Chapter 2867: Chapter 2867: Benefactor

Clank!

Clank!

Clank!

Zen and Dorothy hung suspended against a wall over a hundred feet above ground. Below them, two armors rapidly followed them. They had already climbed eighty to ninety feet in the twinkling of an eye.

Dorothy was clinging onto Zen's body, her mind sifting through their options.

She suddenly remembered her Necklace of Mystic Soul. It flashed and a soul sword shot down.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

The soul sword worked incredibly against the Souls of Light, but it was incapable of harming the armors. It merely clanked and fell.

The armors were getting closer. Dorothy was beginning to panic. “It's useless,” she remarked while looking at the soul sword. “They are too powerful.”

Zen stared at the armors and then looked up.

There was a passageway leading to the exit. Unfortunately, most of it had collapsed. There was, however, a small hole that remained uncovered. When Zen saw it, he turned to look at Dorothy. “Don't be discouraged,” he said. “We don't need to defeat them. Let's escape.”

“How?” Dorothy asked.

“You can count on me,” Zen said with a smile.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Before they could escape, the armors had caught up and were nearing Zen's feet.

Their two hands made them look like human beings. Since they thrust their rusty sabers into the wall, they wouldn't be able to launch an attack.

Unlike humans, they were unable to make wise decisions.

When they were five feet below Zen, Zen said, “Hold tight!”

Dorothy wrapped her arms around Zen's neck, feeling that she was falling.

Zen stepped on the shoulders of an armor with full might and jumped up.

Whoosh!

He jumped more than a hundred feet and was able to stab his hand into the wall again.

Dorothy's heart was pounding against her chest. When they were finally safely hanging against the wall again, she heaved a long sigh of relief.

The two armors were slow to respond. When they realized what happened, their eyes flashed red and they started climbing faster.

Zen looked at them calmly.

He initially wanted to bust the armors out of their way, but he wasn't able to do that. So he opted to use them as leverage to help them climb higher.

When the armors approached him for the second time, he stepped on their shoulders again.

But as he did so, one of the armors suddenly turned its head and the mask on its head opened. It revealed an empty hollow with only two lines of serrated teeth like fangs. ＲÂŊȫＢΕŜ

Crack!

The teeth almost clenched Zen's foot.

Fortunately, Zen was able to dodge them before they did.

“How dangerous!”

Zen's heart thumped.

He knew that he couldn't risk getting bitten. It would drastically make their escape difficult.

Zen perked up with more vigilance.

The armors still looked like they weren't thinking well, but they definitely improved their cognition.

At first, they thought jumping would be enough of an effort to reach Zen. When they failed, they started to climb.

When Zen used them to thrust himself upwards, they had approached him differently the second time they caught up with Zen. If they reached Zen the third time, they would probably have a smarter and more dangerous solution.

Dorothy tightened her grip around Zen.

She clung onto him and felt safe. No matter how much danger they were in, she trusted Zen to find a way. She knew they were going to reach the top soon.

Zen pondered over the armors' actions. It seemed like they were merely learning from their mistakes, but they did not have the wisdom to foresee what would happen next.

Zen changed his course of action. Instead of stepping on their shoulders, he landed his feet directly on top of their heads.

Buzz! Buzz!

The armors turned as if to reach for something on their shoulders. Zen chuckled at their utter mindlessness.

The fourth time they reached him, he stepped on their elbows.

He changed his approach again the fifth time.

And once more on the sixth time.

By the time they had caught up to him for the seventh time, Zen and Dorothy were already close to the exit.

Whoosh!

He dragged Dorothy and finally rushed out of the square exit.

Nearby, the members of the Nine Li race waited.

From what they had gathered, everyone in the basement would soon be dead, including Zen.

Then, the two armors would leave the basement.

So when the armors did not leave after a long while of battling Zen, they started to wonder.

“I'll go check,” the girl's brother said.

Just as he approached the square exit, he saw a figure rush up.

As reflex, he threw a punch at the figure.

“Idiot off!”

Zen didn't know who threw the punch, but he couldn't risk running into another obstacle when he had just come out.

The girl's brother started to feel a force stir around him. This force could have killed him.

The man was breathing heavily, his back lying flat against the ground.

He had avoided Zen's blow by a short distance, but the gust of wind knocked him over.

He got up and prepared to attack Zen once more. Just then, his sister's voice shouted, “Let my brother go! He didn't mean it!”

Her voice was crisp, innocent, and strangely familiar to Dorothy and Zen.

Zen recognized they were humans. He dragged Dorothy and made her stand firmly beside him.

Dorothy stared coldly at the girl. “I saved you in Stage Eleven when you were having troubles with the Separate Abyss race,” she snarled. “And now you're planning to return the gesture with ingratitude?”

The girl was speechless. She wasn't able to see Dorothy's face, but she knew exactly what the voice was talking about. Dorothy was the one who had helped her pay two hundred thousand soul pills in Stage Eleven.

“Is it you? Were you the one who saved me?” the girl asked in a daze.

When she was still in Stage Twelve, the girl had looked for them. She wanted to give back the two hundred thousand soul pills, but Dorothy was nowhere to be found.

She asked around but the Other Shore was too vast. Finding another person without even knowing their name was a very difficult task.

Dorothy's sudden appearance was completely unexpected for her.

That incident was known to the girl's companions too. When the girl's brother realized what they were talking about, he cupped his hands. “Thank you so much for saving my sister,” he said sincerely. “I was just trying to know the situation in the basement. I'm sorry for attacking you. Please forgive me!”