Jacob could not spare any thoughts for Brian, he could only hope the warning he gave was enough for Brian to act upon. Two red floaters were coming at him, without Flowing Water he could not deal any meaningful damage to them with his fists.
He had not tried to fight the floaters with his fists, he definitely was not about to do it now. So Jacob kept running towards the rear of the bear, the bear in question was moving in the direction away from Jacob while constantly roaring at something.
Jacob could only look on as every few steps he moved, the bear moved one step further; and as he ran, he put in more essence to power his legs. Shortening the distance the bear gained as he powers through the forest, a black blur. But the red floaters had other plans for Jacob, in addition to the ones floating after him close on his heels. One more floater appeared, this time right in his path to the bear. The floater in his path was not even looking at him instead, it was floating off the ground like a normal floater, but its back was facing the ground as if it was sleeping. All the while, Brian could be heard yelping in the distance as he was avoiding swipe after swipe from 2 red floaters.
Jacob seethed at the obvious disrespect the floater was displaying, He continued his run as the sleeping floater was directly in his path to the still running bear. As he neared the floater, it got up and yawned, stretching its entire body. The floater looked at Jacob lazily as if its beauty sleep was just disturbed. Jacob fumed at the sight but kept his current course, the floater slowly swung a claw at the approaching Jacob.
With nothing to block and not wanting to risk his arm being sliced apart, Jacob did a quick sidestep to easily avoid the slow moving claw. He smirked at the lazy floater as it completed the swing, Jacob immediately felt a searing pain across his back and let out a scream, as he collapsed onto the ground from the pain.
Jacob felt 4 distinct claw marks on his back as he got off the ground slowly, the pain did not lessen as he got up. He quickly looked behind to see the lazy floater moving closer to him, all the while preparing another claw strike.
Jacob pushed off the ground while getting up mid way pushing all the essence his legs would accept, trusting in his sense of balance and gritting through the pain flashing across his back. He had to get away from the floater, and he had to get away yesterday. He ran towards the bear, a manic smile could be seen on his face as he finally got close to the bear.
Jacob reached out for Flowing Water with his left hand, as his hand got inched closer to his means of fighting back against the floaters. The bear stopped its run, and Jacob received a mouthful of fur and something wet on his cheeks luckily, the sword was not directly in front of his face, so he did not receive the hilt.
However, a floater appeared above the bear, slicing at Jacob from above with both its clawed hands. Jacob unable to see the floater that appeared above the bear but did slide under the bear due to the height difference. So while he felt the claws slice through some of his mess of hair, his head itself remained unshaved.
Jacob while under the bear quickly got on his hands and knees, started crawling towards the rear of the bear where, Flowing Water awaited still stuck. He avoided the silver-tipped paws that was stomping around his vicinity while the bear was turning towards the floater that almost turned his head into sliced watermelon.
The bear roared as it charged towards the floater with its head, freeing Jacob from its shade as it did. Jacob immediately got up and turned towards the bear; this time with no interference, he wrapped his hand tightly around the hilt of Flowing Water waiting for the next pounce from the bear.
As the bear pounced once again at the floater that almost gave Jacob a makeover, freeing Flowing Water that was entrenched in its rear. The bear in its rage did not register the sword. Jacob with Flowing Water in hand felt confidence surged into him as he took a breath and looked around for Brian.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It did not take him long before he saw 2 red floaters stalling Brian as they swiped here and there to avoid Brian from having time to formulate a plan; only dodging was on his mind and they definitely liked it that way.
However, they did not know their plan to kill Jacob with the 3 red floater and 1 lazy red floater with magical slashing powers was failing. Jacob once again channeled essence from his core across his body and some to Flowing Water to get it churning.
He sprinted across the forest while the bear was distracting at least 2 floaters, he reached the unsuspecting floaters easily. Brian saw the approaching Jacob but did not utter a sound for fear of alerting the two floaters, he continued dodging the floaters by moving into trees and hoping away as he kept them in front of him.
As he prepared to slice the floaters keeping Brian occupied, weird sounds echoed from behind Jacob and one of the floaters turned around and sliced towards Jacob with eerie accuracy despite not sensing Jacob at all a mere second ago.
