"No, how many chances does a man get to die bravely?! Let's just die here, Loyd!" Nick said, with a sad smile on his face, which was only there to stress Loyd out. Nick had no plans on dying today and was going to live through this one way or another, and he wouldn't let Loyd die either. But why let the man relax, he had relaxed enough in Nick's healing pool earlier.
"I will tell my men to stop if you break one of your hands in repentance for what you did earlier!" Greg's stance changed at this point, and he began offering Nick plea bargains.
"Did I knock your brain limp too, I said I want to see if you guys have what it takes to kill me, and I mean it! Bring it on!" Said Nick.
"You…how about you just kneed down and apologize?" Asked Greg.
"How about you just shut up and just die already?" Nick looked completely nonchalant when he said this.
"Are you sure that you want to die for your foolish pride?! Humph, fine, I will take a step back this time, I don't want my men to lose me and turn into headless chickens, so how about you just make a sincere apology and we let bygones be bygones?" This was Greg's last offer, and if Nick refused this, he would just grit his teeth and die like a man. But Greg was sure that Nick wouldn't be stupid enough to refuse such a great offer just for the sake of one apology.
"Well, to tell you the truth I am a little sorry, I am sorry that I didn't get a few more slaps in before you die by your men's attack!" Nick said mockingly. This was just his character. He could relent once or twice to save himself from trouble, but if you annoy him, then he would rather watch you burn than listen to anything you have to say.
"Okay then, boys, launch the Earth tremor formation!" Said Greg, as he closed his eyes. There was no point in saying any more to a madman who was so intent on dying.
"Yes, sir!" The roars of the hand holding bandits were heard.
And in the next second, the surrounding turned chaotic!
Boom! Phew! Phew! Phew! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
The place turned upside down, first; the ground began caving in, then the air turned stifling as it became harder and harder to breathe, and finally, numerous rocks and dirt gathered together to form a massive hand which covered up half the sky!
"What the…" Loyd didn't get to finish his words as the massive hand slammed down on the ground forcefully! But weirdly, this hand didn't strike the area Nick and Loyd were on, but just the empty ground beneath it.
Bang!
The moment the hand made contact with the ground, violent shock waves erupted which struck Loyd, Nick, and Greg hard, with Greg receiving the brunt of the attack since he was the closest to the hand.
Once the dust settled, Nick and Loyd were still standing, but the lack of color in their faces showed how heavily the attack had affected them. But Greg was worse off, Greg was bleeding through his orifices as he convulsed from time to time, looking like a fish that had just left the water.
But, even under the terrible condition, he was in, Greg still found the time to laugh and say, "Hehe, that was just the first round of the formation's attack, and each round is twice as powerful as the last! And since this formation has ten rounds altogether, don't even dream of living through this! Hahaha!"
Nick frowned, he hadn't summoned Silver since he was certain that he could handle the first attack, but if the formation had nine more like Greg was saying, then summoning Silver was inevitable.
Gruaaaaaa!
The hand lifted up again, in preparation for another attack. Yet it was weird how that area the palm had landed on was still smooth and spotless like the hand hadn't really struck there earlier.
"Take this, bastard!" One of the bandits roared. And following his roar, the hand also came down with twice as much power as before!
Bang! The hand landed again. But this time…
Clap! Rattle! Rattle! Rattle! Nick used the second level of Space shock! He didn't use the third level since it would exhaust most of his energy and he needed to conserve it in these kinds of situations.
Nick didn't know if the skill would be of any use here, but he knew that trying wouldn't hurt. If he failed, at most, he would take the attack head-on and suffer some injuries, it wouldn't kill him, well, not this round of the formation's attack, anyway. Let's not forget that the attack was still in its second round and hadn't reached the deadly tenth just yet!
Starting from Nick's hands, a terrifying space distorting Shockwave spread out and met the waves coming from the hand head-on. And then…nothing? There were no explosion or power surges, the two attacks just vanished silently. This was the actual might of the Space shock technique! It would create tiny space pockets in the air when confronting an attack and it would then suck the energy fueling the attack or sometimes the attack itself into the space pockets it created!
