When Jason said 'Shit run', Res knew that he should run like the bogeyman was chasing him. With a burst of aether, he catapulted himself into the direction of the surface. *Boom* An enormous shadow landed in the shallow water and spraying dirt and water everywhere. Without looking back, he pushed as if his life depended on it. He realized that it was when a fist missed his neck by a few centimeters. The sudden nearness of a new object, send him sprawling, but Jason pushed him in the right direction again. An instant after the near-contact, Res could hear another boom as the form landed on the makeshift tunnel. Res had only excavated some dirt, not built a sturdy tunnel, and the tunnel fell in on itself. *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*. By now Res didn't question what the form was doing back there. His only concern was not pissing into his pants. He shot out of the hole just before the entire tunnel collapsed and he was basked in morning sunlight. With a glance, he took in the abandoned street where his tunnel had surfaced.
Suddenly, Jason shouted out: "ELITE GUARDS!"
As if summoned by Jason, hundreds of elite palace guards materialized on surrounding roofs. All of them held intricate networks of knots in their hands. Res chided himself for not realizing that an enormous tower of aether stretching into the clouds would put a target on his back. He reinforced his body with all the aether he could grab and, with a nervous intake of breath, drew on his left arm. The force that streamed through him the moment before he blacked out was terrifying. His eyes fluttered open when an enormous wrench passed through his entire body. His body wanted him to throw up, but the immense acceleration kept all his bodily fluids in place. He couldn't tear open his eyes and pieces of his shirt were torn away by the air pressure. A deep part of his mind realized that he was descending.
Through it all, he could hear Jason screaming 'Fuck yeah, baby! Fuck you, sound barrier!'. Finally, his body impacted the grounds, and he felt himself being flung around like a rag doll. Just before he threw up, he crashed into something solid and came to a dead stop.
"Bro, holy fuck. We need to do that again, ok? That was fucking crazy. I felt the adrenaline rush even though I don't have hormones."
Before the power tracker could pick up the hardening his body, he stopped pulling in aether. That turned out to not be the best decision as he immediately threw up. He pulled himself upright again and staggered out of the wreckage of a wooden apartment building. The surrounding buildings had changed and were now made of wood and thatch – Trianon's slums. His body had punched through several of the wooden homes and shacks and he made a note to reimburse the owners. With a wave to the slack-jawed onlookers, Res pulled at a manhole cover and jumped into the sewer. With an unpleasant taste in his mouth, he once again hovered above the sewage and pushed off into a random direction. After he had taken forty random turns, he sat down to take stock of the situation.
"Do I have any serious injuries?"
"Bro, you have a torn eardrum and some new surface wounds, but nothing serious. If I were you, I would refuel myself by using your solid aether reserves to shoot into the ground. They will sense the disturbance, but it will take them a while to pinpoint the location. Before that, you will be long gone."
This time, he managed to re-cultivate within an hour. Jason theorized that the time would improve the longer he practiced. After taking some extra random turns, Res climbed up to the surface once again. Luckily, the entrance lay in an abandoned alley and he could enter the city once again. From torn pieces of cloth and the scent of cheap perfume in the air, he deduced that he must be in the prostitutes' district.
Yet, when he entered a side street, several young ladies were pointing crossbows at him. Out of instinct, he hardened his skin immediately. "What is your affiliation?" Judging by the way their hands trembled, they had never done this before.
"Bro, do prostitutes now need to resort to robbery?"
Res loosened the hardening on his hands and pulled them into the air. *Twang* One of the woman's crossbow fired, and his skin reflected the bolt. The woman looked horrified at what she had done. She turned even more horrified when she saw that Res wasn't lying dead on the ground.
"Look, ladies, can you please explain the situation? I don't want anyone to get hurt."
One of the braver women shouted: "We are from the 'young revolution' and we want better working conditions for us."
One of the elderly women shouted: "And pension like the merchants!"
His mind was working in overdrive, but he continued: "Look, I am the founder of the young revolution. I would like to help. What is going on?"
