Chapter 82: No Way Out

Chapter 82: Chapter 82: No Way Out

Steel rang against stone.

Jason barely had time to turn before a sword cut through the space where his neck had been. He twisted aside, and the blade scraped along the corridor wall, throwing a fan of sparks across the dark.

A second guard attacked before he could recover.

He caught the edge of that one on the haft of his spear, shoved it wide, and stumbled back two paces to put himself between the newcomers and the others.

They had been running for several minutes, ever since the storage chamber had torn itself apart behind them. They had hoped the blast would slow their pursuers. It had not slowed them enough.

There were at least eight of them.

All wore dark reinforced armor stamped with the same understated crest Jason had seen in the deeper parts of the facility. Their swords were narrow and perfectly balanced. Their movements were disciplined, quiet, and fast. Jason let his Perception brush across them and read the same thing across all of them.

Third Level.

These were not mindless constructs, and they were not monsters. They were trained cultivators, moving as a single unit.

Two of them stepped into the corridor ahead and sealed it. The rest fanned out behind the team and closed off the way they had come. It was a quiet, methodical encirclement. They were not rushing to kill. They were shrinking the space, one pace at a time, until there was nowhere left to run.

"Containment personnel have been reassigned," the nearest guard said. His voice was flat and professional. "All unauthorized survivors are to be detained."

"Put down your weapons. Resistance will be treated as a hostile act."

Jason looked past him.

There was no gap. There was no door. The only way forward was through the line, and nobody in the group had the slightest intention of surrendering.

---

"Skyler," Jason said, very low. "Aim for their joints. Elbows, knees, wrists. Do not try to overpower them. Break their coordination."

"Understood."

"Wen, stay behind the others. Save every drop of essence you have left."

"Got it"

"Reeve, look for a route around the encirclement. Anything. A side passage, a vent, a hole in the wall."

"I’m looking."

"Cassius, you do not engage. You have a broken leg and cracked ribs. If one of them reaches you, defend yourself and shout."

He took the front, not even bothering to listen to Cassius’ reply

He knew, with a cold and sour clarity, that he should have been able to beat these men. The bloodline had pushed his strength well beyond what even some third Level cultivators had access to.

Against any one of the guards, fight, he would have been the stronger of the forces present. His strength was deeper than almost all Hunters’ at his level.

But the pressure had not left.

It had followed him since the first descent into the facility, and the presence in the storage chamber had made it worse. It was no longer simply a weight pressing on his Core. It had become a hand, closing slowly around it, squeezing.

His essence felt like water trying to run through a pipe that had been crushed almost shut.

He could still make power. He simply could not release it fast enough.

Every technique demanded more effort than it should. Every burst of essence left a dull ache behind his breastbone.

And there was the other problem.

Four people were watching him.

If he let go of everything he truly was, the speed of his techniques, the strange abilities he had hidden for months, he would have to explain it afterward. They would ask questions he could not answer. They would carry those questions out of the Gate and into the world.

He needed to look strong enough to protect them.

He could not look stronger than that.

’That restraint is going to cost me.’

He set his feet.

---

The first guard came in with a diagonal cut.

Jason slid the spear shaft into its path and turned the blade aside, then thrust at the man’s chest in the same motion. The guard retreated half a step, and the point passed through empty air.

A second sword came from the left.

Jason pivoted. The blade scraped along his shaft, and he kicked the attacker’s knee hard. The guard’s stance buckled. Jason drove the spearhead into the joint of his shoulder, and the man crumpled to the floor.

It was clean. It wasted almost nothing.

But the cost came at once.

His Core contracted, and the essence he had spent failed to circulate smoothly. The pressure tightened around it like a fist, and the follow-up he had planned for the next opponent died in his hands. A sword cut across his side.

He twisted away before it reached anything vital, but the edge tore his shirt and opened a shallow line across his ribs.

The guard gave him no time to recover.

Two more attacks arrived from opposite directions. Jason blocked one, slipped the other, and backed against the wall to narrow the angles. For a few breaths, his experience held the line.

An arrow hissed past his shoulder.

It struck a guard in the elbow, and the man’s sword clattered to the floor. Cassius lunged in on his good leg and drove his blade into the man’s chest.

"That’s one" he gasped.

"Stop counting you idiot" Skyler snapped.

Her next arrow caught a second guard in the thigh. He dropped to one knee, snarling. Wen threw out a thin, shaking pulse of essence that jarred another attack off line, and Jason stepped through the gap and drove the point of his spear through the third guard’s defense.

For a moment, the team began to gain ground.

Then the guards changed formation.

---

The next wave was better.

They stopped attacking Jason one at a time. Two kept him busy at the front, trading precise, probing strikes. The others slid wide and went for the weak.

