Meanwhile…
The moment he saw action on the cliff, Marc quickly dashed through the jungle as fast as he could, breaking down tree branches and bushes that got into his way. His job was to locate Pearl who is most likely keeping Esmeralda, while Mei kept Rina busy.
He went through multiple routes and paths for what seemed like forever, the cliff was way out of his sight already, and still no sign of Pearl or Esmeralda. Which made Marc worried, are they playing psychological warfare? Pearl might be following him all this time for all he knows, or maybe Esmeralda wasn't even in this jungle to begin with.
Marc searched around the never ending maze of woods for longer than he could count. After all desperate, he aimed his spell staff upwards to the sky.
"Elemental Spell: Fireball!"
He shot a small fire ball up to the sky, which exploded and caught everyone's attention. Before charging in towards the cliff, faster than he did searching.
Back on the cliff, the two ladies were full of burnt marks, bruises, cuts and torn clothing. They seemed to be having fun.
"Is that some kind of signal?" Rina said, glancing at the fireball exploding in the distance.
The situation is looking bad for Mei, who was getting pinned down by Rina. She is using Marc's sword to pin the non blunt part down on Mei's neck, attempting to choke her or at least apprehend her for a while.
"Guh… Heh…" Mei gulped.
Fighting against a much more developed person, who had her signature Wind Dance and greater strengths. Mei can't put up much of a fight against Rina. Yet when in the worst position possible, she still let out a smile. A comforting one for herself.
"The most dangerous place, is, the safest…" Mei ignited her hands on fire, trying to make their way to Rina's hands and possibly burn them. "You confidently stood on the cliff and provoked us, was to make us feel like we could waste your time... While in reality you're wasting our time, spending time on this cliff instead of one important place."
"Underneath the pointy end of the cliff!" Marc mumbled and rushed towards that direction.
Rina smiled, tilting her head innocently.
"You figured us out, bravo!" She wanted to give Mei a round of applause, but could not. "But if that was true, then could you theorize to me where Pearl might be?"
"Guarding Es? Where else would he-" Mei frowned, pushing harder to get out of Rina's grip.
Rina shook her head, giggling mischievously. Without another word, she jumped backwards, pinning Marc's sword to the ground and switched to Mei's elemental staff. Rina aimed the staff towards the forest below and let out two spells.
"Elves Vision: Wind Children..."
Wind Children: Significantly enhances the user's air magic abilities, while also decreases other elemental abilities for ten minutes.
"Elemental Spell: Clearing Eagle!"
Clearing Eagle: Cast a big wind magic that pushes away all obstacles in the way. Anyone within a certain vicinity will get a clear line of sight of each other.
Mei rushed to get Rina down, but it was too late; the spell had been casted.
The Clearing Eagle shot through multiple layers of trees and grass, it pushed trees away like a tornado, it torn bushes in half like high-pressured wind. Soon, a clear path was made.
Pearl was hiding under their nose all this time, preparing for this moment.
Check
Their eyes met, with Pearl's bow already aiming at Marc.
"The bittersweet laments are yearning songs..." Pearl hummed as energies inside him began twirling around, air magic circulated throughout violently, his bright bluish hair flew side to side, up and down.
Voot
A sharp and pointed object flew, it shredded through multiple molecules of wind, bursting through layers of atoms towards Marc, straight for his eyes.
The arrow was covered in a strange cosmic aura, a pair of dark purplish round veins flew alongside the arrow and dangled around it.
Birds stopped chirping for the moment, the sun burned every dangling leaf before their eyes, reality was contemplating for the following impact.
Halfway through their trajectory. The two purple dark-stared like things flew at an enormous speed towards Marc, three times faster than the arrow itself. The pair each then flew downwards, grabbing Marc by his ankle and pinning him down.
Pearl charged up his next arrow, Marc was left with a quick time decision. His young mind flashes through tens of hundreds of possibilities of how this situation would turn out, out of every possibility, he won none.
Marc used the staff to create a simple wind wall, hoping to slow down the arrow, and braced himself.
Cluck
The arrow stopped advancing, the shiny flint arrowhead was met with a magical spell staff. The two struggle for power. For Marc was not letting this go, he's confident he could keep this arrow from hitting his eyes.
The thing kept spinning around, mocking everything by its power, slowly building up friction, and before Marc knew it, the arrow pierced through the staff, taking the guy by surprise. Deeply concentrated on the arrow, he dodged his head and the thing went past him, not before taking off of his forehead a courteous amount of skin and flesh.
"Woah…" Marc chuckled out of pain, he put his hand up onto his forehead for a moment, to see it covered in fresh red.
On the other end, Pearl got into a lower stance, aiming again and Marc's legs, the only things that couldn't dodge.
Just when he released his grip and the arrow flew from the string's elastic, a strike came down from above, breaking the arrow in half before it got a chance to fly.
"Gah!"
The figure carried on with the momentum. She stepped on Pearl's shoes to limit his movement, her blade possessed a deadly presence, aiming upwards to his head.
The sword was not slow, it sent Pearl's consciousness into another level, he was not escaping this. He was going to die.
Everything froze.
He needed to kill Mei.
snap.
Parried... Mei lost her strike.
Disarmed... The sword flew away.
Stomach jabbed... Mei tried to hold onto something.
Down… Mei lost her footing.
Beheaded.