"It's an attack…ack!" One of the surviving soldiers screamed when a Prana Bomb slammed into his face and splattered his head.
Standing a kilometre away was Inala, holding a dozen Sumatra Zingers. Through the Puppetry Skill, he controlled four of them and aimed at the survivors, launching Prana Bombs at terrifying speeds.
They were like cannon shots, brimming with terrifying power. After all, each Prana Bomb weighed two hundred kilograms. And when launched by a Sumatra Zinger, it couldn't be defended against, especially by the exhausted survivors.
When the Prana Bomb slammed into Gudora's face, his head splattered upon impact. He revived beside his corpse as his eyes seethed in hatred upon seeing the Prana Bomb, "INALA!!!!!"
He stared in the direction of the attack, noticing Inala's figure standing atop a pillar of bone. Even though rage clouded his vision, he still had enough sanity to make the right decision, "Take cover!"
The survivors rushed behind a pile of rubble and huddled together, gasping in exhaustion.
"D-Dad," His youngest son trembled in fear, saying, "We lost two of us."
Among the fourteen survivors, two died in Inala's attacks. He had launched four Prana Bombs in total, targeting Gudora, his youngest son, and two other soldiers.
Gudora dropped from the 3-Life Stage to the 2-Life Stage while his youngest son dropped from the 2-Life Stage to the 1-Life Stage. As the remaining two soldiers were only at the Body Stage, they didn't survive the attack.
"This bastard just had to return now!" Gudora grumbled in anger as his two Storage Lanterns reverted to their original size. He inserted his hand through their entrance and fished through their spaces, only finding a single bottle of medicine.
"The lot of you make a beeline to my mansion." Gudora commanded the survivors, staring at his son in all seriousness, "You know where the Parute Trees are. Go there and consume them. Once you recover, return to finish Inala."
"I'll do my best to hold him back until then." Saying so, he consumed the last bottle of medicine.
"Please don't do anything risky, Dad." Gudora's youngest son said in worry, "Inala's strong. And if he's aided by the Zingers, you'll die."
"Don't worry," Gudora spoke calmly, "He isn't accompanied by them. And even if any of them are lying in ambush, I'll exercise caution."
"Now, go!" He transferred ownership of the two Storage Lanterns to his son and shouted for them to flee, rushing out of the pile of rubble immediately in response.
Boom!
A floor behind him formed a crater when a Prana Bomb slammed into it. Gudora had barely evaded the attack as he began to run at top speed. He wasn't using his ability, since he had less than 100 Prana.
He saved it for emergencies. His son would soon return with a lot of Parute Fruits. Once he consumed them, he'd recover his Prana and would be able to deal with Inala. Even at the 2-Life Stage, he was strong.
Prana Bombs rushed at him with terrifying speeds. Gudora barely evaded them and traversed a roundabout path, cleverly using the piles of rubble to gradually close in on Inala.
In the meantime, when Inala's attention was on Gudora, the eleven survivors sneaked their way to the City Lord mansion, one that had been reduced to ruins completely.
"Would the Parute Trees survive such damage?" One of the survivors questioned Gudora's youngest son.
"They aren't on the surface." Saying so, Gudora's youngest son arrived at a discrete corner of the garden and activated his power, causing a portion of the ground to part way and reveal a flight of stairs heading underground. "Let's hurry!"
The group descended the flight of stairs that reached a depth of two hundred metres before leading into a large cave. Growing there, surrounded by luminescent moss were forty Parute Trees, Ellora City's source of wealth.
The Parute Fruits growing on it numbered in the thousands.
"Just stay here. You'll harm them without knowledge of harvesting Parute Fruits." Gudora's youngest son said and slowly approached the closest Parute Tree, "I have a Skill that allows me to sense the ripened fruits among these and carefully pluck them."
He stopped before the Parute Tree and extended his hand to a Parute Fruit, encasing a tiny blade at the tip of his index finger. With a mild touch, a bunch of Parute Fruits fell off as he used the other hand to catch them, throwing them to the survivors.
But right as he was about to harvest the second batch, four miniature Life Bombs slammed into him and knocked him out momentarily. But before he could recover, a few more Life Bombs latched onto his body, causing him to shrivel up in a matter of seconds.
"Kriek!" Letting out a faint screech, the Empyrean Zinger King walked out from a Parute Tree in its miniature form. Followed by a leap, it reverted to its original size and slammed into the exhausted soldiers.
Life Bombs revolved around it like satellites and targeted the soldiers while it used its robust body to claw them apart.
The battle lasted for less than two minutes before they were all killed. The Empyrean Zinger King calmly dragged their corpses through the flight of stairs and dumped them outside. It then stood guard at the entrance to the cave with the Parute Trees.
"Kuak!" It let out a loud shout in a frequency only audible to Empyrean Zingers, signalling the end of its mission.
'Good!' Inala smirked as he casually shot Prana Bombs at Gudora. The latter was gradually accustoming to the trajectories of his Prana Bombs, becoming better and better at avoiding them. He had been through a terrifying battle filled with dangerous projectiles, after all.
Therefore, his battle senses were honed to the extreme. Except for the sneak attack that caught him off guard right at the moment he relaxed after killing the final Centinger, no other Prana Bombs came close to touching him.
"But how long can you evade them?" Inala wasn't pressured in the slightest. He was simply using the twelve Sumatra Zingers to shoot Prana Bombs. And since he only shot when Gudora rushed out from behind a pile of rubble, the frequency of shots was less, barely once a minute.
That meant he had more than enough time to charge up the Sumatra Zingers. As for the Prana consumption, he wasn't worried in that regard. There were more than enough Prana Bombs—filled with Prana—in his biome.
Besides, he was just buying time, since there were two more shelters left. Two puppets piloted by Empyrean Zinger scouts were currently in the process of evacuating them to the Rooster Tribe settlement.
Inala had already evacuated three shelters, accounting for twenty-four thousand people. He didn't wish to lose out on the rest.
Standing atop the bone pillar that reached a height of twenty metres, Inala aimed at Gudora and continued to attack while the latter gradually closed in on him.
Soon, when the latter was within earshot, Inala shouted, "Gudora! Do you know who the forty thousand survivors of Ellora City consider their saviour?"