"You want martial art? Then I'll give you one!" Jack exclaimed as his two swords exploded into countless blurs of swings.
All the petals that approached were slashed apart. None managed to come near Jack.
With the petals decimated, Muilan was revealed again. Her eyes were wide with shock. She never thought the martial art she was proud of could be destroyed so handily, but she was not willing to admit defeat.
"You are just lucky, watch my moonlight swords!" Muilan exclaimed. Her two swords slashed forward with incredible speed. Mana manipulation followed these twin slashes.
"I will defeat you with martial art so you have no excuses!" Jack returned. Although he indeed had a high luck stat, he was still annoyed when an opponent said that he relied on luck.
"Hey, expert. I have a task for you," John's message came at this time.
"No time. Busy!" Jack gave him a prompt reply.
The sword in Jack's right hand made a simple slash when Muilan's moonlight sword came into range. A single straight line crushed Muilan's twin slashes. Because of the huge difference in strength stat, Muilan's swords were smashed to the side by Jack's One-word Slash.
While Muilan was unbalanced, Jack's left-hand sword followed with the same martial art. Muilan was unable to dodge nor parry this second slash. The straight line produced by the One-word Slash sliced through Muilan's belly. Her HP fell to critical but she still survived.
Jack was amazed. It seemed that this strange girl had decent enough equipment.
The girl was also greatly surprised. She didn't think that she would lose so badly. Even though the reason she lost the clash was due to a high difference in strength stat, she could still see that both Jack's sword art execution and mana manipulation weren't simple.
She was stubborn but not stupid. When she saw Jack's right-hand sword twisted into a thrusting position for a third follow-up strike, she quickly swapped her pendant with the Amulet of Rebirth.
Jack's follow-up attack, One-word Thrust, swiftly pierced through Muilan's body, devouring her remaining HP. But Jack managed to see her pendant changed before she died.
'Good reflex,' Jack thought. But who was this weird girl? She just came out of nowhere and specifically challenged him. She was from Cipher Flight and she mentioned Four Winds. Jack didn't believe Four Winds would have sent this one girl to come at him. Unless of course, Four Winds had a grudge against her and intentionally send her here to die, but he didn't think Four Winds was one such person. Maybe he would just ask Four Winds later.
Jack didn't waste too much time thinking about the girl. He was back to fighting the orc soldiers.
"Hey, you are saying something just now?" Jack sent John a message.
"Yeah, I need you to go somewhere," John replied.
"Somewhere? Then what about the defense here?"
"If you don't go there, the defense on that other side will fall and the result will be the same. Don't worry about this side. I'm going to thin it out a bit so that your side can still manage without you."
"Thin it out? How are you going to…," Jack didn't continue his sentence when he saw Nilrem floating above him.
Jack looked back and saw the side she was originally at. The three Knights of the Round were still contending with Umeza. But without Nilrem backing them up, they were having trouble keeping up with the beast-form Umeza.
"Hey, if you pull Nilrem out, her original side will be in trouble. That elder orc is no joke!" Jack sent a message to John.
"She just needs to be there temporarily to cast one spell. Protect her while she is casting," John replied.
Jack saw a couple of Orc officers using flying tools and headed to Nilrem when she started casting. Jack immediately cast Soar and floated to put himself before her. He rushed at the two orcs and kept them busy so they didn't disturb Nilrem.
While he was fighting the two, he saw from the corner of his eye another orc take to the air. This orc was a mage with a flying spell. The orc cast a spell that produced an ice arrow. That ice arrow was headed to Nilrem.
Jack used the Sword of Light at the ice arrow but one of the orcs he was fighting put himself in harm's way, blocking the Sword of Light using his body. The same orc then did a suicidal move by forcing himself to grab Jack. The other orc with flying tools flew toward Nilrem when Jack was occupied.
Nilrem watched the ice arrow come but she didn't stop her spell. A dark cloak came and wrapped around her. The ice arrow hit the cloak, sparing Nilrem from the assault. But the danger was not over, the second orc with the flying tool had come near. He stabbed his spear at Nilrem, but the spear was deflected when a figure came between the orc and Nilrem.
