much from the freezing but he was already aware that cold resistance didn’t directly translate to ice resistance. He was able to manipulate the ice in their bodies to some extent as they didn’t have a strong general magic resistance. The ice forming within their bodies started to stab at different muscles and jut out at weird angles.
The Trolls realised they weren’t regenerating and they were taking more damage than they expected but neither of their opponents let them back underwater.
“JUMP!” Koawe yelled.
Ebony had been alert the entire time but his reaction speed could never beat Ning Xin. She had already burst out her wings and ascended. Phantom’s Flicker actually didn’t give much vertical height comparatively.
It allowed both Trolls to escape but they didn’t really care about that.
“Get as far away as you can!”
They didn’t hesitate to follow the order. Arti and Hector had already flown away earlier so that was one less worry.
The self-firing bows that had disappeared for a long time reappeared beside them and charged themselves up with intense mana. Some of them rapidly fired while 5 charged up for a power shot. Two of these bows were blasted with a jet of water, they couldn’t resist being blown away.
Ebony snatched Ning Xin out of the air and pushed themselves off with Phantom’s Flicker. Directly ascending and going past Fifth Tide. Only those magic towers were reliable but the soldiers' reaction probably couldn’t keep up. At least all the soldiers were within the city barrier.
“Keep going! A flock of flying fishes.” Ning Xin grabbed onto his collar tightly, she looked back and observed the threat. Ebony wasn’t about to ask if those were considered a flock or a school.
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“They’re catching up!”
“What? Any Troll on board? Are they chasing us?” Ebony was a bit shocked but not much, Koawe’s reaction was enough.
“One, King. Tamer. But those fishes are the fastest fishes on Elcra and they King ranked as well. In the air, they are only about 15 to 20 times slower depending on how mature they are as a King rank. If they reach the Emperor rank and full maturity, their speed in the air is only half that in water. I heard Jetfin were delicious but they are all Emperor ranked when fully matured so I didn’t think I was going to cook them so soon!”
“You’re not going to cook them, we’re about to get cooked!” He got a bit exasperated at the gluttonous girl. ‘15 times slower and they are catching up? Fastest fish indeed…the stat gap is too big.’ Ebony didn’t forget that he was two evolutions and hundreds of levels away from these handicapped fishes.
‘I don’t believe they only sent one Troll, Koawe’s probably surrounded…where should we run? The plains are a no-go, even a level 300 monster could cause some panic. Bubble Hills, we can go underground and sister Jing’s there.’
“Don’t go underground! Those flying fishes are known to use earth magic and build large underwater burrows.” Ning Xin seemed to have read his mind.
Ebony didn’t have time to think of a new destination and went towards Hoarfrost Glades. He wasn’t about to bring a flock of King-ranked fishes to Arcta so he obviously rerouted. He had no idea if the Guardian Beast, Milly could handle an entire flock while protecting a village full of non-fighters. Perhaps she would be unharmed but there was no guarantee the village would be safe. All the strong Frost Elves he knew were already at the battlefront and he had no idea if there were any more powerhouses present.
No matter, his feet pushed him away before his mind could consider the possibilities.
Ning Xin shot flaming blood lances behind them. The situation must be worse than he imagined, it was clear they were really being chased. How unlucky.
“Keep your head close and don’t bite your tongue,” Ebony warned calmly. He descended when he reached the snowy forest. He was in his element, the forest.
The forest was a bit naked around these parts as the trees weren’t leafy and didn’t provide much coverage. Ebony sensed the fluctuation in mana but he didn’t evade preemptively. No attack came yet and monsters were usually better at making on-the-spot decisions through instinct.
They turned illusory as Frigid Refraction hid them. 7 copies of both of them were spawned into existence as they split up with similar transparency. The only problem was that he was obviously the fastest but he also had Waning Presence while the Models wouldn’t the moment they escaped his range of mana and they wouldn’t be able to be controlled once they were out of the range of his Will.
Their only command was to run around and try to attract attention for as long as they could last.
“Xin, stop the retaliation for now.”
Ning Xin told him that there were close to 800 of those flying fishes which was way more than he expected.
“So many high level fishes?” Ebony was still as calm as ever. Glacial Models popped out near him every few seconds and he zigzagged with them.
“That tamer is shouting something.” Ning Xin reported, unafraid of biting her tongue with his stable movements.
They were all moving at such high speeds that sounds weren’t exactly reaching him, not even into his range of senses.
The distance between them was slowly reducing.
“Stop wasting your mana, she’s locked onto us…me.” Ning Xin seemed pretty sure of herself. His Models were quickly destroyed due to their slow speed. They didn’t even slow their pursuers down.
“...The mark. She must be following the shaman’s mark, did you kill anyone notable?” Ebony quickly recalled the forgettable mark that was placed on them after killing a number of Trolls.
“Not that I can recall. Maybe Vigiot’s heir?” At least she recognised that Baldur was stronger than the average Troll.
“...Gash’ah. Gao’larg mentioned. It might be her. Maybe a family member or a relative.” The mention of Baldur reminded him of Gao’larg’s warning.
Pressured by the chase, his speed increased considerably but the distance between their pursuers continued to shorten. They were less than 10 km apart and water jets stormed towards them.
He only just got to denser parts of the forest but the Jetfins didn’t care and ravaged the lands, slicing through the forest with ease. Snow and earth didn’t stand a chance against those high-pressure water jets. The jets of water were only finger-width thick. The distance gave him time to react so none hit him. ‘These can slice me in half…’
“How big are each of these jetfins?”
