Fight or Flight (5)

In order to run away as quickly as he could, Arnold condensed a huge amount of his spiritual energy at the bottom of his soles. In order to put as much distance between him and his enemies as possible, instead of running on the surface level, he decided to travel by jumping in between the roofs of adjacent buildings.

Arnold initially wanted to go back and help Darius, but seeing that one of his opponents had already established himself as a formidable enemy while the other was the most mysterious person in their opponent's group, he hesitated before deciding not to bother with him. It was better for one person to get defeated than two. Moreover, he thought that by the time he had managed to get back to the battle scene and join into the fray, it would have been too late. Therefore, it had took Arnold a few seconds of thinking on the spot before his muscles reacted subconsciously, automatically turning around before bursting forth in the opposite direction.

It was not the first time that Arnold had been in an unfavorable situation. Since his early teenage years, he was forced to become a gofer in order to make ends meet and go out into the wild even though he had not a single shred of talent at all. With his complete lack of spiritual energy, Arnold was not able to join in any fight between the mercenaries and zombies. Therefore, the main focus that Arnold was trained in was running away.

In order to survive in the wilderness, one needed an intuition about danger. Arnold's insticts were honed by the countless near-death situations that he had been in throughout the last few years of his life. This was to the point that whenever he felt like something was wrong, he would always be the first to run away. One can see the results of his cowardliness: he was still alive while many of the mercenary groups that he was a part of were already buried in the soil for quite a long time.

It was this instinct, along with his instantaneous reaction, that had allowed Arnold to get a much greater head start than his two opponents. By the time Dominic had left the building where they defeated Darius, Arnold was already out of his field of vision. This was quite a feat since the open areas on the roofs meant his opponents would have had a vantage point over the entire area. Along with the fact that people with high Foundation Establishment have better eyesight than a normal person, Arnold would need to be at least 10 kilometers away from his opponents in order for him to leave their field of vision.

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Jumping across buildings through the roof was actually not an easy feat. As each building's distance to each other and their directions were different, Arnold had to calculate the amount of power that needed to be exerted on his legs in order to land on the next roof without falling, the best angle to jump in order to save as much energy as possible, making sure to account for the difference in elevation between the two buildings, and also make sure that he was running the entire time while making these calculations. Luckily, Arnold had an AI chip inside his brain that, after many days of being completely useless, had finally managed to do something for him for once.

Although it seemed as though Arnold was running around without knowing where to go, he was actually heading towards a certain direction. Of course, in order to divert the attention of his enemies, he needed to take a few twist and turns, not letting them realize where he was heading towards. This had wasted Arnold quite some time.

Since Arnold was running away from Dominic and Jonah, he did not have the time to look around the area in order to search for Nick. He was getting a little nervous since Nick still had their team's flag with him. However, this might turn out to be a good thing since both their opponents had decided to chase after him instead of finding Nick. This was probably because they had no idea that Nick was close by.

The weirdest part about this whole ordeal was the fact that even though he was now quite a distance away from his two opponents, the frequency of his earpiece still seemed to be jammed for some reason. At this point, Arnold was almost certain that this must have been caused by an esper abilities of one of the members of the opposite team. Arnold started thinking of other ways of contacting his other team members as he jumped across a building when suddenly, someone jumped over towards him at a surprisingly high speed from the lower levels of one of the adjacent buildings and reach out with a kick filled with spiritual energy.

Since Arnold was already middair, he had no way of dodging. Right before the impact, Arnold managed to instinctively twist his body as much away from the other's foot as possible, which caused his opponent to slightly miss his vital organs by a few centimeters.

Even with a spiritual barrier placed in front of his body, the penetrative attack from the other's kick still managed to cause him an immense amount of pain. Right after the impact, Arnold was tossed sideways and flew away at a very high speed. It seemed like he was floating, with his body facing towards the person who had just kicked him.

When he saw the person who had assaulted him, he subconsciously frowned. However, this was not a time to contemplate, since Arnold was about to impact on the beam of one of the adjacent buildings. Although the beam was quite thick and reinforced with steel, Arnold still managed to penetrate through it, only slowing him down slightly. After passing through and impacting the beams of 5 different buildings, Arnold had finally collapsed on the floor when he impacted the final beam of the 6th building that was miles away from the inciting incident.

If there was still blood within Arnold's circulatory system, he would have spit out liters of it by now. The multiple impacts had shattered multiple of his ribs on both sides. Although the strong force did not cause the broken ribs to penetrate any of his organs, luckily, it was still a struggle for him to move. Although the force just now was not enough to get him disqualified, it was very close to the breaking point. If he did not manage to put the spiritual barrier, Arnold would probably be tazered until he was unconscious by now.

Just when Arnold thought he would be given a little time to recover due to the increased distance created between him and his enemy from his fall, another danger approached him.

The previous building that he penetrated through was already quite dilapidated. So when he had completely destroying the beam that was one of the most important pillars holding the building up, the building started to collapse, and it's collapsing towards the direction of where he sat!

As Arnold watched in despair, he tried to move his body. The falling building in front of him was only three stories tall, but it was enough to completely crush Arnold's body. Therefore, unless he immediately moved, there was no helping him at all. When faced with these fatal incidents, the military academy would not care too much since students needed to get used to the danger after all. If they were killed within a controlled environment before even heading outside, then what was the point of having them as soldiers?

That being said, Arnold bet that even the teacher would not expect an entire building to fall just because of the impact of one pillar. Just when he thought that his life was over, someone rushed towards him from the side and picked him up immediately. Before Arnold even had the time to react, he was already pulled away from the impact zone. Therefore, when the loud sound of the collapsing building hitting the ground could be heard, he was already well outside the perimeter.

"Phew! That was close! You had almost gotten yourself killed back there!" Arnold's savior exclaimed in a humorous tone. The way he said it made him seem quite approachable while also relaxed the tense atmosphere. It seemed that the man wanted Arnold to quickly get out of his stupor.

The person is currently carrying Arnold in the princess carry position, which made Arnold feel quite annoyed at the person in front of him. However, on the account that this person had just saved his life, he decided not to make trouble and simply call it even. Just when Arnold tried to hold a conversation with the man before him, someone had already barged in. It was his opponent that had caused all of this in the first place!