They ran quickly, not sure which direction to go.
From the beginning itself this escape seemed impossible as Sky was running ahead without looking back leading the way when only Kyle is supposed to know where to go. Instead of Kyle leading the way, it was Sky. A person who didn't know where he was supposed to go.
But Kyle couldn't think of those thoughts as he was fully focused on catching up with Sky, his leg almost tired from running before and moving so much using the shadows. He was utterly tired and barely able to think of anything while Sky on the other hand ran with no apparent future plans.
The presence got close as Sky ran up the mountain that he had been exploring as if looking for a specific spot.
As the presence got closer, Sky's heart also began to beat faster, the pressure was strong and it felt odd for him to wait for his opponent to catch up to him especially if he knew how dangerous it was.
The chase was already 7 mins long and they were still running and barely managing to just escape the pursuer's grasp but now Sky knew he had to do it.
As they were reaching the top of the Rocky Mountain, a hand was reaching for them as the pursuer was visible.
His hand almost grabbed Kyle but then at that critical moment, Sky dashed towards him and reached his hand towards him and as he almost touched the abdomen of the pursuer, a heartbeat sounded, silence reigned—then the void snapped open. A thunderhead of compressed wind exploded outward in a single pulse, flattening dust and hurling the pursuer back as though he was struck by an unseen hammer.
A large amount of force was emitted, as a bit of blood came out of mouth and his arm was almost destroyed as the equal and opposite momentum rushed through his body.
Sky's palm began to tremble as his now injured hand began to start bleeding, he now kneeling from the recoil.
"Wha-What happened?" Kyle asked, still breathing heavily from all the running.
"C-Compressed air." Sky barely managed to speak as he was breathing heavily. "I was storing air in the void of my right arm and shoulder using my power to temporarily expand the void and as I came in contact with our pursuer, I quickly shrank the void, moving all the air in a tight space, forcibly compressing it at a rapid pace until I couldn't and opened it on my palm releasing a burst of force."
Hearing Sky's explanation, Kyle felt a bit dumbfounded since he had barely understood the entire thing about how his interpretation works, his understanding of this was even worse. He lacked knowledge about compressed air and many other things due to his lack of education in general and in that category specifically so he instinctively just assumed that it was some high level move even if it was not.
"Did we get him then?" Kyle asked after shamelessly dumbing what Kyle said.
"Don't raise a red flag" Sky responded, almost recovered from his injury.
"Impressive" a rough voice sounded out as a man with a big build stood up, standing up from the smoke.
He stood at a solid 6ft 4 and wore light armour that was now broken from the force that was inflicted on him, blood came out of his mouth, his clothes and armour from his abdomen was completely gone now and injuries and bruising could be seen.
His black hair and face, now visible.
He had a small scar on the edge of his lip and a long sword on his right side still unsheathed.
"You have great potential and I'm even willing to consider sparing you if you just give me the white stone back." He said, reaching out his right hand, asking Sky to give back the white stone.
"Sorry…but I can't really trust your words." Sky said a small smirk appeared on his face.
"Hmm….." The pursuer muttered as if contemplating his choices. "Well if you answer a few of my questions I might consider giving you a painless death."
"That's not a bad deal" Sky said, accepting to answer his questions not due to the offer that the pursuer made but rather because he had to buy time. Time to re-remember the structure of the mountain he had seen as he was falling down and to visualise or guess the parts of the mountain's landscape he didn't remember or know. "So what do you wanna know first?"
"Firstly can you confirm that your interpretation allows you to create a pocket space anywhere on your body?"
Hearing that question made Sky realise that the pursuer was smart and he contemplated if he should lie or not, wondering if he had enough intelligence to see through his lies.
"Yes" Sky responded, choosing the safer option at the current moment.
"Then did you manage to attack our base at our weakest moment or time frame coincidentally or intentionally."
"Coincidentally." Sky responded, connecting the dots in his head.
'So the reason why the area was so unguarded was due to most of them being busy with something? But I feel like there is more to this…'
"Thirdly, why did you use your own skin instead of just putting the meat in a bag and throwing it over the wall instead of going to the extreme and using your skin."
"…"
"It's related to one of your or your ally's abilities right?"
"…"
"Staying silent is not a good choice, especially if you want me to keep my side of the deal."
"Ha…." A small laugh left Sky's mouth as he grinned. "I didn't expect you to actually think that I was gonna fall for the whole deal shit. I'm pretty sure even a retard won't fall."
"Can I take this as a taunt?" The pursuer asked, holding his sword and unsheathing it.
But instead of replying back, Sky took out a weapon from his void.
