*Pant*
*Pant*
Panting voices kept echoing inside the woods, only to be suppressed by loud cracking noises when monsters broke the trees or when the latter hit the ground.
Theo had been running for five minutes with mad monsters right behind him.
He stretched his hand to the side while his clone spun his body and pointed his palm toward the monsters.
"Magic Bullet."
The two rained the monsters again with the Magic Bullets to prevent them from coming, but Theo found three monsters coming from his right while two from the front.
"…" If he used another Magic Bullet, he would be able to destroy one of the sides, but it would mean that his clone would disappear to sacrifice itself to let Theo escape. Meanwhile, the left was filled with monsters that prepared to attack him.
He took a deep breath and used another Magic Bullet, hitting all the monsters coming from his right. At the same time, his clone handed the sword back to Theo.
After putting his spear on his mouth, biting it on the handle to carry it, Theo grabbed Alea's sword as he controlled his clone to charge toward the two monsters before them.
They were close to that of a tiger and a bear, so Theo decided to make a riskier move to maintain his stamina because he didn't know how long Alea would stay in this way. Remembering Alea's condition and how many monsters she had killed, he believed he needed to buy time for at least thirty minutes.
Roar.
The two monsters roared as the tiger leaped forward, trying to strike him.
Clone Theo went between them, protecting the real one with its body. Before the tiger hit him, he punched the tiger's face with the Monkey Fist before kicking it away.
However, this action allowed the bear to close their gap.
Theo's momentum was too fast, so it was impossible for him to make another maneuver that could let him slip past this bear without an injury.
The bear also knew it and swiped its paw from the left to launch Theo and Alea to the tiger.
Seeing the bear's paw, Theo smiled and used another skill.
"Blink!"
His body became blurry as the next thing they realized, Theo already passed the bear, only to find himself stumbling to the ground.
"Ugh. The skill didn't kill the momentum?" Theo exclaimed in surprise as he did his best to go back to his feet and kept running. He summoned his clone again and handed the sword to him.
However, his ordeal had yet to end. Right after he passed the bear, he found an exit of the forest before his heart fell into despair. The monsters would surely come out of the forest, so the exit would be filled with monsters.
His only option was to go around this forest to avoid getting caught, but he soon realized that there wasn't a single monster outside.
"Huh? Why?" Theo asked himself and thought, 'Has someone killed them all? If that's the case, it's good because we can ask for help.'
He was desperate since his Magic Power had yet to recover. After all, Theo and Alea had been using their power to go to the cave, where he used half of his power to reach it. Then, running around like this was taxing enough because he needed to use his Magic Bullet constantly to make sure not a single monster could reach him, draining his Magic Power faster.
Hence, Theo thought that as long as it was safe, he didn't mind going there.
"Let's go out," Theo muttered as he steeled his resolve, planning to search the group that butchered all the monsters.
Unfortunately for him, that hope was shattered once again when he exited the forest. He instantly understood the reason why there wasn't a single monster in this area.
"No way." Theo dropped his jaw as he saw a huge valley right outside the forest. He then looked at the other side, which was separated by at least two hundred feet.
With how matched the two fragments at each other's end, he knew that this place was once the same thing, yet the Earthquake earlier made them shift like this.
He looked at the black gap between them and couldn't see anything underneath. The moment he entered that place would be the day he died, so it was not possible.
Roar.
A series of roars resounded in his ears as he saw the beasts would reach his position soon.
He was at his wit's end as he looked left and right, only to find them surrounding him.
"What should I do? Oi, Alea Eilric. I think this is the best time for you to wake up…" Theo gulped down, wondering if he should take the risk. Either way, he would die if he stayed.
Suddenly, a thought arose in his mind. It was when he stumbled to the ground after using his Blink. "Should I risk it?"
His answer came in the form of a roar.
Knowing that he had no time to hesitate, he grabbed Alea's sword and sheathed it into the scabbard on Alea's waist. His clone was next to him, preparing to follow him jump to cross this huge gap.
Theo took one deep breath to calm his heart down as he and his clone used Haste simultaneously, increasing their speed.
The real Theo set off first as he planned to surmount the huge gap with his speed.
He jumped as high as possible because it was impossible to do it if he were alone. But Clone Theo arrived right behind him, made a front flip, and bent his feet, planning to kick the real one to the other side.
Theo then adjusted his position and used his clone to boost himself to the sky, trying to surmount the impossible gap to cross.
"Go!" His eyes were filled with resolve and hope, yet, Heaven seemed to not agree to this plan. Despite all his efforts to do this, he realized that he had started falling just by crossing half of the distance. "Impossible. I'm going to die…"
Suddenly, the scene where he first met his master flashed in his mind. He felt useless because he relied on a "miracle" to save him.
"No! I have decided to change my way. I can't rely on it anymore. I'm going to perform the miracle itself." Theo widened his eyes as he used his mouth to hold the spear and took out the shield. He then summoned his clone not far from him, facing his shield. "Come!"
Clone Theo raised both hands and created ten Magic Bullets, aiming them toward the shield.
Boom.
The Magic Bullets exploded after not being able to pierce the spear, giving another boost to the sky. "Go!"