The injured Ring Arcanist rolled across the ground to bleed off the force. Leaves clung to his body, but he had no time to brush them away. Clutching his wound, he twisted aside to evade the silver arrow of light flying at him again, then, without a second thought, turned and rushed toward the distant woods. Shade, holding a longbow high in a tree, drew and fired another arrow. When the man nimbly dodged it, Shade did not bother to pursue.
"Consider yourself lucky."
Time Stop consumed an enormous amount of power, especially against Ring Arcanists of a higher level than Shade. Unless he was certain he could kill with a single blow, Shade would not use this move against high-level Ring Arcanists. But if he was merely freezing an energy-based attack, the Spirit expenditure remained within an acceptable range.
The invisible arrow stopped in midair. The intangible wind should have been difficult to affect with the spell Move Object, but completely motionless wind solidified into something tangible. With only a slight nudge of Shade's Spiritual Power, the arrow's trajectory shifted.
Thus, while Miss Matilda and a Ninth Ring young woman fought the Eighth Ring Arcanist and held the upper hand, while Miss Belinder and another Ninth Ring young woman fought the other Tenth Ring man and were under slight pressure, the invisible wind arrow and the dazzling silver arrow shot toward the two men almost simultaneously.
The Tenth Ring man easily dodged the invisible arrow from his companion. He even used the gale created by the exploding wind arrow to evade another "Thaumaturgy—Suppress Good Luck" from Miss Belinder. But the Eighth Ring Arcanist turned to summon a shield against Shade's arrow, only to be struck in the left arm by Miss Matilda's Venom Splash. Then the Silver Moon arrow