Jia Le had initially wanted to throw her kunais towards them until Bin Yong had asked her what spell she planned to use. She had hesitated a little since their situation was not exactly the perfect time for questions.
Ultimately, she decided to humour her boyfriend and quickly explained that it would create various standing pillars to block the wave. Upon hearing this, Bin Yong advised her to tweak the spell a little to make them appear diagonally. (All she needed to do was to change the angle at which her kunai was thrown.)
The moment those kunais hit the floor, pillars of stone and vines came out in a diagonal towards the Tidal Wave of Deep Ones. As the force of the tidal wave couldn’t be stopped, countless Deep Ones crashed into the pillars of stone. Some suffered a head on collision resulting in death, others, while slightly luckier, still ended up severely injured. Unfortunately, their sheer number did not seem to have decreased by much.
When she witnessed the effects of the diagonal Vine Stone Pillars at work, she was surprised at its effectiveness. Looking at Bin Yong, her boyfriend explained to her that one of his past works involved scenes of a sea town. He did some research to be able to illustrate the sea waves splashing against the piers, and some of that past experience stuck with him till now.
To effectively stop a wave, irregular structures needed to be erected to change the uniform arrival time of the impending tidal energy. “Especially when turbulence itself is a form of energy. I had to get some of my science friends to verify it for me and they even gladly performed an experiment in their labs for me to video record so I can draw and animate those waves the way I needed to.” Bin Yong told her proudly though Jia Le was still focusing on throwing her kunais to impede the tidal wave of Deep Ones.
While Jia Le and Bin Yong were dealing with the problem at the back (well mostly Jia Le), Shi Zuo was figuring out how to override the autonomous driving system so it wouldn’t stop at the next station. There was not much time left especially with the subway station appearing in sight.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuckkkkk!!!!!” Shi Zuo was banging on every button possible and somehow through some combination, the train finally listened to his wishes and quickly increased the speed, pressing forward and away from the Deep Ones.
“You sure we can skip every stop?! I remember seeing Bin Yong’s map app. It showed that we would need to get off to transfer to another train in order to reach Penn Station?!” Luo Bo asked and Shi Zuo panicked a little.
“What?! I was not informed of that! Quickly get the information from Bin Yong or else we might be screwed!” Shi Zuo shouted and Luo Bo knocked his head.
“You don’t have to shout at me! I am right beside you!” Luo Bo replied as she ran towards Bin Yong, but they did not pay attention, missing the fact, that as they passed through the station, a few Deep Ones from Bryant Park Station Platform took the risk and successfully jumped onto the train.
“Shit! AHHHHHHHHHHH!” Luo Bo realised Bin Yong could be too far to listen to her and the Deep Ones would only hinder her. Since time was of the essence and to get his attention, she thought that shouting was the fastest way to get through him.
So she did, focusing her wind chi into her voice, her shout became so loud, that it pierced and damaged the hearing ability of the Deep Ones, causing them to be temporarily confused. But, because of that stunt it managed to reach Bin Yong who heard the SOS for help and rushed towards her.
At the same time, Luo Bo was furiously releasing her arrows as fast as she could to occupy the Deep Ones, who had boarded the train and focused their attention on her. Without anyone else in between, her ranged fights would soon turn into a closed quarters fight.
“Argh! Once this is over, I better learn some more close combat acrobatics in the future! Maybe my sis could help me with that – WOAH!” Luo Bo dodged in time and threw any strayed thoughts away since it nearly kill her by accident.
“Hurry up, Bin Bin!” Luo Bo thought to herself as she was currently forced to use her arrow as a parrying stick to defend herself from the attack.
Fortunately, she always had a blade arrow as a spare for emergency close combat quarters. When she first saw it being sold, she thought it was ridiculous. Why would anybody want to shoot a sword like arrow and then she realised it was designed for close combat defence first and shooting it at that close range for maximum damage second.
Bin Yong finally arrived traversing through multiple carriages, charging in between the doors without any care and when Luo Bo saw him, she shouted at him. “How many stops before we transfer trains?!!”
“From Grand Central? Two! We passed one, right? We need to get out at the next one! Time Square Station!” Bin Yong slammed the Deep One that was harassing Luo Bo.
“Shit! If only we had that little blue magpie with us like during the Goblin Raid War. It was super useful! Argh!! I have to inform Shi Zuo! You get Jia Jia! We might be reaching soon!” Luo Bo high kicked the Deep One which Bin Yong pinned down and shot the blade arrow into its chest.
“Roger!!!” Bin Yong quickly turned and ran back as fast as he could while Luo Bo did the same, though she was more like a ghost with her legs imbued with the chi powers of wind.
