After severely wounded by Kairos' group, the Guardian of the Realm had remained unconscious for a full day. When he woke up, he wanted to chase after his 'preys' but was ordered to stand down. However, because his pride would not allow him rest, he took out a powerful artefact and stabbed it deep into his still bleeding shoulder, creating a new artificial arm to replaced the one he lost. Then donning on a soldier's uniform for disguise, he joined the princess' vanguard to seek revenge for his lost limb.
The blood rain talisman he used on Kairos' group in the royal dungeon previously, is not only an attack, but it doubles as a tracking technique. That no matter how far they run, he would be able to catch their scent. When he joined the imperial troops for the chase, he only had to unleash a little of his aura, and sub-consciously even the princess listened to him. And in this way, they chased their targets successful till they entered this forest.
But things changed soon afterwards. His blood tracer ability seemed to stop working, and no matter how they roam the woods, they couldn't progress any closer to their foes.
Little did they know, that right now, their targets are merely next to them, yet no matter how they tried they wouldn't be able to enter the sanctuary which Enki made.
.....
Within that isolated space, the guys are still observing the alien-looking runes dancing on Kairos' skin. It is apparent now that he holds both the the Origin's physical cultivation technique, and the new runes that caused his skin to become impenetrable by a sword.
Suddenly, as if the strings controlling a puppet had been cut, Kairos fell onto the ground. The old man called Enki nimbly jumped off his back and landed on Vouno's head. Not even 3 seconds has passed since Kairos activated the new technique he learned, and he is already on the floor with fatigue.
"Too weak!" The old man laughed, pointing at the fallen boy.
The others rushed forward and helped him up.
"What's the deal with this old fellow? Did you say his dying?" Vouno pointed at the one still on his head as he helped his son up.
"He looks more than fine to me though" Jones said, and then suddenly took out a sword and slashed at Enki. A powerful person like this is something he would love to fight against at least once, even if he knows it's a foolhardy thing to do.
The old man did not seem to mind as he merely backflip into the air, dodging the fast blade easily, and landed on Vouno's head again.
"Let me try too!" Jim laughed and shot some daggers at Enki.
"Good good, fast hands, fast daggers! Quicker now, quicker!!" He laughed as he dodged everything with impossible speed.
Kairos shook his head as he watched the others continued to 'fight', with all the attacks harmlessly flying into empty spaces.
"Hey Enki, where did you learn those moves man?" Vouno laughed, as he joined in and tried to swat at the old man on his back.
"Enki invented them, aren't Enki great?" *HAHAHAHAHA*
The guy once again sent out his echoing laughter with his immense pressure.
"Must you always laugh like that? Hey, why don't you stop that and tell us which one of us is the best?" Jones shot a bunch of blade shards at Enki, but no matter how hard he tried, they wouldn't hit.
"Because Enki is a bad guy. Bad guys laugh like this. Wanna learn? Repeat after Enki, HAHAHA!"
Next to them, Tommy also started to find himself itching to try, and he pulled Alan and Edward who are just standing at the side. In just a short moment, all 6 of them are trying to attack the old man, not out of hostility but actually betting among themselves.
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"If Enki says my attacks are the best, Kairos must treat me to a full day's meal" Jim called out loudly as he sent out a few flying daggers with his grandfather's homing technique.
"Alright! Let's use that as the bet, 'cus I want a full day's meal too" Vouno laughed.
"Hey... Aren't you his father, should you be on his side?" Edward said, taking a good aim at Enki before releasing a shot with a shortened but extremely swift version of his secret art.
"Good good, Enki also wants a full day's meal, if Enki's attacks are the best," the old man began gathering power.
The guys had their faces pale at the pressure the old man is emitting, until Alan quickly persuaded him not to, "W..wait hold on! Enki, you just have to tell us whose attacks is the best, and we'll get Kairos to treat you, deal?"
"DEAL! DEAL!! Okay, attack me, quicker! You're so slow, these wouldn't even hit a fly. I want fooood."
Even though the situation right now is critical for all of them, and their pursuers only nearby, they have already pushed it out of their minds becoming completely engross in this game.
Whenever the attacks become too overwhelming to dodge, Enki's image would disappear and reappear on Vouno's shoulders, still unharmed. Though their attacks rain down on, but with their skilful control, everything stops before hitting Vouno who is underneath, or otherwise landing far away from him.
Kairos observed from far and then spoke internally, "That flash must be the Lightning flicker body that he shown me. Aisa, just what's the identity of this one, is he an immortal?"
After a while, a cute but disgruntled voice sounded in his mind.
YAWNN... Kairos always wake me for little matters~ this fellow isn't an immortal. He is a deity! HEHE
"WHAT? Are we in danger right now?"
Kairos asked, knowing that even an accidental swipe of the finger of a person from the divine realms could snuff out the existence of all of them, Aisa not included.
No no, he is very weakened now... Aisa sees that his divine core is broken. There's no way to save him now, and this realm is greedily eating his energy. He will soon die
Kairos looked at Enki from a distance, his mind still reeling from what he saw within the god's body. It was merely a mess of blood and gore within, not even a bone remains intact nor a muscle working, yet he seem completely oblivious to what is terribly wrong.
He could not even fathom how this deity could move, or even laugh, while in this condition.
"Aisa, how long does he have?"
A few hours at most?
"T...that fast?! He is still jumping around, even now. He doesn't look like his ready to go anytime soon"
Aisa thinks... Enki was here for a long time, and he would be alright for a long while more if he did not spent all his energies on you~
Kairos became silent instantly. He had known that the old man had sent a great amount of energy into him to guide him on the new techniques, but he did not expect the expenditure to be that heavy.
He think back to the last skill that was taught to him. An odd looking seal had been left by Enki within his Dantian, made of pure power. Though the boy do not know what is that seal, he could feel that there is no hostility from it, and even the dragons within him did not seem bothered by this new addition.
However, the seal surely had taken quite a bit of divine energy out of Enki.
"Aisa, he had taught me martial arts... and a day as my teacher is a life as a parent*. Is there a way to save him somehow?"
While they are conversing mentally, Enki suddenly stopped jumping around full of energy, and a few of the attacks managed to strike him, but none hurt him even a little. Even if his energy had been completely drained, and the insides of his body completely messed up, the old man is still a divine being and these hits are weaker than an ant's bite to him.
He slowly rolled off Vouno's shoulders, causing everyone to rush forward to steady him, then with a groan he spoke, "Enki Hurts... Enki Hurts!"
"Aisa!" Kairos asked urgently in his mind.
... unless..
"Unless....?"
Aisa thinks we can try to put Enki's divine form into the thunder god's ring Kairos~ Do you know what is a divine core?
"Is it something like the Ki core an S ranker will form?"
Yep!! It's an upgraded version. If it shatters after its formation, there is no way that I know of to save him, but time stops within a high-grade time-space ring and we have as much time we need to find a way
"We can keep him in a stasis?! Quickly, how does it work?" he said hastily to Aisa as the deity grew visibly weaker by the moment. Playing around with Kairos' group had only made him waste more of his already weakened divine energy.
It is general knowledge that normally a person cannot enter a time-space ring. The dimensional shift, along with the frozen nature of time and of space in such a thing will stop a living being's body functions, and after just a short while, those functions can no longer be restarted. In other words, it's certain death to go into a time-space compartment.
However, Kairos believed that Enki, being of a higher realm, might be more resilient to that, and he trusted Aisa to have a way. Having only a few hours to save his life, there are very little options left.
*- 日为师，终身为父: teacher for one day, father for ever (idiom)