Spells, arrows, knives, spears… all kinds of attacks fly my way as I try my best to not get impaled by one of the attacks of the guy chasing me. I don't know what his rank is, but he has to be of the veteran rank at least.
I try to boost my legs some more to make a run for it, only to find that the guy is still a lot faster than me as he appears in front of me with another swing at my heart. I use my last improvements with qi to hold every spec of it that flows around me into a shield, blocking his attack.
'There was a lot of qi in that barrier right now, but it only held against one attack and it's already showing cracks all over.'
Watching the barrage of spells rain down on both of us, I am forced to explode the cracked barrier, sending a big shockwave in the air and dissipating or sending off course most of the attacks. It shields the man chasing me too, but I am sure he would have a way to fend them off with his skills, and I won't just give my life to see what he has in store.
After the last attack, I now know that the guy is stronger than me too, and not by a small margin. In fact, I think he surpasses me in every single aspect but versatility and maybe decision making.
'I need to find a way to flee into the woods, maybe that way I can lose him.' My thoughts stop as another wave of qi leaves my body, creating new holes in my cycling of qi and dissipating some more of my dwindling amount of qi.
*argh*
The pain takes me by surprise, stunning me in place, something that my foe doesn't miss. By the time I recover he is already at my weapon reach, so I grit my teeth and push through the pain and strain on my mind as I give my all to infuse both my body and sword with some of my last bits of qi coursing through me.
I fake an upwards slash, making a closer swing and ending with an impaling motion to try and create some space, but the guy is nuts and, in a show of unparalleled dexterity, he blocks it midair like it's nothing.
With no other choice but to give my best on this one last ditch effort, I gather mana at breakneck speed and rise the ground below his feet, punching him away and giving myself a head start in what is soon to become the most straining race of my life.
Thankfully, the attack hits him, mostly due to him being caught off guard and surprised by my ability to control the earth.
I do not waste my already scarce time, I run straight to the entrance as I battle for the control of my body.
'My reserves of qi are already empty…'
I look behind, only to find another wave of spells about to reach me.
*crackle* *crackle*
An electrical net materialises behind me as I run, the crackling sounds of it rising in intensity as Bruma feeds it more and more mana before sending it flying in the air with a huge thunderclap.
*BOOM*
I nearly fall face first from the scare as it takes flight with an amazing speed and destroys and catches every spell or weapon coming our way. I would love to thank her, but I can't waste a single second as I make my escape, so I keep running.
I cross over a couple hundred meters before taking a look back, and while I already lost most of the people chasing me, the dangerous one is already hot on my heels. Bruma starts conjuring bolts of lighting and throwing them at him after seeing how dangerous he is, but he dodges nearly every single one and deflects the rest with his sword easily, mana coating his blade.
'You are kidding me.' I dodge to the side as he swings his sword again and another arc of mana comes at me at high speed, similar to the one he struck me with at first. The arc of mana rushes past me, nearly scraping against my armor and neck before flying forward, hitting the wall in the distance and creating an explosion after the collision. Soon after, a big chunk of rock from the wall falls to the ground.
'For fucks sake! He was restraining himself before, if he were to put that much strength from the start I would be already dead!'
My skin nearly sizzles from the strain as my reserves of qi drop below a third, with no signs of stopping leaking.
'Even if I killed him right now somehow, I will die after losing all my qi, it's my life force in the end.'
'He won't even have to wait for all my qi to run out, at this rate I will lose consciousness before it gets to that, by that point he won't even have to hit me at all, just wait for me to slowly die after having all my life force ejected from me.' That's when I hear it.
"You seem to have trouble." All the shadows in the area reverberate with its voice as the unknown entity that I have met before contacts me directly to my head.
"Is this part of your plan? Why go to such lengths?" I scream at the top of my lungs, running out of breath and patience. If the entity has shown right now, it means that it still needs me alive.
"You are right. I need you alive, for the most part…"
"Then do something about it." I say as I dodge yet another slash coming for my legs as I start to climb up the broken section of the wall to leave the city. I don't like the tone of the things or his last sentence that may imply more than it should, but I am dead either way, whatever gives me more time will work.
