Chapter 21. The Canyon

Speaking of horizontal distance, of course I couldn't cover all the distance between the waterfall and the edge of the canyon in a single jump. But that wasn't what I was counting on. I was betting on the arch. The leap with everything I got was pretty powerful and, like it should, my fall would be in an arch. The size of the waterfall was already beyond anything I had ever seen, the pool of water below wouldn't be anything less. I just hoped that the leap, the arch and distance, all would be in my favor. I didn't have time to calculate everything. Against a zero survival chance, I chose this one.

As I was falling, I heard screams above me. I turned my head to check and then I saw something wild. The purgers and the beasts were following me by jumping too.

Unbelievable! I cursed. They weren't the least afraid of jumping from such height? I knew they had low intelligence, but why did all this just to chase a single human?

As I was getting nearer to the water pool I steeled my heart. I could not faint. If I fainted now, I would die. The height was simply frightening. None of us, me and the purgers, made any preparation to handle this height. I didn't have a choice except to jump while they were simply being illogical.

It already took more than ten seconds since I leaped. My heart was going to burst. The acceleration was frightening, the friction with the air felt icy cold to my bare face. My adrenaline was pumping, it's now or never!

Titan Armor! Fiery Sword!

Finally, at the crucial time, as I reached the water bed I activated the Titan Armor and then Fiery Sword. I inhaled as much as I could. With Fiery Sword as the head, slicing over the water, I dropped into the water pool.

Splash!

The fall forced me to submerge under water. I deactivated Fiery Sword while maintaining Titan Armor. I moved my body, trying to move up. This time Titan Armor successfully protected my body from harm, despite the height of this canyon being greater than the cliff at Incheon. It's true then, what the creator god said, Titan Armor upgraded the same time as my power level. Despite being protected by the more powerful Titan Armor, I still felt stiffen because of the water pressure. The water pool was deep.

I saw hundreds of silhouette from above me as the purgers and the beasts started to enter the water too. There were moving too, somewhat weirdly clumsy.

'So, the race is not over', I thought. Not wanting to to hold my breath for too long or be caught in a fight underwater, I quickly swam to the top. Who knew, the purgers might be able to breath underwater or, even if they couldn't, took turn to fight me and held me down here easily. No matter how strong I was, I still need to breath. Many scenarios went over my head and all didn't end well for me as long as I was still underwater.

While my body was weak and almost drained of energy, I tried my best to swim to the shore of this large water pool. Eventhough Titan Armor managed to protect me it consumed a lot of my stamina.

I took out the container where I put the marbles from my backpack. Immediately a handful of marbles went inside my mouth. As I swallowed them, energy started to flow inside of me. Since they were the marbles from the ordinary purgers that I killed at Incheon the other day, the bars on my wrist didn't seem to be moving or it was too tiny for my tired eyes to capture. But I got what I aimed for, I got some of my energy back.

Several purgers came to the surface of the water as well. One of them was near me. It was looking at me with painful expression. Some parts of its body were probably wounded due to the fall. They didn't have Titan Armor like I did, so, surviving a fall of such height was already an amazing feat. I saw this as a chance and immediately change my direction, swimming over to that nearest one, a yellow-eyed purger. Time to test my Fiery Sword against this purger. When I was near, it tried to back away but failed miserably. It seemed like its body was losing strength fast. My Fiery Sword stabbed through its heart. The monster bellowed hard and then died. I grabbed the tiny marbles and swallowed it in no time.

"Great!" I was elated. The energy was far greater than those marbles I had. I choose to channel the energy to my Vitality status and saw the bar visibly raised.

The other purgers saw what happened and seemed to understand what I planned to do. An expression I now perceived as fright came to their face. So, they were not entirely dumb. And, they could be frightened too! Was this their natural instinct? Now, they were trying to get away from me.

"You pursue me till here... you think I'll let you go now?" I hatefully screamed at them. They've scared me senseless and made me run like there's no tomorrow, now they wanted to flee? There's no way I could allow that.

Now it was my turn. One by one I swam over and killed them. I knew it shouldn't be like this, but I, honestly speaking, felt wonderful. Killing the powerless purgers gave me satisfaction. No, the more correct term should be killing the purgers made me feel wonderful. These yellow-eyed didn't have the means to avoid me at all. Their limbs must've suffered more than just simple wounds, they were broken.

