A few minutes passed as the Lolin raiders regrouped on the bottom of the hill and checked on their and their animals' injuries. Most of the animals had wounds on their upper body and head, while their scaled legs and lower body looked fine. Only three Lolin lay dead on the slopes of the hill, and Jack killed one of them.
Shi Furui and Yin Ping went to tend to the wounded while they still had time.
Jack stared down at the leader of the Lolin raiders as he held his cylinder ready in a backhanded grip, Yin Ping had given it back as soon as he could. None of the Lolin tribesmen had the masks that guaranteed peace back in the Tribal Assembly.
Their leader had a thick black beard and shoulder-length hair that was tied with a scrap of leather. All of the Lolin had thick trousers and jackets made out of Lolin leather, while only a few special people had jerkins made out of Lolin scales.
Jack didn't mind wasting as much time as possible while he just observed the enemy's actions. They still had some rocks they could use to delay the Lolin tribesmen if they charged, and he sent the non-wounded people to go gather some more.
Several minutes later, the Lolin leader finally checked on all of his people and started walking up the hill on his own.
When he reached the half-way point he roared out a spirit energy enhanced "Who are you?!" as he glared at Jack with fury raging in his eyes.
Jack looked down at his white coat, then back up at the leader of the Lolin raiders, and shouted out as he cycled spirit energy through the meridians in his lungs and vocal chords "Isn't it obvious?"
The Lolin leader spat to the side and growled "Do not play with me, boy! You are not men of the Wilderness. Do you have ties with the White River family?"
Jack dropped his act as he shook his head and said "We do not. We're just passing adventurers that got caught up in your robbery attempt."
The bearded man's eyes narrowed as he roared "Do not speak of things you know nothing about, boy! The Haechi Tribe has a long list of crimes against the Lolin Tribe for which they have to pay for in blood. We are just trying to even out the score a little."
Jack rolled his eyes at the Lolin leader and said "I'm sure you do. On the other hand, you did not have any grudges against us and yet you attacked without a second thought. Why should I trust anything you say about the Haechi Tribe?"
The Lolin leader looked like he wanted to strangle Jack, but he managed to hold himself back and spoke through gritted teeth "You ambushed us with your petty tricks and you say that we attacked you?!"
He slammed his black wood spear down on the ground and declared "I challenge you to a Chiefs' Duel! The winner will get the loser's property and the right to judge the faiths of his men. Are you man enough to accept?"
Jack's brows rose in surprise as he asked "What are the rules?"
The Lolin leader scoffed and yelled "The duel ends when You die."
Jack ignored the emphasis that the angry man put on the word 'You' and shouted back "Give me a few breaths to talk to my men about this."
When he saw the Lolin leader nod his head, Jack turned to his gathered men and asked in English "Anyone has a better idea than me dueling this guy to the death?"
Shi Furui didn't hesitate as he exclaimed "Fight!"
Jack shook his head as he saw the same idea in the eyes of his friends and said "We can hold them off for a while, but I still can't see anyone from the Haechi Tribe coming. Our numbers might be equal, but they have a better average cultivation base. Once they fight through our stalling we might have a lot of losses."
He scanned all of their faces with his gaze and declared "I would rather risk my own life than risk all of yours if I can."
The group stood silent for a few seconds before Bai Maolong asked "Wat grade?"
Jack glanced back at the confused face of the leader of the Lolin raiders, gave him a ridiculing smirk, and turned back to his men to say "I can't tell, but should be six. I doubt we would still be alive if he was anything higher."
His men visibly relaxed as they knew that Jack had already killed a few grade six people in the past. After a few seconds, they all gave him nods of agreement and wished him luck.
Jack took a deep breath, let it out, and commanded "If I lose, go down fighting. These people will not let you live anyway." The men gave him grim nods and he turned back towards the waiting Lolin leader.
