Owari rushed forward without stopping, but he was still only human and one without any mystic arts to help him. As he got closer so did the enemy, and soon a bunch of the support insects latching onto the larger one hopped off and rushed forward alongside the cat-sized one and one of the dog-sized ones. A moment later the cow-sized one was able to saunter into range and Owari saw it's throat clench before it's jaw opened and a long tendril with a sharp exoskeleton capped tongue shot out towards the girl.

The tongue arrived at the same time as the support insects, with the cat-sized one on their heels followed by the dog-sized one. The girl didn’t show any signs of retreating however as her hands moved in front of her chest. Owari obviously couldn't see what she was doing, but as he wondered whether she was just a fool who intended to try and forcefully block the blows, a loud crack was heard. The signature sound of a sonic boom sounded from the girl as the tongue was blasted away, the group of flying insects turned to paste and were blasted away, while the cat-sized insect slammed back into the dog sending the two rolling backward. The girl had crossed her humming gloves in front of her chest, and the moment they touched the friction and potential energy within them exploded into a forward shield of sonic energy to block her attackers. Unfortunately the girl wasn't much better, she stumbled backward a few steps and started to heave and her legs and arms were shaking. Despite this she still retook her stance and prepared herself for more, showing no signs of giving in.

The cow-sized insect retracted it's tongue even faster then it had fired it and in a mere moment was already preparing to shoot it again as if there was no need to wait. The other half of the small insects launched off from its back and the cat-sized insect and dog-sized one managed to stop themselves and jump forward once again. In a mere moment things seemed to repeat themselves and nothing had changed. Of course this wasn't actually the case after all the girl was much worse off now and it was unlikely she could do the same move again. After all of it was so easy why wouldn't she have been using it before?

Of course while the enemies had been preparing and while she had been cursing her luck, Owari had arrived. He came in from her left side and all she saw was a blur which distracted her. For a moment she had thought she was flanked before realizing this was impossible, this moment of distraction kept her from reacting as the enemy arrived and she cursed. However the tongue that was about to pierce her and about four of the flying support insects near it were all bisected in an instant. At this point she finally got a good look at Owari who had been going too fast as he passed by for her to clearly see.

Instead of stopping at those few targets, Owari transferred his forward momentum, turning his body and using his legs as pivots to start spinning. While he spun he changed the angle and height of his sword turning himself into a blender as he sliced through every one of the flying insects. Of course this series of events took its toll on him, not only did the spinning make him dizzy, but redirecting his momentum had caused his legs to start to ache and he had to push his arm considerably having sliced through so many tough exoskeletons. On top of all that he had to accurately aim his sword while spinning which was quite difficult and pushed his skill to its maximum. However he had barely managed to do it, and having succeeded Owari felt he had taken a step towards improving his swordsmanship.

Unfortunately the world isn't so kind, and despite having managed to kill so many enemies and stop most of the threats, the cat and dog-sized insects were only a moment behind and Owari had no chance to regain himself as he experienced the backlash of having forced his body so much. The cat-sized one rushed at him while the dog-sized one continued off to the girl, it seemed the hive mind noticed his moment of weakness and intended to use it to kill him. Luckily Owari wasn't the only one here, and suddenly he heard a low ringing noise before the cat-sized insect's head exploded. Owari had just been about to force his body to respond despite the repercussions before this had occurred. He was certainly grateful and only a moment later he managed to reorient himself and glanced back. Behind him the girl was heaving air as if she couldn't breathe, she was so exhausted that she couldn't even breathe properly.

Owari approached her and used his sword hilt to hit her back and knock her breath out of her causing her to shudder and cough up all the air in her lungs. "Take a deep breath inwards now." Although she was slightly startled by his violent action she subconsciously listened and took in a massive breath. "Slowly breathe out through the nose. Don't stop early." Again she listened and in a moment all the air in her lungs was out and her breathing rapidly turned back to normal.

Before she could say anything however the swarm of support insects arrived from behind while the two remaining dog-sized insects had rushed at them seeing as how the cow-sized insect couldn't use it's tongue attack anymore. Owari stepped forward and held his sword at his side in a sword draw stance. The dog-sized insects arrived first and he stepped between them while swinging his sword in a wide arc slicing through the eye of the one on his left and barely managing to cut the right one's back leg open. The two immediately locked onto him and ignored the girl as they turned around and stood between the two. As for the girl, she had seen Owari step out to intercept the dog size insects and she turned towards the swarm. She held her gloves in front of her and lightly touched them together causing a low drone to sound out. The swarm suddenly lost their sense of direction and started to run into one another and even fall out of the air.

