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1038 Words
It broke [Cracked Phantom Armor] but was stopped by his helm, which still painfully aggravated his unusually empty mouth, knocking his head backward even as his primary armor reformed around him.
With a flare of his gravity gauntlets, he pulled the man into a pommel strike that should have broken bones, but his attack bounced off with a dull ring and earned him a kick to the knee for his trouble. It didn’t shatter the bone outright, but fractures spread across it.
He jumped back, favoring his uninjured knee, and threw out a [Mana s***h] to intercept a dangerous [Fireball] he felt shooting toward his back. It detonated in a way not common to the skill, with a lingering miasmic cloud of violet flames expanding out, connecting with [Cracked Phantom Armor] and setting the skill on fire.
It dealt hefty damage to the defensive skill, but not enough to burn through Matt’s outer layer. [Analyze] revealed that the attack was something optimized for burning out enchantments and skills in part through mana exhaustion, which didn’t bother him.
The spell still clung to him like tar, but he was able to functionally ignore the flames while dealing with the swordswoman, who sent a series of tight cuts at him from behind her shield.
With little exposed to his angle, Matt sent one of his [Sword Twin] copies at the woman while he sent the other at the pugilist, countering his lack of weapon.
It worked. Sort of.
The brawler took a small cut to his shoulder, but retaliated with a punch that shattered the spell. They withdrew to the wanded mage, who started healing them, but that still left Matt in a two versus one, and a quick glance through his AI confirmed that the others weren’t doing much better. As the brawler was replaced by the shield-only fighter, Matt made a decision, one voiced almost simultaneously by Liz. “Retreat! We’re not winning this fight.”
A [Cracked Mana Spear] pierced the swordswoman’s chest and heart, but the healer, having just finished mending their brawler, had a spell already working on her wound, and the lack of Genesis Energy confirmed that the attack failed.
He recast the spell, but the shield wielder intercepted it, reflecting the beam back at Matt and nearly hitting him in the face, all the while sticking close and preventing him from casting the spell once more.
Matt cursed and struck out at the shield-wielder. They blocked, naturally, but he took the momentary distraction as an opportunity to flee. A teleport brought him above the group, and he used [Air Manipulation] to grab at the winds around him and blow himself away, just behind the rest of his team.
His spiritual perception warned him to dodge as the white spear screamed through where he had been right before his teleportation, and he responded with a [Wind Cutter] at the line of attackers who were already chasing them down.
The fire mage unleashed a river of flame at them, wider than Matt was tall and burning everything in its path to a cinder. As it approached, the heat coming off it felt like standing in front of a blast furnace, and he started summoning some water to protect himself as he used his own fire skills to contest control of the attack.
With a desperate wave of her good hand, Liz threw half her remaining mana pool to [Fire Manipulation], seizing control over just enough of the onrushing inferno to divert it around them, like water passing around a rock. It had the benefit of concealing their exact position, but the move forced all four of them into tight proximity.
As the flames died down, a small barrage of magical arrows fell from the sky. Aster was able to blow most of the projectiles off-course with [Cross Wind], with Susanne cutting down the few that made it through without so much as breaking stride.
A few thousand feet later, the spear shot through their midst with a crack of thunder but, this time, its wielder teleported to it instead, appearing next to Susanne and Aster while trying to skewer the former. The strike connected, and Susanne stumbled and nearly tripped over her own feet. Aster, riding on her shoulder, went flying, but still retaliated with an [Ice Spear] while Matt scooped up Susanne with his [Air Manipulation] until she could regain her footing. By his AI’s reading, she’d used her [Cracked Second Wind] to recover from the injury, and he let her resume her run.
Liz hadn’t been idle and had simply tripped the spear warrior with a [Blood Whip], making them stumble enough to fall behind their retreat. Matt contributed with an overloaded [Cracked Mana Spear], and while the shield-user reflected much of the attack, he did hit two of the group located more toward the edge of their formation.
That was enough to get their pursuers to slow down as they grabbed their wounded and tightened up ranks against further attacks, but Matt still felt an arrow break both [Cracked Phantom Armor] and his physical armor, leaving a graze against his flank, but otherwise left him no worse for wear. He started pulling out talismans and dumping huge quantities of mana into skills to slow the pursuers down.
He produced thousands and thousands of gallons of water appearing in a flood behind him, hail rained down in sheets to block their sight and movement, and the earth heaved itself up to create barricades and pitfalls. Aster sent a [Tornado] into their ranks, which they elected to scatter around rather than directly contest, and a [Wind Lance] knocked one cultivator out of the sky who was trying to fly over Matt’s obstructions.
At the same time, Susanne used [Mana Blade] to lengthen her sword, then felled clusters of trees for Matt to throw at the group chasing them.
Their pursuers proved their prowess by dodging, leaping over, or blasting through everything his team could throw in their way. Against anyone else, he would appreciate the skill they displayed, nearly doing an obstacle course at a dead sprint. But, at the moment, all he wanted was for them to find someone easier to chase after.
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