Chapter 65: God’s eye
The figures in the tree saw that the first attack didn’t work, so they reloaded their arrows. This time, not one, but all twenty of them knocked their bows with arrows and were ready to shoot.
"Gavin, move out of the way now, arrows incoming!" Raze said. Gavin reacted fast; with his sword in hand, he dashed, and so did Raze.
The arrows came flying through the air, their tips shimmering under the light of the night. Raze could sense each of their locations. He planted his feet and spun around, flowing water forming in his hands as he used it to slam into an arrow and shatter it. His flow didn’t stop, it continued, pushing the stream of water and using it to block three more arrows.
But at the speed the arrows traveled, it was hard to block them all. He managed to block the most lethal ones, yet one grazed his thigh badly, drawing a lot of blood. Luckily, they weren’t poisoned.
"Arghhh!" He groaned in pain as he backed up.
Gavin was also faced with a lot of arrows, but moving with speed and precision, he managed to dodge and block all of them.
The two of them stood there. The first barrage had failed, and they survived. Raze watched closely, wanting to see their next move. Would they continue with the arrows until they killed them? That wasn’t the case, as every one of the twenty leaped out of the trees, fully cloaked and with swords in their hands.
Everything seemed to go in slow motion for Raze. He took a deep breath and, without hesitation, channeled all his Qi. Instantly, his body became like an overworking machine, his heart slammed inside his chest, his blood pumped with force.
"Gavin, I’ll need your help here," Raze said.
"As will I. Let’s watch our backs," Gavin responded. Raze nodded.
The men touched the ground and instantly came running from all directions, swords in hand. Raze noticed something about their attack pattern, it was made up of three waves. Seven guys formed the first circle, seven the second, and finally six in the last.
There was a small gap they seemed to maintain as they attacked. He could tell they weren’t actively doing that, it just fell into place, which meant these guys were trained to work as a team.
’That makes this a whole lot harder. I can’t allow them to get close,’ he thought. Planting his foot into the ground, he stretched out his palms, using a spell he had just learned a few days back, one among the many. It was a one-star spell, but it carried a lot of power: Flame Stream.
The flames gushed out like a dragon’s breath and spread out wide into an arc. The men were immediately stopped in their tracks and forced back, but then someone from the second wave leaped over with a backflip and hurled his sword at Raze while in the air.
Raze dodged, the sword barely missing his head and striking the ground. He looked up, lifting his hands along with him, the flame slammed into the man midair. The immense pain of burning instantly followed as the man let out a guttural scream before falling to the ground hard.
But regardless, his action had created an opening in Raze’s defense, as some of the attackers rushed forward. One came in with a thrust, Raze shifted back and dodged the attack, then grabbed the man’s hand, pulling him in to knee him in the gut. But as the man moved forward, he pulled something out of his pocket. Raze spotted the movement, but he couldn’t react fast enough as the man threw it right in his face.
It was a small sphere made of fragile material, and inside was a burning hot powder. The moment it got into Raze’s eyes, it felt like hell.
"Arghhhhhhhh!" Raze screamed in pain as he staggered backward.
"Are you alright?" Gavin asked as he parried an attack and pushed back an attacker.
"Don’t worry about me. Handle your situation," Raze said. He took a deep breath, his eyes burned so bad that he was going insane, but that wasn’t stopping him.
’The concept of God’s Eyes isn’t restricted to my main eyes. My eyes only make it easier to see,’ he thought. Before he could use God’s Eyes, he needed to understand its true essence, and he did. That was how he knew this.
"So now that my eyes are gone, I’ll fall back to its true nature," he said. He didn’t know exactly what that would entail, because nothing ever came easy, but for the situation, he was ready to risk it.
Like everything else, he calmed himself and used God’s Eyes, and in that moment, a glow formed on his forehead, and he could see everything again. But not through his eyes, through the God’s Eye.
He could see the essence of things and the structure of their existence. It was far better than when he used his eyes. But for every good thing, there existed a counterbalance, a drawback. He could feel the mana gushing out of him so fast it was scary.
He knew he had little time for this, so he had to make the best of it.
Right in front of him was the very attacker that had used the powder on his eyes. He was rushing at him, sword raised and swinging down to end it all. Raze shifted to the side and dodged the attack with ease, predicting the line of attack with the help of the eyes.
He grabbed hold of the man and instantly dislocated his elbow in one move. Before the man could scream, Raze spun him around and threw him right into another attacker behind him. Raze lunged forward with reckless abandon, or so it looked, but now, he had planned every attack pattern in his mind.
He cast ten flame arrows while he ran, each one already having a target.