Because of the gravitational influence of the hammer, he can’t let the hammer get anywhere close to him, or the gravitational field will slow him down, which will make the hammer catch up to him and crush him. This means he can’t dodge the hammer by a few inches. He has to run around to give the hammer a wide berth.
She had gone some distance when she saw this outcome. The turn of events pleased her, and she decided to capitalize on his inability to deal with her by turning back to fight him.
As it appeared, this was a good decision because the hammer had finally gotten close to the swordsman. The increase in gravity weighed the swordsman down and slowed him down even more. This effect only increased the closer the hammer got to him.
So as the hammer got to him, the slower and heavier he became. Eventually, he became unable to move and was struck head-on by the hammer.
The hammer smashed into him and caused him to explode into a shower of blood. His entire body had actually erupted with blood, which scattered into the surrounding area. Then the hammer struck the ground and cratered it with an explosion.
But the rank 5 forger wasn’t happy to see this scene. When she saw the drops of blood hovering in the air where the swordsman should be, her face paled, and she said, "Not good."
Then she turned around to run again. She also didn’t forget to make the hammer rise into the air and continue to fight for her.
As it turned out, the swordsman had used the Blood Evasion Metac to turn himself into a mass of blood that is immune to physical damage.
The mass of blood exploded after it was struck by the hammer, but the drops of blood quickly came together to reform his body. When his body was reformed, he was whole without any injury.
The good news was that he was fine. The bad news is that the hammer is still chasing him and will keep chasing him until he is dead. So his only choices are to give up and leave or kill her to stop the hammer from chasing him.
But he can’t leave because to leave is to admit weakness, which she is surely to capitalize on. He can already guess that if he tried to leave now, she won’t let him go and will continue to chase him with her hammer. That will put all of the initiative in her hands.
So his only way out is to continue trying to kill her. In order not to become the prey, he chose to chase her.
This decision made it so that she was running in front while he was right behind her, flinging energy swords at her, and a hammer was behind him, trying to crush him.
He wasn’t gaining any advantage in this arrangement, but he didn’t mind. He said to himself to encourage himself, "There are only three of them and twelve of us that want to kill them. So the odds are against her."
"The odds of me encountering an ally are higher than the odds of her encountering an ally. Which means that if I keep chasing her, we are bound to run into someone who will help me kill her."
She also knew this and knew that it was a bad idea to run like this, but there wasn’t much she could do about this problem because the enemy was tricky to deal with.
If he were an enemy that she could hit, she wouldn’t have much to worry about. But he is keeping his distance from her, uses ranged attack, and, as a method to avoid physical damage, which is the only thing she is good at.
So this particular enemy is a bad match-up for her. If the enemy were a warrior, she would surely crush him to death, no matter how strong the bones of that warrior are.
Her hammer, which is her life ability, is the strongest means of attack she possesses. But since that isn’t working right now, she decided to use another thing that might work.
She threw out small spherical balls that transformed into flying drones. The drones flew over to the swordsman to delay him, so that the hammer could catch up to him.
The drones looked like dragonflies. But they were bigger than dragonflies and were capable of shooting laser guns at the swordsman.
In response to this attack, the swordsman swung his sword at them. The red energy blades that he produced with each sword swing cut through the air and cut the dragonfly in two, destroying them.
He only swung his sword once, but multiple energy blades were produced each time. The more he swung his sword, the more energy blades he was able to create. So the longer he was fighting, the more terrifying he became.
This is usually the case for cultivators of the Killing Pathway. The essence of this pathway is killing and fighting, not the sword. The sword is just a tool for killing. Any tool can be used for killing as long as they have the Weapon Seed Core Metac.
Right now, he hasn’t become too difficult to deal with because he hasn’t killed anything or drawn any blood. Once he draws blood, the power of killing will increase.
She kept throwing things out to slow him down, but he kept destroying them. So she failed to make the hammer catch up to him, but she was succeeding in making him consume a lot of energy.
It is normal that every Metac consumes energy to show its effect. Some of them can be cheap, but those energy blades don’t come cheap. It costs a lot of energy to produce each one, so the more energy blades he makes, the more his energy expenditure.
So even though she is failing to slow him down, if she can make him run out of energy before they encounter more enemies, she will be able to turn the tables on him.