I am an Eldritch Entity

There was still a bit of time before the students would reach his location. According to his extended vision, the students weren’t really rushing to his location, it was more akin to a jog.

Eryndor’s gaze shifted to the Torrifa.

Let’s end it.

The next few moments played out exactly as he had in mind. The Torrifa was moving according to the rhythm of his Sky Piercing Palm, so when it began to uproot a tree, he immediately jumped on it.

Of course, the beast already thought about the possibility that the human would jump on it, but it shouldn’t have means to damage it since his fire based art should be on cooldown.

Except, it was wrong.

By the time the creature reached out to him, Eryndor slid down and employed Sky Piercing Palm straight at the seed floating within its chest. His cooldown had long ended.

Watching as the creature began turning into dry wood after crying out loudly, Eryndor began running away as soon as his feet touched the ground.

In his hand was the seed which had been floating in the middle of the hollow chest of Torrifa. More accurately, it was the important inner portion after the outer layer had been burnt away by his cultivation art.

It was easy to snatch it with his Telekinesis. Why did he want it though? Because it was an important body tempering tonic, one which could also be used to exchange for information from the Support Shrines.

But would he do so? Of course not.

Looking back at the students, they somehow seemed to have sped up after Eryndor increased the distance between them.

How can they sense me? Is there some surveillance cultivation art which has a higher range than my extended vision?

It was very, very, very highly unlikely.

His extended vision had been literally the size of a town in the past, if he distributed it equally. And if he only focused in one direction, it was even bigger.

Not to mention, after his Cognitive Scrying broke through to the Enhance realm, it had increased even more.

The farthest any surveillance skill could sense in first level had the range of only a few blocks.

Even the second level could barely have a range of a town. He reckoned that only top class surveillance skills in the second level could have that range.

However, even that was far less than his own range of extended vision, and currently him, and the group were at two ends of his vision. How were they keeping track of him?

Did they have some kind of tracking ability? Abilities often displayed the means which didn’t follow logic.

Was such a figure among the group which was chasing after me?

Eryndor narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t offended anyone. Chuck that, he hadn’t even met anyone other than a handful of students.

What could be the reason they picked him out?

Ahhh. That could be it.

Maybe defeating students gave a group way more points than defeating beasts or some other rules?

In hindsight, he should’ve thought of that.

Why would student battles be limited to the final round? It was a tournament after all.

One of the rules was probably that defeating a student granted the team that particular student’s points or something along the lines.

Even if it granted fifty percent, that was a lot considering that beasts with strength at peak of Latent realm only gave three hundred points.

What if someone defeated a student who had three thousand? One didn’t even need to imagine that far. Eryndor, the only who barely participated in this tournament also had one thousand five hundred to his name.

Defeating a Torrifa with a strength at peak of Latent realm gave three hundred eight five points. Eighty five more than Terramorph Ravagers because obviously, Torrifa were stronger.

Points didn’t only depend on the realm of the beast.

Just defeating Eryndor, who had fifteen hundred points to his name would be massively profitable even if the victor only got fifty percent.

He took a look at his phone where Valentina had sent him a message.

"It’s a different rock, but don’t worry, you’re nearby. Walk where the sharp edge of that rock points towards and you’ll find the actual rock I described.

"From there onwards just follow my directions. By the way, Edward is nearby as well."

Nice.

He thought and put the seed of Torrifa in his bag, before taking off running in the direction of Valentina.

He would have avoided her if she was alone, but if Edward was nearby, he could help by holding off the strong level two student among the group.

Could Eryndor take on the entire group by himself? If he used his second form, yes. But he had already resolved not to do that.

And it was better to regroup with his team than to foolishly run away in hopes that he would be able to shake off their pursuit.

What if they had some Mystical Artifact which didn’t depend on range to find people?

Would a group of students have a Mystical Artifact? Chances were low, but never zero.

As soon as his speed increased in Valentina’s direction, he noticed the group chasing him had sped up as well.

But one thing confused him after he ran for a few moments using Shadowstep and Lightning Infusion.

How is this group not as fast as I’d imagined?

He thought while keeping an eye on them. The entire group was moving together faster than before but it was still not as much as he had imagined.

Are they keeping up with their slowest member?

That would explain why their strongest member, the one who was sensing Eryndor’s location, wasn’t running off separately towards him.

Well, it works to my advantage.

Eryndor carefully dodged all the bushes and trees in his path as he sped through the forest.

One would only see flickering images of a figure with silver-blue coating and occasional sparks if they tried to track him through their naked eyes.

I am nearby.