Travel to the split mountain turned out to be surprisingly far. It was something that Yumi already sort of knew, but now that she had a clue to find Yuki, potentially, she expected to get there immediately. Yet that turned out to be further from the truth than she wished to admit. She had always seerange mountain, but had no real sense of the distance about it. In fact, it never really was something other than a ndmark for her. It served no other i for her.

  Yumi flew over the pins and forests toward it and ran when she couldn’t fly. Walking when she could not run, she refused to stop for a break. Even time failed to have any real sense of meaning to her. So focused on the mountain, none of the other things around her did anything.

  But eventually, the mountain had to give into the chase and allow her to reach the foothills. She didn’t know when it finally gave up the game, but it was the closest to her that she had even known. However, that came with its own problems for her.

  “Demons…” she muttered, staring for the first time in a while at something that wasn’t the ndscape. They had her pletely surrounded and well armed for a fight. “Trap it is then…”

  Chapter 402 – Foots of the Cleaved Mountain

  Slightly bruised and cut, Yumi mao e out of the ambush with all of the demons dead around her. It left her a little short of breath. ‘I shouldn’t be feeling this tired from just fighting a bunch of nameless demons…’ She began resuming her march towards the mountain. Though it looked like it was going to turn into a gau for her as she found another band of demons only minutes from the st.

  “You’re dead, Hunter!” roared a demon before an axe split it down the middle. The other demons turned away from Yumi in a little surprise not knowing her reputation for even using a alone a on as big as the ohat she threw.

  Two more were dead before they split up to try to attack her individually. From her fnks two tried to catch her uo defend against the well timed attabsp; But one io a tree that was nearly split in two by the four meter long spear and the other dropped its head at her feet as a massive bastard sword swept through the air.

  It took three more before the smarter ones figured it out. All of the chaos of the fightihem unfocused and uo evaluate the situation. “She’s using our ons against us!”

  One wolf demon looked up in the air to see the array of ons floating still unused and waiting. “She’s holding them all at the same time!”

  “I’ve no energy to waste on you weaklings,” she boasted as several more demons dropped to their own ons. Every on wielded by the past band and those she had killed now became her ons.

  Cutting a lethal arc of swings through the remaining demons, they all fell to pieces without being able to do anything to prove themselves or show off their strength. Yumi tinued her hike towards the mountain and the gau of demons trying to stop her.

  After the fourth set that she sughtered, she looked back the way that she came. ‘What’s the point of all of this? They ’t beat me. Given the reputation I hold among the demons in the area, I would think that they all know this. So why die?’ Yumi paused in the questions trying to figure out what was happening. ‘I still don’t even know if Yuki’s actually here or not…’

  Little of it mattered at the moment, since her fight wasn’t over. Something she had to snap out of quickly as a fireball nearly scorched her fabsp; She turo find what demon that she somehow fot to kill, but they weren’t present. “Fire doesn’t e out of nowhere…” Yet another did e from nowhere.

  She dodged away from the attad jumped again from the follow up. Wherever the attacks came from, it wasn’t letting her have a moment to breathe. They kept her moving around, uo pause or be struck.

  Yumi tried to figure out the dire that the demon shot at her from, but they came from different dires. “Damn, they’re able to snipe me from out of my sight. And I ’t evehe dire. It’s like they’ve got me surrounded…”

  The attacks tinued with her doing everything to try to get any sort of clue to the location of the demon. “Even the ins of the attacks are different. Could there really be different demons?” She leapt into the air trying to get the better vantage on the nd, but caught a massive storm of fireballs ing down at her.

  They forced her back down to the ground without a moment’s thought. She deflected away some of the attacks with her barrier, but found it oddly cked in strength. Yumi took cover in a part of the cratered grou over from her previous fight. It gave her a focused point to throw up her barrier with a thicker wall. It was enough, for now.

  “What the hell is going on here? This is pletely different from all of the roups that they sent after me. They were just dumb and blindly charging me. Yet now, there’s actual tactics.” She tried to get her breathing under trol, but still found herself worked up.

  Bsts of red light fshed over her barrier as she stared out into the falling sun. It was going to be night soon and the fight would only get worse for her. “I’m not going to be able to find the demons if they’re keeping still. I o make a move before I lose my light. But how?” Yumi tried to go over everything that she knew about the attacks. But she still kept hitting walls.

  As the ground shook from the attacks, her mind wasn’t getting anywhere with her information. “I don’t know if it is one or many. They attack from all sides, so it’s more likely to be a group. But if it was group I feel like they would have attacked me already. But if it was only ohey’d have to be able to use their power over a wide area to make it look like there were multiple demons. But which is it? I don’t even know where they are. If it’s ohey could be anywhere and if it’s multiples I have so many to kill. Any sort of advary to take, they see through and stop me.”

