Chapter 252 Volume IV - Chapter 97: Running Away from Soldiers
I kept running, invisible, not expecting to run into any more trouble, but it didn't take me long to realize I was wrong.
It had only been three minutes since I had swiftly killed that dwarf, I was nowhere near the meeting point, but something I never wanted to happen happened.
The cracks in the artifact that made me invisible, the charm on my chest, suddenly widened. The amount of mana it absorbed from me almost doubled compared to before because of the widening cracks.
Wasting no time, I quickly broke my invisibility. I could not afford to lose the artifact, even though it would be my greatest aid in making it to the meeting point.
So, even though I was aware that I was now visible to the enemy, I decided not to use the charm until I could somehow repair it. I still didn't put it in my ring, because if I faced a life-threatening problem, I would have to use it, no matter what the consequences.
I had only been deactivating the charm for a minute when suddenly, from behind me, there were lights projected on me. Then enemy soldiers suddenly appeared from the bushes in front of me, trying to stop me.
And they weren't the only ones. There were many attempts like this over the course of time.
Some of them I killed, others I simply wounded and passed by to save time, others I simply ignored and flew over them with wind magic.
Yet with every passing second their numbers seemed to increase. There was no end to the people trying to block my way and the ones following me from behind.
And as if that wasn't enough... I was not wearing my armor because of the operation, so I had no protection other than Sith.
Sharp weapons cut into my flesh, and although Sith blocked almost all of them, I had to shield my limbs to avoid a few bullets.
"Come here!"
I heard a voice approaching me from behind and quickly stopped myself. Clenched my fist, I turned around and swung it in the direction of the voice.
The timing was perfect. My fist landed right in the face of a dwarf soldier who managed to catch me with his armor. His helmet protected him, though, and he held what looked like a small pistol against my head.
My eyes widened in an instant. I formed several layers of Mana Barriers in front of me as fast as I could, and the dwarf pulled the trigger of the pistol.
One after another the barriers broke, but the time they gave me was enough to avoid the bullet.
I threw myself backward, poured mana into my sword, and the moment my foot touched the ground again I rushed at the dwarf without losing a second.
He had to die. He was fast enough to catch me again if I tried to run away.
It should be about a minute before the other soldiers catch up with me, so I have time.
The dwarf smiled, pointed his pistol at me again, and fired several shots. Spending most of my mana, I raised pillars of flame from the ground, dived between them, and used the wind to blaze them at the dwarf.
When the dwarf was engulfed in flames, he strapped his pistol to his waist and clenched his fists. Then his armor flashed with fury.
I was preparing to swing my sword at him when the atmosphere suddenly turned cold. My flames, standing in a large halo formed by the dwarf's armor, suddenly shrank as if water had been poured on them, revealing my location.
As soon as the dwarf realized where I was, he rushed at me, grabbing the sword that was about to land on him with one hand, and with the other he swung a punch at me.
He was fast, so fast that it was almost impossible for me to react. How he was able to catch up with me was suddenly easy to understand with what I saw.
His fist landed on my face. My head turned to the side with such force that I almost broke my neck as a sharp pain shot through my brain.
The world spun, and my vision blurred. I felt blood seeping through my gums, pieces of my teeth breaking off.
'Aiden!'
Sith's voice echoed in my ears, and then a gust of wind swept over me, pushing me backward.
Sith merged with my mana and forcibly activated Spiritual Ascension, creating an almost solid wall between me and the dwarf with the mana he could finally use, preventing him from approaching me, even for a few seconds.
I tried to pull myself together, to stop the world from spinning by channeling mana into the Absolute Mind, and to ignore the sharp pain in my head. I spat out the pieces of my broken teeth along with the blood that mixed with my saliva.
'I will help you. We must be quick.'
At Sith's determined voice, I gritted my teeth, gripped my sword as tightly as I could, and looked up into the smiling face of the dwarf, who finally broke through the wall of wind between us and lunged at me again.
I can't make the same move I used to kill the previous dwarf, I need to focus on it and he's so fast that he won't let me. He also has a rune in his armor that allows him to extinguish the flames I create, so the flame spell is completely useless.
What should I do, then?
I dodged the punch to my face with the help of Sith's crosswinds and had to step back to avoid the other hand grabbing my neck. This time the dwarf tried to kick me with his free foot, but I managed to block him a little with the barriers I had created, and just then a gap opened up.
Even though the flame spell didn't do much, I formed a small ball of flame in the palm of my hand, squeezed it as tightly as I could, and threw it into the air.
The small ball, about the size of a marble, exploded in an instant before the dwarf could extinguish it. The area was momentarily brilliantly illuminated by the light emanating from it and I dived into the bushes.
I focused on the artifact in my arm, quickly forming a clone, but it took at least four seconds for a clone to fully form. The brilliant light had already disappeared, the dwarf had already moved in the direction I had fled and would find me in the process of forming the clone.
I used as much of the mana that the Spiritual Ascension had given me as I could, though I did not aim to attack the dwarf. Instead, I targeted all the dust particles that had ever accumulated on the floor of this wooded area, lifting each one into the air.
All the dust in a huge area was up in an instant, and the dwarf's vision was limited, even though nothing had gotten into his eyes thanks to his helmet. That was enough to make him hesitate. He went into defense mode, thinking I was going to do something.
The formation of the clone was complete, a smile appeared on my face. I deactivated Spiritual Ascension and sent the clone to the dwarf.
A smile also appeared on the dwarf's face as the clone appeared out of nowhere in the dust, and he quickly threw a punch at him.
The clone began to take blow after blow. It was only natural that he would find himself in such a situation when even I was struggling against the dwarf. I ignored him though, all I needed was a few seconds.
I pulled out my rifle from my ring, and the dwarf, unaware that the person he was fighting was a clone, was so focused on him that he didn't notice the little light the rifle emitted as it materialized.
I took aim, squeezed the trigger, and the usual orb began to grow in the center of the rifle.
Just then the clone took another blow to the head, knocking him off balance. The dwarf seized the opportunity and clenched his other fist. His armor shimmered violently for a moment, then his clenched fist drove into the clone's stomach at a speed I could not see.
His fist ripped through the clone's stomach, so strong and fast that it came out of the clone's back. The clone's fake blood stained his whole arm red.
He smiled, thinking he had won, and prepared to pull his hand back, but that smile quickly faded as he realized something.
The clone's skin began to fade rapidly. Almost everything that belonged to him, including his blood, slowly turned gray, and then began to turn to dust.
I hadn't fully loaded the rifle yet, but knowing that I didn't have time, I aimed at the dwarf standing still and pulled the trigger.
The energy bullet burst out of the bushes and hit the dwarf in the chest as he was still trying to understand what had happened. It caused him to take a step back, but he did not fall back.
He screamed, his high-pitched, full voice echoing in my ears. He expressed his pain openly.
It was not a powerful shot, for I had not fully loaded the rifle. The chest of the dwarf's armor was completely destroyed, a nasty burn mark could be seen on his flesh, but that was it. It hadn't killed him, only left a heavy wound.
I had to finish the job properly.
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