Artreya could barely hold himself back from cussing all around as he gritted his teeth, trying to crawl back up. This was not practice....this was sheer torture! For the umpteenth time he cursed his brains for having fallen into slush the day he made the contract with that little girl! Ever since then, his predictable and monotonous life had turned into a whirlwind adventure! True...the torments he had to face in the past had disappeared....but then new and more creative means of torture had found their way into his life, making him enjoy the feeling of living in hell when he was still alive!
With great effort he stood up on his shaky legs, turning to face the wall of people opposite. Quite literally a wall....unshakeable and unbreakable. No matter how hard he hit them, it didn't seem to leave even a scratch on their surface. Why did he not know his little master had such scary friends! Moreover the guy lazing around on the jade chair under the shade of the stone pavilion was the worst.
As soon as he came to know that he was her contracted slave, he pushed him right into the middle of this 'practice field', and tossed in a handful of his subordinates to keep him company. It had been three days, and he yet couldn't find a way to break out of this human prison. Worse yet, he could neither rest nor eat till he managed to break out of this place! What the hell kind of practice was this?!
"Tsk. Even after three days of no rest and no food, you seem to be holding up pretty well. Seems my people are not taking care of you well enough!"
"What is wrong with you?! Each of these people are way above my level of cultivation.....how the hell am I supposed to defeat them? You are just enjoying playing with me. Do you have some issues with me? If so we can sit and discuss them, no?!"
"Hmph! As if your enemies are going to ask your level of cultivation first, and then send people accordingly. You don't seem to understand your position as the Servant in a Master-Servant contract. Her life is your responsibility. If you are incapable, then there is no point in keeping you alive. You will only become a burden she will have to bear whenever you both are attacked."
Artreya sighed in defeat. He was having all sorts of doubts about the contract he had made without much thought. But he could neither blame her, nor these 'friends' of hers. He himself had a lot of enemies, and though they were nowhere as powerful as these 'wall-of-men', they could literally swamp them with their number. He couldn't let Rihanna bear the brunt of his misfortune.
'Use the Kaketaya Bone Fastners, followed by the Inverse Reflection Array. You only need them to be unable to control you for a short while. Your aim is not defeating them, but breaking through the barrier around the field. The barrier is an Energy Binding Barrier. Surely you don't me to tell you how to break through it.'
Artreya shivered under the weight of the cold words walking through his mind. Yes....she was always so calm and collected, that even her commands were calm. They never rushed.....they tended to swagger through his brain cells! His lips twitched as a fleeting image of Rihanna swaggering through his mind flashed by.
Closing his eyes to collect himself, he dashed off towards the group of people standing expressionlessly on the edges of the field. The direction in which he had rushed off had three people. The others didn't move, as if predicting that he was going to fake his exit on one side, and then rush off to the other side when they ran to support their men in the prior direction.
That is what Artreya hoped for. Just as the three people before him were getting ready to obstruct his path, he sneaked out a large handful of Ptolemic Desert Sand and threw it into the air. This sand came from the Ancient Graveyard. This sand had been experimented upon by Rihanna during their days in the dimension. It was mixed with the fossilized black bones they had discovered in the basement of the ruined building when they first started staying there. And also an illusionary substance called Bintoxi, which was found in the depths of the Sodomone Mines.
All together, this combination was a black sand, covered in a viscous, slimy solution, which exploded as soon as it touched any form of energy particle. The fossilized bones had the strange power of absorbing not only all types of energy, but also anything with life.
As such, as soon as the sand hit the waves of energy the men threw out to disperse the incoming attack, they started exploding all over the air, completely blocking their vision. The black bone powder in-filtered their attacks through gaps in their energy streams, layering their body with a slimy, sticky, black paste.
Instantly they realized there was something wrong with the paste. They could even feel their energy being sucked away by the paste. But before they could react, the slimy liquid had already been soaked up by their skin, and the black paste turned dry and hard, covering patches of their skin in a hard covering. They had rub real hard to dislodge the hardened powder, and this hard rubbing peeled of their skin along with the powder.