The weapon was around 67cm long and looked like a war hammer except the actual hammer was around 1.7 times bigger than it should have been.
"It's a shame that you don't want my mercy." The pursuer said, now holding his sword in his left hand fully intending to kill.
"…" silence followed as for a few seconds they stood there waiting for each other to move first but upon realising that their opponents won't attack first, the pursuer/Sky moved forward at the same time initially shocked at each other's movements.
As they were close, Sky stopped and swinged his warhammer just barely out of range, seeing this mistake, the pursuer felt a bit sorry and began to slow himself intending to just stand out of the range of the warhammer and then swing his sword after he missed but something went wrong, the warhammer that was supposed to be out of range managed to strike him.
It turns out that Sky hadn't swung his hammer but instead thrown it, throwing his own weapon out of his own reach and in the enemy for one blow but that was fine.
A metal mallet formed from his void in his abdomen and he grabbed it rushing towards the pursuer who had been pushed back and swung his mallet down but to his shock the pursuer had not only already recovered from the previous attack but had easily managed to block the blow coming from above with only his ulna and radius bone of his left hand and was about to strike Sky with his right hand.
A hand grabbed Sky's back and pulled his back and a stab attack from a sword came in aiming for the pursuer's liver, seeing this, the pursuer moved his left hand down and with its elbow and his right hand caught the sword just before it stabbed him.
A high kick from Sky then followed up with Kyle's attack hitting the pursuer's head and almost tripping him over.
Seizing this moment Sky followed up with a leg sweep but the pursuer simply jumped up and avoided the attack, swinging his sword in the mid air with precision attacking both Sky and Kyle who had no choice but to simply block and dodge the attacks.
As the pursuer landed on the ground, a punch from Sky greeted his face but he didn't bother dodging as he let go of the sword he was holding and the moment the punch landed, He grabbed Sky's arm and threw him behind him onto a tree and ducked down dogging the sword swing aimed at his neck and grabbed the still falling sword and dashed forward with a sword thrust.
Seeing this, Kyle instantly reacted by grabbing the sword but he couldn't stop the sword from piercing him in the abdomen.
As the pursuer tried to pierce deeper into the wound he was pulled a bit back as Sky grabbed his neck, holding him in a neck hold.
But his grip was immediately loosened and he was thrown in the ground with tremendous force.
As Sky opened his eyes, he saw a leg coming down to crush his head, instinctively kicking the pursuer's leg making him trip.
He got on top of the pursuer and started to punch him rapidly, cracking the ground around them.
The pursuer headbutted on of the punches coming in his way making sky frown from the pain and taking the opportunity, he grabbed Sky's neck with his hand strangling Sky with such immense force that he nearly passed out immediately but before he could finish off Sky, a punch came from Kyle landing on his face and pushing him a bit back.
The now injured Kyle dashed forward picking up a fallen sword and swung it towards the pursuer but was easily dodged and followed up with another punch to the abdomen where he was recently stabbed.
But the pursuer was shocked, the wound that he had inflicted had already been closed up and the strike he had dodged still managed to cut his cheek due to the wind pressure.
As the pursuer was in shock A sword came from above and he quickly reacted turning his sword to block the blow but it was a feint and Sky followed up with a spinning kick pushing the pursuer back into one of the 80m trees, leaving behind a small mark on the extremely tough and old trees.
As the pursuer tried to stand back up while wielding his sword, his right hand that was holding his sword was pierced by Sky and as the pursuer tried to launch an attack at him, a kick was thrown in his way hitting his face and getting pushed back to the tree, Sky then span again performing another spin kick, then another and another, perfectly hitting the same place, the tough tree was getting chipped from all these strikes and the pursuer's face was getting bloody.
'Fall' he thought as he kicked.
'Just fall' he thought as he kicked again and again
Another spinning kick landed and his bones started to shake and he felt a bit tired so he stopped kicking and took a deep breath.
The tree was almost on the verge of falling.
'I hope he doesn't die since I really don't wanna kill another person, not this soon from my descent' Sky thought slowly approaching the body of the pursuer intending on grabbing his sword back and running away.
But unfortunately for Sky, things don't always go his way.
A hand grabbed Sky as he took his sword and he realised that the pursuer hadn't fallen.
A fist came and he tried to block it with his arms and body but he was pushed back a considerable distance and left hand was broken and right hand's bone began to shake almost breaking.
"No more fooling around" the pursuer said in a shaky voice, his body still recovering from the strikes but his eyes were full of focus and he stared at the two duo, a bit pissed off "I'm gonna kill you now."