I took a few steps forward and sent thrust towards him, center mass. Just like where most people would aim if they held a gun. It's the biggest target with the most possibility for success. Besides I'm trying to be a support and being a nuisance to the enemy would probably work out best.
The tip of my sword went for his chest. Once again though he dodged, but this time I almost hit him. The sword just missed his chest with a few inches of distance under his armpit. If I maybe hit just a little faster I could give him a cut.
Or maybe I should try the legs, if I mitigate his movement the fight should be over fairly soon. Acting on that Idea I jabbed towards his calves. My blade accelerated only to stab right between both legs. I pulled back my weapon and stabbed again, this time missing to the right side of his leg.
Instead of pulling back this time I continued to preform a horizontal slash to his calf. It connected and though only a meager wound I celebrated, internally.
I saw a few traces of blood leak from the wound I inflicted. It gave me some more confidence to attack and hopefully take him down.
He had to focus on two people attacking him, if he wasn't careful it would all be over. That being said as long as I stayed just barely in his sight he wouldn't move to a different spot.
I could attack him while making him strain his eye sight between two different directions of attacks, above and below. He attacked Yao Ya who blocked from above, while I attacked from below and he dodged.
My one handed jabs and slashes eventually generated cuts almost in the double digits. Before I could manage to get the tenth hit in he jumped back.
He glanced down at my work and he grimaced at the wounds, before he looked back at us. He switched his gaze to behind us and a solemn expression appeared.
I turned my head a little and glanced over as well to see two people making their way towards us. I saw the blues of their uniform so I knew they were one of us. It was probably the group which had four people gang up to deal with a man.
When I turned back I saw for the first time the man's back as he began to run away into the darkness. He even left his friend behind without even saying anything. The *Clings* and *Clangs* of metal still echoing behind me.
After a few more steps the area around him slowly became brighter and brighter then he held up a light talisman that shined five meters all around him.
I took a single step forward before a hand blocked my way to him.
"We can't catch him, he's too quick and he might just lead us to other enemies before we can leave. He's probably going to find help since he just found us. We'll just have to scrap the slow and steady plan in the dark and increase our speed once we kill that last guy. " She said pointing behind me at the small crowd of people.
"I injured his legs though!" Pointing at his legs
"That may be true, but they didn't manage to hit any vital parts. He still has most if not all of his mobility. Look how far he already is and none of us have any ranged weapons to attack from here."
I looked down behind me and picked up the weapon of one of the fallen enemies. It was basically just a large knife. Running a bit to gain some momentum I threw the weapon toward him.
It sailed through the air making a light whistling sound before reaching the peak of the arc and began falling back down.
It dropped and dropped until the weapon fell...
...on the ground five meters behind him.
"Ah.. ok." I turned around to the two people who just looked at the man running away.
"What are you two doing?"
"Yeah, why aren't either of you chasing after that man?" The person pointed at the back of the man.
I just repeated what Yao Ya told me, "He's too fast and might lead us into a trap if we follow him. Plus he's probably going to find help right now so we'd probably just have to keep fighting. Let's go help them and quickly leave."
We all moved to the small crowd ahead of us, but it seems we weren't needed. As soon as we reached their fight the final enemy fell on the ground. He had quite a few wounds covering him from the torso down.
There were gashes and cuts mostly on his torso and arms. There were a few superficial scars on his cheeks, but that was all for damages to his head.
A second after he fell we regrouped before talking about the new plan to everyone. The people who sat out during the fight came over as well.
"If we're going to go faster are we going to starting running or lighting talismans then?" Liu Jin asked
"For now we'll just increase our speed to a light jog to conserve energy and stay in the dark so it'll be more difficult to find us." Yao Ya replied
"I'll carry the children." I spoke looking at the two children sitting near the wall.
"That's right we have these maps that she drew. We should be round here so that mean we still have around just a little bit over half of the distance remaining." Zhen Wuying pointed out
I began picking up the two children. The little boy sat atop my shoulders, each leg on either side of my neck and his hands rested on my head. I picked up the girl in my arms, an arm under her knees and an arm behind her back.
"Alright I'm ready!" Speaking as soon as I got a good hold on them.
"Pffft"
Some stifled a chuckle or laugh and some just looked at me a little weirdly.
I saw Yao Ya mumble to herself on the side, though I don't know what. "๐๐ฉ๐ฉ ๐ฉ๐ข... ๐ธ๐ฆ'๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฃ๐ฆ ๐ข ๐ง๐ข๐ฎ๐ช๐ญ๐บ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ง๐ถ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ช๐ต๐ฉ ๐ค๐ฉ๐ช๐ญ๐ฅ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ฐ๐ธ๐ฏ.. ๐๐ฉ, ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ ๐ธ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ ๐ ๐ธ๐ข๐ด ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ญ๐ช๐ต๐ต๐ญ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ช๐ณ๐ญ'๐ด ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐ค๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐จ๐ฉ."
"Alright let's set off."
Someone extinguished the light talisman on the ground before we began following the hand drawn map.
Our pace was quick and we were rapidly making progress to the exit. If we were making one percent of progress every couple of minutes before, then we were making it one percent every thirty seconds now.
As we jogged through the halls I realized how little fight there was outside of the main area and it's surroundings. The only signs of battle this far out have only been from our own group running deep into the stronghold.
The halls were clean and tidy, except for the occasional blood splatter here and there. The place was huge though. It seemed more like a place for hundreds or thousands, but the whole area was taken over by only forty people somehow.
Something definitely happened, but although I'm curious I don't particularly want to stray away from the group. I don't think I could hold my own against those people.
In fact if it wasn't for Li Lian helping me I would probably still be in the first stage. Now that I'm in the second one I need to start compensating for my level boost and start training even more. At the very least enough to be able to defend myself from people a couple of levels higher then my self.
This is something usually only geniuses can do in stories, but I know I'm in one so maybe I could use my knowledge to help myself eventually.
Each step I took I could feel the weight of the two children I was carrying. Whenever I looked down the one in my arms she looked back at me. The one up top didn't do too much, not from my perspective anyway, but he did grab my forehead quite a bit.
Suddenly the path ahead of us lit up and a group of dark blue robe wearing men stood in front of us. When we turned around another light was down the hall and also another light approached on our left side. We were at a four way intersection though so we still had a route.
A slightly familiar man stood at the forefront of the group ahead of us. "Hey what are you guys running to? How are you supposed to help anyone like that? So many of you have already have already died by my men's hands.
It seems you even retaliated a bit though and killed some of my own. You are going to pay for that of course though, so don't worry about it." He extended his arms out to the side, looking like he was going for a hug. Just behind him was another familiar man, he was the one who ran away from us.