Chapter 200: Race against Tide (2)
Chapter 198
When the order had been given, Ray quickly forced Van to follow along with those running away.
It wasn’t an easy feat trying to convince his friend to leave the fray, but he eventually managed it.
And now, the Tribrid was positioned on the frontlines.
His primary aim wasn’t to defeat the beasts now, but rather to push them back while giving the others a chance to escape along with his best companion.
Leaping from beast to beast, he clobbered his fist into one, sending the creature staggering away with a visible crack running through its face.
Flipping backward, his heel smashed into the head of another monster before he landed smoothly on the ground and quickly jogged backwards.
The plan was simple. Unanimously decided.
Attack a little with enough strength to disorient the beasts, then move away to create distance between them while closing the gap with the retreating Aspirants.
"Hey you all! Just run! Don’t worry about me. I can make it back in time." Caster bellowed without looking behind him.
He weaved in between the incoming attacks like they were nothing, while his swords lashed forward, tearing through the arms of the golems with dust flowing down from where his pale green blades struck.
The Aspirants who were attacking along with him stared at his back with confusion at his bold words.
"You want to sacrifice yourself for us all? How dumb can you be?" Felix barked with a heavy frown on his face.
Instantly leaping back to avoid a crushing punch, he sent a dozen obsidian claw strikes flying forward, pushing the golem away from him.
Caster didn’t immediately reply as he slid beneath the legs of another golem, managing to get behind it, then he proceeded to leap up and land squarely on its head.
"... You are the dumb one if you think I will sacrifice myself for people I barely know."
Bashing his swords on the beast’s head, a punch streaked towards him from behind.
Pushing off from the beast’s skull, he flew backwards and then spun around, landing on the outstretched hand of the sneaking beast who now drove its knuckles into the head of its comrade.
"I’m telling you all to run while you still have the chance because I can reach you all whenever I want. I’m fast enough to dodge anything while catching up in mere moments. Trust me and leave this to me!"
He was speaking while running on the outstretched hand.
Launching from it with full force, he crossed the little distance in a second, then thrust his sword, tearing the eye of the beast off.
Some others hesitated at the boy’s words, wondering what he was truly planning.
But two people didn’t hesitate.
"Aight. Later then." Ray and Trish said in unison.
And as if their minds and movements were perfectly coordinated, they spun around, sprinting forward at full speed, aiming to reach the others in time.
"See, those guys get it." Caster smiled as he cast a quick glance behind him.
Kai didn’t say anything for a few seconds as he stared at the mountain of golems remaining, which Caster, Felix, and the other Aspirants were still trying to deal with.
’Doing this, I will lose more than half my MF. But I can’t just run away leaving them to handle this without contributing anything.’
With that thought, he placed his hands on the ground, closed his eyes, and then concentrated.
’Uh... What’s Kai doing?’ Chloe wondered as she kept letting arrows loose.
Blood was dripping down her fingers, but she didn’t care about the minor injury.
"I said; leave now you dumbasses! Don’t you get it at all?!" Caster screamed in fury as he cast a swift glance at the retreating teens.
That minor distraction cost him dearly.
A backhanded slap landed squarely on his body, flinging it away and causing him to ricochet across the hard ground with blood spewing from his mouth.
"Ugh... damn it. This is exactly what you get for being nice, Caster," the boy spat in anger as he finally came to a full halt.
A deep frown appeared on his face as he rose to his knees, his muscles aching from the impact.
Wiping the fresh blood stain from his parched lips, he rose back up and decided to get back to the fight immediately.
Seeing as Caster was truly determined to hold the line, the others hesitated no more as they spun around and began dashing away from the chaotic battlefield.
This group included Chloe, who cast a quick, concerned glance at the kneeling Kai for a brief moment, but she still went ahead to join the others in their flight.
This left only Felix, Caster, and Kai back on the bloody field.
Concentrating with absolute intensity, purple crystals began creeping up the solid, rocky ground and extending forward with a rapid, jagged pace.
Caster looked back with a raised eyebrow for a moment, clearly surprised by the sudden magical manifestation.
’What’s he doing?’
Quickly tilting his head around, Caster avoided a lethal strike before continuing his own fight with no further distraction.
Felix, meanwhile, was just bulldozing through the beasts with his brute strength and occasional ’rending’ strikes that tore through golem hide.
The crystal raced across the terrain and spread for about four metres wide, continuing its trek forward until the shards reached a point just a metre away from the other beasts and the fighting Aspirants.
That was when the creeping crystals began rising upwards.
The leading edge, which was shy away from the main battlefield, began ascending from the earth.
Like a wall of jagged purple crystals, a barrier was being erected where the growth ended, and it continued rising until it was two and a half metres tall.
"Ack... cough...."
Blood sprayed from Kai’s mouth in waves, staining the purple structure beneath him with a deep, dark shade of crimson.
It didn’t stop there.
The blood trickled down his nose and was rolling down like heavy tears from one’s eyes.
He didn’t care about the physical toll as he staggered to his feet.
’This should keep the beasts away and grant us enough time to leave their vicinity. It is tall enough to hinder their movements and yet short enough for those two to jump over with no problem.’
Wiping the blood rolling down his nose, which caused the liquid to smudge the space between his nose and lips, he turned away and began sprinting forward with all the speed he could muster.
This left Caster and Felix alone with thirty-something beasts looming over them.