"No… you don't understand your current problem." I can now hear his voice now, coming from behind, just outside the walls of the city. There, the silhouette of the vice-leader of the guild appears with a bone wall conjured in between him and the swordsman chasing me.
"This guy is but a scout, sent after you by someone else higher on the ladder." His voice loses his personality as his skin melts at a rapid pace, uncovering an outer layer of… bones? A thick bone plating seems to be buried under the melting skin.
I try to make sense of what I am seeing, but I can't even think properly as my life slowly leaves my body. So I focus on damage control, trusting that the newcomer, whoever he really is, really intends to get me out of here in one piece.
The mercenary finally destroys the bone shield after numerous hits with his mana infused blade. He then goes for a killing blow at the now skeletal unknown foe in front of him. He lunges at him with relentless endeavor, only to meet another strike that halts his advance.
A skeletal knight of about 2 meters stops the human's mana infused slash with his shield. Clad in full body armor with sigils and ornaments, it emanates a deathly aura around him that sends shivers down my spine as I look at it.
"Leheron, Jarat, quickly take care of him." I don't have time to spare pondering the meaning of the declaration of the entity as a purple mist leaves the husk of the vice-leader of the guild and seeps into the sword of the domineering undead knight.
I pale at the creepy feeling that it gives as the knight goes for an attack in a display of lighting speed and strength. Cleaving in two the man in one quick movement. The swordsman tried to block the blow, parrying it with his sword over his head, but both his mana and high quality sword were useless under the pressure of whatever that purple mist or flame was. It ate the mana infused on the blade in seconds, leaving the swordsman sword unprotected to the head on attack of the undead, spelling his doom.
"Quickly, take the reins of your life force now, I will soon be too busy keeping us from getting killed to care about you." The voice says as it pushes the body of the just killed man at my arms reach with what seems like telekinesis.
It's still a gruesome sight, and I have no idea of what threat he is referring to, but I do see that the lifeforce of the man in front of me still remains on his corpse, not having enough time to disperse.
Acting quickly, before the monster defending me has a change of mind, I start absorbing the remnants of his lifeforce. I take small amounts at a time, letting it seep inside me through the same holes that my qi is leaking to help those parts of my body recover somehow, later on sealing the holes by force.
Hole after hole, my skin regains its vibrant color of the living as I avoid death grasps. By the time I finish patching myself up, I start paying attention to my surroundings again.
I am being carried by the entity that saved me as we travel at high speed to who knows where.
"What do you need from me?!" I ask him as I take a good look at everything going on.
We are already deep into the thicket of the forest, not in the area where the army of monsters razed everything to the ground, but deeper, inside a small patch of trees that they plainly avoided.
There are a lot of totems or some kind of pires, just like the one I saw when trying to get back to civilization after I crossed over this world days ago. Most of them are crumbling to pieces as they burn with purple flames like the ones that the knight used before.
Arriving inside the circle of totems, the empty husk of the vice-leader of the guild, or what I assume was at some point that man throws me on the ground and orders the other undead to prepare.
"You are lucky that I need you alive." The skeleton says to me as its voice reverberates as if colliding on each one of its bone plates before leaving his mouth, even if it all is an illusion and it's talking with telepathy. "You will do as I say, and maybe, just maybe, we leave this place undead." I nod as I hope that the undead part is only in regards to him.
I finish gathering the remaining qi of the dead man before letting go of him. I had been instinctively holding onto his body in our way here to suck on to his lifeforce, and now that he is finally empty of any, his corpse is of no use for me. I throw him a few meters to the side on purpose, just in case the thing in front of me decides to revive him as a skeleton or something.
After seeing it act, I am 100% sure that the monster giving me its back it's the same entity that was inhabiting the body of the child that I thought I had saved. The fact that the same mysterious foe that insta killed such a strong man is scared of what is to come makes me nervous and anxious at the same time.
So I wait, saving my energy, and gathering more.