Originally Owari had intended to rush back and grab the girl before running off, but she seemed far more capable then he thought so he didn't bother yet. Of course he kept an eye on her in case she suddenly passed out, but he focused on his current fight more. The two insects he was fighting suddenly jumped at him like a pair of wolves, their coordination was incredible and they staggered their attacks slightly so if Owari jumped to the left he would be caught by one of them. It seemed they had analyzed his moves from before and predicted his strategy. But they were far too naive if they thought Owari was so close-minded and unadaptable as to just keep using that same move over and over.

Owari jumped right and held his sword overhead in two hands. As soon as one foot touched the ground he used what little grip came from it to throw his weight and strength into his sword and swung it at the insect closest to him. By that point it had already gone most of the way past him so he only managed to hit its flank, but with all that force he managed to slice through leaving a massive gash in its side and causing it to leak energy. Unlike normal creatures when a hive mind simulacrum is damaged it has to use mana to recover, which is why when you damage them enough it dies. In a way it's very similar to bleeding where you can eventually bleed to death if you don't close your wounds. The insects stopped and tried to turn, at this moment Owari rushed forward and beheaded the insect he hadn't just injured. Luckily the one he had cut the flank of was also the one that had lost its eye. Having noticed that Owari had approached and attacked its companion, the other insect made some clicking noises and prepared to attack.

Owari glanced over in time to see the insect rearing back to pounce, however he also looked over at the girl since he had after all come here to ensure her safety to some extent. Unfortunately her situation had worsened as he had expected, the droning noise had lessened and the swarm was reorganizing and a few had even swooped down and left a few cuts across her and tore her clothes a bit. Owari came to a decision and jumped to the side putting himself between the dog-sized insect and the girl and held his sword diagonally in front of his chest. The insect changed it's direction a bit to correct for his new position and jumped at him. Owari gripped his sword in one hand and turned it so the side was facing the insect before laying his palm against the flat of the blade near the tip. A moment later the insect collided with his sword and tried to bite it, while he used his legs to kick the insect.

Because of this he suddenly received a lot of shock to his arms, but he also received a lot of backward momentum. He reoriented himself and rolled across the ground while doing his best not to accidentally hurt himself. He rolled away from the insect and quickly regained his footing, and immediately used the boost given by the insect to break out into a run while looking at his sword. It was in pretty good condition, the blade was luckily made from some very durable material and was made by a good smith so looking at it he wasn't too surprised it survived.

However he still let out a breath of relief, he had no guarantee it would survive the blow, and giving it a closer look he could even see a white mark in the few spots the insect's mouth had closed around. But he didn't give it much more thought as he refocused on his current goal. He didn't really need to kill all the enemies here. He just needed to keep the girl alive and survive long enough for the middle aged gentlemen next to them to take out the swarm cutting the two off from each other. In reality he could just ignore the girl and just keep this position secure. But Owari wasn't that cold, he might be willing to sacrifice people for the greater good, but keeping the girl alive only really risked his life. By this point Owari was sure the rest of the group could take control of the situation before it got out of hand, he had delayed for long enough by now. However there was another reason he wanted to save her, he simply thought it would be a shame if she died here. Plus he had already saved her once so it would really feel like a loss if she died now.

Owari looked at the numerous swarming insects as they dropped down and attacked the girl, however she could only sit still and take it as her hands were stuck in position so she could maintain her mystic art that was holding the swarm back. The only thing keeping them from just coming down and killing her is that when they stay near her they lose control and fall over. A half dozen insects lay at her feet showing the trial and error that went into figuring that out. Owari rushed over at full speed, as he got close he ran towards the train car and jumped up, using it as a springboard he jumped over the girls head and bisected one of the bugs as it came at her from above. He quickly dropped and landed in front of her with a thud while carefully distributing his weight to limit injury.

In truth the fact that he could jump almost two and a half meters off the ground was basically superhuman, let alone with the extra weight on him. After landing he quickly looked up and confirmed three other insects rushing down. It seemed his presence had riled them up a bit. Owari held his sword at his side and waited for the enemy to come, but he didn't neglect to look over and confirm the other insects he had left behind. The dog-sized one had run back to the cow-sized one and was aiding it as they approached. The hive mind seemed to give up on getting past them and was just trying to prepare to kill them for sure now. Owari however was just relieved it didn't keep pushing or he'd really have to give up on saving the girl.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The three flying insects flew in towards Owari, two of them going directly for him and the third rushing at the girl. Owari swung his sword and cut one in half before placing his sword between him and the second one. It only cut slightly into the insect, however he stopped its momentum. After that Owari swung his sword and sent the insect flying while cutting it in half. The third insect had already reached the girl and was about to bite her when Owari reached out with his open hand and grabbed it. After getting ahold of it he pointed his sword at it and pierced it through the neck and twisted his blade to decapitate it. Even with its head gone it struggled for a few moments before dying, at which point Owari tossed aside its corpse and focused on the swarm again.

