Chapter 38

In front of the governor’s narrowed eyes, Storan emerged from the foliage once again, his hand over his kidney and some blood dripping onto his cloak from underneath his mask.

He walked over toward the governor and looked at him coldly. “That was a good move,” he finally grunted. “It definitely took me by surprise.”

“Storan… you’re still conscious?” The governor said begrudgingly.

As he did, he got a strange feeling - he couldn’t help but feel that Storan was different. He couldn’t pinpoint what, but something about his atmosphere had changed.

At that moment, Storan suddenly made a movement and brought up his hands, palms facing outward toward the governor. Immediately, two small dark gray objects formed and soared forward. Zzzzzip!

“Spirit bullets!” The governor couldn’t help but exclaim.

Without a moment’s delay, he instantly leaped to the side, out of the path of the bullets. As he did, his eyes relaxed and he let out a breath. ‘His spirit projectiles are extremely powerful and fast, but as long as I can see where they’re coming from and dodge them, they're a minimal threat to me.’

BOOSH! Just as the governor was thinking that, an explosion sound rang out! The two dark grey projectiles that the governor had thought he had dodged suddenly exploded into hundreds of small grey pellets that proceeded to blast in a large radius forward.

‘What?!’ Shocked, the governor attempted to jump backward to dodge these pellets, but it was to no avail - their spread was way too large. At the last moment, he covered his face with his arms.

Pop! Pop! As they hit their mark, the little pellets were like popping bubbles, forming small explosions. Like a hailstorm, an entire wave of these pellets crashed down onto the governor’s body.

“Gah!” The governor groaned as he was barraged by this wave of explosions. A thin mist cloud of blood formed as the governor’s clothes and skin were torn apart.

“Don’t drop your guard!” Storan’s voice suddenly rang out. As the voice reached the governor’s ears, a sword glowing with a dark-gray aura emerged and stabbed out toward the governor from the side.

‘Fuck!’ The governor hurriedly gathered some spirit energy into his feet and leaped to the other side, just barely dodging the sword stab. In the corner of his eye, he looked backward and realized that while he had been distracted by the rain of exploding pellets, Storan had managed to sneak into his blind spot and had almost managed to pierce him.

He landed heavily on the ground and immediately crouched down. His clothes completely torn and his hair a mess, he gasped erratically, and blood dripped incessantly from his body onto the ground.

“Not bad,” Storan stared at the disheveled governor, coughing as he held his sword with one hand and hugged his kidney with the other. In reality, he had been heavily injured as well. “If you had been finished there, it wouldn’t be as fun.”

The governor merely stared back at Storan. Inwardly, he was shaken up. He had nearly been stabbed in the side; if he hadn’t been able to barely dodge in time, he would have been done for! Furthermore, those pellets had been much more destructive than he could have ever expected - who would have thought that Storan would have learned such a mischievous and destructive technique?

As he thought this, Storan stared back at the governor once again and sheathed his sword. “Don’t get relaxed now!” He suddenly raised his hands again, palms facing out. Once more, two dark gray objects began to form in front of his palms.

‘Shit!’ The governor grit his teeth. ‘How many more times is he going to do that?!’ He closely observed Storan, who now seemed to be becoming a bit pale.

‘Wait a minute…’ After thinking for a moment, he snapped his fingers. ‘Yes, that’ll work!’

Instantly committing himself to his idea, he silently began to charge some spirit energy in his legs.

“Hah!” Storan carefully built up his dark gray spirit bullets in front of his palms, and then with a single grunt, shot them at lightning speeds towards the governor. ZZip!

As soon as he had done that, he prepared to once again advance toward the governor and attack him. However, just as he took a single step, he suddenly stopped in his motion, his eyes widening.

Instead of dodging out of the way, the governor was running toward the spirit bullets!

‘Is he crazy?! He’s planning to take those head-on?!’ Storan was incredulous.

After a moment of confused pondering, he continued to stare forward and saw that the governor was still running toward him with seemingly no plans of stopping.

‘Alright then,’ he scoffed. ‘I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s making a big mistake. Explode!’

Boosh! With a single thought, the two spirit bullets once again split into hundreds of tiny pellets that formed into a front-facing hail dome. This time, the governor was directly facing it!

‘He’s done for!’ Storan laughed to himself. ‘If he had dodged to the side, he would have only faced a portion of the hailstorm. But now, he’s going to take the full brunt of it. His body’s going to be devastated!’

For a moment, the governor’s body was completely blocked by the sheer volume of the numerous pellets charging toward him - Storan could no longer see him.

Yet, just when it seemed that the governor was completely finished, suddenly - woosh! The governor’s body appeared again over the spread of pellets, jumping up and soaring into the sky over the dome of destruction.

Although a few fringe spirit bullet pellets continued on to barrage against his legs, for the most part he remained unscathed!

‘What..?! Shit!’ Storan balled his fists, instantly understanding the governor’s plan. ‘He ran toward the bullets so that he would be able to jump past them! He knew that the explosion of pellets only went forward, so if he could use his charge technique to leap over it while the spread had the lowest height, he could easily get behind it and dodge it!’

As Storan was thinking that, the governor fell from his jump and landed on the ground. Without a moment wasted, he wound up and proceeded to leap straight toward Storan!

‘Fuck!’ Storan hurriedly unsheathed his sword and held it out threateningly toward the bull-like governor.

The governor jumped in front of Storan, gathered some spirit energy into his palm, and then swatted Storan’s sword away like it was a toothpick. Pak!

Shuk! The sword flew away and sunk into a patch of mud.

“Wha…?!” Storan was stunned speechless. Mouth gaping, he could only make stuttering noises. “H-how…?!”

“You’ve improved,” the governor replied. “But not enough. Your sword skills still suck.”

As he said that, he raised his fist, preparing to strike down on Storan.

Storan glanced at the governor's cocked fist in terror. The governor had come much too suddenly - all Storan could do was cringe slightly, close his eyes, and wait for the inevitable blow. ‘Fuck… I was careless…’

BOOM! A loud collision noise sounded out.

“...”

‘...huh?’ A moment later, Storan realized that he was unhurt. He instantly opened his eyes, and seeing what had happened, quickly let out a breath.

Standing in front of him, facing outward, was a larger, more muscular gold-masked man. His two arms, sporting metal guards on the forearms, were outstretched in an ‘x,’ directly blocking the governor’s strike. He glanced backward toward Storan. “Thank god I came in time.”

Bam! The next moment, the man kicked his leg out forward, hitting the governor in the shins!

“Gah!” The governor instantly leapt away in retreat, limping on his foot.

After the governor had backed away a considerable distance, making sure it was a short distance from Finn, Alivia, and Grandpa Dinran, he scowled and bent down to massage his shin.

“Jeez Storan, why are you so hotblooded?” The muscular gold masked man spoke.

“Sorry Gonar…” Storan replied. “I wanted to deal with him myself.”

“You should have waited for the rest of us to come,” Gonar stated.

As if on cue, just at that moment, some movement could be spotted at the edge of of the forest. In a matter of seconds, tens of bronze and silver masked fighters had appeared, and within moments, these fighters had spread out and fully surrounded the governor and his group.

In their midst was a third gold-masked fighter, this one tall and skinny, holding a large silver hammer.

‘Fuck…’ The governor glanced around at all the people that had appeared and rubbed his forehead. ‘Looks like we’re in real trouble now…’