Jason saw a blade turn toward Wen.

He did not think. He abandoned his own guard and lunged across, and the sword struck his spear at an awkward angle. He had to pour more essence into the block than he could comfortably spare. His Core screamed.

A guard slipped in behind him, and a blade sliced through his sleeve.

He twisted, but not fast enough. A thin, hot line of blood opened along his arm.

They were learning.

They had seen that he would sacrifice his own safety for his friends, and they had begun to use it. Every time a sword swung toward Wen, or Skyler, or Cassius, Jason had to throw himself into the path. Each interception cost him time and strength. Each one left him a little more exposed.

Yet something was wrong with the way they fought.

They had the numbers. They had the advantage. They could have pressed harder, and Jason knew it. But every time a tremor rolled through the facility, their formation faltered. Several guards glanced toward the deeper corridors, their faces tight.

One of them lifted his wrist, where a small device had been strapped to the armor.

"Containment status?" he said quietly.

A distorted voice answered.

"Fourth-level personnel are still occupied. Maintain the perimeter. No unauthorized survivors are to leave."

The guard’s face hardened.

Jason had heard every word.

’The Fourth Levels are not gone.’

They were not abandoning the hunt. They were busy, tied up in whatever emergency the team had unleashed, and that was the only reason the corridor held only Third Level guards.

It gave him a window.

It also meant that when the window closed, the situation would become far worse.

---

Jason took down another man by using the walls.

He caught the guard’s sword between his shaft and the stone, stepped inside the man’s reach, and drove an elbow into his jaw. Before the guard could recover, Jason struck the side of his neck with the blunt end of the spear. The man dropped like a sack.

Jason turned to the next attacker.

He was a fraction too slow.

The sword slammed into his spear and drove him back a step. His boots scraped across the stone. He tried to reinforce his arms with essence, and his Core clenched. The reinforcement arrived late. The blade pushed him another step backward.

A second guard joined in.

Jason blocked high, caught the second sword against the lower part of the shaft, and twisted both weapons away. He tried to answer with Crimson Blaze.

The suppressed circulation made it falter. The flame sputtered along the spearhead, thin and weak, and the strike that should have burned through armor only scorched it.

The guard staggered, wounded.

He did not fall.

That was the difference between the strength Jason had and the strength he could actually use. Under any other circumstances, that technique would have ended the exchange.

Here it only bought him seconds.

A sword struck his shoulder. Another sliced across his thigh. He staggered and dragged himself behind a toppled piece of machinery, using it as a barrier, forcing the guards to come around from the sides.

His breathing stayed even.

But his Core ached with every movement, a deep, hot burn behind his sternum.

He could keep fighting.

He could not keep fighting like this.

---

"Jason!"

Reeve’s voice cracked across the corridor.

"On the right!"

Jason looked.

A narrow opening gaped in the wall, half hidden behind a fallen beam. It was just wide enough for a man to slip through, and it led into darkness. Two guards had already moved to block it.

"We need to move!" Reeve shouted.

Jason scanned the corridor.

Skyler had almost no arrows left. She drew one from her quiver, looked at it, and put it back. Cassius was sagging against the wall, his bad leg trembling. Wen had her hands pressed to her chest, breathing in short, sharp gasps, her essence nearly burned away.

There were too many guards between them and the opening.

Even if he cut through every remaining Third Level cultivator, the Fourth Levels would eventually come, and when they did, the fight would end.

He could not protect the others like this.

He could not escape the facility at this strength.

For the first time since they had entered the Gate, Jason accepted that his original plan was finished.

He needed something else.

Something he did not yet have.

---

A tremor rolled through the corridor.

Dust sifted from the ceiling in thin, pale streams, and the pipes along the wall shrieked. Jason glanced up.

A long fracture ran across the stone overhead.

It stretched from the damaged section near the storage chamber, through the middle of the corridor, and straight on toward the wall behind the guards. The crack was wide enough to slide a hand into. As he watched, it widened a hairsbreadth, and a chunk of rock the size of his head dropped and shattered on the floor.

The facility had been shaking for hours. The blast in the storage chamber had worsened every weakness. The ceiling was already near collapse.

Jason looked at the guards.

He looked at his friends.

’That is the opening.’

It would be dangerous. He could not control a collapse with any precision, and he might not have enough essence left to get out from under it himself. But he did not need to defeat every guard. He needed only one gap, one breath, one moment when the way was clear.

He adjusted his grip on the spear.

His Core contracted in agony.

He forced essence through it anyway.

’If I stay here, we all die.’

He planted his feet on the cracked stone, lifted his eyes to the fracture, and prepared his next attack.

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