“That?” I asked in an astonished low whisper.
“Yep,” Haze confirmed.
“No, no, no. It’s way too big. I can’t handle that by myself!”
“Yes, you can. I know you can handle it. I wouldn’t have asked you to do it if I didn’t think you could,” Haze said encouragingly.
“Oh, you think I can handle it? Well, I say otherwise!”
“Just relax, Zeana. It’ll all be fine if you relax,” Guru Shi’en put in his two cents.
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly what Noir said to you last night,” I retorted sarcastically.
“Well, no, not exactly. It was more along the lines of—”
“I do not want to hear it. Thanks,” I said, cutting off whatever disgusting thing he was about to say.
“Pervy old man aside, Zeana, I know you can take it,” Haze said, still trying to be encouraging.
“If it was small, like a normal one. Sure. Twelve centimeters, fine. Hell, thirty centimeters and make it freaky looking. But I am not going to be able to handle a ten-meter-tall praying fucking mantis!” I finally yelled, pointing at the gigantic monster thirty meters away. The mantis had a black and red chiton exoskeleton, two four-meter-long razor-sharp clawed pincers, and four red and violet wings that glistened in the dim light that made it through the clouds. Its two bulbous compound eyes darted around the rocky wasteland around it as it looked for fresh meat.
“Kaggen: S grade calamity class monster. The devourer of all things living,” Guru Shi’en narrated unhelpfully, “Well, nice knowing you, Zeana. Good luck!” then he turned and began walking back to the city.
Haze quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Anyways, that’s why we’re here, to ensure you don’t die immediately.”
I rolled my eyes, “Thanks. I feel so safe now. How do I do this again?”
“As you move, focus on the energies around you as they’re created. Separate what you want and don’t want and guide the chakra you’re looking for into the jar through your arm. And be sure not to use any of your cores while fighting. Otherwise, you’ll mess everything up, and we’ll need a new jar. Now go, and good luck,” Haze said, giving me a gentle shove to get me moving.
I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and took one step forward. Then another, and another. I can do this. I can do this. I just need to build enough speed to cultivate and flow it into the jar. That’s fine. It’s fine. It’s easy. A piece of cake. I won’t even break a sweat.
“You know it’s times like this that I wish I were contracted with a different person,” Fengbao abruptly spoke, his booming voice echoing in my head.
“Oh, hush! You’re breaking her concentration,” Apollo said in my defense.
“Yeah,” Crucible agreed.
“Shove it up your flaming butt hole, Apollo! You think she will get us killed, too, aren’t you!?”
“Yeah,” Crucible agreed.
“Look, just because I think it doesn’t mean it’s nice to say. Zeana needs encouragement right now, and we need to give it to her.”
“Yeah,” Crucible agreed.
“HAHAHA! Sure thing. Hey! Zeana! I got money riding on you that says you won’t last five seconds!”
“Yeah,” Crucible agreed.
“Will you two stop that!?”
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“No,” Crucible disagreed.
“What she said. I am in no mood to die because some little know-it-all fox shit wants to gain a little power.”
“Yeah,” Crucible agreed.
“WILL YOU ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP!!” I finally had enough of my spirits bickering in my head and yelled at the top of my lungs, “I AM HERE BECAUSE I WANT TO LIVE, AND IF FIGHTING THIS THING WILL HELP ME ACHIEVE THAT, THEN I’M GOING TO FIGHT IT! SO, WHY DON’T YOU TAKE YOUR COWARDLY ASS AND SHOVE IT DOWN YOUR FUCKING THROAT AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!!”
“Yeah,” Crucible agreed for the final time.
Fengbao was silent for a moment before asking, “Did you mean to say that out loud?”
I scowled, and then my eyebrows shot up as the realization hit me. I was really loud, and the mantis was gone. I looked around wildly for the monster but found no traces of it. I had dispelled my wings, so I couldn’t take to the sky and look for it, but I still had nine hydra-head-tails that could sniff things out very well. I willed them to start sniffing for anything out of the ordinary, and they all pointed back the way I came, ten meters away toward Haze, Guru Shi’en, and Yuki.
