Over the lifeless body of the warrior Tarth, stood the stunned Beatrice and Drake with their eyes wide and their mouths open.
Simon, even after managing to take one of them out from their blind spot. Returned to where he stood before, opening up a distance between them once again.
Beatrice watched Tarth's body, with a dazed expression as Drake regained his composure.
Weak! I'm too damn weak! How much longer am I going to be— of divinity?
Beatrice looked distracted as she thought to herself. Her emotions were becoming more and more unstable.
"Beatrice, right now you have to think about Jacob. We can't lose more."
Drake spoke calmly, yet his words seemed to snap Beatrice back to reality.
Jacob… he's still out there alone.
While she thought to herself, Simon's divinity levels dropped again. They dropped back to the level they were at before he attacked Tarth.
It was still a lot, however it was much more manageable than whatever had happened to Tarth.
Deep in the forest, Jacob felt divinity spike, exploding into those massive amounts of divinity he had displayed before.
Old man Henry was back.
Jacob stopped when he sensed this and turned around to face back in the direction he had just come from.
Old man Henry had already caught up by the time Jacob did so.
"What did you do?"
Jacob spoke calmly again, his stare distant and unfocused.
Old man Henry cackled, spitting drops of slimy mucus everywhere.
"I killed… one of them. Warrior… Tarth."
Jacob's eye twitched when he heard this. He stood silently, with a somber expression on his face.
This pause lasted little over 5 seconds before Jacob stabbed his sword into the tree branch he stood on, held both his palms against each other and closed his eyes.
Another 10 seconds went by in silence as old man Henry patiently stood there and waited.
Jacob opened his eyes once again and spoke softly and with care.
"You have fallen into the Lord's embrace. Rest well, warrior Tarth."
He reached for his sword once more and plucked it out from the branch. He then lifted his head to look at the old man's disgusting form.
"Thank you for waiting."
"I… am well aware… of… the teachings… of your… God. I… respect them."
As the creature spoke it took a step forward and stood at the edge of it's branch.
Jacob did the same.
Suddenly, both simultaneously took leaps towards each other, causing a loud and powerful shockwave at the impact of their clash.
Jacob's katana scraped against what felt like steel. It was actually the broken apart and restructured bone frame of old man Henry's body. It was extremely tough.
Jacob took a leap back and lifted his hand, imitating the hand sign of prayer with one hand again. However this time he folded it into a fist shortly after while taking in a shallow breath.
"Flame shift, second: concentration"
Once he uttered those words, his body temperature started rising.
Steam started flowing from his body giving his pale skin a red blush to it.
He landed on the ground and immediately took another leap forward, moving incredibly fast.
As he approached the creature, it took a leap back out of uncertainty.
Jacob swung his sword where it stood a second ago, but it only resulted in an underwhelmingly ordinary swing.
Seeing this allowed the creature to regain the certainty it previously had on the fact that it would end Jacob in this fight.
It started sprinting at full speed towards Jacob while swinging it's deformed arm to throw a punch.
Jacob, too started running at the creature while holding up his sword.
When it threw it's punch, Jacob side stepped and dodged it and instead of going for a slash, which the creature had anticipated most. He slightly lowered his center of gravity, clutching the hilt of his sword with both hands and went for the thrust.
He aimed it right at it's chest.
The entire body of this creature became mostly bone after the transformation, with shreds of flesh hanging from various parts of it's body. It's new exoskeleton was extremely durable.
Once Jacob's thrust connected with the bone on the creature's chest. The sword couldn't penetrate it.
However… once the tip of the blade made contact, it immediately cracked the exoskeleton and an explosion erupted on impact.
This caused the creature to fly backwards from the heavy impact. Even though it landed on it's feet, it still continued moving backward for a few more meters leaving a foot trail on the ground it moved on.
Jacob followed swiftly behind, sprinting straight at the creature before swinging his sword up and going for a downward slash.
Already conscious of the consequences of letting that blade make contact, the creature dodged the slash by side stepping.
It was a faint.
Jacob let his momentum take his slash all the way down to the ground. He struck his sword into the ground and let go of it, in one smooth motion transitioning to a thrust of his palm at the chest area of the creature. The same area he hit the first time.
Upon contact with his palm, there was another explosion of heat and a heavy shockwave.
