Chapter 227: Tooth And Nail

Standing in front of him were a pair of Sergeants, including one he recognized.

The one on the left was named Miss D, a Sergeant he saw when leaving the second year building long ago. She wore an intricate chest piece that looked quite strong. However, the other one he hadn’t seen before.

He was a tall man with large shoulders, and equally large bushy brown hair. On his face was a handlebar mustache, and his military uniform had a name tag that said "Burder."

"So you’re the kid we were told to apprehend," Miss D spat out, "I should’ve known there was something suspicious about you that day."

With the way they stood their ground, it was clear if Quinn tried explaining he was innocent, they wouldn’t hear a word he said.

Instantly, two giant stone hands lifted up right next to Quinn. If this move had been done to him two days ago, then it very likely would’ve caught him instantly, but Quinn had grown stronger.

Focusing his qi around his legs, he jumped back, and at the same time, used his ability to push back against the stone giving him just an extra second of time.

He couldn’t get a single moment of rest. Burder charged at him, baton in hand, and swung it down.

Quinn raised his arms, bringing mud from his pouch to wrap around the weapon, and redirecting it to the side, smashing into the ground next to him instead.

Miss D raised a wall of earth, and started punching bricks at Quinn’s direction. One hit him in the gut, sliding him back, but he raised an earth wall all around him before more could land. Then, he raised the earth under his feet to wrap around his body, creating his rock armor.

Unlike previous times when he first made his rock armor, it looked crude, and stoney, but now that he was a level 6, his armor looked smoother, and more finely crafted. On the top and sides of his head were three pairs of horns jutting backwards.

"You can’t hide in there forever!" Burder screamed out in a raspy voice.

Miss D was about to tear down the earthen dome, when it shifted, and collapsed revealing it was empty. For a moment, the two sergeants were confused, when a spike jutted right beneath Miss D.

Narrowly, it just scraped her chest plate, but more and more spikes kept jutting up, causing the two sergeants to stay on their toes dodging. Oddly enough, it reminded them of the testing they had all the students go through on the first day.

"Where did that damn brat go?" Burder said as he glanced around.

"He can’t stay hidden for long," Miss D muttered.

Just then, an earthen figure popped out of the ground right behind her.

"He’s in the ground!" Burder shouted, and smashed his baton into a spike, detaching it, and threw it.

However, it was too late, Quinn placed his bare hand on Miss D’s back, controlling the metal of her chest plate to compress tightly.

The spike crashed into Quinn, but the damage was already done, Miss D struggled to breathe.

"Why you—" she struggled to get out.

With her lungs compressed, she would only have a limited amount of time to remain conscious.

’I have no choice but to use my soul weapon!’

She spun around and a glowing light formed around her hands, creating what looked like a trio of stoney chains with spiked balls at the end of them.

Quinn was partway through retreating into the ground when she wrapped the spikes around his body, and tugged tightly, pressing into his armor.

’Let’s play a game of chicken, who’ll leave their tight prison first!’ she yelled in her mind.

The situation looked bad, and the worst part was that Quinn couldn’t use his ability to control the chains. Due to the fact that it was her soul weapon, it was made out of a unique material that only the user could manipulate.

Burder charged at him, his baton covered in stone, and crashed it into Quinn, cracking his armor. Despite the armor taking the brunt of the damage, the force still traveled into his shoulder.

Miss D yanked the chains, forcing the boy to his hands and knees.

If he stayed there any longer, then Quinn was going to be restrained, but if he left his armor, then Quinn was going to be vulnerable.

’I can’t just do nothing, I have to do something!’

With his unrestrained hands, he lifted the dust around them, and focused it into Miss D’s nostrils. The sergeant gagged, and doubled over, loosening the chains around him as well.

Burder raised his baton overhead, spiked stone collapsing around it, but Quinn raised his hand and fired mud spray at the large man, forcing him to fling back. Burder kept himself upright by wrapping the stone around his feet. Before he could react, Quinn fired a handful of mud to wrap around his face, blocking both his breathing and vision.

Choking, Miss D raised a hand to try to trap Quinn again with her soul weapon, but he forced his armor to expand, loosening the chains, and broke an opening around his back. Then, he jumped out of his armor, and started to run.

Burder ripped off the mud on his face, and growled, pissed that a first year without a soul weapon was making a joke out of them. Somehow, the mud spray move Quinn did on him broke his ribs.

’Forget orders. I want to tear his skin off!’

Lifting up his advanced tier baton, Burder activated its skill, which allowed it so stone naturally magnetized to it, and he could change its shape to whatever he wanted.

Using an earth pillar to launch himself, he swung his baton overhead. Naturally, Quinn tried using the same move as before, and raised a blob of mud to try to redirect it. However, it was a distraction, and Burder instead sunk Quinn two feet into the ground.

The next thing Burder did was twist the earth around one of Quinn’s legs, and an audible crunching sound could be heard.

"ARGH!" Quinn cried in pain.

"Ah... Like music to my ears," Burder licked his lips.

The throbbing sharp pain in his leg hurt like hell, but Quinn fought through it. He had to.

Quinn raised his arms up, pushing through the pain, and Burder was prepared for the boy to make some sort of move, or retaliation of sorts. What happened instead was the earth around Quinn rose up to cover his whole body, and then... he sunk into the ground, disappearing from sight.

Elsewhere, Miss D coughed up the dust, controlling it to leave her breathing passage ways. Then, she used that same dust to get in the gap between her armor, and her clothes to push her armor out, allowing herself to breathe like normal again.

"That kid is fighting hard, it’s no wonder they sent two of us," Miss D whispered, then raised her arm up, speaking into her watch, "I’m calling for backup. I repeat, I’m calling for backup. We have a runner."