The Last Apostle : Resurrection

by William Hill

  Jason knew he couldn't instantly kill the vulture, causing him to aim at a biggest part of the vulture, that was the abdomen.

  But even so, he was still slightly off as the dagger pierced into the vulture´s wing.

  The impact from the flying dagger changed the course of the vulture dive.

  Noticing that, Artemis felt as if a stone was plucked from her small and tender heart as she continued her dive until she reached Jason.

  She looked extremely horrified as if she was completely out of her wits and Jason had the urge to cuddle her.

  However, he was unarmed and the vulture which landed slightly apart from them.

  With his mana eyes activated, he figured out that the Vulture was a five-star wild beast.

  Jason saw the dagger stuck deep into the vulture's wing which made him sigh in relief as he had at least injured it slightly, causing its best advantage to discard.

  It couldn't fly with the dagger in its wing but its razor-sharp beak and talons were still more than threatening to the unarmed Jason.

  Both Artemis and Jason were only faster than the injured vulture with some mana as enhancement but they shouldn't underestimate their sole opponent, as the vulture's physique and strength were still much higher than theirs.

  Because he had no weapon to defend himself, Jason had to envelop his hands with a thin layer of mana in order to prevent them from being cut off or seriously injured.

  Another major issue was that Jason that Artemis was injured!

  Chapter 33: Fighting with ones life at a thread

  Artemis was filled with adrenaline and couldn't feel the pain at the moment but that would change as soon as their fight ended.

  They had to defeat the vulture as fast as possible so Jason could treat Artemis' injury.

  Because of its inability to fly, the vulture´s actions were rather passive than aggressive which surprised Jason a little bit, forcing him to make the first move.

  Running away wouldn´t be feasible because the vulture was probably still faster than Jason.

  Trying it out would be suicidal.

  The vulture was around 10 meters away from him and Jason went slowly closer until he reached the distance of four meters.

  There he smoothly but exceptionally fast changed his stance, only to make a big stride forward, with his body leaning forward.

  After making a single stride, Jason sidestepped to avoid the incoming swing of the vulture's uninjured wing while Artemis shrieked out from above.

  She dived down and made a riot, causing the vulture to feel distracted from the white beast's shriek, as it turned its head upwards to welcome the diving beast.

  Surprisingly the attack didn't come from above but from the front.

  He delivered a quick but impactful punch onto the vulture's head.

  While one mana enveloped fist punched out, the other hand tried to take the Jade iron dagger out of its wing in order to make the following process easier for them.

  Unfortunately, the dagger didn't completely loosen up.

  Shaking its head, the vulture was now injured as it could only see a blurry image.

  Due to the injury, the vulture was enraged and seeing the blurry youth only a step away from it, the vulture tried to hit it with its claws.

  Jason rolled away but he wasn't completely uninjured as his back was grazed by the razor-sharp claws.

  Ignoring the pain Jason saw that the dagger began to loosen due to the vulture´s sudden movement and the additional gravity did its job, causing the dagger to fall out of the vulture's wing.

  Seeing that, Jason first evaded the vulture's beak, before suicidal jumping straight forward towards the dagger.

  The vulture didn't expect that and turned around but it was distracted due to Artemis´ second dive, straight at its back.

  Her mana-infused talons weren't even able to pierce through the vulture's plumage.

  The vulture was still annoying but it decided to treat Artemis as annoying Ant not worth its attention.

  Focusing solely on Jason, however, was probably the vulture's biggest mistake.

  While Jason reached his dagger, with the vulture pursuing him, Artemis used her wings to reach the vulture's head that wasn't covered by plumage.

  Using her whole reserves of mana on her claws, she pierced out with them.

  It wasn't enough to heavily injure the vulture or even kill it but it cried out in pain, causing it to shacke the whole body vigorously, which gave Jason enough time to pick up his dagger and stab out with it.

  Piercing into the vulture's body, the plumage hindered the attack slightly but it still penetrated its defense and met fresh meat.

  Upon piercing through it, a painful cry resounded throughout the area caused by the vulture.

  Jason's ears ached and he was tempted to cover them with his hands.

  Twisting the dagger the painful shriek became louder until it disappeared after a few moments.

  Sensing the life force within the vulture disappearing and the following result, its death, Jason fell on his butt as he was way too exhausted to do even stand firmly on the ground.

  The whole battle didn't take a long time, at most 2 minutes, starting from the vulture's surprise attack but his mind calculated hundreds of possibilities adding to the tension, Artemis injury and him being unarmed, exceeded Jason´s capabilities.

  His body was still fine except for the small injury on his back and blood was still flowing out of it.

  Getting up, Jason stored the vultures' corpse away when Artemis gliding to him with some difficulties.

  After the battle, Artemis almost immediately felt the injury on her back, hindering her flying ability slightly.

  Placing herself on Jason's shoulder and both left the wild-zone as fast as possible to avoid fighting anyone while being exhausted.

  30 minutes later they entered the dome once again.

