Jack counted ten new people on the top of the wall. 'Should be the last of those from the back line that decided to charge at us.' Jack thought after no more Slaughtering Sword School disciples arrived to back them up.
The ten dark-blue robed young men looked at the bloody bodies of their fellow disciples in shock. They saw the large explosion of stone fragments from beneath the wall, but they didn't expect it to do so much damage.
One young man squatted next to one of the bodies and called out "A few of them still breathe, but they could bleed out any moment now." He looked up at the oldest looking young man of the group and asked "Should we take them away to get some help, Disciple Brother Wang?"
Disciple Brother Wang looked down at the defeated disciples of the Slaughtering Sword School with disgust in his eyes as he said "No need, they got tricked by some low grade cultivators, they deserve no less."
The rest of the group remained silent as they kept giving the dark ruins cautious glances.
Disciple Brother Wang stepped out to the edge of the wall and looked out over the crumbled guard houses with a sneer as he shouted "You cannot hide from me, little rats." With a single step forward, he dropped down to the ground level and walked to stand in front of the rubble. The rest of the group followed behind him.
He unsheathed his sword and held it up in a ready position. A second later, numerous sigils lit up from the handle up to the tip of the sword. Disciple Brother Wang waited for a second for the spirit energy to build up, and then executed a horizontal slash at the height of around a meter and a half.
The silvery spirit energy flashed out in an arc from where his sword passed, and forward for about hundred meters. All of the obstacles in the way of the slash couldn't stop it from continuing on; it just cut straight through the rocks and wood like a hot knife through butter.
Disciple Brother Wang waited for a few seconds, before preparing his sword once more and slashing it out in a horizontal arc at a meter and twenty centimeters in height. The slashing spirit energy passed through all obstructions once more but still found nothing.
With a frown on his face, Disciple Brother Wang got into position for the last time and executed his slash at a height of just under a meter. Once more he struck nothing.
Disciple Brother Wang took a few deep breaths to steady his spirit energy and looked to the intact buildings in the back of the encampment with suspicion.
Just as he started considering whether he should rush forward and attack them, a Slaughtering Sword School disciple asked "Disciple Brother Wang, maybe they ran away?"
After giving it a second of thought, Disciple Brother Wang shook his head and said "They had no time. I doubt that they could have even made it over to those few houses in the back. I am sure that they are hiding somewhere in this rubble."
No one from the other Slaughtering Sword School disciples argued his conclusion so Disciple Brother Wang looked over his shoulder and ordered "Split up and search for them." He turned back to look at the rubble-strewn encampment and added "We will meet up near those houses."
The Slaughtering Sword School disciples gave each other concerned looks, but they listened and each took a different path through the rubble.
It just so happened that only eight paths lead through the rubble, so Disciple Brother Wang had the young man that checked on the bodies join him and had another duo of friends take a different route together.
Jack lay in the fresh earth, which hundreds of people and some spiritual attacks created during the night, without moving. Even when those terrifying waves of spirit energy passed over his head a couple of minutes ago, he didn't move a muscle.
When he tuned out all of the other noises of the world, he could just hear the light sounds of steps nearing his position. With a look from the corner of his eye, he saw his accomplice imitating him on the other side of the two-meter wide path.
He stuffed all of his worries for his friends to the back of his mind and concentrated his entire being on the incoming steps.
Just as the steps came up to two meters away from Jack's position, a scream rang out through the night from a position a few houses to their left side, and then another one almost at the same time from the right side.
The young man stopped and looked in the directions of the screams in fright. He opened his mouth to shout something but, just at that moment; a horrible pain that insisted on his immediate attention came from his left heel.
Jack used the distractions of the two screams to quickly crawl forward and stab his left-hand knife through the Slaughtering Sword School disciple's left Achilles tendon. His accomplice followed just half a second behind him and stabbed his right-hand knife through the right Achilles tendon.
The young man from the Slaughtering Sword School collapsed in a scream of agony. He tried to raise a hand up to cast a spell, but both Jack and his helper crawled up his body and stabbed him repeatedly on their way up. Jack put an end to his misery with a stab through the eye.
When the rush of a life and death struggle left him; Jack heard multiple screams from all around him and even a couple of crashes from spells.
'S*it, we tried to make the kill zones as close to each other in timing as possible, but you can never know for sure with something like this.' Jack cursed in his head as he jumped to his feet and started to absorb the spirit energy through his skin.
He and his helper started running towards a hidden shortcut they left for quick reinforcements. He didn't dare use the Moon Step in these confined conditions while he had so little experience in it so he just kept accumulating spirit energy and took out his Deep Water Iron cylinder as he ran.
Once he ran out to the next street over, he froze for a split second as he started at the four bodies that lay on the floor and one young man that sat with his back to the wall of a ruined building while he tried to patch up the wound on his heel.
