Before the tall man garbed in soaking wet leather armor reaches me with that menacing hatchet of his, I shift back and forth, loosening my muscles and trying to think of a strategy on the fly. Dakota, beside me, fans out to try and get the 5th Sigiled man from behind, the same type of thing he did against Alexos.

I approve of the move as my mind soars through possibilities.

If I fight this to the end, Dakota and I are both likely to die. I'm already starting to reach my limit on Ether. Too many skills running all at once, and I've already taken a gasp. Not to mention I'm missing an arm. This man is obviously not weak, based on the fact that Darkstep brought him and how he was chasing me.

So, not a fight I can take, then. What about running? It's a possibility, but he's likely to just catch up to me as I run out of steam. This man is a higher Sigil and, therefore, will run out of Ether long after me. I doubt I could run all the way to the Laughing Reeds without getting killed.

The man pushes me out of my thoughts, and I take a few quick side steps to think a bit more and buy myself some time. He presses me harshly, but I play my cards carefully, allowing Dakota to distract the man here or there.

Hiding then? That… might work. I just need to take off my Chainlink Boots because they attract attention. Wait… fuck! That's why the Letiche focused on me despite the fact I did nothing to it. Only when it was getting seriously damaged did it leave me alone.

How will I hide, though? I need to get far enough away to successfully hide Dakota as well. How will I do that? I need to either go faster or slow this man down. I can only really do the latter. Another gamble it is, then. I need to hit him hard enough to stagger him or cripple him so he can't chase. This is the only way I get far enough away to hide successfully.

I could use Dakota for bait to get the hit in, but I'd never do that. I'd rather be the bait and the hook.

I stop backstepping and moving away from the man as I've made my choice. I only have one shot at this, so I put everything I have into it. The remainder of my Ether in my lungs from the water I breathed in is all forced directly into my arm once more. At this point, I might as well name this a different skill as I do it so much. I'll keep it nice and straightforward, Explosion. That's all it is, after all.

Pain lashes up my arm from the strain of the Ether in using Explosion, as it is much more violent than any other skill I have, exploding the Ether in my arm for instant strength and power by the pure volume of the substance in one place.

I approach the Hunter with the hatchet in hand as he growls at me in a fury. I ignore his plans, attacks, or anything else this juggernaut of a man might have and put all of my focus into a single swing.

Crouching and twisting my body with all the strength I can manage, I send my fist straight into the man's right knee with a sharp left. The impact sends a reverberation through me as I see the man's entire kneecap explode from the crash and split out of the bone, showing the insides to the out. My own hand does a similar thing, but it slowly starts to repair from what I glance at.

I immediately try to return as weakness, pain, and everything in between suffuses me from the Ether leaving me. The explosion gives me a bit of backward momentum, but it's not enough. The man catches me with his ax despite his primal roar of pain. A blade sinks into my back from my shoulder as it comes straight down at me while I retreat.

I take a short second to assess the damage, both mine and his, hoping I succeeded without paying too much of a price.

Agony screams from my arm from the second Explosion of the day, and this will definitely be the last, if not forever because I see very minute cracks of gray light shining from the flesh on my left arm. It's almost like I'm ripping the Bloody Palm apart, but it's not doing anything about it for some reason. Despite the nicety of it not reacting, I do wish it would. Its healing would be crucial right now.

Blood streams down from my upper back in large clumps, which will need to be treated very quickly as the wound reaches near my heart. However, the pain from my back is vastly overshadowed by the Ether strain in my left arm. It seems as though maybe I didn't fully heal from the previous uses of Explosion; that or these were more powerful due to my practice. I'm unsure which. The only thing I know is that the man is bleeding just as severely as I am.

Blood pours from his kneecap as he starts to breathe heavily, eyes reddening while staring at me. I also notice Dakota's damage while the man was distracted; he tore out a piece of the man's ankle on the opposite side from where I struck. The fox then immediately darted away and now circles the outside.

After I finish looking at the result, I fall to the ground on all fours as I cough up all the water in my lungs. Dirty and murky water leaves my lungs and exits my body through my mouth as I take my first breath of air in almost a full minute.

