Chapter 228: The Battle of the Candidates (3)

[Strength: 85]

[Health: 110]

[Speed: 68]

[Skill: 81]

[UP: 12]

[Exp: 76/100| Level 14]

[HP: 86/110] 

[Opponent's HP: 45/67]

--

Errick's mouth was gaped to an inhuman extent. His tongue had become ten tongues of the same behemoth sizes in but an instant alone. They were constantly moving on their own, crashing into objects and walls and furniture in the Inn. 

Errick thrust three tongues at Jin. 

Jin went sauntering toward Errick holding his dagger at his side. His face was, rather, stern. As the tongues bolted toward him, he walked. Then, when they were a hairsbreadth away, they were suddenly knocked back simultaneously by a powerful shockwave that left Jin's body.

The tongues shriveled up and retracted.

Jin continued sauntering toward Errick.

Errick sent all ten of his tongues again at Jin. The tongues soared through the air when suddenly Jin vanished. The tongues crashed into the front wall of the Inn, rupturing it asunder.

Jin reappeared at the side of the clustered tongues with his dagger raised above them. With slit eyes, he slashed downwardly with but a single hand. The dagger sliced through the tongues all at once, cutting them in half.

The tongues fell to the floor and stated wiggling relentlessly. 

Errick made a shrieking sound with his mouth to express his pain. Then, he shook off the agony and furrowed his brows. Suddenly, the tongues started growing back to their initial length.

Afted full growth, a tongue swooshed at Jin. It went right through him, and slammed into a wall. It didn't even touch him.

Jin opened his hand. His dagger vanished. He then jammed these hands in his pockets and started walking accross the Inn.

The tongues used this an opportunity to attack. Errick shot one of them at walking Jin. Suddenly, a clone appeared in front of Jin, and slicing the tongue in half, and vanishing.

Errick squealed. But then he thrust another tongue. 

Jin continued walking. 

Another tongue bolted toward him. The clone reappeared in front of him, cut the tongue, and vanished again.

Errick thrust all of the tongues at Jin once more as he walked. Suddenly more than twenty clones appeared in front of Jin. They took the hit instead, turning into steam upon getting crushed.

Jin stopped when he was in front of a counter. 

Errick grimaced at Jin. Then, he retracted all of his tongues. His face went back normal again but he retained every bit of confusion.

Jin picked up a jug of grape juice from the countertop via clutching his hands to the handle. He placed his lips upon the brim, and started raising the jug as more of the juice poured down his throat. He raised that jug until it was radically upended. Then, he let the last bit of grape juice drip out from the rather empty glass and into his partially opened mouth. 

Finally, Jin set the jug upon the counter with a clack. Then, he turned to Errick. There was one more glass of grape juice on the counter. 

Errick cocked his head. "Is that organic grape juice?"

Jin kept his eyes half-opened. "Yes."

Errick climbed quickly across the walls. The ceiling. Then he fell, landing to his feet before Jin. He then walked right past Jin, and took the second jug of grape juice from the countertop.

He gulped everything down slowly with mannered. When suddenly, he looked up to see if Jin was looking at him. Jin wasn't. So, he simply turned around and stuck his tongue into the cup, and licked every bit of grape juice from inside.

Finally, he turned around again and placed the jug upon the counter. 

"That was quite tasty," Errick said. "Savored it."

He then leaped into the air, and stuck to the ceiling. He then inhumanly crawled accross the ceiling and walls to the other side of the room. 

Jin turned to him.

"Might we continue?"

"I'm not letting you leave—so yes."

Suddenly, Errick's mouth gaped, and more than ten tongues this time burst out. They were all much longer and bigger than Jin.

Jin took his hands out of his pockets, and smirked.

Errick shot half of the tongues at Jin.

Jin closed his hands. His dagger appeared in his palm. He quickly whipped it out. 

The tongues burst through the air.

Jin started slashing the air. Upon every slash, a beam of light left his blade and traveled across the room to his target. He slashed. A green beam of energy shot out. He slashed again. Barely putting in any effort. Then again. More.

A tongue had received a hit from a beam of energy. The tongue shriveled and got knocked back. The same thing happened to the tongue that was closest to Jin. The other tongues started evading the slashes of green energy.

The tongues were gaining on Jin despite having to constantly dodged energy slashes.

Jin continued slashing at the air.

The tongues that got damaged had healed and had lunged toward Jin again already. This happened again and again. Until it kept speeding up at a stead rate.

