Dan kicked with all his strength, his body acting before his mind. Catching Fa Lian’s ankle, he swept. As a result of reaching the star stage of progression, Dan was filled with mana in ways that he could not have imagined beforehand. As such his strength had increased in leaps and bounds, meaning Fa Lian had no chance to withstand the blow and remain standing.
The insidious stinger slipped past her, sending her hair flying as wind blasted from the speed of the attack. Impressing Dan, Xiaomei and Hyun Soon were already moving into action, but the speed of the manticore’s tail was terrifying. It whipped back, a blur of dirty yellow chitin and fur, and the beast roared. Deafened, the group fell into chaos.
Without any real practice, they had never learned how best to use their abilities. Dan could not share his sight with the others, so coordination was left to him where possible. As battle started and the manticore bore down upon them, there was no time to plan, only react.
Dan sprang from the spot he was in, left leg pushing off the stalagmite and throwing him through the air. The gauntlets and armguards of Hyun Soon technique blazed back into life around him, just in time for Dan to block the incoming attack. A splinter of solid chitin smashed painfully into the magical armour, shattering it instantly and causing Dan to yell in pain.
The spines around the creatures neck were a weapon. Sharp, thick as an arm and able to explode from the neck with blistering speed, they were the real threat. One that only Dan, with his enhanced reaction time, could hope to match. “Hey, Ugly! You missed.” Dan taunted the manticore and dropped behind a small dip, hearing the clatter of more spines hitting the stone around him.
If he could keep the focus on himself, he would be able to trust the others to bring the monster down. While they had been talking, Dan had spread more of his mana around the room and he now had a full sight of the situation.
It wasn’t great.
Xiaomei was doing well, zipping from one rock formation to the other. As she did, she left behind a trail of ribbon, a spiderweb of lacy fabric that would be nearly impossible to cut. Her speciality in a fight like this would be containment, and she was penning the monster in nicely. However, without sight like Dan’s, she was unable to predict the flail of the manticore’s thick tail. It crashed into her and batted her away like a fly, sending her crashing into the wall near Dan.
“She’s fine, focus.” Dan stopped Hyun Soon from turning away, saving him as he blocked some spines aimed at himself. Dan rushed over to Xiaomei, and found her conscious. She had a strange look on her face, smiling despite the pain she must be feeling. Her left arm and hand were shattered, a quick and thick stream of blood starting to matt the back of her hair.
“Why is it always me?” She asked, giggling. Shock and a concussion, for certain. Dan shook his head to dismiss the question as he set his mana to work. The bubble and crackle under his skin reached the point of uncomfortable pins and needles that told Dan it was ready. Like a shock of electricity jumping from his hand to her’s, Dan’s mana bridged the gap with a snap.
The process would never stop being incredible to Dan, though a part of him wished he could use this ability in less dire circumstances. Skin knitted back together, bones set themselves and each other wound the person may have disappeared. The ease of the ability made the effect all the more impressive.
“It’s not always you,” Dan said, helping her to her feet, “it’s just… usually.” Without another word, and with the stain her blood still wetting her hair, Xiaomei returned to the fight along with Dan. Stronger than the ones Dan could produce, Hyun Soon’s orange gauntlets had held up better than Dan’s did. He had no protection elsewhere though, and Dan grimaced as he saw the blood beginning to pool at his friend’s feet.
The world seemed to freeze. Time slowed, but Dan also became instantly cold. The sight of the blood ignited a thread in Dan’s mind, a wick leading to an explosion that his subconscious would not let him touch. A soft, velvetine voice caressed his mind saying that he didn’t need to worry.
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Then, the moment faded and Dan was running forward again. He created another gauntlet to replace the one which had shattered, running forward and blocking a barrage. Using the gauntlet to augment his speed, Dan was able to track the spines and smack them out of the air as long as they weren’t surprising him from strange angles.
When told to get back, Hyun Soon groaned. “Can’t move. Whole leg is numb.” Xiaomei was currently making herself very annoying, hopping around on her own ribbons now, the new footholds giving her ample places to manoeuvre and frustrate the manticore. Dan nodded, then told Hyun Soon to block. The other boy understood, and closed his eyes as Dan reared back and punched with all his might. The blow sent Hyun Soon flying backwards, the entire idea, and over to more relative safety.
