Moon’s Nineteenth Misfortune (2)

The man staring at her looked around thirty years old, with a head of blonde hair and a pair of mesmerizing forest green eyes. His eyes seemed to stare deep into her soul and it made Aquila feel somewhat apprehensive, but it wasn't enough to affect her too much.

Peering down, she instead looked at the three words on the ground.

'Moon's Nineteenth Misfortune? So is this the nineteenth cavern?' Looking at the words pensively, Aquila didn't seem to notice the man's gaze turn uglier by the second.

A trail of energy silently and sneakily crawled towards Aquila's right ankle. One end slowly fused into her right ankle. Seeing that, the man smiled ominously.

***

"Where is she?!"

"I apologize, but I don't know. The tracker states that the girl is here."

"Tch, useless. You can't even use a tracker correctly. Give me that!"

"Sure," the girl said, sneering at the woman secretly. She thought to herself, 'Hmph. Who do you think you are? If it weren't for my father telling me to follow you, why would I, a daughter of the Icedust family, allow someone like you to order me around? Tsk.'

"How can this be... the tracker says she's right here!"

'Uhuh, didn't I just say that?'

The group of cultivators behind them looked at one another, then shrugged. Some even snickered secretly to themselves. This wasn't their business anyway. All they had to do was follow orders, and they would get paid.

***

"Eh, guys, did you receive that mental signal?"

"You did too?"

"What a surprise. Turns out the one we're looking for is here too."

"Sir said she's in the nineteenth cavern."

"Indeed. Let's go up then. There's no way she can escape with all of us here."

***

'Oh. Finally they activated whatever spell it was in my ankle.' Aquila thought to herself as she easily dispersed the two connected spells, at the same time pushing both spells out, including the tracking spell.

'Why are so many people aiming their killing intent at me?' She raised her eyebrows as she looked up. Locking eye contact with the man with green eyes staring daggers at her, she resisted the urge to facepalm at this moment.

'Right, of course I just HAD to run into an enemy here. And he's also called some others here, around a dozen others. How do I get myself out of this? Hmm... I wonder how good they are at trapping people... I'll just have to find out for myself.' Thinking that, a smile broke out on Aquila's face.

Just then, the dozen cultivators arrived at cavern nineteen. Half of them stayed behind to block the cave entrance to prevent the girl from escaping while the other half ran forwards, aiming straight at the girl.

Feeling the presence of multiple cultivators coming at her from behind while the blonde man sent an attack from in front, Aquila didn't back down. In fact, there was a kind of excitement burning in her eyes at this very moment.

Bending down backward, she dodged the array of energy attacks sent by the cultivators before leaning further down into a handstand. Pushing off her hands, she curled her body into a ball as she flung towards the group of cultivators. Unfurling and twisting her body in midair, her legs twisted around the neck of one cultivator. Flinging him off, she spun through the air, dodging various attacks aimed at her. Landing on a wall, she pushed off as hard as she could, sending herself flying towards the cave entrance once again. Twirling her body in the air to avoid attacks, it was like she was defying all the rules of gravity. Whenever she got close enough to a cultivator, she took him down while using his body to boost herself.

Suddenly, a beam of energy shot towards her head. To protect herself, she suddenly flipped in midair, simultaneously changing direction. Although she avoided that beam, because of the sudden change of movement, she lost her momentum and was unable to avoid several energy strikes from the cultivators.

"Pah!" Spitting out a mouthful of blood as she landed back on the ground, she glared at the cultivators closing in on her. Flickering her gaze through them, she noticed a small gap in their defenses. Kicking her leg up, she aimed right at that point in the energy barrier created by the cultivators. Upon hitting that point, the barrier shattered, and like a beam of light, Aquila immediately shot out of this encirclement.

However, even though she got away from the cultivators surrounding her, they simply continued throwing attacks at her. A lot of them missed because she dodged away just in time, but some attacks were too quick or too large and there were too many all at once, so she was unable to dodge them all completely.

Blood was dripping from all over her body and she looked like a sorry mess, but her footing never staggered nor slipped and she kept up her pace.

All this happened within seconds.

Arriving at the opening to the cavern, she narrowed her eyes upon seeing the cultivators blocking her way.

She could sense the rest of the cultivators coming up from behind her.

As for that blonde man, from beginning till the end, he hadn't moved at all. He was only standing at the back, watching calmly with his hands behind his back. He didn't think she could get away from here with so many cultivators targeting her. Although her speed and agility were a surprise to him, it still wasn't enough for him to feel the need to come in. Anyways, this could also be a practice for those cultivators to attack someone who specialized in dodging rather than attacking back.

Meanwhile, Aquila didn't stop running even after seeing the cultivators in front of her. The cultivators in front were confused and thought she wanted to try and run through them, but the cultivators coming from the back were warier of what she wanted to do. They continued shooting attacks at her while preparing to counter whatever she had planned.

Every attack they sent hit her. Although none of them managed to hit any vital parts, they still hit her body. The cultivators saw that she had stopped dodging their attacks and didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Puzzled as they were, they still increased the strength of their attacks and sent out their strongest attacks to end her once and for all.

"Stop attacking!"