Chapter 28 – Echo (4)
The air around Koise grew heavy and darkened as a suffocating strength seeped through the area.
[[«Aim»]]
Koise’s already falcon-like sight grew even clearer, hyper-focusing on the man climbing the cliff in the distance. Everything else beca inconsequential.
The path between his arrow and the target…
It was as if he could feel every bit of the wind, every change in air pressure, every molecule between them. He could see the individual puffs of vapor coming from the adventurer’s mouth, the way the man slipped on a piton and had to regain his grip, the rise and fall of his chest.
Whooo.
He exhaled a breath, a low whistling sound spreading out.
[[«Charge»]]
Despite the chilling cold, beads of sweat were dripping down his face. The suffocating aura around him only increased, a palpable thing that would cause anyone inside of it to be pressed into the ground.
A deep, scarlet light ford on the arrow’s edge, creeping down the rest of the arrow and twirling in a spiral pattern around it to et his fingers on its end.
He took one last mont to make sure that his shot was perfect before loosing the arrow in a crimson burst of color.
Whump.
A shockwave spread around Koise, the air visibly rippling as space itself seed to warp and a supersonic clap of sound warbled in the ears of the Lion mbers nearby.
***
{{Behind.}}
‘Behind?’
Just as soon as the Second System ssage appeared, I felt sothing prickle along my neck, a primal instinct warning of sothing I could not yet see.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but the combination of my instincts and the Second System both warning at the sa ti was enough to persuade to drop my attempt and prepare however I could.
It had to have been a projectile attack of so sort, either magic or a long-range attack. If that was truly the case, then moving as fast and unpredictably as possible would be the safest bet.
Not willing to let go of my progress and drop back down to the ground where I would set myself up for being caught, I rembered when I had last needed a strong burst of speed to take sowhere.
I rembered the incident from the village dungeon, when I had used everything at my disposal and launched myself across the landscape.
As much as I hated it, I had to do it again, fast.
The warning I had been given didn’t have a ti limit, but I could only assu that I had to move imdiately if I didn’t want to take my chances with an ability that even the Second System was warning about.
Never mind the fact that the Systems I knew were just that, Systems. According to everything I knew of it, a System couldn’t be intelligent or show favoritism, but my view had been changing a lot in those tis, and things I had previously thought impossible were in fact becoming the norm.
I surged the earthen energy through my body again, using «Strike» as I again sent power erupting through my feet. I did my best to pull myself upward as I did so, afraid that the force of my jump would smash through the piton I was leaping upward from.
At the sa ti that I kicked off into the air…
Whump.
I had enough ti to briefly register sothing hitting the cliffside below just after performing my leap.
The leap itself was much more successful than my previous attempt. From where I had jumped, about halfway up the cliff face, I guessed that the jump would have taken up most of the remaining distance.
…That would have been under normal circumstances.
As whatever it was impacted the side of the cliff, a shockwave spread out from its point of impact and exploded outwards, serving as a sort of booster that aided my jump even further.
‘Fuck…’
The sudden surge of power sent on a straight upward trajectory that made feel as if I had truly taken flight.
The wind whipped at my face, and it beca hard to keep my eyes open from the sheer force of it. Before I knew it, I cleared the top of the cliffside and blasted past it, rising higher still.
Looking down at it after reaching the apex of my acceleration high above, a field of jagged crevices, rocky hillsides, and sharp points extended into the distance, blinding as the sun reflected on the snowy surfaces and flashed brightly.
I frantically surged energy through my body again and perford a concussive «Eruption» away from the cliffside. It would be bad enough to fall that distance back down to the top of the cliffside, but if I fell all the way back down the cliffside itself…
Forget about the Lion Guild, the sheer force of the fall would likely kill in itself.
The recoil from the blast sent tumbling at a forward angle on a downward arc, and just before hitting the ground, I braced myself with «Walk it Off».
[[Mana: 50/100]]
Thump.
I beca firmly embedded in a bank of snow, crashing through it and slamming into the jutting points of a few sharp protrusions from a rocky hillside.
Pain stabbed through as one of the points pierced just to the side of my abdon, a slow crimson stain spreading across the snow.
