The attack was silent beneath the chainsaw roaring of five long wings. With deadly speed and precision, the mantis was an organic killing machine. Light glinted across the cruel metal barbs as the mantis blade scythed toward where Oriz lay on the ground.
Zoe lunged forward to intercept. Her block was shaky, and the swordlike limb clanged down her mirrored forearm. The mantis staggered back. The reflected force cut out from Zoe’s technique and struck the mantis further off balance.
Those barbed metal limbs were cruel and savage, but that first blow lacked strength. She examined the drop in her Skein.
[225/246]
It was a dangerous strike, but one could she could weather.
The mantis circled her, swaying as it walked with its five wings fanned and eyes locked on her. She dashed forward. Striking past its guard. The wings roared, and it danced aside.
Zoe followed, pressing, but it swayed, and shifted, bobbing its head with those hideous claws raised as though in prayer to the battle itself. Zoe’s fists raced through the air with deadly momentum, but she could not land a blow.
It slashed back, but the blows bounced off her mirrored skin. The reflected force staggered it, but those damned wings kept it moving beyond Zoe’s reach.
She lacked Dexterity. Should she spend her free points now? Without the ability to match her enemy’s movements, the Grasping Vine lost its value. But did she want a build committed to that style? The only part that truly resonated with her was the relentless pursuit…
The mantis dodged, wings roaring, and Zoe’s kick struck a tree trunk. Frozen bark sprayed out as a crack ran up the length. She turned, but the mantis fluttered away and landed, swaying.
Bella charged from behind. Low to the ground to avoid the front-facing eyes. She sliced up at the creature’s belly, but her blade clanged off the metal plating. The runeblade’s caustic aura scoured the hide, but the deterioration was slow.
The creature turned. Too fast. Wings chainsaw roared as it lashed out a barbed limb. Bella hastily blocked, but the blow knocked her away and sent her tumbling into the snow.
The wings roared as the mantis flashed on top of her collapsed form. The blades descended. Bella barely parried. The limbs clanged, but the mantis raised them high like a guillotine.
Zoe’s chain wrapped around them. She drew them tight together and heaved. The mantis scrambled as she drew it back. Metal legs stabbed and clawed at the ground, wings roared, but it couldn’t escape Zoe’s Might.
The barbed limbs struggled against the chain, but they could not escape. Zoe dragged the creature close, cocked back a mirrored fist, and struck. Its head snapped back, but the creature continued struggling. A high-pitched keening escaped its chitinous lips, like a tin whistle squealing for help. The mirrored force from Zoe’s knuckles blasted out, and the head creaked back further. A gurgle hushed the squealing, but still, the mandibles gnashed and the scything limbs pulled at the chain.
Bella limped over.
“Thanks for the save,” she said.
“Thanks for distracting it.”
“Sure.”
They caught each other’s eyes, silently acknowledging the need to improve their teamwork as Zoe punched the mantis between the eyes.
Bella threw a snowball at Anton.
“And where were you?”
He tilted his head to avoid the projectile.
“Watching the perimeter.”
“Doesn’t your technique do that for you?”
He scowled.
“That’s not how it… I don’t have a technique for fighting giant bugs with chainsaw arms.”
“You two need weapons.”
“I know,” Zoe sighed.
She shook out her knuckles and punched the mantis in the head. Again. The exoskeleton rang like a dented gong. The sound echoed along her body path, but true resonance eluded her.
Was it because the creature lived?
The mantis was harder to kill than Zoe expected. Its speed was staggering when it was flying, but chained as it was it lacked the strength to escape. She kept it bound while they wailed on it, but the metallic carapace was too hard.
Though each strike brought the creature lower to the ground, Bella’s blade bounced off with barely a scratch, and her aura was working too slowly.
Zoe’s mirrored strikes were causing internal damage, but she didn’t want to waste her Skein.
The mantis thrashed as she pondered on how to kill it.
It tempted her to dump free points into Might.
A 100 Might punch would decimate this creature, even without her mirrored force. The bug only emitted the power of a level 10, and Anton had confirmed her guess. It could only fight the three of them because of its absurd armor.
Zoe wondered if it had a body path.
But dumping her points into Might would only exacerbate the problems in her build. She had to think beyond the current fight. No matter how satisfying it might feel.
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No matter how much her hunger begged her to consume.
Though, what if she used a time loop after she killed the creature? She could feel the rush of gratification and then go back and make the sensible decision.
But would that work? She prodded the System.
[Fools Rush In]
[When a user travels back in time, only memory is maintained. All gains, abilities, and statuses will be reset to the previous point in the timeline]
Zoe shook her head. That was too great a waste of resources, but perhaps she could do something less expensive… She activated the python bracelet wrapped around her bicep.
And staggered as her vision exploded.
Too much.
The Heavens burned with layers of Skein. The swimming colors were oceans of essence. Dark earth rose and swirled through a haze of blood. Wood crept in from the east, rootlike spirals of brightest grass creeping and growing. If she could touch those heavens, know them, draw upon them…
Cut them.
Her chain slipped as a shiver ran through her. Anticipation. She could feel her next level approaching…
In the momentary distraction, the mantis pulled itself free from the chains and stumbled drunkenly. Its wings roared, and it darted around the clearing at random.
Bella and Anton dodged aside as the barbed limbs scythed at them. Any low-hanging branches it struck were chewed through. Zoe watched the mantis move, her eyes peeled back by the python bracelet’s charm.
