Yuan Ting quickly let out a torrential out strength laws throughout his body, strengthening his muscles.
After that one flying rock, a downpour of hundreds more flew out of the dark towards him. He tried to penetrate the darkness to see where they came from, if he could he would be able to dodge them easier.
However the light was quickly consumed and he had to use the small radius around himself where things became visible to block, dodge or deflect the rocks flying towards him.
All of them were fast, but their sizes were far from uniform. Ranging from small pebbles which he let hit himself, dispersing the force of the hit around his body, to massive boulders the size of his torso.
The tunnel itself was small, only able to fit three of himself standing arms-out side by side. When the torrential slowed, Yuan Ting took the moment of calm and slashed at the floor.
He created a gouge in the stone floor, which allowed him to use his limited Earth Laws to push up the floor. His thinking was the hard stone floor, at an angle, would be hard enough to deflect the flying rocks.
He rolled to the shield he had created and waited behind the stone barrier with his sword braced, he would need to be ready if the barrier was broken through.
Luckily, when the rocks began to shoot out again, they hit the stone and, while doing some damage, defected up into the ceiling. They dug through the earth and created small tunnels where they hit.
Yuan Ting relaxed and pulled his sword out of the stone he had braced upon and sat against the upturned floor.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath…in his mind he began to imagine the situation, thinking from a different perspective.
At the same time, he inspected his Spirit Stone Soul carefully and examined his options. He sat there for a time,
***
Outside, the flare's fuse burnt, it lit and shot into the air. A massive stream of smoke and light jumped i to the sky, and exploded with a warning to those nearby.
'Threat level high: Extreme Danger'
The flare not only asked for assistance they had specific meanings for the level of threat, easily changed when activating the flare itself.
When Yuan Ting had set it up, he anticipated the worst. The flare caught the attention of a few elites who had been sent out.
Most of the forces sent in this second round were level 30-50 Hardening experts but among them a few experts at 60-70 also came around. The higher levels of Hard wing, the harder it was to advance.
Level 70 was the maximum a normal person would ever reach at the highest end. Above 70 was a true master, above 80 the weakest of an elder, 90 was one of the core elders, 100+ was extremely high and almost unheard of.
The few sparse experts locked into the flare and began moving, they were there in case of this very thing; an extreme danger involving higher ups of Yi Sect.
***
Yuan Ting opened his eyes, he had a plan. He traced the edge of his sword, applying a layer of laws. Yuan Ting mainly focused on Sword Laws but of the other laws, the main bulk of his stock lay in the base elements.
They were many systems of bases that people used but the one he was taught had four elements: Earth, air, fire, and water.
Along his blade edge, he left a layer of water laws with a specific intention imbued upon them to change their expression.
'Water flows in the path of least resistance, eroding rock where necessary'
Yuan Ting pulled this fingers over the edge of the rock barrier and waited a moment. A barrage of rocks flew by and he kicked off the ground, vaulting over the barrier he had made.
As he flipped around, he saw the surface's damage, thinking to himself, 'It would have only last a few more rounds…'
He landed on the ground towards the firing of rocks, pulling his sword around his charged forward. Yuan Ting closed his eyes and focused all of his attention on the blade of his sword.
The water laws gave him slight judges in the right direction, following them he dodged each rock coming towards him, cutting through only the ones nessacary.
As he moved forward, following the flow of water, he felt something…something ever so wrong. He had felt a strange atmosphere the whole time he'd been in the tunnels but now, as he got in deeper and close to the fighting, he felt that sensation increase.
It was like something was pushing against him, constricting his breathing. As he ran forward, the water suddenly told him to duck and jump down, as he did he fell down into a pit and he rolled, saving his fall.
He opened his eyes, ran his fingers across his sword and collected the after laws. He fell to his knees and clutched his heart.
The claustrophobic feeling was suffocating and he could barely think with it interfering. He pushed laws out from his Spirit Stone Soul, hoping for anything to help. He didn't know what laws were used, not what expression it was…
He blacked out for a moment and when he awoke, he rolled to the side and puked. He rubbed his mouth and felt a surge of strength, "What the–"
As he was sobering up, a massive wooden spike launched into the ground beside Yuan Ting. He wasn't damaged but if it was a short distance away, it would have easily killed him.
His heart rate shot up and he scrambled to his feet, running along the vein of mud which he found himself in. He stopped for a moment and realised he had no idea what was happening, running would be useless if he didn't understand where he was going.
He stopped mid-run and took a deep breath, "Where am I? Who's fighting? Is it something I need to tell others or do anything with? How do I escape?"
He tallied the questions he had and looked around. He was in a trench of mud, it didn't look constructed like the tunnel he was in previous though…it was more like a side effects from an attack.
He analysed the depth and size, "It must be someone in the 70s at minimum, I couldn't even do this if I tried…" He estimated the Hardening level from the attack.
Hardening level had little to do with strength directly but the higher the level, the higher capacity and control. The more capacity, the more laws one could waste on an attack and the more control one had meant they could use stronger techniques.
"On the lower end, the attack could be from a level 40 Hardening but…it would be a rare attack," Yuan Ting looked back.
When he had been running erratically he saw many offsplits of the vein he was running across, the attack which caused fit wasn't rare…they were high level to have this capacity.