  The sun was going down while a little bit of sunlight combined with the light from the mansion-sized tents brightened up the surrounding.

  Many youths were sitting around a campfire talking to each other as Jason passed them without greeting anyone or even paying attention to them.

  Unknowingly to him, Jason was the person the youths talked about after seeing him entering the dome.

  His face looked beautiful, almost feminine if his detailed facial features wouldn´t say otherwise as the big golden eyes were illuminated by the surrounding lights, underlining Jason´s return.

  Jason's black hair was disheveled and his clothes were tattered and dirty, giving him the appearance of a wild boy.

  Sensing his and Artemis mana, they found out that he was extremely weak even compared to them, with Jason radiating the mana of a 5th Novice rank and Artemis was obviously a two-star wild beast.

  The youths wondered if the golden-eyed boy looked like this because of a battle against a three-star wild beast and started laughing at him.

  How could they know that a quasi 5th Novice rank mana fluctuations were in reality, a 3rd Novice rank that fought suicidal against 3 five-star wild beasts and killed them even if the whole fighting process was full of tricks and hidden assassinations.

  These youths would only dare to do something like that when they reached the 8th or 9th Novice rank and even then only with superior weapons and armrors to protect themselves.

  Most of them would still be accompanied by a guard or some other teammates to help them out if they end up in an disadvantage.

  Entering his tent he put some medicine on Artemis and his wound while he bandaged his own wound he let Artemis' wound uncovered.

  He wasn't exactly sure how deep the wound was but the area of her injury was at a bad spot.

  As such he decided to give Artemis all the two-star cores he had accumulated in addition to the three five star wild beast cores he had left in order to accelerate the healing process of Artemis with the huge amount of mana she could digest.

  She would probably sleep a few days but it was still fine.
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br />   Unfortunately, he had to kill another two five-star wild beasts until the day after tomorrow but he shouldn't force Artemis into a fight with an injury, which could end up in devastating result.

  Artemis gulped down the cores before she went into the soul world to digest the overwhelming mana.

  Meanwhile, Jason ate some meat, and afterward, he also went into the soul world to practice the Heaven's Hell technique before he washed up and slept.

  Chapter 34: Rescue

  After waking up early in the morning Jason had to think carefully about his plans for the next 30 hours.

  Without Artemis, his chances to hunt a five-star wild beast reduced drastically and Jason wasn´t confident to kill one with his current strength.

  His injury wasn´t deep and wouldn´t hinder his movements but his strength was the biggest problem, right at this moment.

  Thinking carefully, Jason decided to use the remaining energy inside the mana stone to force a breakthrough of his rank.

  Throughout the last two weeks, he had stabilized his mana core and in a week at most, he would be able to enter the 4th Novice rank naturally without issues but he didn't have that time right now.

  The small mana stone Jason had still left was half-filled which was probably enough to force a breakthrough in his rank.

  After forcing a breakthrough his energy would be quite unstable for a while before he could advance again but it was his best option at the moment.

  Once he advances, his physique and mana core would grow in size and he would be one step closer to the strength of a five-star wild beast.

  Jason sat down, but before he would breakthrough he still followed his daily routine and entered the soul world to practice the Heaven's Hell technique.

  Due to his determination to practice the soul technique three times a day his soul energy increased slowly but steadily and Jason was hopeful, that he would be able to get a soul energy of four before Artemis advanced again.

  Leaving the soul world, he took the mana stone in both hands before releasing the remaining stored mana at once.

  A small storm of thin mana enveloped Jason as his pores opened instinctively.

  Absorbing the whole mana in his surrounding greedily, Jason´s mana core ached and it looked quite bad as his eyes turned red when drops of blood sprinkled the sleeping bag he was sitting on.

  Blood flowed out of his orifices while his head turned red.

  The amount of mana he absorbed was almost too much for him to handle at the moment when the mana core forcefully accepted the mana and increased in size.

  The core however could only slowly enlarge its size while Jason had to endure the painful pressure for quite a long time.

  Fortunately, due to the enlargement of the Mana core, the pressure grew weaker over time and after an hour Jason could handle the pressure without any problems.

  His body was enveloped by a white cocoon and only when his mana core reached the 4th Novice rank, it slowly dissolved, while his physique also followed suit.

  Because of Artemis' additional amplification, Jason had a mana core of a larger size and it was almost comparable to the 6th Novice rank while his physique was at the 5th Novice rank.

  He was still much weaker than average five-star wild beasts but his chances to kill one with a crafty assassination or some other tricks increased a lot.

  Eating a small breakfast, washing up, and changing his clothes, Jason left the tent and entered the one-star plains wild zone once again.

  The increase of one's strength caused by the novice rank was minuscule but Jason still felt much stronger today.

  One could say that the wild beast and novice ranks were not even the beginning of one's journey in the vast world as each increase in level gave only slight enhancements in strength.

  If Jason had a soulbond like Greg he would bash up all wild ranked beasts without any problems, but that wasn´t the case, unfortunately.