Jin had summoned over ten clones to slash and pass the dagger among eachother. The real Jin stood with his a hands jammed in his pockets while his clones did the work. They slashed and immediately passed on the dagger. Then that other clone would do the same. They were performing at least three slashes per second like this. 

This meant that they were also able get special attacks. However, they didn't use the special attacks like Gamma Explosion—Jin's farby strongest skill. Jin didn't have them use this skill yet. And yes, he had found a way to temporarily pull the plug on an active skill but he just called it "saving". 

Jin smirked. 

Errick on the other side of the battlefield had created more tongues. A bit over twenty of them. He felt desperate in his attack to secure hits to Jin. He had to defeat him but truth be told, he didn't know that Jin could have ended the battle whenever he wanted to using his teleportation and ghosting skill.

Errick was tired of this repetitive flurry of attacks on both ends of the playing field. He wanted to bring it to an end. He started it after all. But had he chosen to retract his tongues, he would have died from Jin's energy slashes. His offensive tongues—which were meant to be the ones attacking—were now defensive as well, since they protected Errick behind them from attacks.

That's when on a whim, Errick had gotten an idea. He would have smirked. But his stretched out gaped mouth was in no condition to do so. So, instead he made laughing eyes and proceeded into immediate action.

Jin yawned as he stood behind his busy clones. When suddenly—in between the spaces of the battle of tongues and green energy—he realized a change in Errick's countenance.

'He's finally doing something interesting,' Jin thought. 

Suddenly, Errick—along with his tongues—had gone radically invisible. The clones nonetheless continued slashing in confusion but determination to not let their leader get so much as a tiny scrape. 

Though, shortly after, the clones were being crushed by what looked like air to them. They were being flung about the room and hit and crushed. Ensuinly, steam had filled the room, thereby blinding Jin and his remaining clones.

Jin was then hit by what looked like nothing to him. Then he was hit again. He simply spun from the impact but nonetheless remained standing. The third hit, sent up through the ceiling and back down through the hole and to the ground again.

[HP: 71/110] 

He sprawled out on the floor. He quickly rolled to left. The floor to his right rumbled and shook. Jin furrowed his brows. In that instant, he had enough of this battle. He suddenly vanished, and reappeared at the end of the room—but unbeknownst to Errick, the one that reappeared wasn't Jin but a clone. 

All of the invisible tongues bolted toward Jin in hopes of crushing him with this final blow. They all hit Jin, and he shriveled and turned it into steam as he pitched across the room.

Suddenly, another Jin—an invisible one—revealed himself. He used this as an opportunity to find the tongues. He suddenly thrust a hand out in the spot his clone was hit. He felt something slimely and warm. He quickly climbed upon the tongue and started sprinting across it. He was trailing it back to Errick.

The tongue was about to slam him into the ceiling overhead so he quickly thrust his dagger into it. This revealed exactly where Errick was and the tongues. Pain always ruined invisibility spells. 

Jin's pupils darted left and right. Then he spotted Errick. He spun. Closed his hand. His dagger appeared. His blade glowed green. His eyes flared green. He hurled the dagger.

The spun dagger in the air and went straight for Errick. Errick quickly tried using a tongue to block. When suddenly, Jin switched places with the dagger.

[New Skill Advancement (Teleportation): Substitution] 

Jin slashed through the blocking tongue. He kicked off it. He dashed toward Errick and spun, dodging another tongue. His hair rippled in the wind that ensued being at his speed.

He hurled the dagger just before a tongue smacked him to the body and threw him off course.

Errick blocked again with two tongues. 

Jin switched places dagger again, then closed hand and cut the blocking tongues in half.

Another tongue shot out from Errick's mouth and hit Jin. But he hurled the dagger before getting hit.

The dagger was too close to Errick. It hurtled through the air toward him.

Errick furrowed his brows. He had a plan. 'When Jin substitutes in, I'll just create two tongues to crush him from up close!'

The dagger spun and spun, and then it stuck Errick right in his head.

Errick's eyes bulged. 

Jin appeared before him, and punched the dagger deeper into Errick's head.

Jin furrowed his brows. "I saw what you did with that glass jug!"

There was a massive explosion that furthered the destruction of the Inn, even going so far as to completely destroy it.

[New Skill Advancement (Weapon Skill, Gamma Explosion): Gamma Destruction]