Volume 1 Chapter 76: A Chance to Escape
[Author's Note: For bonus chapters, the goal is
25 Power Stones
50 Power Stones
Every Week]
Volume 1 Chapter 76: A Chance to Escape
With the hemisphere in Carmilla's possession, the four adversaries had no choice but to target either Eve or Pepper who was the nearest. Furthermore, the two flying swords had undergone significant enhancements in both speed and attack power, making it difficult for a blood arrow to easily block and push them back.
To push a flying sword back, Eve would need to utilize the sword's own momentum when it was attacking her, but accomplishing this was no easy feat.
Eve would need to perfectly time her shots and accurately target a specific point to add more force to the flying sword's momentum.
Now that the two statues are not controlling the flying swords, the attack pattern of the two flying swords has become much more difficult to predict.
==================================
These scenarios will only apply if Eve uses a bow and arrow to do that.
The flying sword stops its flight towards Pepper, who is still too occupied with keeping the other flying sword in place, and flies directly towards Eve.
Eve tried to shoot at the flying sword but missed horribly, as the flying sword started dodging around the arrows.
Having achieved no results with shooting the flying swords, Eve had to change her blood bow into a sword in a very short notice.
With no arrows to dodge, the flying swords sped up even more toward Eve.
Eve blocks the flying sword using the blood sword she was holding, and unlike when the statue was using the flying sword, the force of the flying sword wasn't enough to damage the blood sword, even though it received a massive boost in power.
Upon clashing with the flying sword, the blood sword developed some cracks, even without the added force from the statue, due to its hasty construction.
But as they clashed, Eve could easily repair the cracks and reinforce the blood sword a bit, so as they clashed, the damage caused by the flying sword towards the blood sword was getting reduced over time.
Now that the blood sword was not getting any damage at all, Eve could easily block or parry the attacks of the flying sword without needing to divert some of her attention to repairing and reinforcing her weapon.
Pepper, who was at the side, saw this and knew that they were wasting a lot of time staying in a deadlock. The two statues might catch up to them, even if it takes a couple of minutes due to their very slow speed, but eventually, they would still catch up if the two of them didn't leave right now.
Pepper also knew that only one of them could leave this cave alive, and that person was Eve.
Pepper decided that she would be the one to remain here since she didn't have enough HP left to survive the damage from the badly bleeding wound when the flying sword managed to pull itself out. Even if the [Immortality] skill would downgrade it to a normal bleeding status ailment, the Damage over Time (DoT) was still enough to kill her.
Pepper shouted to Eve, who was still trying to get closer to her while also blocking or dodging the attacks of the flying sword.
Pepper: "Eve, leave me here."
Eve, who heard this, tried to reply.
Eve: "But..."
Pepper: "No 'buts,' just leave me here since I can't even survive the damage of the bleeding status ailment later, and besides, I will be able to respawn after an hour or so."
Eve, who heard all of this, stopped trying to get close to Pepper since Pepper was right that even if they died, they would be revived after an hour or so have passed. So, Eve started to walk towards the exit while also needing to block or dodge the flying sword attacks.
While in the middle of walking, Eve noticed a chance to push the flying sword really far away.
As the flying sword approached from the front, Eve didn't get ready to block its attack, nor did she try to dodge in advance. Instead, she waited for the flying sword to get near, and in the last minute, Eve sidestepped and, like a baseball player, swung the flat side of her blood sword like a bat.
But unlike in baseball, Eve didn't change the flight trajectory of the flying sword. Instead, Eve's swing managed to add more force to it, causing the flying sword to speed up even more.
Pepper, who saw that, shouted hurriedly. Pepper: "Hurry, leave here now."
Eve didn't need Pepper's reminder, as even before Pepper shouted, Eve was already in the middle of her transformation.
After transforming into a bat, Eve quickly flew toward the direction of the exit. This was her best chance to gain a massive head start, creating a large gap between her and the flying sword. By the time the flying sword managed to stop and turn around in Eve's direction, she would be long gone and too far for it to catch up again.
So, even after Pepper died and the other flying sword managed to free itself, Eve would be long gone, well out of their range.
But reality often works differently than expectations. After the flying sword stopped its forward movement, it didn't even attempt to catch up to Eve, who was long gone by now. Even though Eve had been the last one to aggro the flying swords, there was still one extremely near them. So, the flying sword went straight towards Pepper, who was still too preoccupied with stopping the flying sword to do anything else right now.
Even though it was a done deal that she would die here anytime soon, Pepper still didn't give up just like that and tried to dodge the flying sword's attack.
Surprisingly, Pepper managed to dodge the flying sword's attack. However, in doing so, the flying sword that was still stuck in her, with Pepper's sudden movements, caused the sword to damage her heart a bit since it was too close when it got stuck.
As a result of that damage to her heart, her remaining 6 HP got further reduced in half, causing her to have a badly bleeding status ailment. This was downgraded to a normal bleeding status ailment that would deal 1 HP per second for a whole minute as a Damage over Time (DoT) effect. Upon receiving the bleeding status ailment, she knew that it would surely kill her this time, for sure.