The bug was a river of shining Skein. Metal wrapped up in Wind. Hard, relentless, always cutting. There were two techniques she spied as bright loops of Skein, they burned like wires throughout the mantis’s body. Each technique wrapped around a third node of energy lodged inside the creature’s head.
Zoe charged, and the mantis swung at her. She slid underneath the blade. One technique coated the blades, a moving saw that chewed through anything the blades touched. It sliced through the air and tore through a nearby tree.
There was another pulse of light, of metal Skein looped and crisscrossed through the armor plates. The mantis’s technique of impenetrability.
There had to be a weak point.
The burning threads of Skein crisscrossed inside the head, where the brain might be. Was that locus of power a weak point? She gritted her teeth in frustration. If she had some sort of way to break through the armor…
[Mind’s Eye Incision]
Her scalpel flowed into her hand. She leaped with all her force as Bella distracted the mantis. It turned at the last moment and swung at her.
She took the hit on her chest. Reflected force struck the mantis in time with Zoe’s scalpel. A quick slice through the only Skein she could reach, that of the saw blade technique.
The barbed claws twitched. The cranial node of Skein pulsed frantically as it sent power to a technique that was no longer connected.
Her fist collided with the bug’s head and slammed it to the ground. It slid across the snow, but her chain kept her atop its shoulders. Her fist rained down, mirrored force replaying her strikes with brutal accuracy.
If she had no trick, she would have to rely on brute force.
[Skein 187/246]
[Skein 162/246]
She yelled and stuck her fist into the creature’s snapping maw. Mandibles shattered as the reflections of their bite exploded out. Zoe blow hammered into the exoskeleton and ripped the head from the bug’s body with a sound like tearing metal.
[Skein 127/246]
Her fist crashed inside its brain, something hard brushed her knuckles. She grabbed and squeezed. The head burst as her reflected blow exploded out.
Zoe’s panting echoed out in the sudden quiet as she shivered with the chill of death energy creeping up her body.
She sank to her knees, straddling the twitching metal corpse. If it wasn’t for the blood trickling down her wrist — strange, mildly acidic stuff the color of cheap buffalo sauce — she would think it was some kind of robot. Shiny metal arms barbed and alien, lay splayed out with long pointed legs limp in the dirty snow.
Bella and Anton approached cautiously.
The python bracelet’s charm wound down and the world simplified. The artifact had been useful in showing the shortcomings of her current build. The burning lines of Skein in the mantis cooled as the essence deactivated…
Before burning brighter than ever.
White light erupted from the Mantis as the Skein reactivated in a brilliant surge. Zoe backed away, shielding her eyes, as the others cried out.
A spectral mantis rose from the metal corpse. This vision was translucent, glowing, and perfect. Five glorious wings spread out behind it as it raised its ghostly head to the heavens and emitted a clear, and beautiful note. It rang in Zoe’s ears like a crystal flute. Not a song, but a lengthening, a breath, a plea for salvation and vengeance strung out across a single unwavering sound.
Loneliness.
Zoe’s chain lashed out, but it passed through the specter like it was fog. Deep in her mind, the Black Star system turned in its sleep.
“What is this?” she said.
“It’s calling for help.”
Bella marched toward the ghost with tears in her eyes. She dragged her sword behind her like a plow.
“The sound scrapes my soul like a violin,” she slurred, eyes wrapt on the glow. “We must silence it.”
Bella thrust the runeblade into ghostly flesh. The mantis recoiled, the note faltering, before it rose in pitch and terror.
All five runes rippled, breathing, no longer carvings but deep crevices that led to a bottomless depth. A hunger that resonated with the one etched into Zoe’s lips. The specter collapsed, shrieking, frantically scrabbling at the air, struggling against the inevitable cruelty of the blade.
Sliding into the runes like blood down a drain.
Then it was gone.
Silence softened the clearing of trees, freshly felled logs, and snow. The three stared at each other, visually inspecting for injuries, for anything worse than the apparent exhaustion. Zoe checked on Oriz, who remained where she lay, breathing slowly, as though in deep sleep.
They were all fine, despite the cracks in their confidence.
Bella cradled her sword, her expression strained and nauseous.
“I need to think.”
She walked to the edge of the clearing and sat against a tree. Snow and dirt ignored, she closed her eyes with the blade on her lap.
Something was going on inside Bella’s head — and Zoe could commiserate on that — some unresolved argument that could explode. The chain tightened its grip around her arm. Was it better to accept other minds?
Zoe stared up at the sky. Mute to the world, awash in lucidity as she replayed that moment in her head…
Cut them.
The thought belonged to her hunger. It belonged to her. It slid through her mind and she knew it would never leave. Cut the heavens and operate on the Gods hiding inside.
Anton coughed louder than before. He stood close, but out of reach.
“A fight is a dangerous place to experiment,” he said.
“You didn’t help though, did you?”
He shrugged, as though that was beside the point. Zoe’s Willpower flared, ready to pounce and slap him, but she resisted the urge.
Barely.
“You’re right.”
He nodded.
“What do you have there?”
“Huh?”
Orange gore dripped from Zoe’s fist. She opened it up and revealed a flat grey incisor. Smaller than she thought from the weight. This was the third node of energy inside the bug. She didn’t detect any outright power, but she knew at once what it was.
“What is it?” Anton asked as he leaned over.
“It’s an incisor,” Zoe said as a merciless grin twisted her scarred lips. “It belonged to a bastard called Trinch.”