Keeper's Power (Ryuu)

As soon as I attacked the keeper, two people suddenly appeared on my right and left, holding me down. These were his clones, and they were incredibly strong. So much so that he could distribute his power evenly as he was cloned, at least that's how I understood it. After a short struggle, another keeper appeared in front of me.

He looked at me and said, "Then you'll get what you want."

Before I could react, he hit me hard in the stomach, throwing me out of the mine. The impact was so severe that I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. However, just before I hit the ground, the keeper jumped beside me.

That's when I regained my senses and began to respond to his fists. Although I tried to attack and evade his blows, he managed to escape easily. We fought in the air, without either of us landing a hit until the guard cloned himself, and his clone appeared on the ground.

The clone jumped up to me and hit me hard, and I couldn't stop the punch. It was so fast that I was unable to defend myself while fighting with the other guard. Losing my balance, the real guard landed a powerful kick on me, throwing me to the ground.

Even though I was up there, I could see what was going on down there because of the hole we had made. The loud noise from the fight woke up the creature. Hiroshi and Babu stood in front of the others, taking slow steps away from the creature. Hiroshi turned his head to the others and said, "Don't make any noise."

The creature growled, making Lezlie look at Hiroshi with fear, "Hiroshi, It seems that the monster intends to attack us. In this case, we can hardly keep silent."

"I know, but we don't know how this giant flea bag will respond if we run."

"If we wait any longer, I'm sure we'll make it easier for the creature," said Babu in a hurry.

As the creature finished its growl, it quickly ran towards Hiroshi and the others. Hiroshi fired at the ceiling, dropping a giant rock on the creature's head. Then he shouted, "ALL RIGHT, RUN!"

Everything had happened so fast that I couldn't even help them. With Hiroshi's shot, the hole in front of me collapsed and my view of them was blocked.

All I heard was a powerful roar. But I had to trust my friends, I had to take care of the guard here while they took care of the monster.

After a brief silence, we began to fight again. Our hands got locked together and we started pushing each other. Immediately after that, a guard came out from under us, punched me, and broke the lock. But I kept attacking. I gave the copy a spinning kick, and it just disappeared. But the real guard continued to attack.

I was blocking attacks with my elbows and palms. After his punches, he formed a clone again, The Clone hit me with his left shoulder. And I glided back involuntarily.

The copies were as strong and fast as the keeper himself. In addition, the guard was able to create copies in an incredibly short time. That made my job very difficult.

The guard retreated and ran towards me to attack again. This time I waited, my goal was not to attack until he pulled out the Clone. When the guard approached me, he pulled out a clone, just like I thought. But this time it wasn't a single clone, four clones came out to surround me. Two from the air, two from the ground. Just as they were going to attack, I threw myself back and ran away when they were going to squeeze me. But they kept coming.

I fought four to one. I hit one, and then another one came. I had to defend and hit, but it was pretty hard. I almost couldn't find any weak points of them. The clones were doing great teamwork. I took a lot of punches when I dropped my guard, but I still kept resisting and fighting.

I was like this till one of the Clones was tried to hit me, I leaned as hard as I could and hit him hard in the stomach. I destroyed one of the Clones at that moment.

But there were still three of them. One of them was the real one. I was trying to figure out who the real one was by watching his movements. But his movements were so similar to his clones that made it almost impossible to understand which one he was.

Then I got an idea. The best way to understand that was to watch their defense. If I hit any clone, the Clones wouldn't guard themselves. But when I hit the real one, its clones would defend him. I tried to hit someone by using this tactic, but they didn't defend themselves.

The Clone I punched wasn't the real one. Right after that, I tried to hit the one in the middle of the Clones, and just as I thought, the clones got in front of the keeper. I jumped into the keeper with taking power from the ground.

When I hit the Clones, the Clones disappeared. Then I grabbed the guard's waist and jumped down with him. But it didn't do him much harm. We immediately stood up and kept fighting. I grabbed his fist, got behind him, and then kicked him. The guard blocked the kick, returned to me, and threw a punch.

I blocked the punch and hit him hard in the jaw. Thanks to my punch, he flew a little in the air. But he managed to hold me in the air, and he hit me in the face with his knee. I did the same, hitting him in the stomach with my elbow. He punched me again. Then I hit him with my head.

Our fight continued, neither of us had any intention of losing or giving up.

------------------------------------------------------------------(Lezlie)

The stone struck the monster's head, but it barely flinched. We sprinted away as it pursued us. As we ran, Hiroshi turned to the prisoner and asked, "Is there any way to throw the creature off our trail?"

"This creature never loses a scent," the prisoner replied. "But we might be able to distract it. There are two forks in the road ahead. If we split up, it will have to choose one path."

"Where do the roads lead?" Babu inquired.

"I'm not certain," the prisoner said. "But I believe one of them leads to where the soldiers are stationed."

"Great," Babu muttered. "I don't want to end up facing both the soldiers and the monster."

"What's our plan, Hiroshi?" I asked.

"We'll do as he suggests and split up," Hiroshi decided. "Lezlie, you'll come with me. Babu and the prisoner will take the other path. That way, we'll have more options."

The prisoner looked at Hiroshi with a puzzled expression. "Even if we separate," he said, "I won't be able to fight the enemy until these chains and the totem are broken."

"That's not my problem," Hiroshi retorted. "Just try not to die. I'm sure Ryuu will reach the totem soon. Or we will."

"You're new to this hero business, aren't you?" the prisoner panted.

When the road split, we did as Hiroshi said and split into two groups. The creature did as the prisoner said and chose a path, and it was obvious from the footsteps that it had chosen us.