  Almost a month passed since Greg formed his soulbond and the bull calf was most likely almost matured, with its strength at the later awakened rank or first evolved rank.

  The amplification the bull provided to Greg was definitely a few times larger than Artemis enhancement, even if Greg´s soul would only give him 1% share.

  Even if Greg was at the 1st Novice rank with the enhancement of a strong soulbond like the reinforced horned bull, he would be able to easily crush numerous wild beasts with only his physique.

  But luckily Jason didn't even think about that otherwise, he might be extremely frustrated and demotivated.

  Strolling around the wild zone with his dagger firmly gripped, Jason felt lonely.

  To avoid that, he focused even more on his surroundings.

  Many groups of youths were fighting large groups of beasts and Jason couldn't find any solo five-star beasts, so he honed his dagger skills while fighting three- and four-star wild beasts.

  Until lunch, he hadn't found a single five-star wild beast as he went back into the dome in order to practice his Heaven's Hell technique.

  Finishin lunch, Jason went out again straight into the wild zone where he saw pack of 9 five-star greater horned wolves besieging a group of four youths that tried to get into the dome.

  Unfortunately, they were hindered by the Beasts.

  Before Jason did something unnecessary, he activated his mana eyes to look if the group could handle the situation or if they needed his help.

  Upon inspecting the youths he noticed that all of them were at the 7th Novice rank which was above average for their age and they should be able to handle one five-star Beast for each of them with their superior equipment and armor.

  However, Jason noticed something in particular.

  The equipment they wore was good but not extremely expensive and even while being outnumbered, nobody pulled out a gun to save themselves.

  Thinking about the situation they were in, Jason concluded that they didn't own a mana gun or the ammunition was already used up so, he wanted to help them out.

  Maybe their martial art techniques were also not on par with the instinctive movements of a five-star wild beast but Jason wouldn´t just watch someone dying in front of him.

  His heart began to thump loudly as he himself knew that this decision was probably dumb due to his low rank, but he couldn't just let his brethren die without even trying to help out.

  The wolves had almost surrounded the small youth group and a few already pounced at them when a black-haired golden-eyed youth appeared between two greater horned wolves that stood only two meters apart from each other.

  Jason had no time to hesitate as he used almost a quarter of his advanced mana to enhance his lower body.

  With his breathtaking speed, he appeared between two greater horned wolves that were unaware of his advancement.

  He enhanced his dagger with a layer of mana before stabbing out with it drawing a clean cut at one of the wolf's throat before he pulled the dagger out with a smooth movement.

  Not a single noise except a loud thump left the dead wolf´s body as blood spurted out of its wound as the large body fell on the side.

  But this wasn't all as Jason's eyes brightened up when he spun around only to pierce the dagger into the bewildered greater horned wolf's neck which caused a loud crack to resound through the whole battlefield.

  Because Jason enhanced his dagger with a layer of mana, the dagger's sharpness and firmness were enhanced and definitely strong enough to pierce through the cervical spine without many difficulties.

  Jason killed two five-star greater horned wolves without much difficulty due to his perfect assassination attempt.

  However, the battle was still not over as seven greater horned wolves were still alive.

  And only five of them were already in a battle with the youths while another one was jumping into the fray.

  But one greater horned wolf noticed that two of its brethren were missing when it heard two loud noises only a second ago.

  Turning around, it saw th
e two dead wolves and a youth standing only a few meters away from itself, rushing at it with a fast speed.

  Looking at the black-haired youth with blood-stains on his face, the wolf went immediately into a rage before it saw the youth's deep golden glowing eyes.

  Its rage disspated almost immediately without leaving any trace of it behind as the wolf´s body began to shiver, looking into these cold golden eyes.

  The Wolf was intimidated and it felt as if the Grim Reaper knocked at its door welcoming it to the abyss.

  It wanted to retreat and run away from the youth as far as possible but before it could even turn around, the youth was only a meter apart from it.

  Jason noticed the wolves' hesitation but he wasn't sure why that was the case, as it was extremely unusual.

  Not caring about the situation, Jason used the newly obtained opening to slide under its stomach to avoid a sudden attack from its head.

  Its stomach was cleanly cut open and blood fountains and organs spilled out onto Jason who jumped up after wiping his face.

  He had used up more than half of his mana and he supervised the battle of the four youths and remaining six greater horned wolves to help out if needed.

  It was seen as immoral to kill the prey of another person and Jason provided only a little bit support.

  Only slightly more than six minutes later the last wolf was finally finished off.

  However before that happened Jason had already left the youths to pick up his three five-star wild beast corpses.

  He had killed them so they belonged to him, while the youths didn't even think about taking them from him because they were grateful for his help.

  Jason wasn't really good with social interactions and he left the youths after a short chat.

  The group of four youths mainly thanked Jason and they wanted to give him something in return but he declined politely before leaving the scene.

  Chapter 35: Time´s up

  Jason went into the dome again where he took out the five-star corpses to take out their incomplete cores before storing them again.