Jacob turned around to face the rest of the group.
While he did so, at the same time, Drake leapt from high up in a tree and landed smoothly on the ground.
"Drake, they're retreating. They want us to chase them."
Drake looked at him for a few seconds without saying anything. Then, he walked up to him and stood about 4 meters away from him.
Drake was much taller than Jacob, so Jacob would've had to actually look up to face him had he been any closer.
"High sprint, will you be able to keep up?"
Hearing this question, Jacob smiled slightly, with his eyes still closed and a calm expression on his face.
"Let's go, you'll find out soon enough."
When Tarth heard this, he chuckled. "I like your style, kid."
Compared to the first time they met him, Tarth seemed a little livelier.
Jacob didn't respond to his words. Instead, he walked to the edge of the campsite, with Drake following behind him.
He then took a large leap, up to one of the tree branches, then began leaping from branch to branch. Drake followed behind him.
When they were out of sight, the group having no way of seeing them from so far out.
Golden particles that almost seemed translucent, enveloped Jacob's feet.
This time, they had no other colours mixed into them. It was just pure gold in colour.
Once the golden particles had gathered to his feet, Jacob took a low squat on one of the branches and took off. His feet leaving a deep mark on the tree once he did.
With every leap he took, he covered enormous ground, moving at extremely high speeds.
Drake's eyes widened at the sight of this. He hadn't realized it, but he had an excited grin on his face.
Your manipulation of divinity is nothing short of incredible.
Drake had a grin on his face as these thoughts flashed across his mind.
Suddenly, he too began doing the same thing. Mirroring the manipulation of divinity to almost a perfect extent.
This caused Jacob to turn his head and take a slight glance backwards.
By the time he did though, Drake was already next to him.
"We're already here, slow down."
Jacob's calm words put an end to their little race that Drake was already starting to enjoy. He slowed down for a few more leaps before they came to a halt.
"Where are they?"
Drake asked this question without turning his head to face Jacob. He just looked straight ahead— Jacob did the same.
"They're here, one of them is about to attack."
Jacob knew what he said was loud enough for the corpses to hear, yet he said it anyway.
This caused the lurking corpse to stop and step back, as if, understanding that they had been discovered already.
So whatever's controlling them understands human speech…
Jacob thought this to himself as they stood there, Drake waiting for his order.
After a few more seconds passed, Jacob took a step forward on the huge tree branch they stood on.
"The one is right above you, the other one is a bit further up ahead. They have more divinity than before but they should still be weaker than us."
After speaking, Jacob took a leap off the tree.
"I'll get the other one, he's hiding."
Once Jacob said this, Drake shifted his scarf to cover his face. He then activated his red flames and also leapt down from the tree.
Immediately, the corpse on top of him followed. Landing on the ground shortly after he did.
The corpse still had lumps all over it's body. It still had messy stains of blood all over it too and it still oozed a slimy, yellowish green substance that looked sticky.
Still no head. It just stood there watching Drake.
Drake sighed, and started walking up to it calmly.
The corpse did the same…
When they were about 5 meters away from each other, both suddenly lunged at each other. Drake with his flames of divinity, the corpse with it's wind.
Once they clashed, on the first blow, the flames exploded on impact, demonstrating a clear upper hand in terms of divinity levels.
The corpse was sent flying into a tree, crashing with it's back into it. The impact left a tear of flesh on the corpse's back and burn marks on it's arms.
When Drake saw the corpse get back up immediately, he started walking towards it slowly again.
This time, he lifted his right hand up infront of himself and opened it up straight as if imitating the hand sign of prayer, except, he only used one hand.
With an open palm up in front of his face, he calmly muttered to himself— "Flame shift, First"
As he spoke in a low voice, red flames erupted mid-air from nothing on both his left and his right.
He continued to mutter to himself. Only a single word followed.
"Bolide."
Once he said it, the flames on his sides split into multiple balls of flames the size of human palms.
The red flames seemed compressed to this size, but they had intense levels of heat to them.
They flew quickly, traveling extremely quickly through the air. They were so fast in fact, that the corpse didn't know they had left Drake's side until they connected with it.
Every ball of flame that connected with the corpse resulted in a loud bang!
They exploded on impact, every explosion nearly reaching the scale of those explosions caused by those suicidal corpses.
After a series of explosions, Drake stood about 15 meters back and watched his fames burn.
In a few seconds, his flames died down. This was the difference between combining nature elements and divinity to conjure and manipulate your chosen element. And using purely divinity to create an element from nothing.
The latter, which is what Drake just used, depends on one's understanding of an element. And once used, the moment divinity is retracted from that element, it will vanish.
It's called 'shifts'.
Drake is a lot stronger than I thought.
Jacob had already caught up with the second monster when the explosion he felt caught his attention and distracted him.
After regaining focus, he looked down from a tree branch he stood on, high up in one of this large trees of the forest.
He had a cold expression on his face as he stood still, just looking at the standing headless corpse down on the ground.
The corpse simply stood there, facing it's body in Jacob's direction.
It had blood splattered all over it, with a gaping and bloody hole in it's chest that had already begun rotting.
Hundreds of maggots squirmed from the hole in his chest as it stood motionless.
It was the headless corpse belonging to Manther.
After observing it for a few seconds, Jacob sighed while thinking to himself.
I was right then… I made a good call coming here myself.
He smiled when he thought this, shaking his head slightly while doing so.
After a few more seconds of observing, Jacob reached for the sword on his waist and pulled it out of its sheath.
It was a black katana. A black blade, with a black scabbard and a similarly, black leather-like material used on its handle. It was a beautiful sword and fit it's wielder's aesthetic well.
Once the sword was drawn, Jacob swatted slightly and took off, reaching Manther's corpse in less than a second from quite a distance away.
Once he did, he swung his sword aiming to split the corpse in half from it's torso.
The corpse however, matched this speed with a flip, spinning mid-air to counter Jacob with a kick.
It's movements were incredibly agile, however Jacob seemed to have anticipated this. Lowering his body then leaping forward to evade the corpse's maneuver.
The corpse's kick crashed into the ground, it's strong impact crushing the ground and leaving a large hole on impact.
This level of divinity is very high. So he placed most of his divinity in this one corpse. He should've gone all out.
Jacob shook his head as he thought to himself, the smile still remaining in his face.
The corpse didn't stop at this move however, it continued it's attack by gathering divinity around itself.
Once it did, it lunged forward. It swung, one punch after another with brute force.
It's moves were sloppy, and Jacob picked up on that fact, easily evading every attempt the corpse threw at him.
After a series of punches that never connected with the intended target, the corpse backed up and stood a few meters away from Jacob.
Jacob narrowed his eyes.
"Flame shift— Bolide"
He used the same attack Drake had just used on the other corpse.
He used the same hand sign, flames appeared in the same way they had appeared for Drake… only the difference was, his flames were black.
The corpse jumped back when it saw this, but it was a fraction too late. Flames connected with it, causing explosions of a magnitude the level of those corpse's own explosions.
The woods were engulfed in black flame that wouldn't stop burning even after a while.
They were extremely hot, burning at extremely high degrees and producing heat that covered large distances.
"That should do it. I told you to go back to the group once you were finished."
Jacob spoke with a smile, and had a calm expression on his face.
From high up in a tree, Drake's sweaty face had a surprised expression on his face. It was an exaggerated expression at that.
"You… you're the savior."
Drake's words held heavy emotion in them. The flames burned hot, but he was too distracted, too emotional, too perplexed to realize the heat was too unbearable to be in without being coated in divinity.
Jacob looked at him, the smile disappearing on his face, replaced by the expression of being taken aback.
"What are you talking about?"