  Yumi tio question herself ouation. Her mind had trouble trying to piece everything together. Nothing was ing together for her clearly. There were just too many unknowns for her. “I don’t know what to do. They’ve always been so upfront that I just charge through and kill them as they e for me. But now they’re hiding. I ’t find them and they easily hit me… What should I do in this situation? What would Yuki do?”

  She hoped taking it from a different perspective would help. “He’s always got a pn and knows what to do in every situation.” Not even that helped her. She couldn’t put herself in his spot. He would have already fihe job.

  Dropping the barrier and running out of the cover, she took the best thing that she could think to do. Which ossibly the worst thing to do. She wasirely certai if it was smart. But she charged forward at the first orb of fire that she saw. “I’ll just find one of the sources! That’s all I do!”

  However, the attacks became stronger and increased in number as she moved. They tried to push through, but they forced her to evade away from the way that she wanted. She stubbornly tried to go further than she should have and ended up with a new cut across her forehead for the effort. Yumi fell on her ba the forced dodge she made.

  She stared up at the sky, suddenly seeing even more fireballs ing at her. “Damn it!” Throwing a bst into the ground, she shot herself away from the ining attacks just in time. It did mean that she slid roughly through the earth from the poor dodge. Dirt rubbed over her face from the fall. Yumi ripped her head out of the earth jumping immediately needing to stay ahead of the attacks.

  It tio only get worse for her as she could only dodge. “The closer I try to get the more they press the attabsp; They’re really afraid of me getting close. If I find them, I end this immediately! They ’t be very strong if they’re attag so cowardly like this.”

  Yet that still meant finding a way to get close enough, something that she still cked. “I tried charging forward and that failed…” She leapt through the air evading attacks and watg for the . Even ered, she could at least keep up with the attacks. It wasn’t the end. “When I try to think it through I fail as well… What am I left with? Thinking doesn’t work and not thinking doesn’t work…”

  Yumi cursed her situation that she was in. The endless running did nothing to improve her dilemma. She was pletely out of her element. Though none of it really felt like something that she belonged in. She merely adapted to the way things were.

  “They’ve got me pyily to their ow. I o do something to ge the pace!” As she tried to think of something, she got stru the back by atabsp; Bsted to the earth, Yumi groaned in annoyand jumped into the air, flying up. “I’ve had it with these attacks!” As the quick terattack came to her ast, she formed her swords splitting the fire in half aing it detonate now unstable behind her.

  She left her barrier to deflect the rest as they shattered uhe attabsp; But it gave her enough time to charge towards the location of one of the attacks. As she expected another one of the ters came up, but she threw out of her barrier ahead of her to dampen the damage as she charged through raining particles and embers.

  Straight through the fires Yumi broke the lihat the demons created. “Now where the hell are you hiding?!” she screamed, ung arcs of energy through the entire area in front of her. She tried to listen for any signs of a demon scrambling, but none came. “Is it dead?” A bit of disappoi came in her voice.

  However, that didn’t st for long as more attacks tio e from all around her. “They’re still out there!” As she charged for the location, the attacks tinued unabated from her pressure. Whoever it was that attacked her from the shadows tried to keep up the line around her. But she brute forced her way through the attacks, no longer g anymore.

  More wounds came out of the careless charge as Yumi sought the enemy. She couldn’t find them no matter how many times she searched. “They’re nowhere! e out, coward!”

  Panting a little, Yumi blindly charged forward with nard for the field anymore. She just followed the red glow wherever she went. It tio follow her leaving burns and wounds appearing on her skin the lohat she went. Yet she still tinued despite the injuries.

  “Stop hiding!”

  Nothing was helping her.

  Yumi stopped for a moment trying to catch her breath as all of the running around started to catch up to her. “Damnit! Wherever I go it’s never close enough.” She split another fireball ing with ease, exploding on the ground to her left side. “I’ve got the timing down, but I’m not finding the demon. It’s got to be only one.” The more she ran around she became vinced of it. What she found or didn’t find, made it more likely that it was only one and not a group. “I would have seen something or someone by now. I just o find that one damn demon!”

  Unfortunately, that was harder thahought. Running around blindly gave her nothing but less energy and more injuries. Her annoyance tio rise. “It’s like they’re following me! Always behind me!” The ranting of her frustrations suddenly made her pause in thought. “’t be…always trag me with ease…”

  A white glow covered Yumi’s body suddenly as the pressure in the air rapidly spiked. Distortions appeared around her as the energy build up grew towards critical mass. An explosion of energy ripped through the earth and all the surrounding area destroying everything it touched.

  Her head turned sharply at the sound of something different in the noise of destru. She disappeared and appeared at the sound swinging down her sword at the air, hitting something. Out of the shadows popped the demon hunting her. “This game is over.”