Torture, as you might expect was something I was not terribly keen on; a lot of people objected to torture back on Earth, for fairly obvious reasons, but it was the kind of distaste that really settled in after you have actually been tortured. It was for this reason that when the male of the pair – Bient – made the comment about torture, I was in no mood for further conversation.

Focusing, I ran towards the pair – I was not at full power, I didn’t know the relative strength of the two, but I did want to get an idea in case I had to run. I covered the short distance in an instant, but pulled myself to a painful stop as I Instinctively forced my body to absorb the momentum.

I found myself at a dead stop, a few feet from them and looking around with confusion looking for the threat; I could not see it, and I had no control over my sudden stop, so my ability had clearly reacted to something but I could not see it.

Reaching out cautiously, I felt a barrier of some kind just ahead of me, its surface perfectly slick and invisible. With a grimace, I flicked my eyes to the pair on the other side, one wearing a small smile and the other a quirked eyebrow as he pulled two knives from one of the many bandoliers I could then see strapped about his body.

Not knowing whether the barriers would allow things to be thrown from the other side – the breadth of cultivation really was a huge pain sometimes – I leapt backwards, but found myself sliding sideways as my momentum was diverted by another frictionless surface behind me and I thudded into the ground.

I was halfway to my feet when I saw the first knife coming and I was forced to awkwardly flip forward around the axis of my head to avoid being skewered, and then twice more to avoid the next two. By the end of the third flip, I was back on my feet and trying to dodge sideways to avoid yet another knife when I once more came into contact with the very annoying barrier. It did not seem like it was a dome, or any enclosure, but more like a series of manifestable walls, much like the barrier ability of the lizard-person I had killed on the dead world. Unfortunately, there was no ceiling here for me to take advantage of.

Leaping straight up is usually a very stupid thing to do in most fights; unless you have some ability to maneuverer in mid-air, you become a very easy target, as your speed, angle and descent become fairly set. You can do some small things, but unless you have a long way to fall, you pretty much get what you started with. Against somebody that throws knives – or any ranged opponent – it is particularly stupid, because the thing with ranged attacks is – obviously – they do not need to be close to you in order to take advantage of it. Luckily for me, I could cheat.

Stepping onto my path as my feet left the ground, I felt time slow around me, adding to the accelerated perception of my Focus and suddenly, I was rising through the air – and then falling – at a very unusual pace. As I had discovered on the dead world, having more time in which to act changed the way I moved; a person who jumped would cover a set distance before their momentum was arrested, and then they would fall at a set acceleration. My time compression meant that while this was still the same for me – relatively speaking – from the outside, I shot up – and down – many times faster than I should have.

As I rose into the air, knives poured from Bient’s hands one after another, each moving at a very respectable speed for what I then assumed to be a Path stage. But his face bore the tell-tale expression of irritation, and I could tell he was not used to missing so much.

I grinned as I neared the floor, but that quickly fell away as Instinctive Precognition gibbered away in the back of my mind, warning me of danger but unable to guide me out of it. Wearing a frown in place of my grin, my feet touched down and instantly swept out from under me as the perfectly slick barrier between myself the ground diverted my feet behind me. Naturally, I held my hands out before me, but as they too hit the barrier, they were swept to the side and I found myself spinning in place, only the resistance of the air slowing me at all.

And that was when the knives came back. When I say they came back, I do not mean that the man with an apparently un-ending number of them back throwing – though he did – I mean that they came back. As I spun in place, I caught sight of a glittering array of sharp edges spinning and diving towards me; all the knives that the bastard had thrown were apparently returning to him, by way of the place I occupied.

I grabbed my Praxis with my will and roughly dragged it through my Focus and Exemplar as I felt my heart begin to race. In that moment, I did something I had only done by accident previously; I echoed my head. The world froze, coming to a stop far more absolute than what I experienced at even my fastest. I did this – using my trump card on my mind rather than my attacks, because my reserves were getting very low, as low as they had been perhaps since my desperate fight in the Black, running on the fumes contained in my extended channels. Getting anywhere near this amount of time for my full body would have drained me dry in moments, but by focusing my compression on my head... I got wholesale time at cut-rate prices.

I eyed the oncoming murder of flying knives and considered my options carefully; The last time I had done this, it had lasted a long time – relatively – but my Exemplar was almost thirty-times as complete as it was then, and the improvement seemed linear. Remembering that experience, however, I made sure not to attempt to move anything below my neck; I would only get one chance to get this right, and anything else was probably my own – well deserved – death.