While the three were still trying to remove this strange demonic sand, and the others had yet to realize there was something wrong with the sand, Artreya smoothly released another handful of Yellow powder at them. The fine powder had no smell or taste, and were so fine that once dispersed in the air, they were barely visible. Of course Artreya had had to swallow a black and a blue pill before starting his attacks. It would be truly embarrassing if he fell as a victim to his own attacks. No need to mention that the pills were made by Rihanna, and they tasted like hell inside a pill!
The fine yellow powder was absorbed by the heavily breathing men before they could understand it. And very quickly the effects of the aging bone powder of Trans-mutating Bone Chameleons from the Crater of Virage. When alive, these Chameleons were large. They would swallow their preys alive. Their bones had a property wherein it could attach itself to the bones of the swallowed beast, absorbing all its properties, and slowly meld itself to the shape of the bones of its prey. Thus they could gradually change their own shape and form. Though it wasn't a complete body transformation, and often ended up looking like weird devil-beasts, with a neither her-nor there form, it was still a rather strong bone property.
The powder form could not absorb the bones of the other creature, but it would still enter the body and rapidly cling to the bones of the creature, making the creature lose control over its own body. If an antidote was not taken in time, the powder could slowly melt away the bones. Of course, the creature would then die.
Perhaps these people had never imagined that this weak boy with such a low level of cultivation could dare to be this cruel in his attacks. And this was the loophole both Rihanna and Artreya were trying to make use of. Since Wenzhaobei was giving them the chance to grow, it also meant that they were supposed to take these people as their real enemy. And enemies could not afford to be kind.
The bone powder on the inside, and the black hardened paste on their body had already caused them to lose much of their control over their own body. By now the other people guarding the other parts of the field had realized there was something wrong with this group. They had already reacted, but they were still too far away. Artreya put in all his efforts to fasten his speed as he flicked his fingers in a pattern, and tiny black beads were thrown in the air, falling around the three people in a perfectly synchronized pattern.
Once the last bead fell, he let out a stream of energy, and activated the ancient array. This was an array they had salvaged from one of the least read and most corroded jade slip from the ancient Collections of Ancient Techniques in the Sect Library. As such, few people in this world probably even knew what this pattern was meant for.
The black light which sprang up from the beads, formed crisscross arcs around the three men, with the black energy particles flowing like a continuous stream from bead to bead. When one of them tried to attack the line of energy entrapping them, they immediately sense what was wrong with this weird black barrier. It could absorb all their energy, and then returned it back in the form of the same attack as what they had launched. In other words, every-time they attacked, they were attacked back by their own attack!
Artreya didn't wait to check out the beauty of his own creation. Once he had activated the array, he used up all his remaining breath and energy, and rushed towards the barrier edge behind the group caught inside the Inverse Reflection Array. He had already popped in a few replenishing pills.
Taking out two of the last few remaining Wind Tornado Fabricators, he planted then at the border of the barrier on both sides of his body. When he injected his spiritual power to activate them, a mid-sized tornado erupted, sucking in the energy particles flowing through the layers of the barrier. The amount of space it cleared was rather small, as the array energy rushed in to fill the gap. But it was enough for Artreya to crawl and roll through, and soon he had crossed through the line.
His heaving body lay sprawled on the other side, as he stared at the barrier he had just crossed. He still couldn't believe that he was already on the other side. Tsk! Three days.....three days he spent within that damned confinement and couldn't think of any method.....and a single thought from that little girl....and he was already lying on the other side of that field!
The other men had by now reached the three people. The black energy array was not very strong, and it took no time for them to break through it. However, the powder and black paste were a different deal. The leader of the group removed the outer barrier around the field, then looked at Artreya grimly.
Artreya blinked at him, then turned to look at Rihanna. Seeing this, the leader too understood something, and he turned towards her as well. However, Artreya was astonished and heartbroken to see the change in his expression, from disdain towards himself to the subtle respect towards her! Truly.....what a way to make him feel insignificant and in-consequential!