“Shit! ” Caroline saw “up close” on how Jason got wounded, even though she was somewhat accustomed to the sight of different kinds of wounds, she still could not easily get over how bad Jason’s injuries were: “Boss! Do something!”

“I can’t now. If I intervened he would fail instantly and he would have to try again. Let’s be patient.”

Jason, with one knee on the ground, swung his pen-spear horizontally from left to right, but he didn’t seem to have hit anything.

Something else attacked Jason, and two more deep cuts appeared on Jason’s back and shoulder. More of Jason’s blood spilled on the ground, but still they did not bring him down.

In Jason’s mind, he knew fully well that he was in trouble.

Just a few minutes ago, while he was staring into the hole in the cloud with a shiny internal edge, he felt a sudden pull on his whole body, and before he could resist, the scenery around him already shifted in color. And when he checked out the direction of Jianmen and Caroline, he could no longer see the remote water platform.

“Fucking limbo!” Jason twirled his pen-spear a bit and tried to infuse it with his Xuanli, his weapon still felt the same but his Xuanli is not usable here. So after a short sigh, he tried to use his power of mind and will as his source of power.

A strange feeling came over him - it was similar to when he was using his Xuanli, though the power he was trying to use was not. But before he could put any more thought into this feeling and his presence in this limbo, nine faint shadows shining of blue and orange appeared around him.

These shadows had human shapes but had smooth faces like mannequins in clothing stores. They were also not wearing anything and had mannequin-like bodies, the only things that made them stand out were the different weapons in their hands: long swords, dual daggers, spears, maces and staves.

“Shit!” before Jason could even get familiar with his power, the shadows started attacking. He was lucky that not all of them attacked at the same time, instead it seemed only three of them moved first, then the others started launching their attacks three at a time.

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The movements of these shadows were slightly slower than Jason, but they were well coordinated and sharp in their angles of attack. For quite a few times Jason had to expend a lot of his power in order to push back the shadows and maneuver out of harm’s way.

On the eleventh or twelveth wave of attack from three shadows that were wielding dual daggers, dual maces and a longsword, Jason found a chance to backflip away from the shadows’ attacks aiming at his lower body, then he focused his power and unleashed three rapid jabs at these three shadows.

Silver shadows of spear tips landed right on the throat, forehead and chest of each of these three shadows. These shadows were knocked back by the attacks, and exploded into shiny pieces of energy shards in the air.

This move was risky, because this kind of attack took time for Jason to recover. And now he immediately paid the price for his risk taking move - the next wave of attack from another group of three shadows caught him at a bad time, he was able to move away from the attack from the potentially fatal blows, but his left shoulder was punctured by a shadow’s spear, his waist and thighs were cut by the other two shadow’s swords.

Jason swung his pen-spear in front of him to force the three shadows to back off, then he concentrated his power of mind and will onto his arms and legs to prepare for his next attacks.

Two of the three shadows that were just forced to back off flanked to Jason’s both sides, and one of them attacked Jason from the front. Jason conjured up a thin energy shield to protect his upper body, then constructed an energy seal in his left hand.

The two flanking shadows struck him on his back and shoulder, they cut through his energy shield and into his flesh, but still not enough to bring him down or incapacitate him.

Jason raised his pen-spear with his right arm to block the attack from the front, then his left hand slammed on the ground.

Silver energy spikes shot up from the ground around Jason, all the three shadows that were positioned around him got instantly impaled and thrown in the air. And just as the final three shadows started moving to surround him, Jason swung his pen-spear around and launched the energy spikes out in a circle.

One shadow that was holding a long staff was struck in the abdomen and crumbled into energy shards shortly after. The other two shadows were forced to dodge and block the spikes coming their way, thus giving Jason plenty of time to close in on one of them.

An orange glowing head was sent into the air by a powerful swing of Jason’s pen-spear, then the last blue shadow was bashed by the headless orange shadow’s stave on the shoulder, then impaled by Jason’s pen-spear.

Cracks appeared in the space around Jason the moment the final shadow turned into floating energy shards, then he felt another pull on his body and the scenery around him went back to normal.

“Did I pass? I felt like I passed.” Jason asked Jianmen and Caroline, who came to his side the moment he fell face up on the ground, with a wry smile on his face.

“Yes you passed. Flying colors and all. Good job.” Jianmen extended his hand to the air above Jason, a gentle flow of energy stitched up Jason’s wounds and stopped his bleeding, but it did not fully heal him or completely numb his pain: “Let’s head back so you can rest.”

“Cool. I have this sudden craving for rib soup.”