“Their maturity rate is said to be extremely slow for monsters that can reach their matured levels within weeks just by natural absorption of the world’s essence. They can take a full decade to reach Emperor rank and still have room for growth, unlike other wild monsters who take 2 weeks to a month to reach their natural level range. Their flesh gets more tender after heating, it would melt on the tongue to produce a sweet and savoury taste that…” Ning Xin went on and on.
Each fish was only about the size of a bluefin tuna from his previous world with the one the Troll was riding being almost 50% bigger. She mentioned that the tamer probably only controlled the one being ridden as these Jetfins followed the pack leader’s orders.
“The taste analysis can wait.” The good thing was that they might not be chased by all Jetfins if the leader was taken down but that was hard to accomplish when the leader and Troll were surrounded by hundreds of Jetfins.
“Go faster! I’ll try to cast my core skill on you.” She wasn’t disappointed about getting interrupted in her ingredient knowledge sharing.
He got faster and faster but the jets of water came at an increasing pace and they were getting more accurate as the distance between them shrunk. Fluid Blitz unknowingly kicked up and boosted his physical stats at the expense of stamina. It didn’t fully activate so he got about half its max effectiveness and saved him the stamina. Phantom’s Flicker consumed too much stamina so he couldn’t afford to use too much.
He mentally apologised to the Endurance stat that he pretty much neglected.
His life force wasn’t for others to control and he didn’t really gain anywhere close to a percent of Ning Xin’s actual buff when she did it for herself but he was beginning to be able to keep the distance between their pursuers constant.
The forest got denser and the Jetfins’ aim only got worse. Sadly, those water jets didn’t kick up snow at all.
“I’m going to jump into a snow pit.” He warned. There was a region that was similar to a snow sea before reaching the Icy regions but it was more like a large lake as it didn’t separate the whole of the region within the Glades.
He was going to run out of foliage and had long made his way here where the earth was much deeper. As for why the Jetfins weren’t descending to use earth magic, he was hoping they were just lucky.
He already mapped out the area with Mental Map; he could run under the snow as long as he knew the general direction he wanted to go. It would slow them down quite a bit but he was sure he could go deep enough that they couldn’t be spotted from above. As for the water jets, he could still sense them the moment they disrupted the mana and air vibrations. A thin layer of mana was sent out to the edges of his maximum range to alert him when something entered and it gave him enough time to react.
The only problem was how accurate or sensitive the Troll was to the shamanic mark on them.
‘The icy region is dangerous, there’s no cover there and most of the monsters should be hiding now that winter’s passed…’ Ebony could use the Glade’s monsters to help him but the places that he had been to in the Icy region was very limited and the monsters in the places he had been to were either instantly frozen to death by Gen or weak enough that he could escape from them 200 levels ago. Unless he went to the most dangerous places, he didn’t see how the environment would endanger the Jetfins and Tamer.
He dived into the snow lake without hesitation when it came into sight and drastically slowed down to make sure they weren’t visible. If anything dived in with them, he was confident he had the upper hand blind unless the Jetfins could utilise snow magic or perception.
“It’s quiet.” He commented after 5 whole minutes of silence. There weren’t even any attacks to probe for his location.
“They might have spread out around the entire pit and are waiting for us. We slowed down, they must be above us right now.” Ning Xin guessed, she was completely blinded and clung to him tighter.
Luckily, this snow pit wasn’t just a hole in the ground. There was a slope up so they weren’t trapped with no exit. He wouldn’t have jumped in if he didn’t know that.
“There’s only a stretch of plains once we exit, then we’ll reach the icy region. That’s the biggest region in the glades but I don’t know the area well. We’ll stay and rest here as long as we can, till they lose patience. I’ll be depending on your intuition on when to start moving.” Ebony knew that there was no better time to rest. At the very least, he wanted his mana regeneration to be back.
“I’ll run by myself later.”
“You’re too obvious with all the fire you need to enhance yourself to keep up.”
Ning Xin’s speed wouldn’t lose to him if she had the time to gather her life force and buff herself to the limit but she couldn’t maintain it for that long and neither could Ebony with the current flawed Phantom’s Flicker. She would also be an extremely obvious target that he couldn’t hide with his current skills.
‘Oh, it got refined to negative 300% no wonder I got noticeably faster. The stamina cost is about half the original now so I can use it dozens of times at full output before it’s limited by my stamina regeneration. My feet aren’t in pain either, only sore.’ Ebony didn’t know if he wanted this opportunity to push his improvements.
The fire mage asked for permission to melt some of the snow and he didn’t let her even though the snow pit’s snow was considerably dense. A small cave wouldn’t make the snow collapse on them and nothing would happen even if it did. It might give their location away but they could always move away. Instead, he pushed the snow away with a bit of ice to compact them, giving themselves some space and breathing room.
Of course, he was depending on the stored ice capsules in his lungs and she was depending on her mask. Even for him, it was very uncomfortable to hold his breath but also have enough air. It was unnatural.
Less than 20 minutes passed, which to be honest was way more than he had hoped for before jets of water started slicing the area. He led Ning Xin further away. It was not any harder to dodge despite the randomness of hundreds of jetstreams. It also confirmed that the tamer didn’t have their precise location.
With a few more Flickers, he burst out of the pit and sped towards the icy region.