With a switch back to the local language, Jack yelled "I accept your challenge." He looked to the side of the hill where a stretch of flat land stood and pointed at it as he continued "We will fight there. If any of our men try to interfere the duel is off and we end this with a lot more lives lost."
The Lolin leader frowned as he looked at the battlefield that Jack chose while he calculated the time each side's reinforcements would need to get there. After a few seconds, he gave a curt nod and declared "I agree, be there in fifty breaths or live your short life in shame."
With that, the Lolin leader turned around and ran down the hill to his men.
Jack considered it for a few seconds before he took out two knives, three metal balls, and a sheathed sword with its belt out of his Star Bag. He belted the sword around his waist, pushed the knives through the belt, and passed the Star Bag over to Yin Ping. With a casual wave and a confident smile, he turned away from his men and ran down towards the flat piece of land.
He arrived before the Lolin leader so he had some time to adjust his weapons a little better so they wouldn't get in his way and waited.
When the Lolin leader arrived, he stopped around twenty meters away from Jack, slammed the butt of his spear on the ground, and just glared at him.
A few seconds later, Jack asked "When do we begin?"
The Lolin leader didn't say anything and just continued to study any twitch in Jack's body.
Jack considered asking another question, but he discarded it and focused on his opponent fully.
A dozen seconds later, one of the Lolin raiders let out their strange cry and Jack felt spirit energy building up around his bearded opponent.
Almost at the same time, Jack raised his cylinder to his shoulders and launched a metal ball with the Air Blast spell, and the Lolin leader did something to make his skin give off the shimmer of spirit energy.
The metal ball slammed straight into the forehead of the Lolin leader, but it only made his head rock back a little before he steadied it out without any damage showing on his skin. He gave Jack a toothy smile and rushed at him with a primal howl.
Jack cursed and considered his options 'The cylinder won't work, the knives won't help when he has a damned spear… s*it.'
He had no other option but to throw his cylinder to the side and draw the sword out of its sheath.
Half-way to Jack, the Lolin leader saw the sigils etched on Jack's sword and slid to a halt just a few meters out of the reach of his spear. His smiling face turned to a frowning one as he started circling Jack and looked for an opening.
Jack didn't expect that the sword he got from the Slaughtering Sword School disciples that killed his friends would cause such a reaction with the Lolin leader. He figured that this side didn't have many such weapons, but he thought that they must have some since they traded with the White River family so much.
During the time Jack took to heal his injured legs, he tried to imbue the sword in the way that he did all of his other items that used spirit energy, but no matter what he tried he could never make it work. Due to this, and the fact that he had no sword training, he decided to just leave it in his Star Bag until he had the time to study in depth.
When Jack tested the sword, even without its sigils, it still could cut through normal things like wood like he cut through bread. With a little force he even broke a few rocks and didn't see any damage on it, so Jack felt sure that it could break through the spirit energy cover that the Lolin leader put up without issue.
Jack relaxed his legs from almost using Moon Step when the Lolin leader charged, and followed his circling opponent with the best sword stance he knew, a regular two-handed grip in the middle of his body.
After circling for a few seconds, the Lolin raider leader realized that Jack didn't have enough skill to launch an attack with the sword and gave out a cruel smile.
In the next moment, he rushed forward and struck out with a testing jab at his opponent.
Jack saw the exact moment when the Lolin leader decided to move so he executed Moon Step and jumped backwards enough to get out of the metal spear tip's range.
The Lolin leader kept up the chase and tried to use his greater reach to get to his quarry, but Jack realized that the Lolin leader didn't have any movement techniques and only used his basic spirit energy enhanced legs to run after him.
With a hidden smirk, Jack just kept out of reach of the spear and tried to look as flustered as possible while he ran in circles.
A couple of minutes later, the Lolin leader gave a frustrated shout and stopped his chase.
He glared at Jack as he exclaimed "Curse you, coward! If you do not wish to fight I will go and slaughter your men while you watch." With that, he started backing away from Jack towards his men.
