While Jacob was still condensing the additional essence into his core, Aurelius was already done with his. Aurelius opened his eyes noting nothing of significance, he moved off into another of the remaining three junctions his body slowly fading away into nothing as he did so. His presence could no longer be felt by Jacob, who was immediately alarmed Jacob quickly ended his essence condensing process. Took a look in the direction of where Aurelius disappeared to see its leads to the another junction.

‘With the capability Aurelius showed he was definitely withholding some or much of his power if he left alone to deal with one side, I should go for the other.’ If the monsters do not surround Jacob he felt his chances of clearing a stone statue junction by himself was rather high, the only problem would be the speed at which the stone statues move. During the previous battle, they were able to keep up with Aurelius movement wise. So, that would put the stone statues at a higher speed than Jacob was capable of which filled him with anxiety.

He picked up Flowing Water and moved to the other junction, with enough luck he would be able to meet Aurelius at the final junction before he finished it. Not wanting to lag behind Aurelius too much, Jacob strengthen his resolve and drew some essence from his core and sent it to his brain to stimulate it enough to come up with a plan.

Jacob approached the stone statues at the second junction with crimson blood marred across some of them, they were as still as the statues in the previous junction however the statues should be able to move around given that they ambushed a bunch of humans at the entrance of the plaza. Jacob kept a constant eye out for anything that stood out amongst the stone statues, however even the numbers were exactly the same as the statues he and Aurelius took down. There were no additions or subtractions to their number, none of the statues look different too. The small goblin stone statues of 12, a sword, an axe, a broadsword and a mace wielding stone statue.

At least Jacob did not have to change his plan, he did not think he would be able to handle additional headache before the stone statues come to life. Jacob began channeling even more essence throughout his body and he forced the maximum amount of essence that he felt Flowing Water could bear, causing the water inside to clash and rage against each other. With his essence rapidly draining Jacob did not dally any longer merely hoping he was right, He jumped into the middle of the four statues gritted his teeth and leveled Flowing Water horizontally edge facing the stone statue.

He pulled Flowing Water counter clockwise as hard as possible even if speed was not as essential as contact Jacob did not want to give even a single stone statue a chance to counter attack, upon contact the first stone statue immediately exploded a trail of dark blue essence began flowing into Jacob, this time it brought along friends in the form of multiples stone shards and pebbles. Cuts and bruises appeared on the right side of his body, his already tattered shirt fell apart as his body received the shards and pebbles. Only left with his pants and underwear, Jacob eyes flashed with even more pain as Flowing Water made contact with the second statue. More explosions followed by more pain, but Jacob continued.

He had to endure the pain as he stood no chance of fighting the stone statues on even ground, much less now that he was bleeding from multiple cuts not to mention the bruises forming. Jacob continued dragging Flowing Water, it moved along mostly due to the initial momentum more then Jacob. However that was enough and Jacob kept a tight grip and kept up the essence feeding into Flowing Water, yet another explosion followed by even more flashes of pain.

Jacob momentarily lost consciousness overwhelmed by the pain and his grip lessened on Flowing Water causing it to fly out of Jacobs’ hand, The final stone statue also finally began to move turning clockwise as it did, allowing Flowing Water that was flying away into the moon lit night to cut into the two arms of the stone statue causing an explosion upon contact and Flowing Water to be thrown off course. The rocks exploded with enough speed to break through the chest of its former owner and then some, this time the statue did not explode as a whole allowing Jacob to sustain less damage as most of the initial explosion was caught by the stone statue itself.

By the time the pain rocked Jacob back to consciousness. He took a quick look, Flowing Water was flying off far and luckily for Jacob into the direction where he came from which means he had running space. Also seeing that none of the stone statues remained he quickly shot after Flowing Water and jumped off the elevated platform that used to hold the stone statues, now only remains of the statue remained on the platform.

Due to the damage he received Jacob was not able to jump far even with essence coursing through his body not to mention he was basically running on empty. He had to get out of here and buy time with distance so that he could recover enough to fight the goblin statues but without Flowing Water He would just be lamb to the slaughter basically offering himself to be killed if he fought without it. He landed on the ground just slightly away from the fountain nearly dropping to his knees as he did due to the blinding pain. But he kept his mind focused on Flowing Water and his only hope to win.

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So he ran as hard as he could to catch up to the still flying sword, four goblin statues blocked his way. With no other choice he channeled the last of his available essence to his legs giving him an essence assisted jump to soar above the already swinging goblin statues. One of the sword caught Jacob causing a nasty gash and a slowed momentum luckily for Jacob he still managed to clear the goblin statues with enough space and time to recover and keep running. At this point, Flowing Water finally pointed downwards and stuck itself into the stone pavements.

No essence coursed through his body only the core remained but it was currently empty of essence and there was no hidden reserve of power to draw from. Jacob however was smiling yet again at the thrilling prospects this time he was inches away from death instead of being Asura incarnate. He was beaten, bruised and if there was a place to bleed his body bled there freely. None of that mattered to Jacob only that he was still alive and capable of winning.