They noticed each other at the same time, the young man started to raise a hand up into the air, but Jack reacted quicker and raised his cylinder to his shoulder. A soft *thump* sounded out as the young man's chest exploded in a bloody mess.
The Slaughtering Sword School disciple looked down at the hole in his chest in shock as his arm lost the power to resume its movements and fell down to his side. After a second he looked back up and saw the dark hole of a metal cylinder pointing at his head.
After another soft *thump*, the young man's blood painted the wall behind his head dark red.
Jack's helper arrived just in time to witness the execution of the Slaughtering Sword School's disciple. A second later, he cried out as he saw the three friends he went through life and death with and ran to fall to his knees next to them.
Jack looked down at the dead bodies of Shen Saishuo and his two assistants and allowed himself a second of grief. When the second passed, he grabbed his helper by the uniform and dragged him up as he growled "To your feet soldier! There are living people we have to take care of now; you will have time to mourn later."
With that, he turned around and ran into a shortcut for the next alley over.
Just as he reached the next alley and only found a dead Slaughtering Sword School disciple, a voice yelled from the other side of the encampment "Slaughtering Sword School, withdraw back to the wall, now!"
Jack recognized the voice as the arrogant one that threatened them before the fight began. He immediately decided to give up on checking out the other paths and started sprinting towards the outer wall while using Moon Step for short bursts of speed.
A few seconds later, when he reached the area where he could see over the rubble, he saw a single Slaughtering Sword School disciple with a sigil etched sword waiting in front of the wall.
When the Slaughtering Sword School disciple saw Jack, he frowned for a moment, and then took a ready position with his sword.
As the sigils on the sword started lighting up, Jack's eyes widened in shock and he pushed spirit energy into his lungs and vocal chords to scream out "Everybody down!"
Jack didn't listen to his own warning, as he sped up the pulses of the Moon Step and jumped up through the air at the moment that the Slaughtering Sword School disciple swung his sword.
The cold ray of slashing spirit energy passed just under Jack's feet and continued through the destroyed houses. In the back of his mind, Jack registered two screams of pain at almost the same instant, but he ignored them as his leap carried him straight towards the sword-wielding young man.
During his short flight, he aimed the Deep Water Iron cylinder down at the young man and fired off a metal ball.
It whizzed past the left ear of the young man and made his arrogant face turn serious.
Jack landed around five meters away from the young man and readied another shot as the young man charged at him.
At a three meter distance, the young man managed to divert the fired metal ball with his sword just as it neared his chest. His face took on a sinister smirk as he closed in on Jack and rose his sword up to slash at his neck.
Jack didn't have time to go for another shot so he judged where the sword was going to strike and barred its path with the Deep Water Iron cylinder.
Even this super tough metal could only halt the swing of the sword for a moment, before a couple of sigils lit up on the sword and cut straight through.
Although the Slaughtering Sword School young man managed to cut through Jack's weapon, he couldn't change the direction that his swing took his body in after the collision.
The sword slashed a diagonal red line across Jack's torso, from his right shoulder to his left hip, a couple of centimeters deep. It stung like hell, but Jack didn't care as a glint of madness shone in his eyes because he decided to throw all caution to the wind and started operating the Chaotic Hawk Assault technique.
Immediately, he started to feel the familiar and unfamiliar sigils brand themselves on his muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones.
The young man from the Slaughtering Sword School was still in his broken slashing down movement, so he couldn't do anything as Jack's left knee rose up and slammed right under his ribs.
Sounds of bones breaking rang out as the young man's body rose up to the tips of his toes from the blow.
Jack could feel his thigh bone and his knee ligaments snap from the impact, but he ignored the pain as he gritted his teeth and launched himself up while breaking the toes of his right leg.
His powerful right knee connected with the chin of the young man from the Slaughtering Sword School.
Jack felt more bones snap in his right leg as he saw the body of the enemy disciple lift up from the ground and fly away two meters.
As soon as he landed his second strike, Jack stopped operating the Chaotic Hawk Assault technique and crashed down to the ground in horrible pain.
It took him a second to fight through the dizziness caused by the pain and the enormous spirit energy exhaustion that the Chaotic Hawk Assault caused.
He looked up towards the fallen young man and saw fluttering eyelids that threatened to open any second now.
Jack almost broke his teeth as he fought through the pain and dragged himself towards the unconscious enemy with his arms.
Just as the Slaughtering Sword School disciple's eyes snapped open with a hint of confusion in them, Jack pressed the sword-sharpened end of his Deep Water Iron cylinder half under the young man's jaw and pushed with all the strength that he had left in him.
The young man's skin resisted for a moment, but in the end, gave way. Jack pushed the sharp half of the cylinder all the way up until it scraped the top of young man's skull.
After a few jerky twitches, the last of the Slaughtering Sword School's disciples that attacked them died.
Jack looked into his empty eyes with a sigh of relief and allowed the exhaustion and pain to take him to the land of dreams as he heard multiple people call out his name in panic.