55. The Hands From Heaven.

<p>***<br/><br/>"What is that?"<br/><br/>Tanji turns to his left at the words of the black and blue haired lady. What greeted him was a black cloud rising to the sky.<br/><br/>"Did he do that?" she asked.<br/><br/>"Stay on guard, and stay in formation. We don't know when those beasts will get the courage to come closer."<br/><br/>"You worry too much young child, they are way away from us. Besides, we can definitely take on a few second level beasts," the old man said. <br/><br/>"Just stay on guard," Tanji says.<br/><br/>After Hiro left, he had placed the ninth realm man at the lead, the black and blue haired lady to the right. He and the old man to the left. The maid lady and the girl at the center and the last lady behind to watch their back.<br/><br/>"The boy is right, old man, we shouldn't let our guard down," the man said.<br/><br/>"Call me Gai, Gai Mi Lang," the old man said. <br/><br/>"Alright Old Gai, I'm Shen Tu." <br/><br/>"You don't have to include the old."<br/><br/>Tanji turns to him before turning to Shen Tu. He just realized he didn't ask their names. "I'm Tanji, Zhan Tanji, what about the rest of you?"<br/><br/>At Tanji's words the others turned to him. He didn't understand why they did and raised his brows at them.<br/><br/>"Ahem!" he clears his throat. "Is something wrong?"<br/><br/>"You are a boy?" Shen Tu asked.<br/><br/>"Huh? Aren't my voice and my clothes evidence of this?"<br/><br/>"You look like a girl," Old Gai said.<br/><br/>"Well, I'm not. Please introduce yourself if you haven't."<br/><br/>"I'm Gu Pan," the lady behind said.<br/><br/>"Mu Qianyu," the maid lady voices.<br/><br/>"Liu Ping is my name." the girl says. <br/><br/>Tanji turns to the black and blues haired lady who spoke next. "Eun Ji."<br/><br/>"That's a nice name," Old Gai says. <br/><br/>"Are you by chance related to Eun Jeong?" Tanji asked without thinking. <br/><br/>Eun Ji turned to look at him with a frown on her face. "You knew my daughter?"<br/><br/>"What do you mean knew? Is she dead?"<br/><br/>"She died two days ago." <br/><br/>Tanji's eyes widened at her words. He turned to the direction of the smoke and then turned back to her. "I'm sorry, please accept my condolences," he mutters.<br/><br/>"It's alright, she's in a better place. Was she a friend? How did you know her?"<br/><br/>"More of a savior. Her actions once saved my life, though she didn't know that." <br/><br/>"I see, I'll love to hear what she did sometime."<br/><br/>"Sure, just not now."<br/><br/>"Once we are safe."<br/><br/>Tanji sighs as he continues to walk. "Eun Jeong, the girl closest to Hiro last time. Somehow she knew Ami, and because of that, she begged Hiro to save my group. Why the hell is she dead? First it was a different beast in the valley, second it was the legacy opening up earlier and now it's Eun Jeong's death," he thought. "Last time I wasn't even in the spatial maze at the beginning. This time really is different."<br/><br/>"I need to reach that place quickly and set up a fort. Who knows, that might happen earlier than expected."<br/><br/>…<br/><br/>"Tch," Hiro tsk as he retreats. He dodged the attacks from the beast's three tails and steadied himself to counterattack. Only for the beast to strike at him with its claw, causing him to retreat again. <br/><br/>He couldn't retreat on time and was sent flying some few feet. No, it wasn't a few feet, definitely not. But Hiro couldn't be bothered with that now. If it wasn't for the artifact clothes he had on, that strike would have been a fatal wound. Yet Hiro could hardly land a hit on it and barely gave it a wound since the beginning of the fight.<br/><br/>He moved to the side as quickly as he could, for the beast's tails had attacked one after the other. <br/><br/>"Tch."<br/><br/>He tsks as he barely dodged the last one, that had landed a wound on his right cheek. He swung his blade, aimed at the tail. Unfortunately, the beast flashed its fangs at him, rushing at him, head first. It bit down on Hiro's hand, forsaken its tail for it.<br/><br/>"Ah…! Ha ha ha, burn!"<br/><br/>Hiro grimaced, laughed and yelled as his flame rushed into the beast's mouth at a fast speed. The beast released his hand and Hiro slashed at its neck. Killing it instantly. <br/><br/>"In the end you used my flame, so why didn't you use it properly from the start," the spirit flame's voice rings in Hiro's ears.