I breathe heavily as well as I try to recover from all my vast uses of Ether, as many of them fade. The only thing I leave up is Strugglers Defiance for the increased strength and speed that will likely be vital.

But my heavy breathing is entirely different from this man's. Mine are for recovery, yet his breaths seem to almost be a kind of preparation. His face is slowly turning redder and redder like a lobster. I realize what's happening only the moment before he opens his mouth wide.

The man was charging up a skill.

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His face bulges outward from his body as he roars at me. The sound is so loud that the literal wind emerges from his mouth, shakes all the trees and bushes, and even moves the water at our feet as it slams into me and knocks me on my ass. I'm flung several feet and roll through the murky water at our feet.

My head begins to buzz as I see Dakota flung from the blast as well. What the fuck was that! I've never seen someone charge up Ether before! I try to shake out the definite concussion as I look at the attacker, and he is slowly shambling toward me with the destroyed kneecap. He seems to be affected quite heavily by that damaged knee, as he isn't charging like he used to.

The momentum he had earlier was inhuman and undoubtedly resulted from his Sigil. Based on what I saw earlier, most of his strength must be focused on that roar and his charges. The man is mighty in group fights, but he is a bit lacking in one-on-one. Not that he can't kill me, he certainly can, but that doesn't mean I can't escape either.

As he nears me, I slowly start to recover enough to stand, and I see him rearing up for another roar. This is bad if I get hit again; I'm already having issues focusing from the damage to my body and the bang to the head. So, I pull out a quick trick, one of my earliest. A feint.

Making the face of a man knocking on Death's door for a permanent residence, I hold up Death's Lantern and point it at the man, opening the slide to cover him in its blue light. The man sees my seriousness and uses his good leg to jump to the side, canceling his roar but getting out of the light of the lantern, which is harmless.

The second I see him fall for my feint, I sprint straight for Dakota, who is moaning on the ground from the impact of the roar, and pick him up, water splashing the whole way as I run with wobbly feet. I have to quickly put him on my shoulder as the little guy groans in pain because my arm seems to leak Ether or something else from damage.

"Sorry buddy, but you did good. Let's get out of here!"

Far away, I hear the roar of a Letiche and the detonation of those arrows made of Ether. Their fight is likely nearing an end by the fevered sounds and rapid explosions. I need to go. Now.

I take a quick glance up at the sun and orient myself southwest to get even just a little bit closer to our destination. Then, I run as fast as possible from the man behind me. Blood leaves a trail behind me in the water as he follows with that bum leg as quickly as he can. His speed is only further affected by the bites Dakota left on his other leg because he was too focused on killing the human instead of the fox.

And as he runs a few painful steps, the man realizes the futility of chasing me in that way and just charges up another one of those roars. I can hear him take a deep breath as I shuttle through the waters with mud beneath.

I try to get as far away from him before the roar hits, but this one comes even more powerful, slamming into my back despite the distance. I'm thrown forward and onto the water as I struggle to stand back up again. And as I do, I hear a gunshot as a bullet slams into my right calf, the man returning the favor for his knee.

Pain once more courses through me as I grit my teeth and move into Edmund's preferred style of movement, Bloodhound's Step. I drop to all fours, well… threes, and stop using my leg for anything other than the most simple movements as I continue to push myself forward.

Gunshots ring out a few more times behind me as I struggle to dodge side to side low to the ground in a serpentine motion, but after the sixth, a pause ensues as the man has to reload. And based on his actions, I am now sure of something. These people don't want me dead. They want me alive for some reason. Otherwise, that lady would have shot me in the head with an arrow or him a bullet. Hell, he could have even chucked that ax at me and landed a lethal blow.

Why do they want me alive, though? That's the question that needs answering. I can't think of anything I have that they might want and can't take without first killing me.

I disregard these thoughts as I hear a dying roar from the Letiche, one filled with pain and suffering, as I continue to get away with Dakota on my shoulder. Blood only continues to seep from my shoulder as I quickly get out of sight of the man and try to find somewhere to hide. Damnit! I need to bandage myself so my blood doesn't give me away.