It wasn’t enough to be lethal, but it hurt like a bitch.
Koise raised his eyebrows in surprise, drained from having used his ultimate skill.
It was the first ti that anyone had ever dodged that skill.
The arrow from the skill had launched through the air at such a speed that it had seed to be instantaneous, extending from his bowstring to the distant target in a re fraction of a second, far faster than any bullet from Earth could have traveled.
It was a skill that was impossible to react to and dodge, its primary downfall being the ti required to fire it.
And yet, that adventurer had sohow realized he was being targeted and leaped at the precise mont when he could no longer adjust his aim. It was truly a masterful dodge, sothing that required such precise timing that even he, as the user of the skill, couldn’t be sure that he could pull it off…
Krrrrr.
Rocks fell from the crumbling cliffside, a large crater visible where his arrow had hit it.
His mana reserves were dangerously low, but that was what mana potions were for.
Though they were usually prohibitively expensive, a perk to being an authority figure in the Lion Guild was access to an essentially unlimited amount of funds.
Tink.
After downing the bluish, bitter-tasting liquid, he let the vial drop to the rocks at his feet as he readied his next skill to take chase, determined not to let his target go even while begrudgingly acknowledging his target’s skills.
‘I’m going to have to have a word with whoever told he was a pre-5 Awakener…’
He drew his next arrow in the bowstring, still utilizing the massive bow, but with a markedly different arrow that ti.
It was a feathered, blue arrow that was extrely lightweight, with most of the weight being in the arrowhead itself.
Koise simply drew the bow using the massive Strength required, not relying on the aid of a skill. He took aim towards the top of the cliffside that the adventurer they were in pursuit of had literally flown over and loosed the arrow at an angle to account for the light wind.
Thwick.
The bowstring snapped forward and the arrow flew on a curved path up the cliffside, reaching the top after a few seconds before cresting over the side, just visible still.
[[«Transpose».]]
It was an ergency skill that had a cooldown of 24 hours, but while the Awakener he was after had good escape skills, even if the Awakened was above level 5, he wouldn’t stand a chance against Koise’s level of 11. Of that, Koise was certain.
The arrow and Koise switched places, the arrow piercing into the ground where Koise had previously been as Koise plumted downwards on the arrow’s original trajectory.
Boom.
Koise slamd into the ground unaided, flexing his legs and leaning forward with his landing, coming to rest with one hand on the rough, rock-hewn ground beneath him. The force of his landing sent snow flying.
The sharp rocks below simply snapped away and went flying from the force of his landing, leaving him unhard, standing on the rough, snowy field.
He only needed a mont to spot the adventurer’s landing point, a clear indentation in the snow that the adventurer was even then pulling himself out of.
Koise’s sharp eyes caught the crimson stain left behind in the adventurer’s struggle and frowned.
He enjoyed the climax of the hunt just as much, if not more, than the hunt itself. The mont when the prey had no option but to turn and fight. If he couldn’t or didn’t want to kill the prey outright, he liked to avoid affecting their fighting ability if at all possible for a thrilling conclusion. Fighting against a severely injured target was no fun, after all.
***
Tink.
A vial of red liquid landed in the snow in front of as I finished extracting myself from the hole I had created in the snow with my landing.
‘A health potion?’
It didn’t make sense, but that’s what it looked like. Either that, or it was so twisted attempt to get to drink poison in front of him.
“Drink it.”
The man stood not far away from , the snow rising to the middle of his shins. His black hair was pulled back in a disheveled ponytail, and he had a massive bow in one hand that was almost as big as he was. I recognized him as the leader of the expedition from before, the one I had previously tricked into going down a different path to buy myself ti.
He didn’t look angry. He could have taken that mont when I was extracting myself from the snow to kill then and there. Judging by the bow he held, I believed him to be the one that had launched whatever had caused the shockwave at —probably an arrow.
“Why…?”
The man stood still.
“What’s your na?”
“Aizen…”
I picked up the tincture he had thrown at and downed it, warmth spreading through my body and focusing on the puncture wound created by my fall.
Before long, the bleeding stopped.
I didn’t know what ga he was playing, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
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