“It’s the next station-” Before Luo Bo could say anything else, Shi Zuo was already up from his seat and grabbed her by the waist before exiting the driver’s carriage. “Oof!” Luo Bo did not expect her boyfriend to be so heavy handed with his grab, but she could see that Shi Zuo was stressed.
“The next train is still at the station! We will collide in no time!” Shi Zuo explained as he ran towards the back as fast as possible. “It’s either we die by train crash or a tidal wave in a tunnel!” Shi Zuo huffed and puffed as they saw Bin Yong and Jia Le running towards them from afar.
“TRAIN CRASHING! OUT OUT OUT! WE ONLY HAVE A SPLIT SECOND!” Shi Zuo shouted at the top of his voice while he and Luo Bo rendezvoused with the other couple. True enough, they suddenly felt the train’s impact, but they had no time to stop and watch, as they threw themselves out of the train the moment they caught a glimpse of the platform.
“BAMMM!!” “WHOOSH!!”
The Pandawan group combat rolled on the platform only to continue running for their lives towards the exit before the incoming tidal wave would swallow them up. There was no other choice, Bin Yong was still exhausted, but had to use it here or they would potentially lose this dungeon instance, even after going through so much trouble to reach here.
“Guys! Hold onto me! Tight!” Bin Yong shouted as he rushed forward ahead of the group and lifted his shield up.
“Advanced Shield Art!” Bin Yong spoke it out and the whole group turned their heads towards him with sudden anticipation while grabbing onto Bin Yong’s shoulders. “Jet Stream Bombardier Blast!” Bin Yong shouted and his buckler turned red hot in an instant. After hearing the name of the technique, the other three did not just hold onto his shoulders but instinctively grab anywhere they could.
The buckler enlarged into a large plated tower size shield, and within a second, as the name implied, two streams of hot air burst out from the edges of the shield that caused them to move at tremendous speed, destroying anything in their path. Thanks to that technique, the entire Pandawan group destroyed pillars, railings, ticket gate machines, benches and so on but they eventually managed to get out of the station before it got flooded by the tidal wave.
However, Bin Yong was totally spent and he was unable to move the moment his technique expired. As they had reached the subway entrance, Shi Zuo held his axe tightly and surveyed the new rotten situation they were thrust into. There were still voices of Deep Ones echoing from the exit they just came out from. It was not looking good when one of their teammates could not move at all.
Suddenly, an oversized caped figure appeared in front of them with a weapon attached to a large fuel tank. “Been waiting on you.” The figure pulled his hood to reveal that he was none other than Captain Hei. All of them were stunned and at the same time, relieved. Weren’t they supposed to meet him at Penn Station?
“This is the limit for your group. None of you is in any condition to deal with what’s beyond. Do try again next time and get a true clear. Boss Jin purposely made this dungeon difficult, so don’t be too harsh on yourself. It was designed to test your situation awareness and ability.” Captain Hei commented with a smirk on his face.
” You will be rewarded duly.” Captain Hei words were already like gold dropping from the skies to the exhausted group.
“But first, a little bit of entertainment for you to enjoy before Pyjamas Girl here teleports you back along with your rewards.” Captain Hei remarked as the Pyjamas Girl in the full Panda Mask appeared once more. At the same time, he turned the knob on his weapon, and a fiery burst of flames emerged from his flamethrower. The arriving Deep Ones stood no chance against his flames of fury, and while Captain Hei handled them, Pyjamas Girl took the opportunity to debrief the Pandawans.
“Hey yo! Just to assure you guys, you did great handling the situation after the phone call ended, so do not worry too much! Oh and the train station was just one possible meeting point. There are also other ways to reach Penn Station, take your time to figure it out. That’s the fun and challenge of this dungeon!” The girl said as she magically conjured a large chest and placed it right in front of them.
“Now tadas~!” A small clear sign appeared but it was not the usual ‘Dungeon Cleared’ announcement. The Pandawans heaved a sigh of relief as they were teleported to the Recovery Instance.
“How was it so far?” Milk personally saw to them in one of the exclusive VIP recovery rooms. There were some minor signs of chi poisoning due to the extensive use of techniques. That was also the reason why the System had cut short their dungeon experience since it would be detrimental for them to push themselves beyond their personal limits.
Milk told them to rest for a while as she would handle each one of the Pandawans’ conditions but overall, it was a decent win for them. Though they were eager to open the rewards chest, they figured a nice proper rest in the recovery instance’s beds was more of a priority.
“Job well done. Have a good rest.” Milk said when she turned the lights off for the group after administering some medicine and sleeping spells.