"What?!" Greg was unable to believe it. He had closed his eyes fully expecting another round of pain but it never came, and when he opened his eyes and looked, the giant hand was on the ground, proving that it had indeed launched the attack, but it just didn't reach him?!
"Chief, something went wrong! Our attack just vanished midway!" One of the bandits informed his miserable-looking boss.
"This…" Greg felt confused, and he didn't understand what was going on. No one thought that the reason for the attack not working was Nick, they just didn't think that anyone under the eighth rank of the transcendence realm would be able to cancel out such an attack so quietly.
But Loyd did, and he felt shocked, to say the least. Nick's clap was akin to thunder, and the effect it had just shown was horrifying! The clap actually canceled out the second round of the giant hand's attack?
Gruaaaaaa! The hand rose up again, under the horrified eyes of Greg. He hadn't even savored the happiness of surviving this round yet, but here came another one!
Nick thought about it and felt that it wouldn't be smart to go on like this, that attack from earlier had taken two-tenths of his energy, so he felt that staying on the defensive wouldn't pay off in the long run either. So, Nick did the craziest thing he could think of, he used the third level of the technique which would consume most of his energy! And he hadn't used this level in front of the two immortals either since the Light Prince had interrupted him, so he didn't really know what to expect.
Bang! The massive hand smacked the ground!
Clap! And Nick used the Space shock technique again, but this time, the third and final level!
But unlike last time where the two met in the middle, the Shockwave from Nick's attack had taken the offensive this time as it rushed over, twice its previous speed and swallowed up the waves surging from the massive hand, and the space pockets created this time weren't tiny and sparsely packed like they were before, no, they were large and densely packed!
"What is happening?!"
"Oh, no! The formation, it is about to collapse, feed it more energy!"
"Can't you see we are trying?! The energy we are feeding the hand is being sucked into those little whirlpools!"
The bandits were in a panic, the Space shock technique had outdone itself this time as it corroded the formation from inside out!
"Loyd, now!" Said Nick. This was the perfect time for a little counterattack.
Crack!
And Loyd didn't need to be told twice, as he rushed forward and broke Greg's neck instantly!
"Why the hell are you going after him for?! Can't you see that he was just lying there and wasn't a threat anymore?! The man was half-dead, for crying out loud! Why don't you go after the bandits that are controlling the formation and are a threat to us instead?!" Nick got pissed, it was hard enough for Greg to survive this long, why did Loyd have to go and kill the poor bastard? Since Greg was the Chief of his crew, then it was only right that Nick ended him after saying a few cool-sounding sendoff words, right?
"Oh…sorry brother Nick!" Embarrassed, Loyd rushed off to the hand holding bandits. He had attacked earlier because he wanted to look cool when killing the boss, but now that Nick mentioned it, it was kind of weird how he went straight for a crippled person's throat so readily.
Bang! Loyd landed a fist strike on the head of a bandit, making it explode like a watermelon.
"Why are you so violent?! They might be our enemies, but being so ruthless isn't nice, you know?" Nick commented from the back again, making Loyd want to strangle the damn bastard.
Kacha! Loyd swerved to the right after his last attack and used his elbow to strike the neck of the person standing beside the bandit he had just killed. And the way he did it showed experience and style.
"There are no girls around, so who are you showing off so much for?! Just kill them quickly, will you?!" Nick commented again, annoying Loyd and confusing the bandits. The bandits didn't know if Nick was on their team, on Loyd's team, or just on his own.
"Ahhhh! You do it then!" Loyd had had it with Nick's comments. So, he turned to Nick and snapped at him.
Bang!
Taking this opportunity, one of the bandits raised his foot and stomped at Loyd from the back, flinging him back for meters. This was the best the bandit could do since he couldn't move his arms because of the formation. This was another disadvantage of this overpowered formation. Once they interlock arms and initiate it, it would render their hands absolutely useless for anything else.
"OH…that must have hurt! Focus on your enemies Loyd, why would I step in and make things easier for you? Just learn from your mistakes and improve, take my priceless comments, and use them as guide notes for your future!" Said Nick, with his hands behind his back, looking like an expert teaching his pupil.