He also sent a glance over to the gentleman nearby, he had finally cut through the swarm and was rushing over to help them. Owari only needed to go a little longer, unfortunately the two larger insects from before had closed in on them at this time and were likely going to arrive before the gentleman could intervene. Owari sighed and circled around behind the girl and held up his sword in preparation for the coming fight. The sound she was emitting was rapidly declining and she looked like she was about to collapse. Soon the dog insect closed in and rushed forward, Owari couldn't really afford to dodge otherwise the girl behind him would be trampled. Instead he waited until it entered his range and used his full strength swing with all the weight and force he could to deliver an overhead swing at it.

As it rushed forward it launched itself at him and connected head-on with Owari's sword. The blade met a large amount of resistance for a moment before breaking through it and slicing into the insect's body. Because he had thrown so much force into the swing Owari managed to kill a lot of the insect's momentum allowing him to hold position. During this, he felt his muscles tear and his bones creak from the backlash of overexerting his arms. The pain was quite intense but he held back from flinching and stepped into the swing allowing him to cut not only the insect's head, but even the front half of its body in half. However he didn't have time to rest as the larger insect suddenly moved with shocking speed and came at him like an arrow.

This time he didn't dare take it head-on, Owari had learned his lesson and he quickly spun in place and used one arm to scoop up the girl before jumping to the side as the insect flew past him. Owari barely managed to set his feet on the ground when the insects in the swarm shot towards him. When he grabbed the girl she stopped emitting the sound and they had regained control of themselves. He didn't have time to let the girl down before he started swinging his sword cutting at the insects as they came by. But after his previous attack the backlash had significantly weakened his arm and so he could only lightly nick them while sending them flying away like hitting a ball with a bat. It was very concerning as he had already struck five of them in only a few moments and hadn't even significantly injured a single one. In fact his arm felt like it was on fire as he refused to give it time to recover. Not to mention after a mere moment being held over his shoulder the girl started to struggle weakly causing him to have trouble maintaining his balance.

In the end he couldn't handle it anymore and he bent over to drop her on the ground as gently as he could while knocking away another insect. After that she stopped struggling and with a glance Owari was a bit surprised that she was still conscious as she tried to sit up. Unfortunately she had pushed herself too far and was unable to so much as lift her arm. She could only lay on her back with her eyes wide open and watch what was going on around her without the ability to fight back. She gave an awkward smile as she realized she was probably better off being carried by Owari, however even if she could swallow her pride to ask, she was unable to make a single sound. Owari however didn't even spare a glance at her to see her apologetic smile, instead he immediately refocused on the battle at hand.

He held his sword and both hands and continued to swing at the swarm as the various insects tried to swoop in and attack him. Unfortunately he was not only too weak to wound them too much, but he was also trying to protect someone who was lying helpless on the ground. Luckily once he got both hands on his sword he could start swinging with more force and could actually injure the little bastards swarming him, but even still it wasn't enough to kill with one hit. On top of that they no longer needed to be cautious and were coming at him in larger and larger numbers from more angles. He swung his sword catching two in the swing and sending them flying before twisting his wrist and intercepting the charge of another one from behind. After that he swung his arm and elbowed it causing it to go spinning before he swung his sword and knocked it out of the way.

A moment afterward another insect came in and stabbed it's six legs into his back before biting into his shoulder. Before it could dig in too deep he reached back and yanked it off before taking its head off with a stab and a twist of his wrist. While he did that another insect tried to sneak behind him, but he figured they'd do that and he turned around with a swing of his sword and sent it flying again. In the next moment five insects came from different directions trying to encircle him, one from directly above, one from behind, one from below and to his right, another from the left and slightly behind, and another straight.

They had also seemed to notice he was protecting the girl and three more closed in on her without bothering with tactics. Owari took a deep breath and calmed his mind as he relaxed his body. This whole time he had been struggling as he suffered from the backlash of his last big move, but by breathing in deeply and forcing himself to enter a calm state he could ignore that and force his body to move as he wanted regardless of his subconscious refusal. He lifted his blade and held it in a reverse grip with his right hand as he calmly confirmed the locations of all the nearby insects, even using his blade as a mirror to look behind him. Once he confirmed it he made his move, swinging his sword and using as much of his body to force the blade along his desired path, he managed to catch the insect to his right, the one in front, and the one above with the same swipe. However he only killed the one to his right, the one in front was sent flying back and the one above was stopped in its tracks as it met his blade head-on.