Even if he had to crawl to victory he would, he wanna taste the blood of the fiends. See his friends again, listen to Riley talk about her uncountable love for animals. With those thoughts pushing him he kept running ignoring the obvious and empty clacking of stone on stone to remind him that he still had 12 more stone goblins to destroy. Flowing Water was mere inches away from Jacob, so close yet his injury laden body made every moment that he drew closer to it feel like eternity.

However if one could see Jacob and almost all bleeding had stopped only scabs, bruises and the slowly scabbing gash from the goblin. When he finally got his left hand wrapped around the hilt of Flowing Water he moved his right hand over his left and quickly pulled it out heedless of the pain it caused as it was only just one more among the numerous throbbing pain. The sound of stone on stone got ever closer, however this time Jacob needed to run no longer not that he could even if he tried the goblin statues were just too close.

So his only remaining option was to slice through all four of the stone goblins in one stroke to allow himself more breathing space for the 8 left. Jacob closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as he did to focus only on his hearing. *Crack* *Crack* the sound got closer and closer but it still was not within range. *Crack**Crack* it got closer but still it was not enough. *Crack* Jacob gripped hard onto Flowing Water and spun as hard as he could ignoring his screaming body bringing a still churning Flowing Water to meet 4 new victims. It cleanly slice through all four of them no explosions this time only the sweet confirmation of 4 trails of light blue essence flowing into Jacob.

He quickly arrested as much of his spin as he could and ran back to the previous junction not giving the remaining eight time to surround him or catch up to him any time soon. He constantly checked back to see the still chasing goblin statues so that he could gauge the distance. They were gaining on him with every passing minute, but with every passing minute the core generated more essence as it swirled hence Jacob was not worried except for the unassimilated essence that constantly swirled around the core. By the time, Jacob managed to recover 1/4 of his essence he felt ready to fight. He was also close to the previous junction.

This time before the goblin statues could get too close, Jacob turned around to meet them Flowing Water slowly churning. He did not need to explode anything so he only used the minimum amount of essence to keep Flowing Water flowing and keen. He distributed the remainder evenly throughout his body and with his greater reach, he stepped forward and cut down the first two goblin and lightly stepped back followed along by 2 trails of light blue essence before the rest could gain enough distance to cut him. As he stepped back he swung another time catching one goblin statue as he did yet another trail of essence followed him. After the second swing he pushed himself back even further so there was 0 chance of the goblin statues spreading out to surround him.

Even with 5 remaining Jacob did not want to take any chances, He waited for them to step into his reach. Stepped forward and swung once again this time enough to catch three of them slicing two of them apart however due to the current amount of essence powering Flowing Water the two was easily sliced apart but it got caught on the third one.

Jacob tried to pull back his sword, this time he caught the visage of the goblin statues it held a wicked smile dropped its stone sword and grabbed onto his sword with both of its small stone arms not letting it go. The last two goblin statues shared the same face with the goblin statue holding onto Flowing Water as they spread out from behind in an attempt to flank Jacob, their swords swinging wildly as they approached. Try as Jacob did he was unable to pull Flowing Water out, so he did the only thing he could think of he let go of the sword.

Before the goblin statue with Flowing Water stuck inside it could fall back with the pull, Jacob turned all the essence away from his other limbs along with the remaining essence he could draw from his core into his already extended right leg as it kicked into the hilt of Flowing Water. He willed as much of the essence as he could to power Flowing Water hoping it would be enough for Flowing Water to churn furiously causing the goblin statue it was in contact with to explode. The third goblin slowly fell back as Flowing Water started gaining speed in its churning building itself to a crescendo and it promptly caused the goblin to explode sending the sword careening off to a random direction.

However Flowing Water achieved what Jacob wanted, the explosion of the goblin statue caused the two beside it to take enough damage to crumble them too. Jacob fell back along with his kick and let his body meet the stone hard ground with a thud. Savouring the three trails of light blue essence entering his body and finally felt pressure from the unassimilated essence. However it did not threaten to leave only slightly pushing back against its container. Jacob smile never his face throughout the fight and it still hung on his face. If someone could see Jacob now they would give him a wide berth even without all the blood caked throughout his body.

He took a deep breath and schooled his expression back into neutral. Sat back up to begin condensing the essence into his core, there was no time to dally. Aurelius would have been done long ago and he would have no need to go with such a reckless plan like Jacob did.

On the final junction, a man carrying a beautiful blue sword could be seen running into the area. However, the man could only see a golden haired, red-eyed giant sitting atop the elevated platform lazily swinging his leg a stone sword and mace could be seen on the fountain floor below him, only rubbles remained of the stone statues that used to populate the junction. A soft smile could be seen on the giant as he looked at the man. The man was of course the still bruised Jacob.