Chapter 48 - 48. Red Haired Ranger
As he moved closer, he could hear their talking. One of them asked the one that was in critical condition why he didn't take medicine to replenish his health. He said he had already used one. Bigarm was just about to give him medicine, but Scarface forbade it.
"No!" He said, "Our stock of potions and medicines are limited. He had his portion, if he had already used his, then it's his consequences."
One of the guys suggested him to go back to the City Park to rest. The critical guy was forlorn when he heard it. They were quite a distance away from the safe zone. If he went back alone and met another monster during his trek, he would not survive.
One of them offered to escort him. Fox, who was casting Mana Bullet onto one of the monsters immediately roared, "Don't be ridiculous! I didn't join you and spent my Tracking Stone just to fail this operation because of losing two muscles! If he wants to go back, he can go back by himself!"
Scarface said, "No one will go back. You just stay out of the fight. When we reach our target, the ten of us should be enough. Fox, where are they now?"
Uh-oh, Jack thought in his mind. If the tracking was on him, they would find out his position.
"I don't know about the others, but the girl is around ninety meters South from here," Fox replied. "She has been stationary for a while, probably was fighting a monster again."
"There is no reason for them to split up. All right, let's finish up here and head there. It was bad luck that we got jumped by monsters here, but we can still complete our objective."
So it was Flame that was tracked. He breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that Fox was still holding a grudge with Flame. Her hatred was enough to make her left Weary Wolf and joined the group from Death Associates. Most probably because Weary Wolf didn't want to antagonize the White Scarfs guild.
It was clear now that they only knew Flame's movement, but not his and Bowler's. He thought of an idea. He took out his magic staff. Another monster was downed, only two left. Their focus was still on the monsters, this made it easy for Jack to sneak close.
When he thought he was close enough, he pointed his staff at one of the Fighters who was having a melee fight with the monsters. He cast Mana Bullet, afterward he quickly moved to the side while staying low and cast another spell, Energy Bolts. Since Energy Bolts had a tracking feature, he didn't need to bother aiming it. He just hoped the bolts didn't chase after the monsters instead. He kept moving while staying out of sight. He heard people screaming.
"It's the magician, he was hiding around!"
Then he heard Scarface barked out an order, "Bigarm, take two people with you! The spell came from there."
As Bigarm's team broke away from the group, Jack finally revealed himself. He charged to their rear line, which Fox coincidentally was there.
"You..!" Was the only word she managed to utter before Jack's Power Strike crashed onto her. She flew away like a kite with its string cut loose, and slammed against the front wall of the building on the side of the street. Jack then went to the critical guy.
"I'm sorry," Jack said as he slashed the poor guy. He lost his remaining health and fell to the ground.
Jack then moved again to the closest person, who happened to be a Magician. Stunned by the ambush, the Magician only started to raise his staff after Jack arrived upon him. Jack easily used his left hand to halt the staff, preventing the Magician from pointing his spell at him, and used the three circling slashes technique to deal rapid damage to him. The Magician's comrade beside him, who was also a Magician managed to take action and cast Magic Bullet onto Jack. But Jack simply ignored it, he lost 18 HP, which was nothing to his massive 590 HP. He sent another two fast slashes to the wounded Magician, and he also lost his life.
When Jack was about to continue towards the other Magician on the side, he caught from the corner of this eyes five Energy Bolts coming his way. He was surprised by the number of bolts, but it didn't slow his movement. He used the method Boulder had used, he made rapid slashes on the oncoming bolts. But even with his speed, he only managed to slash three bolts, the other two hit his bodies and gave 22 damage and 21 damage.
Jack was shocked, the damage was quite high for Magician's Energy Bolt. If all five bolts connected, the damage might even be higher than his Power Strike. He looked at the Magician who had attacked him, it was Scarface. How high had he leveled up his Energy Bolts and his magic staff? Jack thought.
Before Jack could make a retaliation, he saw a shadow coming from his flank at a high speed. He turned just in time and parry a dagger that was aimed at his heart. It was a beautiful woman with flowing red hair, her eyes were cold, completely in contrast with her bright burning hair. Although her ambush was stopped, she didn't pause her attack. Her hands made a series of rapid thrusts. The dagger that was in her right hand at one point switched to her left and then switched back again to her right during those multi thrusts.
This series of attacks was not a skill, and yet it was much harder to defend against. He managed to block a few thrusts but still suffered five hits which took around 12 to 15 HP of his health from every hit. Jack couldn't let this go on, so he brute force his advance and sent a slash onto the woman. The woman broke away with a back somersault and completely evaded his attack.
Bloody heck, she was a martial arts expert! Jack cursed in his mind.
He then saw a Fighter holding a large two-handed axe approaching. He sent a slash to the Fighter, who ducked and make a cut to his legs. It was close but Jack managed to dodge it by a jump and send another attack with his Power Strike while on the air. The Fighter parried the attack but couldn't hamper the force behind the attack so he was sent skidding backward with slight damage. Another expert, Jack thought, not as good as the Ranger woman, but enough to be troublesome if they attacked together.
Fighting them alone here was not advantageous unless he revealed his Magician class, but he didn't plan to yet. Now their group was divided into three. One was dealing with him, another was still fighting the remaining two monsters, while the third was searching for the imaginary Magician who was actually not there.
If he lingered any longer, they would regroup and he would be surrounded, which would be troubling. So he decided this current ambush was enough, he had taken out two opponents and reduced another one to half health.
He started running. His opponents' formation was a mess since they were split up, so it was not difficult for him to break away. With Fox still dazed at the side of the street, he still had to barrel through the barrages from Scarface and the last Magician in the team. He completely ignored the spells from the last Magician, his damages were not powerful enough, but he parried or cut through the spells from Scarface.
The Fighter with axe was not fast enough to chase him, but the Ranger woman's dash caught up to him while he was busy weaving through the Magicians' spells. She sent a fast thrust to Jack which he blocked, but before he knew it, she had swiped his legs with a roundhouse low kick.
His face was about to hit the ground but he held his fall with his hand and sword, and immediately pushed himself back up. Once he got back to his feet, he sent Swing skill. He didn't expect the skill to hit the red hair Ranger, It's just that its wide area of effect would provide a decent hindrance for anyone that chased after him. He didn't bother to continue fighting with the woman, instead he ran away in high speed. The woman didn't continue her chase.
"Red, why are you not chasing?" The Fighter with the axe asked once he arrived.
"Forget it, I will not catch up to him," she said.
"How so? Is he as fast as you?"
"No," the woman answered. "He is faster."