Once those three were stopped, and before he lost focus, Owari twisted his wrist and pointed the blade tip at the insect to his left. He stabbed the blade forward and used the guard to smack the halted insect aside while stabbing the blade straight through the insect on his left. After that he swung his left arm and smacked aside the insect coming from behind him aside, unfortunate it tore into his arm with its claws and mouth causing blood to immediately start flowing and scatter into the air as he continued his swing. However Owari ignored this and continued the rotation he had begun when swinging his arm while changing his grip back to normal on his sword.

Using the momentum built up from the spin and all the remaining strength in his arms he managed to forcefully slice through the first insect, cut halfway through the second, and send both the second and third insect that had been about to attack the girl flying away. By the time he had knocked away the last of the insects the insect that he had knocked away from his right side as well as the one that had attacked him from above had regained their bearings and came back to attack him. One of them darted to his right side which was exposed from his large swing and bit into his flank, he could hear the sound of flesh tearing as it ripped open his side with its teeth and legs, and he could feel blood start to color his shirt. Meanwhile, the other insect flew by at full speed and used its sharp legs to leave a gash on his left arm around where it had been injured already, before using some maneuver to redirect itself in a V shape and slicing along his right thigh.

Owari had to do something quick before he was sliced to bits, first he turned his sword to point back at him and used both hands to skewer the insect chewing at his side. Now that he had two insects skewered his sword was a lot more unwieldy, even still he quickly yanked his hilt back and caused the sword to intercept the insect that had been trying to circle around him. The rebound caused it to be sent tumbling back a bit, and Owari used this chance to twirl his blade and swing it, knocking the insect away while causing the two still on his sword to slide across and off his blade and onto the ground. The two insects rolled across the ground and stopped moving as they expended all their energy after struggling around on his sword and tearing up their insides. As for Owari, he wasn't too well off either. His leg, arm, flank, back, and even his old chest wound were all bleeding. Although none were lethal on their own, they were all pretty wide and just deep enough to make them bleed a lot.

His clothes were quickly becoming wet with blood, and to his annoyance his haori had been torn and was now also being soaked with blood. Owari stood back up and waited for the next wave of enemies. Even though his arms felt like they were filled with lead and his head was a bit light from blood loss, he couldn't just stop fighting. He took a deep breath and changed his breathing pattern to slow his heart rate and blood flow so that he didn't bleed to death. One reason he had lost so much blood was because he had been increasing his blood flow with his breathing technique. This new breathing method would also increase his blood recovery rate a bit, unfortunately he was also significantly less energetic and he could immediately feel his body growing tired and heavy as he switched his breathing.

As a few more insects flew down, about 10 this time, and as he prepared to fight once more, Owari heard the sound of wind. He shifted position a bit and lowered his head as all 10 of the insects coming down at them were cut in two. The next moment the gentleman from before showed up next to him along with a light breeze. It had clearly been him who killed those 10 insects from before. Owari sighed in relief as he finally had back up, but before he could be too relieved something happened that made him speechless. The gentleman reached down and lightly motioned and the girl floated into his arms before he glanced at Owari with some scorn and annoyance before he jumped lightly and flew off towards the train at a speed that matched and even surpassed Owari's maximum running speed.

Owari had no time to consider the man's rude actions as he took a stance and held his sword in a sword draw position. A moment later the cow-sized insect had finally shown its face again as it had finally got into range and shot out towards him. Owari swung his sword without worry for his arm and barely managed to slice it's jaw off as he held his left arm in front of him. The insect slammed into him and he heard a light crack from his arm as his breath was smashed out of him and he felt his head go blank. His insides felt like they had been smashed with a hammer, though in reality the situation was far worse. Owari had only a moment ago believed he had been saved, and yet his effort to keep the girl alive was scorned and treated as nothing. Owari was normally a calm person who rarely acted on emotions, however at the moment he was furious.

Before the pain caused him to blackout, Owari bit his tongue and tasted blood. He raised up his sword and drove it point first into the insect as it continued to drive him deeper into the enemy lines. Before he reached too far and his death became certain he had to act. He reached his free hand out and gripped its eye before crushing it with an iron grip. Considering he could hold his sword even while it was being smashed with such force it was no surprise a weak eye was so easily crushed. However he didn't let this small victory blind him and he drove his blade deeper inside the insect's body before reaching his arm back and piercing his hand into its head. As soon as both were inside its body proper he started to stir up its insides using his sword and ripped open its head with his hand. His face slowly went from a calm and serious frown into a vicious and bloodthirsty smile.

He decided not to think so deeply as he fought or worry about this or that. His life was on the line and he now had learned the same lesson the young girl had learned before him. Never, rely, on, others. He shredded the insects inside and in a moment it had died and collapsed, skidding across the ground as it no longer could keep up its forward movement. After it stopped he stood up and ripped his arm out of its head before doing the same with his sword. He stood only a mere few meters from where he had initially been hit. His attacks had been so quick and ruthless that very little time had actually gone by before he had killed the enemy.