Jaycee could tell Preston's shield was stronger than his by a decent margin. Immediately Percy surged into action and held his hand back to Jaycee. "Protect the priestess." Percy said as he flashed down the hallway.
Jaycee had to admit that Percy's physical stats were very impressive. He was incredibly fast, at least on the level of the average archer. His strength rivaled any heavy warrior and most importantly his technical skills were incredibly focused and efficient.
Jaycee began to stir his mana in the case he would have to build a shield in moments. He checked the hall behind them and created a shield in it just in case anyone came from behind. Standing in front of the priestess with the rest of the soldiers, Jaycee watched Percy's sword smash against the woman's staff.
She went flying backward down the hall. Her powerful boots dragged on the floor as she steadied herself. She glared at Percy before throwing a glance behind him. Her eyes zeroed in on the priestess before she dashed forward ignoring her previous targets.
She swung her staff with a much faster speed than Percy anticipated. The hard wood clashed with the sword's edge and blasted it back. She was level 27 and had enough power to overwhelm Percy immediately. She took off down the hallway with Percy lunging after her.
Jaycee's hands moved in circles as he reacted to the fast woman. She swung her staff backward sending out a large blast of air that pushed Percy back. Using the opportunity she dashed quickly, almost too fast for Jaycee to see.
She ran on the wall as she tried to get past the young man. Her staff was on the trajectory for the priestess when ropes of air wrapped around her ankles. The staff quickly swung down dispersing the air ropes. Jaycee sent a shockwave of mana forward throwing the woman against the wall.
She dashed forward once more at the priestess just for Jaycee to slide in front of her and create a shield. The woman swung her staff toward the shield smashing against the dense intricately woven mana. To her surprise the mana shield held, although cracking in several places.
The feedback from the shield forced her to stumble backward. It was important to remember that his shield dealt best with blunt force. The previous enemy could destroy many layers of shield with its piercing attacks. But he could also tell that this woman was weaker than the creature by a decent margin.
Although still she moved with speed as her staff deflected Percys sword. She retreated down the hall back toward the two injured dungeon divers.
Percy motioned to Jaycee. "Help me kill her right now." He said simply before dashing down the hall. Jaycee immediately exploded down the hall using a new skill he had yet to show.
Fire shot from his back and the back of his feet. He was propelled forward. It was the movement skill he had ended up developing, although it was rather clunky and inefficient. But all things considered it was a movement skill that gave him large bursts of speed.
The big downsides were that it drained his mana way faster than he was comfortable with. But he had drank a mana potion after draining himself empty which recovered about half of his mana. He could make it. It was incredibly difficult to control the skill as it essentially just created flames to propel him forward.
The skill didn't control the direction or power of the fire. Jaycee bounced off the hall wall as he rocketed down the corridor. His face was scared as he tried to orient his body to remain flying straight. His feet barely touched the ground as he ran with as much speed as he could.
The woman was fast as she tried to escape but a rope made of air slowed her down just enough for Percy to engage with her. Jaycee was moments behind the swordsman who began trading blows with the woman. The staff smashed into Percys chest plate denting it severely and causing the man to spit up blood.
She had nearly started comboing Percy when Jaycee crashed into the woman. He literally crashed into her. He had a few options when he lost control over his skill. Either crash into the woman or spin out of control and skid across the floor.
Choosing the former he ended up planting his shoulder into the woman's neck and drove her to the ground under him. Jaycee continued his momentum and rolled to his feet behind the woman. Percy, now with blood on his lips, bashed the woman's face with his shield and stabbed at her gut.
She recoiled from the shield and held her bleeding nose. She barely danced out of range of Percys sword but was immediately blasted forward as an explosive spear smashed into her unprotected back. She gasped and raised her staff to block Percy's sword.
Deftly the staff spun in circles and pulled the sword out of Percy's hand. Still despite being jumped she showed her skills and level. She was clearly a very powerful person who was level 27 and could easily defeat any individual soldier.
It would be a little much to say she could defeat Jaycee soundly but she wasn't far. Using the moment she spun her staff and created a vortex of wind which blocked Jaycees attacks.
She roared as the vortex increased in strength and threw Percy and Jaycee off their feet. The wind pinned Jaycee and Percy to the wall as the woman walked by. It seemed to be some sort of final move as the woman looked completely drained of energy.
Jaycee struggled against the powerful magic but found himself being battered by the wind which disrupted his focus. Percy was able to move slightly in the mini tornado that had formed in the room.
But he could only struggle to chase the woman who was fleeing down the hall and out of sight. Still the tornado buffered the two men who stared at eachother with an exhausted expression.
As the tornado died down Jaycee fell off the wall and breathed heavily on the ground. The tornado had been whittling down his health points but thankfully he still had half of his health left. His body was battered and exhausted, but they weren't finished yet.
Percy pulled Jaycee to his feet and the duo jogged a few meters down the hall to where Lauren and Preston were lying on the ground. The two were breathing heavily and looked very relieved. Percy pulled a health potion out of his satchel and handed it to Lauren who quickly downed it.
She was very hurt and it was clear the staff had done its damage to her.
She slowly stood up nursing a now healing broken arm and smiled at the two men. "Thank you guys. We've been running from that crazy bitch for an hour. She killed the rest of our teams and was about to get us. A shame you couldn't kill her." She said.
Percy nodded and began going through everything that happened so far. Lauren and Preston listened as they walked through the halls with the group. The priestess was still terrified of all the violence around her and how she seemed to be an important target. Jaycee was very beat up but still felt decent.
His stamina was starting to run low but it had never been a resource he used very quickly. His mana was regenerating right now and was only at a quarter of capacity. But within an hour or so he would be at a healthy level again.
Jaycee saw how Preston and Lauren were very shaken up from the encounter. It had apparently been a long, tense hunt in which they had eventually been cornered after their allies had been slaughtered. Jaycee learned that Preston actually had some really interesting magic that was surperior to Jaycees in some ways.
At least his defensive skill was incredibly strong. Jaycee found out that Preston had gotten the skill because of his personality. He was apparently deathly afraid of being hurt and had been offered the skill to create a very powerful shield.
So there were things other than records and relationships that went into skill selection. Personality and personal goals were also a part the system deemed important enough. "Where is Farrah?" Preston asked.
"She's with the rest of the group. They should be arriving right here soon." Percy said as they came into a large prayer room that had reinforcements similar to the priestess' room.
There were many rugs and religious paraphernalia that decorated the room beautifully. Jaycee sat on the ground there and began to meditate peacefully. He had been meditating a lot more recently and it actually began developing into a skill. He probably wouldn't be able to create the skill as the completion of the skill was only at 79/100.
But Jaycee noticed he regained all of his resources faster when he meditated. Even stamina which recharged slowly recharged at a respectable rate. The best way to recover stamina was sleep, but meditating got the job done well enough.
As they traded information it turned out that Jake had been killed by the woman earlier. About 10 minutes after they got to the room, Zeke, Jim, Kara, Lady and Farrah arrived