Chapter 595 Interlocked
“Ah!” Lauryn’s scream reverberated throughout the whole valley. She could never imagine that Jonathan would throw her toward Vladimir like a weapon.
At that moment, the bronze handbell was being kept active by her spiritual energy. Back when she was still hanging on Jonathan’s shoulder, the bell hovered above their heads.
However, when she was thrown away, the bell followed her and centered on her. A large golden visage of a bell covered in runes enveloped Lauryn as she flew toward Vladimir.
As for Jonathan, he forcefully kicked the ground and leaped backward. Clang!
A loud bell sound reverberated throughout the area once more. The moment Vladimir and Lauryn crashed against each other, a wave of golden light quickly spread out. “Solidify!” Jonathan shouted.
Fifty meters away, the spiritual energy in front of him materialized into a spirit shield to block the golden wave. However, in an instant, the spirit shield was blown apart by the golden wave of light.
Right after that, he began sprinting toward the center of the explosion. It was all part of his plan.
He made some calculations in his mind earlier. If he had run toward the mountain in the middle with his current speed, Vladimir would undoubtedly keep interfering in their path, thus slowing them down. It was very likely he and Lauryn would die before they could arrive there.
However, if they wanted to stop Vladimir, then they would need to fight. While Jonathan wanted to protect Lauryn, he was also willing to sacrifice himself to save others.
Back when he fought against Garrison, the latter once expanded the defense radius of the handbell.
Consequently, Jonathan used all his power to strike the golden light with his palm. As a result, he was sent flying away and fell into a pond tens of meters away while Garrison was turned into a puddle of blood.
The power of the bronze handbell was incredibly potent.
With no weapons in hand, there was no way Jonathan could stop Vladimir successfully.
Even with the bronze handbell, Jonathan didn’t have the guts to battle against Vladimir. After all, his battle with Garrison taught him that the damage inflicted on people inside the golden light would be more significant than the ones outside. If one weren’t careful, they would be disintegrated.
That was what gave him the idea to use Lauryn.
In his mind, it would be for the best if he let her use the bronze handbell instead.
As Jonathan’s spiritual sense was activated, his surrounding was imprinted in his mind.
He bolted past Lauryn and materialized his spiritual energy into a blade. “Die!”
In the distance, just as Vladimir stood up unsteadily, he heard Jonathan’s roar.
When he raised his head, he saw his opponent had already arrived in front of him.
Without making any noise, Jonathan’s blade went straight for Vladimir’s throat.
Countless amounts of white strands formed a thick web in front of Vladimir right before the blade reached at its target.
Using spiritual sense, Jonathan clearly felt the blade he made using spiritual energy was torn apart by the spiritual destruction property of the strands. Not only that, the strands immediately moved toward his wrist once the blade disappeared.
“F*cking hell!” he cursed before he jumped and kicked the shield created by the white strands.
Pft!
A bloody mist was seen from behind the white shield.
It was pretty apparent that the kick dealt significant damage to Vladimir.
Using the backward momentum of his kick, he jumped away from his opponent. Then, without hesitation, he carried Lauryn, used his spiritual energy to grab the handbell, and started running away.
Lauryn was covered in blood as she lay on his shoulder. Her breathing was weak.
“You’re… a sly b*stard… Jonathan…” she uttered weakly.
If she hadn’t used her protective talisman to absorb the majority of the impact earlier, she would’ve been dead.
Jonathan’s expression was as cold as ice. “If I didn’t save you, you would’ve been dead. If I didn’t use you as a weapon, Vladimir would’ve chased us down and killed us. That was the only way.”
Lauryn could feel he was using his meridians to send pure spiritual energy to her to help stabilize her injuries. Bitterness swelled in her heart. Even though I trusted my family, I was just a tool for marriage for them. Even though I trusted Sofus to help him find his master in Summerbank Abyss, I was tricked and almost died. I thought death would be waiting for me when Vladimir showed up. Yet, not once did Jonathan give up on me. I was touched by that for a moment before I was used by another person again.
As her injuries were getting treated by Jonathan’s spiritual energy, her mind fell into disarray. Was he trying to save me or did he just want to use me as a weapon?
Tears streamed down her cheeks. It was the first time that she, the daughter of a respectable family and the proud disciple of an ancient sect’s elder, experienced the helplessness and sorrow of having her life dictated by someone else.
“If this is the only method, can you tell me if you would’ve agreed to do that if I told you how likely you would’ve died in the process?” Jonathan asked plainly. “You should be grateful that you’re still alive. The last time this happened, the elder of the Osborne family, Garrison, was turned into a lump of rotten meat!”
Upon hearing that, Lauryn went silent.
His pace increased when he noticed she was quiet. “I know you hate me, but we’re still alive. There’s no way we’re getting out of the fog, so our only hope is the mountain up ahead.”
“What’s there?” Lauryn asked with great effort.
“A monster.” Recalling his time with Joselle, worry filled Jonathan’s heart. “There’s an incredibly powerful monster there. If we go there, we may be able to lure that monster to Vladimir. However, it’s also likely we’ll die in the monster’s hand.”
It was a big gamble.
In the past, Joselle tried to kill Jonathan. If he showed up again, and if she attacked him without hesitation, then there was no way he could fight back.
Even if he successfully baited Joselle to kill Vladimir, it would still be difficult for him to escape from her afterward.
However, at that moment, he didn’t have the luxury of perfecting his plan, so he just kept running.
“Be careful, Jonathan! He’s coming again!” Lauryn exclaimed.
In response, Jonathan expanded his spiritual sense backward.
By that point, Vladimir no longer looked like a graceful and composed expert.
He was still holding the horsetail whisk in his hand, but his hair had become loose and the robe he wore looked more like a beggar’s garb. “I want to see where you can escape now, Jonathan!”