<br/><br/>"I decided to test my strength in contrast to its strength. This messed up space didn't allow me do that properly. If I get the chance when I'm out of here, I'll do it."<br/><br/>"You are actually able to fight those at a major realm above you."<br/><br/>"You can tell its strength?"<br/><br/>"Yeah. I don't know the proper ranking your kind has for it, but it's level was more than sub realms higher than yours."<br/><br/>"So it's on par with a core formation realm, what I don't know is its sub realm."<br/><br/>Hiro looks at the beast's corpse for a while. He turns to his left arm that was bitten by the beast. "I should go meet up with Tanji and the others. Right, I want to keep your existence from Tanji."<br/><br/>"May I ask why?"<br/><br/>"I don't fully trust him yet. He may not be stronger than me but because of his knowledge of the future he is smarter than me. This will be my trump card in case he turns on me," Hiro replies and start walking. <br/><br/>"So that means you wouldn't use me in front of him?"<br/><br/>"Maybe, maybe not, depending on the situation."<br/><br/>"I see, so you just don't want me to talk out loud, that isn't hard. After all i have been silent since the day you got me." <br/><br/>"And the moment you sense him plotting against me, do let me know."<br/><br/>"What are you going to do?"<br/><br/>"I'll kill him. As long as he threatens my life or my goal I'll kill him. No danger is too sentimentally important to eliminate."<br/><br/>"Okay."<br/><br/>"Yeah... Huh?" Hiro frowns and turns to the sky. There was a crack in it, and the crack was spreading. "What's going on?" he asks. <br/><br/>"I don't know," the spirit flame replied.<br/><br/>The crack continued to spread and from it came a giant blue hand. The hand extended down towards him. "You should run! The strength coming from it is beyond what I can comprehend."<br/><br/>"I can't move."<br/><br/>The spirit flame urged him to run but Hiro replied after realizing his body could not move. Underneath the pressure coming from the hand, Hiro was forced to stay in place. <br/><br/>The hand moved down slowly but in no time it had covered the distance between them and reached him. It shone bright and before Hiro knew it, everything went black. <br/><br/>...<br/><br/>"Shin, it's time for you to rest," Mia says. "You are out of breath already." <br/><br/>"I'm good, I rested a while back."<br/><br/>"You call that resting. Stopping and looking behind you is resting?"<br/><br/>"Yeah."<br/><br/>"Do you even know where you are running to? What if we run into another danger we can't escape from? What then?"<br/><br/>"..."<br/><br/>"You'll be too tired to fight." <br/><br/>At her words Shin halted and turned around. What she said made sense but... <br/><br/>"He is somehow able to keep up," Shin thought. <br/><br/>Not too far away, Mushuang Jian and Guan Xue were following as quickly as they could. He wanted to loose Mushuang Jian and hoped that as he kept running, Mushuang Jian will stop. However, he was disappointed. Somehow, Mushuang Jian had managed to keep up. <br/><br/>Shin was beyond tired, but the thought of having Mushuang Jian around made him continue. He just didn't feel safe to be around someone like him. <br/><br/>"I wish something will separate us."<br/><br/>"Huh?" Mia frowns and turns to the sky.<br/><br/>Her sudden gasp made Shin to turn too. The sky cracked and as if answering Shin's request, a huge hand came down from the sky. The hand had appeared suddenly and had quickly reached them. They had no time to react and even if they did, they couldn't move. Before they knew it, everything around them lost color and turned black. <br/><br/>...<br/><br/>"What's going on?" Shen Tu asks. <br/><br/>He turns to Tanji, who was staring in the same direction he was just looking at. Tanji was frowning. A moment ago, a huge hand tore out of the sky above the cloud of black smoke. It came and went quickly, most of them didn't see it. But Tanji saw it and so did Shen Tu. <br/><br/>However, the hand didn't just leave. It left behind a crack in the sky that continued to expand in all directions. This was the reason for Tanji's expression.<br/><br/>"Just why are things happening earlier than expected?" Tanji thought.</p>