I kneel behind a tree and pull out some bandages from my backpack, a special kind that Heath gave me. They accelerate healing rapidly, allowing cuts to heal in just a few hours, gunshot wounds in a day or so, and deadly injuries in a few days. He gave them to me as a farewell and good luck gift using the very last of the Mandaamin.

Disoriented from blood loss and from only having one arm, I manage to bandage my wounds after a frantic minute behind this tree. I even bind the weird cracks on my arm, hoping they will help. Just as I finish, though, splashes come from nearby.

I slowly peek over from the tree and see the woman with a drawn arrow looking around, searching for me. I remove my eyes from her and try to stabilize my breathing. Dakota looks up at me as he's still concussed, and I put a finger to my lips. The fox barely understands me and stops his groaning. I follow and take off Strugglers Defiance for Stealth.

Complete silence and a level of skill unbecoming of me are required for this. I need to channel Virgil. What would he do in this situation? Well… he'd find a good place to attack from and simply wait until they reach him. Then, he would ambush and kill them in one fell swoop. Sadly, I don't think I'm capable of that.

I need to copy his ability to walk through an entire battlefield without ever being seen a single time. The intangibility and invisibility of the Darkstalker are a thing to behold, that's for sure.

Carefully, I peek again to try and get a bit more information, only allowing a tiny bit of my pupil around the tree to see the woman, a trick I learned from Virgil. It makes you harder to see even if you end up seeing less.

The woman seems to be getting a bit closer to me with the glowing arrow of Ether. Damnit! Can't I get a fucking break! I need to breathe. In and out. Think. What would Virgil do? How would he get out of this?

My eyes scan the environment as I struggle to think of a solution. Splashes only continue to get closer and make my heartbeat speed up even further every time they occur. Only as the woman gets within a hundred feet or so does an idea come to mind.

Instead of looking up and around, I look down toward the water at my feet. I see a dead snake, possibly the one that Dakota killed, at the bottom of the water, almost invisible due to how unlikely one is to look under the water. It reminds me of Virgil walking amongst crowds, hordes, and even a demon without being seen.

That's it! Invisibility in plain sight! Stay where you are least expected. They are expecting me to run and hide. Not just hide.

Quietly without making any noise because of Stealth other than the soft splash of movement, I lay down and submerge myself as deep as I can, pulling Dakota with me. Before I do so, though, I take a deep breath and have Dakota copy me.

Then, we go beneath the shallow waters that only just cover me because of the increased depth from the Letiche's rage.

Quietly we lie underneath the murky water as I keep my eyes open, watching. I hold my breath and try to slow my racing heart so as to not waste oxygen. But it is challenging to do so as the woman walks within twenty feet of me, looking all around with that drawn arrow of hers.

Should she see me, I am dead without any chance at life. I'm lying down underwater and holding my breath. She'd kill me with that arrow before I even surfaced. Despite this fact, I lie entirely still, and Dakota follows me. The fox stares at me with rapt attention as if it is copying the movements of its mother or father.

Together, our air slowly dwindles in our lungs as the man also stumbles along, looking for us. The duo searches all over, up high, behind trees, in bushes, behind rocks, and even underneath a dead crocodile, but they never look simply underneath them.

The man with the broken knee walks so close to us that all I would have to do is reach out with my arm to touch him. I feel my heart move at a thousand miles an hour, burning all the air within my body and making my chest burn in need.

But I don't relent. I hold my breath and stay still even as my body screams for air. I can see little Dakota do the same as his eyes start drifting, the lack of air making him fall unconscious. I start experiencing the same symptoms as black edges start to wrinkle in my murky sight.

But as I continue to hold onto this desperate breath of air, they slowly start to move onward, coming to the conclusion that I must not be over here. Before I can emerge and breathe, though, they must be far enough to hear me. So, I wait even longer. Even as the fuzzy dark eats at the center of my sight, I hold steadfast in my decision.

Only when I can absolutely not hold on even a second longer do I surface and take a gasp of air, pulling Dakota up with me. The fox does the same as we both start coughing and struggling to breathe while still trying to be quiet.

But after a minute or so of this, I look around and see nothing but flooded waters and Dakota. The Hunters are gone.