Skydive

The current situation was very confusing to Achilles. He was expecting that when the ground cracks it may reveal the soul's position.

That was why he intentionally let the punches attack him so that some of the force behind the impact got channeled to the ground, breaking it.

It was a risky move as hell since he was in so much pain right now, but worth it.

Although he did not expect the place he was in earlier was fake and there was another landscape hidden beneath it!

'Ok, I'm either going to die from the impact to the ground or by the hands catching up to me...What will I do about this?' Achilles pondered to himself as the ground got closer and the hands were only 10 meters away from him.

A while later, he turned around in the air to face against the arms, he needed to cut his tail first if he wanted to deal with anything else.

He still had a few long moments left before coming into the merciless death's embrace by hitting the cold ground.

Achilles raised one of his hands to make a provocative gesture at the hands, as if taunting them. One of the hairy things seemed to be offended by this as it increased its speed toward him.

Achilles enhanced himself with essences and pushed the thing away, then he raised his hands to stab it, severing the hand completely.

The other bunch of hands seemed to be able to sense the pain as they shuddered slightly before advancing toward him at an even greater speed.

Achilles kept the provoking gesture as three more hands headed at him, he raised the severed hand from before to block a strike heading at his vital. He wasn't able to dodge the rest as one of them stabbed his leg and the other scratched his cheek a little.

Achilles walked the pain off before deciding to attack the hands again, cutting two of them off completely in one swift movement.

The last one tried to go around his neck to choke him but he had perceived this and chopped it off before it was able to.

He then grabbed all the severed hands in his chest and looked at six more that were mere inches away from him.

Achilles once again let the hands do all the hardwork for him as they took all the strikes, dissipating some of the force he had to receive.

He immediately chopped all of them off again and held them tightly in his chest.

He was planning to create something that would help him absorb some of the impact upon hitting the ground.

A seemingly neverending amount of hands that were relentlessly coming after him without a stop were a great supply of cushions for such a crazy attempt.

He repeated that exact same action without any problems since the hands were really stupid and did not understand what he was planning to do.

After estimating that the number of hands were enough for him to land on the ground but still alive, albeit barely. He turned around while holding the arms in his chest and began accelerating to stay as faraway from the arm as possible.

The ground was getting closer and closer and he managed to spot something that was a bit of a distance away from him.

It was a glowing orb that was constantly shimmering in the distance.

'The soul!' Just one glance and Achilles had already known what the object truly was. This made him rejoice as he continued advancing to the ground without the slightest fear.

...Achilles in his excitement however, forgot one crucial detail — the place he was currently at wasn't just a simple barren land — It was his enemy's territory!

Crack!

Multiple hands rose up from the ground, heading directly at him. Achilles' pupils shrunk to the size of a needle at the sight as he realized a terrible truth...

[...I am so fucked!]

BOOM!

The hands from both sides collided with each other, with Achilles being the poor thing in the middle that had to suffer the force behind the two strikes.

[Argh!]

He got sent flying away a little from the hands before gravity started pulling him down again.

BOOM!

The impact against the ground got reduced a little but at a terrible price — his tattered and exhausted body.

Achilles felt his last remaining essences drained out as he laid there helplessly. He had used the rest to increase his defense as much as possible, hence he was still barely breathing instead of being killed instantly.

'...Fuck...Why do I always get my ass whooped?'

One of the arms suddenly grabbed Achilles, it raised him high up into the sky and threw him into the distance.

BOOM!

He landed on the ground and suffered from much more grievous wounds, his mind felt whirling and his soul was slowly crumbling... It was simply a nightmarish and terrible sensation.

Achilles thought that all hope was lost when suddenly, he noticed something bright in front of him. He had luckily been thrown to where he needed to be.

[...The soul.]