Dan had no time to act the medic, so he instead continued to weather the attacks of the manticore as best he could. Realising it could not catch Xiaomei again, and also thinking that she was no threat, not able to harm it, the manticore instead turned to Fa Lian and Dan himself. There was a net of Xiaomei’s making surrounding the creature, so with the right positioning, the tail was becoming less and less of a threat.
“I’ll go right, you go left?” Dan asked Fa Lian. Without answering, she moved. Whether she understood what Dan had been thinking or not, he had no time to ask and only time to act. Breaking into movement, Dan pulsed as much of his mana as possible and threw another taunt at the manticore. “All those sneak attacks and you can’t even hit one vermin.”
The massive monster stomped and roared, the mane of spines now looking much more sparse than before. With two colossal punches, the manticore ripped a stalactite from the roof and threw it at Dan. It was easy to dodge, but it required him leaping in the air. A mistake brought on by inexperience, Dan now had no way to dodge the incoming spines. Three arm-width, leg-length spears shot from the creature’s throat straight at Dan.
A tugged yanked him out of the way, his leg moving on its own. Looking down, Dan could see a thin thread of mana connecting him and Xiaomei. “Learned from the puppetmaster, you’re welcome.” She puffed, talking and fighting a difficult pair of actions to perform at once. Dan had recognised the technique quickly, impressed that Xiaomei was able to make it her own so quickly.
The distraction had worked, the manticore again screeching in frustration as more of its spines missed and its supply of attacks dwindled. Backing an animal into a corner is rarely the smartest decision, but most animals don’t have ranged attacks. The manticore was so angry and distraught that it didn’t see Fa Lian getting closer.
It didn’t see her plant the staff into the ground, nor the red haze that covered her as she flipped, using the dragon bo as leverage, and soared through the air. Leaving the staff behind, she splayed her hands and closed her eyes mid-air. Fa Lian’s grey mana crackled, destroying all that it came into contact with, even just the oxygen in the room. Without issue, she landed next to the manticore, her eyes now open and then plunged both of them in.
Once more, Dan was faced with one of the more terrifying manas he had ever felt. Using Hyun Soon’s mana was pleasant and warm, but when he had used Fa Lian’s it had nearly torn him in two. He knew that even now, she was burning with the pain of it as her deathly mana quickly finished the fight.
The manticore lost all semblance of sanity when the decaying energy touched him. Fa Lian jumped away quickly, slipping through a gap in Xiaomei’s web. Pitifully, the manticore clawed at its stomach, the spot Fa Lian had pressed her mana into. Where she had, the fur was disappearing, the skin disintegrated and organs began to seep from the wound.
Now that there was time to prepare, Xiaomei was swinging the magical cord she had taken from the Guan family vault. The yellow crystal spun casually through the air, Xiaomei acting nonchalant. She looked to Dan, then a flash of annoyance crossed her face, as though she was upset with herself. Wordlessly, she moved closer to the wailing beast before releasing the spinning rope.
The crystal tumbled through the air perfectly, and landed directly on the manticore’s melted face. With a karakaKOOM the manticore was finished. As though a storm cloud sat above, the lightning bolt tore down into the cave and ended the creature’s misery. Clapping her hands together as though she were dusting them, Xiaomei walked back.
Dan felt like he was forgetting something until he heard groaning from the other side of the cave and remembered exactly what that something was. “Hyun!” Rushing over, Dan saw him locked up and felt his stomach drop. There must have been a poison of some kind on the spine of the manticore, and Hyun Soon was falling into paralysis.
Please work, please work, please work. Each time Dan attempted to heal a new injury, a pit of worry and angst filled him. As the mana charged through his body and pooled within his hands, he thought “What if this time is the time I can’t help?”
Dan felt sure that was a limit to his ability to heal, and was terrified at the thought of reaching it. Luckily for Hyun Soon, this time was not that point, and the manticore’s venom was not quick acting. Dan removed the spine with a yank before healing his friend, hoping that the paralysis numbed the pain but having no other choice regardless.
Dan decided to take a few of the spines, as well as the magical core of the monster itself. They had not gone back and taken the stone from the monster which had chased them on entry to the labyrinth, but leaving this one just made no sense. The glittering ball was no larger than a fist, and if left alone another monster would form around it. Valuable, and able to increase a person’s power, though Dan had never used one.
When Dan asked him later, Hyun Soon told him that the paralysis had made the pain “dozens of times worse.”