"Arlcard!" Jack shouted gladly.
The dark cloak that protected Nilrem was Arlcard's shadow veil spell. Arlcard also had a pair of very large bat wings on his back, allowing him to fly. Jack figured that was his new ability after leveling up.
Arlcard's rapier danced with a multitude of thrusts and forced the incoming orc back.
Nilrem completed her spell then. Jack noticed it was an eight-runes spell. The same eight-runes spell that she had canceled at the end of the battle at Slaughterer Plains.
When Jack was wondering what spell that was, he heard buzzing from the direction of the orc soldiers. The buzzing grew louder. He was still in the sky, so he had a better look.
Bubbles appeared in the area where the buzzing sound was heard. At the same time, the ground underneath the orc soldiers turned liquid. These orcs started sinking into the liquified ground. Without warning, the ground, which was now water, spun.
The affected area was very large. Jack saw a huge number of orc soldiers getting swept around inside a whirlpool that had magically appeared on dry land. Several magic soldiers who had flying spells took to the sky to escape the whirlpool, but tentacles made of water came out and snatched them before pulling them back into the water.
Damage numbers continued to pop above the orc soldiers that were trapped inside the whirlpool, and the whirlpool didn't look like it was going to end any time soon.
"Damn!" Jack said. No wonder she canceled her spell when the orcs decided to retreat at the end of the Slaughterer Plains battle. The spell covered a very large area and was stationary. If she had continued casting, the whirlpool might have killed many orc soldiers but it could also hit their own since the human army was chasing the fleeing orcs at the time. This time, they were defending. So, the spell only hit the enemies and it also prevented the enemy's back row from moving forward, allowing their defensive line to deal with the enemies that were besieged between them and the whirlpool, greatly reducing the pressure on the defensive line.
"That's the Lake of Death spell," Peniel informed.
"I have bought you time, go here," John sent Jack a set of coordinates. Nilrem flew back to fight with Umeza.
"Motherf*cker! This is behind the enemy's line!" Jack cursed.
"Yeah, you have plenty of experience doing that before, haven't you?" John replied.
"Against players, not against natives!" Jack uttered. "I won't be able to save my big skills if so."
"Then at least save your Overlimit and divine skills," John said. He then informed Jack about the Elementalist groups that had wreaked havoc on the other side. After listening, Jack admitted that they indeed needed to do something about those gangs. Eagle Rider hunters and the assassin gang led by Sergeant Zero had begun to penetrate the enemy's rank to hunt those Elementalists, but they won't be enough to deal with all five groups before those Elementalists used their chained storms again.
Jack transformed into his supreme dragon form.
"Do you know where the remaining groups are?" Jack asked and cast a spell at the same time.
"Two groups are being handled as we speak. The coordinates I sent just now are the closest to you. These are the other two coordinates for the remaining groups," John answered. "Do note that these coordinates were their previous positions. We don't know if they have moved since they unleashed their chained storms."
"All right, I will look for them," Jack replied.
He completed his spell then. Three copies of himself with the same dragon form appeared. Since his copies were also in dragon form, they could fly as well. Jack sent those copies to the three coordinates John had given. While waiting for his copies to arrive there, he continued to help hold the defensive line here.
Jack's copies flew unhindered into the enemy's rank. The orc soldiers sent ranged attacks at the humanoid dragons that flew above them, but since they were just copies, the attacks just went through. Some orcs with flying spells or tools even flew up and tried to block the copies physically, but the copies simply flew past them as if ghosts.
After a while, the orcs decided that those humanoid dragons were simply mirages that the enemy had conjured to distract them. They ignored those copies then.
The three copies continued to look around. None of the Elementalist groups were in the coordinates John had given. They must have moved away. So, Jack used those coordinates as focal points and started flying outward in spiraling circles, looking for groups composed only of Elementalists.
After searching for a while, he finally found one such group.
