New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1014: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

Jin-Sil had no idea what was happening and would do anything to escape this uncomfortable situation. Even though she was the one to instigate it.

"You're not supposed to interact with the hunters, Orion. Get back to the stars before I force you back!" Artemis scowled.

"And if I recall, you aren't supposed to kill the victors of the hunt, Artemis. Yet here we both are," Orion replied with a shrug.

"She mocked me! The great hunt is over for her. Move!" she growled, pulling another arrow on her bowstring.

"The horns already resounded. She won her challenge. Give the mortal her prize and set her on her way. You don't have to endure any longer than that. But killing her is forbidden, and you know that," Orion insisted, pushing Jin-Sil between his legs and standing before her.

The young woman felt like a child watching her parents fight, and that hit a little too close to home. She wanted nothing more than to extirpate herself from this situation, right here, right

now.

"Hah! Why would I reward her for playing this like a trickster?! She doesn't deserve a prize; she refused the hunt!" Artemis scorned, glaring at Jin-Sil.

Orion bellowed in laughter.

"I thought the millennia would have cooled your temper, goddess, but it seems you are still as aggressive as ever. It's a wonder you were never named the goddess of volcanoes. You certainly erupt like one, ha ha!" he laughed heartily.

An arrow flew at the man's face but only flew through it as he became intangible.

"Um... Excuse me... I need to be somewhere else. Can I leave now?" Jin-Sil asked, trying to walk away from Orion's leg.

"Stay there unless you want an arrow through your head, girl," Orion warned her, his tone a little colder.

It made Jin-Sil freeze in fear, his words laced with enough Aether for her body to react on its

own.

"Rraagghh!" Artemis screamed, her fury shaking the ground itself.

"Fine! You want to meddle?! You handle her reward, you oversized buffoon! I'm leaving!" she growled, vanishing in a gust of wind.

"So feisty," Orion chuckled.

Jin-Sil kept feeling a glare on her back, its intensity boring through her mind. But when she turned to see where it came from, no one was there.

"You can relax, girl. She's gone. She can only glare at you from her ivory tower now. Congratulations on simultaneously completing your hunt and pissing off the goddess of its domain, ha ha!" he bellowed out in a burst of laughter.

His laughter hurt her ears, his voice probably carrying over miles while she stood square at his feet.

She covered her ears, trying to save her eardrums until the big man realized the situation. "Ahem. Sorry, I am known to be a little boisterous when I'm not on a hunt. Now. I know you are in a hurry, so I'll make this quick. Since the goddess didn't gift you anything for your hunt, and I'm only a bystander here, this is the best I can do.

"But I do believe my gift will be mighty useful for you once you return to your world. Good luck, huntress. May your attacks strike true, and your hunt ever be bountiful," Orion said before blowing on her until she flew away.

Feeling herself lift off the ground, Jin-Sil panicked a bit, flailing her arms to the side to no avail until everything around her became black.

***

Meanwhile, another situation was taking hold outside her mind, and the odds didn't look good.

"Rì-Chū! Strengthen the wall! We can't let them in!" Kary shouted, her hands pointing at the wall in question.

Over the last half hour, the patrols had kept repeating outside their hiding spot until they were barely a minute apart. The strange thing came after when the patrols ceased entirely.

As paranoid as she was becoming, Kary took no chances and ordered Rì-Chū to build a wall where the illusion stood, trying to close the entrance off.

But this had immediately backfired against them.

The second Rì-Chu started altering the cavern walls, he disrupted the unseen illusion spell, and the fake wall vanished instantly, revealing why the patrols had stopped.

Just outside their hidey-hole, in a tunnel merely a few meters wide, an entire cannon had been set up, directly aimed at the entrance. And it looked primed to blow its load.

In a split-second decision, Kary shot a fireball inside the cannon's mouth, electing it was better if it blew up there than inside the cavern. Alex had to erect a barrier faster than he ever had, lest they burn to ashes instantly.

Aside from rocking the cavern they were in and deafening them for a dozen seconds, everyone was okay on the human side. But things were far from over.

After the dust settled down and their ears stopped ringing, each could hear the sound of kobolds screeching and growling as they neared the entrance.

Even with Ri-Chū hurriedly reforming an entire wall before the entrance, the loud banging on its surface told the party that something else was out there with the kobolds. Something big

and strong.

It was now a matter of time before they were overrun.

Every time the wall crumbled, a few kobolds rushed in faster than Ri-Chu could close the gap, and the others had to fend them off in a restrained area, making every spell too risky to

launch.

Alexander, David, Killian, and Winston had taken it upon themselves to hold back any insurgent kobold, but their movements were limited even then.

With little room for a complete brawl to happen, if whatever was breaking down the wall

came in here, they would be utterly fucked.

"Cory! Take Jin-Sil to the back of the room! Give us some space to fight!" Kary shouted, trying to find a way to raise their chances.

"On it!"

Kary's head snapped in every direction, trying to find anything to help them.

Seeing as nothing in this room would work in their favour, Kary decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Casters! Widen the room! Use everything you can to make this cavern bigger!" she shouted, conjuring a torrent of flames to her left, starting to melt the wall.

Of course, this had the effect of rapidly raising the temperature in the room. But they didn't have time to worry about this.

Glancing at Jin-Sil, Kary mumbled to herself, "C'mon, girl. Wake up."

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