I was on a surface that completely nullified any advantage I had in terms of movement speed, but moving fast along the ground was not all I could do. I needed to borrow some momentum, and make use of a point of leverage not affected by the barrier. Having no idea how far the thing extended, I was left with three possible methods of avoiding the rushing metal and escaping the trap: I could pull my chain from storage and attempt to use it to anchor me beyond the scope of the field. This had some merit, but again, not knowing the scope of the platform meant this was only a chance. If it extended further than my chain could reach, I was done. The same could be said – and even more so – about my second option, using my sword. My sword had far less reach than my chain, but it did have the potential to penetrate the barrier to provide the needed leverage, but this was pure hypothesis – there was simply no way I could know. Which left my third option – using the knives themselves.

The knives – currently held motionless in time – were not evenly spaced, or all in a line, but appeared to be returning in the order they had been thrown. They were also being returned by some force, conforming to Newton’s Laws of Motion. A normal knife, traveling at normal knife speeds would not provide much hope for escape, but magically supported and guided knives might contain enough force to free myself. It seemed like my best option, though I still planned to couple it with my chain – just in case.

I spent a few minutes checking angles as best as I could without being able to move my head, and once sure, I moved. Nothing happened, of course, but I knew from my past experience that the signals were at the base of my skull, frozen in the same relativistic time-lock as the rest of the world.

That being done, I considered what I could do once I was not in immediate danger of death, and that was more of a problem. I might be able to get close to barrier-woman with the addition of my Exemplar and take her out, which would make knife-boy relatively easy, but it all depended on how quickly she could erect them, and how fast she could react. With my Exemplar and Focus, without pushing hard, I was about five times faster than a normal Path stage, but if she had fast enough reflexes and instantaneous shields, she might still block me. But the same could be said for her escape.

Considering my options, figured I was better off escaping – the range on the walls could not be infinite, and I stood a decent chance of getting out of range if I could surprise them by escaping. I did not like to run away, but as I was way down on Praxis, and my main advantage was being somewhat countered, it was probably the better part of valour. My dad had told me – a long time before – that if you do not think you can win a fight, you should walk away. And then come back with a weapon and hit them from behind. My dad was a complicated guy, and that advice had never really benefitted me, but in this moment, it really seemed pretty good.

What seemed like half an hour passed before I felt time slipping back to normal and I held my mind in check, careful not to confuse the instructions I had sent already. With a lurch, time unstuck, and my left hand reached out, a filament of Praxis slipping into a ring and out with my chain, filling my palm with its comforting weight. At the same timed, my right hand reached out and like a cam I was thrown up slightly as I rotated. I reached out – almost casually – and slapped the first knife to reach me.

My supposition proved correct – the force guiding the knife was sufficient to counter my own weight and serve as an anchor-point I could use for leverage. Flipping up and over the knife, my left hand flicked out, the heavy weight at the end digging into the surface in a spray of dirt and small rocks. Tugging on it, I altered the course of my own momentum and landed feet first on the debris covered grass. I wanted to whoop, to shout in triumph at my plan paying off, but instead, I gathered what Praxis I had left, concentrated and ran away. As fast as I could.

I half-expected myself to have to dodge, but it seemed like - at least in the moment – I was running faster than the knives could follow. No new barriers sprang up to impede my path, and after a few minutes I slowed down to more normal – for me – speeds, stepping off my Path entirely and letting my Focus push me on alone as I thought back over the brief fight. I had become overconfident – it was something I had thought before, but it had really been hammered in it seemed by V’s defeat. It had been a vendetta for almost my entire time on this world, and he had continually crushed me with little effort. Beating him in a straight fight had simply enforced the idea of my own superiority, and that was definitely a mistake. I needed to come at challenges like I was going to lose, to use my brain instead of just rushing in, when I had the chance. I should have rested up as much as possible, refilling my reserves. If I had been closer to full, I may have been able to take the two, or even if I had simply put more thought into it. My decision had been arrogant, and it was one I promised myself not to make again. Only Smart Hunter would get to fight from that point on. Where possible.

Noticing a sharp pain on my palm, I looked down as I ran, noticing a long cut on my hand from where I had slapped the knife; even with half an hour to plan, the signal I had sent my body had not been perfect and I had injured myself. Still, it would heal before too long and was not severe enough to warrant taking any alchemical medicine, though the throbbing was a little distracting. The sensation really emphasised the tightness I had been feeling in my knuckles, and I cracked them one-handed again before wiping sweat off my forehead as I ran, my mind returning to the two I had left behind and almost stumbled as the world lurched slightly. Catching myself, I took a deep, steadying breath and began to cultivate lightly as a thought; being low on Praxis sucked.

I had no doubt I could take the two remaining cult members, with help from my companions; the barriers were unlikely to pose the perfect counter to them that they had posed to me, so I was confident I would be able to get some rest and meditation in before the next fight, even if they came calling, rather than waiting for us to come mop them up.