CHAPTER 56: TOUGH LOG

As force started mounting on his foot being held by the mysterious thing, he instinctively slashed the sword down without even adding his qi onto it.

$Cling$

A sharp metallic sound echoed.

Noctis looked down finally to see a grey tube like object wrapped around his foot with a slash on it, cutting it half open as blue liquid, roughly the same colour as the sea, flowed out of it.

At the same time he heard a scream from his side.

Noctis looked towards Cora in alarm, only to see her missing, her scream still being heard from above his head.

Jerking his head upwards he saw Cora in the grip of the same grey rope-like thing, one end holding Cora and another going into the sea.

In a split second as he saw Cora in the air, the tube started shrinking back into water with speed, dragging her with it.

Noctis used his qi to finally free himself of the rope on his foot that hadn’t been cut fully. Even though he hadn’t used qi and wasn’t entirely ready, it still had enough force to crack open a skull.

Seeing as it had some durability, this time Noctis coated the sword with his qi, making the sword vibrate lightly and immediately sprinted towards Cora.

Just as she had reached closer to the surface Noctis slashed the rope cleanly as he caught Cora, rotating himself to cancel out her momentum.

Similar blue liquid splashed the surface of the water as the rope fully retreated, leaving the cut part on the surface.

"What the hell was that?"

Noctis asked rhetorically to himself.

"Why would they be here..."

Not expecting a reply, Noctis looked down at Cora, asking,

"Do you know what that was?"

"Makaras... Regina... quick, do something, Regina needs to know this, Regina! Reggieeee!"

Instead of replying, perhaps not even registering his question as she muttered something to her before starting struggling and shouting towards the knight in the sea.

Noctis frowned a bit as he laid her down, looking into the sea towards her position.

Regina could be seen between a few trees, peering down at their roots.

She was inspecting the roots for something when she looked towards them, perhaps hearing Cora’s shouts.

Unable to understand anything, but seeing Cora’s expression, Regina abandoned it immediately before starting making her way up.

Cora meanwhile kept shouting some makara being in the sea. He reckoned it meant those strange ropes.

He had tried sensing before this but hadn’t felt anything. They were quite troublesome just for that.

Just as she had reached the surface, Noctis’ eyes narrowed as he saw a pitch black bullet instantly cover meters and reach Regina’s face.

He couldn’t fathom what could allow it to travel at that speed in the waters.

Meanwhile, although she noticed the bullet, it was a little late, as with her delayed movement she couldn’t dodge fully, resulting in the bullet impacting her at the side of the head, wounding her a little as blood started trickling down.

Before he could understand anything about the bullet he suddenly saw her face being bound by the same rope that had tried capturing them, something he had missed as the pitch black contrasting the water took his attention, ignoring the grey rope for a second.

He saw Regina trying to get out of the hold, while the rope started dragging her towards a certain direction.

"Noctis, please do something! She is in danger."

He felt Cora hold his arms with force, her eyes filled with tears while watching the scene.

Alternating back and forth on both, Noctis assessed the situation for a moment before standing up as he held Cora up with her waist.

With the sword in one hand and the girl in another, he jumped up just as another bullet launched this time towards them, missing him with the crucial hump; but another followed just next even as he was in mid-air.

Noctis deflected the bullet before concentrating the qi at the tip of the sword and throwing it towards the sea.

While the speed of the sword slowed down as it entered the water, it was enough to reach Regina as she took hold of it.

Noctis along with Cora safely landed upon the land near the forest.

His main priority was her safety for now.

He had to hold onto her even after he had landed as she tried to go towards the sea.

"Calm down, she’ll be fine. We need you to be safe for her sake."

Noctis hoped he was right as, if the knight died, it would become quite bothersome to retrieve the wood by himself while the strange thing kept going at him.

Even as they stood a little distance from the sea, he saw a bullet coming towards him.

Out of the water, Noctis easily dodged it before taking hold of the rope and pulling it out of the water with his full force.

Soon the surface broke as a log-like thing came out of the water.

Even as the thing flew up, all he could see was an oval cylindrical log with spikes all over it and the rope extending from its body.

Noctis pulled out the other sword as he prepared to slash it as it came down towards the surface.

But just as it had reached his eyes level, the log suddenly rotated by itself, somehow propelling it to stay in the air for a moment before numerous black bullets and grey ropes ejected from the numerous spikes.

Seeing the dozens of bullets coming towards, albeit quite slowly compared to when the log was in the water, Noctis prepared to slash it down even if the angle wasn’t the best.

He wasn’t trained in the art of sword much so his skills were far from sufficient but he couldn’t dodge as Cora was behind him.

As Noctis slashed with his full arm strength, a golden arc released from the blade, slashing numerous ropes before hitting the log head on.

The rotating log stopped spinning, being thrown quite a few meters back.

But as the log fell in the water, he could see that it had barely managed to have a mark on its body.

"Tough log."

Noctis remarked before peering into the sea, looking for Regina.

He saw her surrounded by three such logs.