But Jacob was prepared for the block and drew more essence and directed more into Flowing Water, this time focusing on the edge lining it with essence. With the essence-infused Flowing Water, Jacob met sword with claw.
To his detriment, both claw and sword bounced off instead of hearing the screech of a floater with its claw cut off. He brought the recoiled sword under control as another claw came at Jacob from the floater, he angled the sword to receive the claw. Watching it slid effortlessly off the sword, Jacob quickly thrust the sword forward while the floater was busy recovering from the deflection.
Flowing Water finally met soft flesh and impaled the floater with no means to defend itself, Jacob brought Flowing Water down, splitting the lower half of the torso yellow liquid poured forth from its body and down onto the ground. The floater crumpled onto the floor as essence left its body, without checking to confirm the dead body. Jacob quickly withdrew Flowing Water and cut across the torso of the unsuspecting floater keeping Brian occupied. Another trail of dark blue essence joined the previous one and entered Jacob. With entrails dropping along with the upper half of the floater right in front of Brian.
With 2 down and 4 more to go, Jacob checked on Brian. Brian gave Jacob a nod indicating that he was fine and said.
“I’m doing fine, these red floaters aren’t much different from the normal ones I dodged them fine. I see the nasty marks across your back what happened?”
“One of the red floaters have some sort of skill or magic bullshit, it clearly missed but the claws still landed on me. We need to finish it off first before it could cause more damage. It moves slowly but once its action is completed, the damage will appear on the target. I’m not sure about its range but I can definitely kill it with Flowing Water before it finishes a swing.”
“Got it, lets finish the two coming at us before we go for the magical one. Heck they are all magical look at them floating and ignoring the laws of gravity.” Brian head indicated the direction where the two floaters were coming from.
They repeated their previous engagement with Brian this time taking a more active role, he was able to dodge between the strikes of a single floater and left it with some punches before he continue dodging. Meanwhile, the red floater Jacob had clearly had more experience then the previous two.
It only thrusted at Jacob while maintaining a certain range, wary of Flowing Water. The extra length in its arms compared to the previous floater did not help too. As Jacob blocked another thrust, he increased the essence lining the edge of his sword and bit into the claw and he turned Flowing Water a full 180 and twisted the claw causing the lanky armed floater to release a ear piercing screech.
Undaunted by the screech, Jacob pulled the twisted claw towards him and jammed Flowing Water into the ground. While he punched his right hand infused with essence into the face of the approaching red floater jumping a little as he did to reach the head of the floater, this time with no length advantage and reeling from the punch in the face. The floater was unable to react to Jacob’s next move as he let go of Flowing Water.
He pulled the still reeling floater to his height and rained a flurry of punches onto its face, as yellow liquid started spurting from the face of the floater. It started losing the power to float, as punch after punch slicked with yellow blood continued towards its face. With one hand caught in immense pain and another unable to block the flurry of punches, it slowly but surely met the ground with its feet.
As the feet touched the ground the red floater slumped onto the ground unable to fight back nor run, its unearthly screech now a mess of gurgles as blood was caught in its mouth. Jacob took out the sword from its ground sheathe, causing another gurgle to sound off as he slid the sword out of the jumbled claw tasting the metallic taste on his lips as the sword was removed.
He moved and stood over the chest of the dying floater and brought the essence-less Flowing Water on to the mess of a face that the floater had. The sword caused further crunches to the skull of the floater, leaving it still alive. Jacob brought Flowing Water up and down repeatedly on multiple spots across the chest, inducing further pain on to the floater. Finally, Jacob brought up Flowing Water one more time and this time putting his full force into Flowing Water pushed the sword for one final time into the skull of the gurgling floater.
The skull caved in completely into its brain, finally granting peace to the suffering floater. Jacob looked to Brian to see he was finishing up the fight, this time with only one opponent and his vast wealth of experience to draw from the singular red floater was no match for Brian and lay on his feet dead. While Brian looked to Jacob with a mix of fear and disgust.
Jacob not noticing or caring about the look, looked towards where the bear was. It was also now dead and laid on the floor. However, the other two floater was nowhere to be seen. It would seem that they had escaped and could escape to be a threat at anytime in the future.