Jack could see that the Lolin leader had a few drops of sweat on his forehead from the strain of keeping his technique active, but he didn't know how long it would take for him to waste his entire spirit energy reserve.
He steeled his resolve and gave the Lolin leader a mocking smirk as he said "Who's the coward now? Come and face me like a man."
The Lolin leader stopped as his brows furrowed, a second later he prepared his spear as he saw Jack charging at him.
Five meters away from the Lolin leader, Jack jumped up into the air and screamed "Hooah!" as he rose the sword over his head in a two-handed grip.
The Lolin leader smirked at his incompetence and stabbed out just where he expected Jack's heart would be when he fell down towards him.
When Jack saw the Lolin leader stab out, he quickly moved the readied strands of spirit energy from a few meridians on his left side and formed an Air Blast spell pointed straight back at him.
Just as the spear neared his heart, the Air Blast spell went off and changed the trajectory of Jack's jump.
Even though the Air Blast spell managed to move his body in the air, the Moon Step-powered jump still had too much momentum to completely get canceled out so the spear stabbed just to the left of Jack's heart, sliced through half a rib, and scraped his left lung on its way through his Haechi long coat.
Jack ignored the pain and used the tilting that the Air Blast spell and the spear's stab provided him to slash his sword down onto the body of the spear.
With a clean cut, the spear broke in half and Jack fell several meters away from the shocked Lolin leader.
Jack rolled a few times on the ground before he stumbled back up to his feet in fear of the Lolin leader's follow-up attack.
To his surprise, the Lolin leader still stared at his severed shaft in dismay. Just as he regained his focus and glanced at the distant end of his spear that had the pointy end, Jack already started charging at him with Moon Step.
This time he raised the sword over his head again as he charged and the only thing the Lolin leader could do was to angle his severed spear-shaft in a way that would deflect the slash.
Because he got too focused on Jack's sword, he didn't realize that Jack switched from Moon Step to Chaotic Hawk Assault in the last few steps of his charge.
Jack started moving his sword in a downwards slashing motion, but stopped it half-way and kicked out with his Chaotic Hawk Assault bolstered right leg.
His foot slammed into the Lolin leader's horse stance presented nether region with brutal force.
Even before the Lolin leader could utter a sound of protest, Jack collided with him and tackled him to the ground.
He let his sword fall to the side and pulled out one knife from his belt while he held the Lolin leader's bearded neck bared with his left hand's elbow.
Just as the Lolin leader realized what just happened, Jack already started stabbing his neck with the full strength he could muster.
To his surprise, it looked like the kick disrupted the Lolin leader's concentration so much that it ruined his bolstering technique.
The first few stabs severed the major blood vessels in the neck, but Jack didn't stop until he felt sure that the Lolin leader stopped moving.
Once he did, Jack pushed himself off of the corpse, walked over to his dropped sword, and finished the job of severing the Lolin leader's head with it.
He grabbed the Lolin leader's head by the hair and showed it to his men in the distance.
The horrified Lolin tribesmen watched the bloody apparition that just slaughtered their leader with terrified gazes. Jack's entire upper body, arms, and face were covered in the dead man's blood.
Just as he started seeing hints of anger in their movements, he heard the bleating roar of the Haechi beast and saw the Lolin raiders pale from fear.
In the next few seconds, they mounted their beasts and rode away as fast as they could.
Jack smiled at them and tried to shout a curse at their fleeing backs, but all that came out of his mouth when he opened it, was blood.
His brows furrowed and he realized that he hadn't taken in a proper breath ever since he sliced the spear in two.
With silent panic rising in his mind, Jack turned towards the hill his excited men stood on and started running towards them while blood kept spewing out of his mouth.
After a few steps in their direction, Jack felt weakness in his legs and stumbled. As he slid to a stop on the ground he thought 'Down from a f*cking scratch.'
With a few last bloody coughs, Jack's world turned black.