Offering to Earth

Lina then came out of the stone box, and as she came out, she started to look at her body and saw that her clothes were torn in some parts, but she was not hurt. She then looked around, saw the group of men near the exit, and then walked towards them quickly.

Seeing this, the leader said, "Buy me some time! I'll clear the way for us."

And the man with the sword said, "Isn't it better to fight her like we were doing before?"

The leader then said, "No. If she survived my death box, we sure can't fight her. We have to run away."

And the archer said, "Ok, how much time do you need?"

The leader then said, "As much time as possible."

And the archer said, "Ok."

The leader then put his hands on the ground and began to concentrate.

The archer materialized an arrow and shot it toward Lina. She then spun in the air and easily dodged the arrow.

The archer then said, "Damn. She already understood the pattern of my arrows. I'll need a few seconds to prepare a more elaborate attack."

The man with the sword, now cut in half, said, "Leave it to me. I'll buy as much time as I can.", and then moved toward Lina.

The archer then materialized an arrow in his hand and shot it into the sky, and then materialized another and did the same, and then continued repeating the process.

Lina, seeing this, moved quickly in his direction, but the man with the half-sword said, "Not so fast!", and then jumped towards her and struck her with his half-sword.

Lina then stretched out her hand toward the sword, and a red mist appeared around her hand. The half-sword then brushed against the mist and then against Lina's hand, who easily held it, and then broke it in her hands.

She then looked at the man with the half-sword and kicked him in the stomach, which made him fall quickly to the ground. After that, she went back towards the archer.

The man with the half-sword then hit the ground, breaking everything around him, and seeing this, the archer stopped momentarily to look at him and couldn't tell if he was unconscious or dead.

The archer then said, "Damn!", and immediately started shooting arrows in Lina's direction.

She then dodged all the arrows and was only a few meters away from the archer. 

He then said, "Die! Rain of arrows!", and then several arrows that he had shot up in the air started to fall from the sky towards Lina, each one of them with a different trajectory, some making curves, and others coming straight towards her.

When she saw this, she released a red mist around her body, ignored the arrows, and kept going toward the archer.

He was surprised to see this and then took a deep breath and pulled his bow without any arrows in his hand. 

He then looked at Lina for a few seconds and said, "Barrage of arrows."

An arrow then materialized inside the bow, and he then shot it toward Lina. After the first one, he shot it again, and again, and again, and again, to a point where at least ten arrows were going toward Lina, and she, seeing this, again ignored the arrows, shielded her face with her arms, and continued toward the archer.

He then fell to his knees, panting, and looked at Lina, watching the arrows hit her, but as he watched the arrow hit her, he realized something and thought, 'How strange, whenever an arrow hits her, it never enters her body. It seems that her essence has something that can cancel out my arrows. I wonder what it is. From the transformation, it is an animal essence. Could it be that her essence can harden her skin?'

Lina then received all the arrows in her body, but at no time did she stop moving toward the archer. She then arrived in front of him and threw a punch in his direction.

He then tried to block her by putting his arms in front of his body, and Lina hit him with the punch, throwing him toward the wall next to the path to the corridor, which was still blocked. He then collided with the wall, causing it to crack a bit, and then fell to the ground.

The leader heard the noise but did not open his eyes and continued to concentrate. Lina then went towards him, and just as she was about to reach him, the man with the half-sword appeared beside her, jumped on top of her, holding her, and said, "You won't get in the way of our leader."

Lina was surprised to see the man with the half-sword next to her, and then she looked at where he had fallen to the ground.

She then saw the other man in the group who had not participated so far kneeling on the ground looking in her direction, and Raja then said in her head, 'That man must have a regeneration essence.'

And Lina said, 'That's right. If I had known, I would have focused on him first, but it looks like I don't need to worry about him anymore. He must have spent all his energy to wake up the swordsman.'

Raja then said, 'That's right, he does look exhausted.'

And Lina said, 'It's too bad for him that his efforts will have been in vain because I'm going to put this swordsman to sleep again. Get him off my back.'

Raja then said, 'Leave it to me.', and then right away, Lina's tail moved and wrapped around the swordsman's waist. It then pulled him away from her, knocked him to the ground, and immediately after, Lina kicked him towards the man who had the regeneration essence. The swordsman then fell on top of his companion, and they both lay on the ground.

Lina then headed toward their leader. However, halfway there, he opened his eyes and said, "Okay, I did it. We're finally going to get out of here."

And Lina then said, "Hahaha. It's too late now. I've already defeated all the members of your group. Only you are left."

"No problem. After I defeat you, we'll have all the time in the world to leave."

"Hahaha, you seem to have gone crazy seeing what I did to your friends. Tell me, how do you intend to defeat me?"

The group leader then turned his head back, and you could see that his eyes were very red, and blood was dripping from them.

He then said, "Like this! Offering to the earth.", and right after he said that the ground underneath Lina opened up, and right after that, it started to rise, like a mouth ready to swallow her.

When Lina saw this, she began to fly upwards quickly, but something seemed to be pulling her downwards, which caused her to be swallowed by the earth.

Soon after this, the earth returned to the ground, and upon seeing that Lina had been swallowed, the leader said, "We finally finished her off, hahaha."

He then tried to get up, but halfway up, he lost his balance and said, "Damn, looks like I have to rest for a while. Using this technique, while being at the Influence level, with no one around to see, really took a lot out of me."

He stood still for a few seconds, then stood up slowly and said, "Well, I better go check on the others.", and then started toward the archer next to him.

He then took two steps and suddenly was punched very hard in the stomach.

He then thought, 'What was that?!', and then he was punched in the chin, which made him fall to the ground unconscious.

Lina and Raja then appeared from out of nowhere, and Lina said, "Wow, I didn't expect him to be that strong."

And Raja said, "Me neither. Lucky for us, I was watching him."

A few moments ago ...

Lina was heading toward the leader of the group, and Raja then said in her head, 'Lina. Something is wrong.'

And Lina said, 'What is it?'

'He's concentrating too much mist.'

'He's doing it to clear the way.'

'No, he's not. There's too much mist to do just that, I'm sure.'

'Got it. I'll be careful then.'

'Okay, but first, I think I'll make a clone of you to keep going towards him and see what he's trying to do.'

'Good idea. When can I stop going towards him?'

'You can stop now, and I can take care of the rest.'

Lina then stopped, but a clone of her continued in her place, and Lina found herself half transparent. The earth then ate the clone, and Lina and Raja approached the leader while invisible and waited for an opportunity to knock him out.

... Back to the present.

Lina then said, "Ah, that was fun, but that's enough. Let's go to Gen and Briny."

And Raja said, "That's right. Let's go."

Lina then said, "Hopefully, he's already got the silver orb."