The brave woman stepped forward and sized him up. "No one is going to believe that, but you can help. Akila has rallied her officers against the core of the revolution here – Jessica and Reinhard. They are fighting bravely but loosing. They fight near the young mermaid."
"Can you point me in a general direction?"
"Eight hundred meters in that direction."
Before the woman turned back, Res had already pushed off. As he zipped over the district, he saw an assortment of bouncers and prostitutes fighting each other. Mixed into the crowd were always the giant bald bare-chested thugs from Akila's guard. Finally, he found the place that the woman had described, but it didn't look like a fight. Instead, a crowd of women and renegades were being slaughtered. At the front of the enemy line stood four of Akila's guardsmen. The one in the middle wore a hilarious-looking cap and an enormous curved sword in a sheath at his side.
"Bro, no one would dress up like that voluntarily, so that must be their general. Take out the weaker officers first. Even the numbers."
The attackers were completely focused on the ground level and didn't see Res swooping in. Res had already singled out an officer who was wreaking havoc with a long lance. Res would always have to fight close combat and a lance would counter his martial arts. An instant before Res's fist connected with his head, the officer turned only to receive Res's hardened to the nose. His fist blasted the skull into pieces and he pushed himself off to attempt another swoop. The death confused both sides, but Res was already positioning himself for another hit. The warning shout from the general came a second too early.
As he swooped in again, his fist only smashed into the entire lower face of an officer wielding a crossbow. Yet, healing that one without further treatment would only result in more damage. The commander wasn't deft though and ordered his two other officers away from the line. He wasn't exactly invisible in the sky, so it didn't take the general long to spot him. Res had been prepared for his discovery and had hardened his flesh in a bearhug position. Arrows clinked off his skin before he crashed into another officer with a scimitar. The officer activated a skill that made him invisible which didn't help him much. With the force of a battering ram, he crashed into the officer and on impact he could hear bones cracking.
When the commander saw another one of his comrades crushed, he roared: "STOP!"
In a radius of five meters around him, time stopped. An arrow aimed at his face had frozen midair and Res was hanging suspended in the air. He had to watch as the commander's fist sailed towards his face. Luckily, he could still draft aether and he reinforced his face.
As the fist connected, James shouted out: "Bro, push in all directions!"
His entire vision turned black and followed Jason's advice. The push catapulted him above the globe of darkness Jason had summoned and created distance. Without hesitation, he dove back down and the globe of darkness disappeared. The Commander had the foresight to look up and see Res sailing at him. Everything depended on Res's speculation that the time-manipulation technique had a cooldown.
The commander's confident grin vanished when Res changed his trajectory. With a shit-eating grin, he rammed into the last officer remaining. The officer activated a shadow teleport ability but Res's right foot had already sunken into the man's chest. Baldie and his men were now pushing back the detachment of Akila's guards with roars of victory. The general took in the scene around him and a morbid grin stretched across his face.
"Sensei, huh? I thought the others overestimated you, but it seems they were right."
He spread his bulky hands wide as if to welcome an attack and Res didn't deny him the pleasure of feeling his fist. Reveling n the energy of the battle, he let himself fall towards the commander. Suddenly, the entire world around him slowed down and the commander's fist was kissing his precious nose. His entire body vibrated as he was flung into the air by a vicious uppercut. His world went spinning and, a moment later, he found himself in a smashed-up whorehouse. When the red from his vision cleared, he saw the commander calmly walking towards him. A southerner curved sword in his right hand.
"You have cost me a lot of money. Do you even know how expensive an alchemist is? Now I even have to draw my blade."
Jason whispered in the back of his mind: "Bro, that is some fucking mental sword. Feels like they trapped the spirit of a mass murderer in there."
Jason's comment didn't help to elevate his anxiety, but he stood up and wiped the blood off with his sleeve. "Why can't we conclude this peacefully? Give the poor women a raise and some necessities. We don't have to fight."
A cynical voice in the back of his mind added that he should have asked before attacking. The commander seemed to take it as a joke. "Good one. That shit about rescuing the prostitutes works on people who have never played the game of power. I have been a player for years and you do it for the exact reason I do." His stance shifted, and he brandished his blade. "Prepare to die."