A few of them still had the power to use the tongue attack, but it only hit my Titan Armor. I dared to use Titan Armor continuously because everytime I killed one yellow-eyed I consumed its marble right away and replenish my energy.

Then I saw the orange-eyed. While the yellow-eyed were basically powerless against me, the orange-eyed was different. When I slashed my Fiery sword at the orange-eyed in front of me, it blocked my attack, with its bare arm. And then, it frantically tried to get away from me.

"Huh?" this purger's body was really tough. The improvement it got compared to the yellow-eyed wasn't simple. It could block my Fiery Sword. Still, I found out that the orange-eyed was not without injury. Its arm was bleeding profusely. The cut from my Fiery Sword was quite deep.

I could kill it! This thought entered my mind as I swung my sword again, while being careful against any surprise attack by activating my Titan Armor. Till now, I hadn't see this orange-eyed purger used its special attack, the equivalent to tongue attack of the yellow-eyed. I was curious as to what that could be.

"Zeeeeee!" the orange-eyed were wailing in pain as I hacked it without mercy multiple times. Its arm was cut off and blood poured into the water around us. I hacked again, this time it landed on its neck. The orange-eyed was gurgling as its mouth and respiratory was blocked by its own blood. Two more hacks and I killed my first orange-eyed purger.

When I saw the first tiny marble emerged from the orange-eyed purger, I was ecstatic. This was a monster with higher level than my current level. If it was not because of Titan Armor and Fiery Sword I would not have a chance like this. Like a child grabbing his long-waited candy, I took and swallowed it.

"Whoa! Amazing!" I could feel the burst of energy on my body. It was far better than the yellow-eyed's marble. I channeled it to my Vitality and saw a significant increase. I remembered that there were hundreds of purgers and beasts following me. If I could get all of them I could reach a new level.

These higher level purgers still have the strength to try to block me but my Fiery Sword was now proven to be sufficient to hurt them. Yes I couldn't slashed through the orange-eyed body in one sweep since they were really tough, but I could hurt them by continuously hacking or thrusting at the same spot till it went deep enough to deal fatal damage.

I looked around. My eyes could only find about forty or fifty purgers on the surface. The others must've fallen to their death. None of the tiger-like beasts survived, I guessed they were weaker compared to the yellow-eyed in terms of strength and vitality. I calculated about seven orange-eyed purger survived the fall, including the one I killed earlier. If I remembered correctly the number of orange-eyed purgers chasing me was also about seven. That meant all of them survived, at least for now. The hundred yellow-eyed purgers must've drowned and their bodies had not yet surfaced.

"You guys are dead!"

"Zeeeeeee!" the monsters were screaming at me.

"Are you begging now? Too late!"

I swam and targeted the yellow-eyed purgers first. From my experience, taking the marbles from them still had a noticeable effect for my current level. If I took the orange-eyed marbles first and suddenly evolved to a higher level, then the yellow-eyed marbles would be like what the ordinary purger's marble effect on me now, which was near nothing.

I immediately ate the marbles from the yellow-eyed purgers while I gathered the marbles from the orange-eyed purgers. Some of the orange-eyed purgers swam frantically to the shore. It's easy for me to chase them. They were slow, and their bodies were not positioned for swimming, seemed like they were injured. It looked like they were in the same predicament as me when I fell at Incheon.

Whatever it was the reason of their being weakened and hopeless, I didn't waste the chance. One by one I killed my way through. It's a simple yet tedious fight because everytime I killed one, I had to grab its body, preventing it from drowning before I could harvest the marble.

After taking care of them I swam to the shore. I waited for hours for the drown bodies to surface however they were emerging very slowly. While waiting, I didn't dare to start a fire, fearing it might attract unwanted attention. The temperature was low in this canyon. I persisted the cold.

I took everything from my backpack and scattered them on the rocks to be dried, including the clothes I was wearing too. There was no one around anyway. The ration, though put inside of a sealed container, was ruin because the container was crooked and thus the inside was flooded with water.

The night went by slowly. The sky tonight wasn't a clear one, the moon was often blocked by clouds. Despite some chilly winds blowing, no rain fell this night. Some strange noises were heard but I ignored them. The water pool was large and it became a river that flowed in the middle of this canyon. Whatever 'things' were out there, I wasn't keen on investigating.

In the morning, several bodies started to show up. Everytime several new bodies emerged I swam over and took care of them. I was hungry, but my food was ruined so I had to bear it. I didn't have the slightest interest on the purgers dead bodies. There were some fish deep in the water pool but they didn't seem to be interested to swim near the surface. I couldn't catch them underwater. I tried and failed, they're simply too fast for me underwater.