The exoskeleton cracked once again, at the same area it did on the previous attack. It cracked more and tiny pieces of bone started falling off from that area.
Jacob was left panting heavily, with sweat covering his entire face. He was clearly out of breath.
How much longer would I even be able to keep this up? 10 minutes? 15? That's not enough time.
The creature—who had been blown back a few meters once again due to the force of the strike and the explosion, started slowly walking up to Jacob.
"What… is this?"
Jacob, straightened his posture and reached to grab his sword, still soaked in sweat.
"Let's go."
*****
Back at the campsite, it was an intense battle.
Although the fight had been going on for a few minutes, Simon was still in great condition. The same could be said about Beatrice and Drake.
They were out of breath, they had concerns about how much longer their divinities would last before they'd need to rest, but they had taken little to no damage through out their fight.
"Drake, if we don't use shifts we might just end up depleting our divinities on hand to hand combat anyway. It doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere, so why not aim to take that thing out faster?
Drake took a glance at Beatrice with a complicated expression. He paused for a few seconds, then he nodded his head and reached to cover his mouth with his scarf.
"Use a strong one and co-ordinate it with my bolide. We need to get it right on this one attempt to save as much divinity as we need
The sav… Jacob… Jacob needs support, remember?"
Beatrice nodded her head slightly, her luxurious golden earrings swaying as she did.
"I understand."
Drake's raised his one hand again and had it imitated the sign of prayer while he mumbled under his scarf.
When Simon saw this, he immediately leapt forward to interrupt him.
BANG! He slammed head first into a thick ice wall that just suddenly materialized before him. It was Beatrice.
Once Simon lost sight of them, he gave up hopes of trying to interrupt Drake's attack. He took a leap backwards instead.
I'll see it… as… long as… I'm this far… back!
Simon decided the best course of action was to dodge it instead, so he opened up some distance between them.
Once the ice wall collapsed due to him crashing into it, he got eyes on them once again.
Beatrice stood to the side of Drake, her eyes closed.
She drew a short breath, then imitated Drake's handsign with one hand. Shortly after, she changed it to a fist. This, too didn't stay long before she changed it again.
This time, her pointer finger and her thumb drew a small circle while the rest of her finger reverted to how they were positioned in the first handsign. It looked like she held up a three sign.
Then, she exhaled.
"Ice shift, Third: Frost zone"
While she muttered to herself she dropped her handsign and took an extremely quick leap towards Simon.
Her face was visibly paler, almost snow whit. Every breath she took had a misty trail to it and every step she took left a barely visible ice trail.
Once she reached Simon he was surprised for a second.
Hand to…hand? Atleast…it's not…that… flame attack.
Simon raised his guard and prepared to engage in the fist fight with her.
His eyes widened before he could though.
Wait… she was…never…up front. Always… behind…on support. She's…up to something!
However he realized this too late.
When Beatrice got to him, she simply slowed down for about to seconds, then she took a leap backward while facing him. She landed back, right next to Drake, who already had his balls of flames floating around him.
Simon's deformed exoskeleton's temperature started dropping quickly until it reached zero. Then, it started dropping even more—effectively freezing his body solid where he stood.
I see… she… used that… technique to… freeze me.
Simon quickly raised his divinity while he thought to himself.
Ah… it's probably too…late. This…body doesn't…have the…divinity necessary… to withstand that…attack.
Drake stood calmly and watched as Simon's body froze until it couldn't even tremble anymore.
He then sent his balls of flames crashing into the creature, causing a massive explosion of red flames across the campsite they fought in.
It must've realized I held back my divinity against that corpse earlier.
Drake turned around and looked at Beatrice, whose face was returning to it's regular colour.
She was out of breath after using such an advanced technique. So was he to an extent but clearly in better shape.
"No time for resting. We need to get to Jacob, we've been here long enough."
Drake nodded his head to agree with Beatrice's words and started walking forward.
Beatrice followed, but then she paused. She looked back with a sad expression, then she smiled slightly.
We'll be back to come get you soon, warrior Tarth. You deserve a better resting place.
Tarth's lower body remained standing while his upper body laid flat on the ground.
"What are you waiting for? Let's go."
"Yes, sorry. Let's get going."