After many hours through the day all my stuff was dried. The emergence of new dead purgers had come to a halt long ago. I only managed to gather extra twenty yellow-eyed marbles. I guessed the rest were swept away by the current already. What a pity.

The sun was beginning to set, I decided to call it a day. I swallowed the marbles from the orange-eyed purgers, leaving two as my spare. Just as I thought, the improvement were really great. One orange-eyed marble were more or less equivalent to ten yellow-eyed marbles. In total, I ate five of them. My status bars were getting closer to the limit. The only thing it couldn't raise was my Spirit status.

Different god different system I guessed. I've made a guess of how I could improve my Spirit status but the method was out of question for the time being. I would be dead if I tried.

Looking at my wrist, lamenting that I still couldn't upgrade my level despite consuming a lot of the marbles, I sighed, "Close..."

I packed my things and immediately head out. A river was connected to the water pool. It wasn't a large river, only about thirty meters, and it's quite calm. The path of this river was pointing toward the direction I had to take. This was a good chance for me to do some directional correction since I had veered away from my path to avoid the purger camps up there. I followed the path of this river.

The moon was shining brightly, illuminating the world with its brilliance. Some part of the path was clear, however, due to the contour of the canyon, there were parts that were much shadier. I persisted to travel during night, despite the low probability of meeting any purger camp down here.

It took me three days to find the end of the river. In front of me now was a high cliff, as high as the waterfall. The land was connected about one kilometer after the river ended. The water ran under the connected land so I guessed this was the end of road for me. Now it was time to climb.

The cliff here and the one near Incheon were both vertical cliff. But there was a big difference between them. The texture of the cliff here were much more rugged. This made it relatively easier for me to climb without proper tools. The challenge was that the height was greater as well. I estimated the height of this cliff to be more than one kilometer. When I looked up, my legs almost gave up due to the height.

Even with my abnormally improved strength as an Acolyte and the help of Fiery Sword, it still took me a long time to climb up. The timing was good though, because just as I reached the surface it was dark.

Using my binoculars I noticed that there was a purger camp some distance from here. After consulting with the compass, I took a route not passing the camp. It was only a bit detour and it could be corrected easily later.

When passing the nearest point to the camp I saw that only a few hundred purgers were here. The camp was big enough to accommodate maybe up to ten thousands purgers. It looked almost empty like this. Among the hundred purgers there were a few tiger-like beasts as well, about ten or so. I carefully checked those purgers. To my delight there weren't a single yellow-eyed nor orange-eyed.

Judging from my previous encounter, I should be able to take on the purgers here. With Fiery Sword and Earth Breaker, my strength was far superior than those ordinary purgers. I had also improved using the gain from my latest adventure in the canyon as all my status bars improved. What I wasn't sure was those tiger-like beasts. I remembered how they were faster than the yellow-eyed when chasing me.

This was a chance for me. If I didn't take it now I did not know when I could get it again. There was always risk for any gain. At the least, this was a calculated risk. If the worse thing really happened, then I could always run to the waterfall and jumped again.

I sneaked closer to the camp and chose a hiding place. Luckily, there was no wind, otherwise I would have to search for further place to sneak in because those tiger-like beast could have ability to smell me like any predators. I waited until no one was looking at my direction, then I threw a stone to a far away tent.

The purgers and the beasts growled while looking at the direction where my stone landed. Most of them ran toward the tent. I ran to the last group of the purgers moving, right at their rear. I threw another stone, this time bigger one. I timed my leap so when the stone hit the land I landed in the middle of those last several purgers with Earth Breaker.

Because of Earth Breaker, the purgers were in paralyzed as I slashed through each one of them without much difficulty.

I waited for my Earth Breaker to finish accumulating its power. After Earth Breaker was ready to be casted again I picked up a fire totem and threw it to other direction. When it landed, I also landed in the middle of the most rear group of purgers with Earth Breaker. Again my Fiery Sword hacked them without problem.

I used this strategy twice again successfully, but on the third one my timing was a bit off because the totem I threw hit a tree branch before landed down. I landed down in the middle of the purgers. Even if I didn't use the noisy Earth Breaker the purgers would know I was here anyway. So I landed with Earth Breaker and the sound was alerting the others in the front.

"Shoot!"