Cursing under my breath, I turned back around and saw an unusual shape three meters away from me. I could’ve sworn it wasn’t there before. It was black and red, just like the volcanic wasteland around us, and it was really big … oh fuck! It’s Kaggen!
The monster charged its razor-sharp claws, lashing out toward me with two simultaneous vertical strikes. I resisted the urge to cycle my chakras and jumped to the side, dodging the initial attack by a finger’s breadth. My tails slowed me down, so I dispelled six of them, leaving me with three to use. The mantis looked between the spot it attacked and the spot I landed and appeared to be trying to figure out what happened.
While the monster was distracted, I took a deep calming breath and searched the energies around me, feeling five separate chakras around me. One felt cold and sharp like ice. One felt hard and unyielding, like earth. One felt hot, full of life, and wild, like fire. One felt unstoppable, always moving, constantly pushing and pulling, like an invisible force. And the last one felt different from all the others. It made me feel like I was moving incredibly fast and not moving at all. That’s the chakra I want. That’s the Speed chakra.
I quickly imagined an invisible hand pulling the chakra into the jar, but when I tried this, it felt like it was moving too slowly to touch anything until the Speed and Force chakras were suddenly gone. Disappeared into the nothingness it came from. Cursing under my breath, I refocused all my attention on the massive bug before me and yelled, “Come on! We don’t have all week! Let’s get this show on the road!”
The mantis cocked its massive insect head at me and turned to face me. For a few seconds, we stood there and stared each other down. Then the monster clicked and charged again. Stabbing down with its left pincer while it swiped with its right like a reaper’s scythe. I stepped back to avoid the first attack and did a backflip over the second as I continued to focus on the energies we created with our fight. I felt that same conceptual energy again, and instead of a hand grabbing it, I pushed it and encouraged it to go faster and flow into the jar.
With two quick horizontal slashes, the monster clicked with annoyance. I fell back, using my tails to catch me as the pincers passed just above my breasts. I felt the energy from the Speed chakra heed my call and move into the jar. One moment the chakra was stagnant and unchanging. The next, it was in the jar. I smiled a little as the pincers finished their pass over me, and I used my tails to push myself back up, jump around to the monster’s right, and encourage it to keep chasing me.
With several more clicks, the monster swiped at me as it turned, and I effortlessly jumped over it as I gathered up more of the speed chakra, and just as my feet were about to hit the ground, I felt a stabbing pain in my right side. I looked down and saw the clawed pincer of the mantis embedded in my gut. I coughed and spewed a glob of blood onto the ground as my fingers loosened around the chakra jar, and it slipped from my fingers, shattering upon the cold, blackened earth.
Then the pain hit me. Shot through my entire being as the mantis raised me to its head, its insect mouth preparing to strip the flesh from my bones. And as all that pain coursed through me, I cried, “MASTER, HELP ME!!”
A flash of fiery red light struck the monster’s right eye, and it let out a horrid screech as green blood poured from its injury. Haze had appeared out of nowhere, clad in her black and violet armor, with fire covering her fists. Kicking off the chest of the monster, she twisted and created a black blade tinged with fire along its edge and sliced through the mantis’ pincer, eliciting another pained screech from its gaping maw.
As I fell, Haze twisted in mid-air again, kicking off an explosion she made with one of her feet and caught me. Once she touched the ground, she phased through the ground and came up before Guru Shi’en several dozen meters away. Guru Shi’en wasted no time pulling the pincer from my side and snapping his fingers with a bright flash. The blood instantly stopped pouring from my body, and my side began to itch and crawl as my flesh rapidly put itself back together. Once it was healed and the pain stopped, I slowly began to feel exhaustion as my eyes closed and I drifted off into the darkness.
***
Ding
Skill: High Pain Tolerance Lvl 2. Level up.
Skill: High Pain Tolerance Lvl 3
Skill: High Pain Tolerance Lvl 3. Withstand up to 12,000 dols of pain.
Requirements to reach the next level: Withstand a total of 12,000,000 dols of pain. 0/12,000,000.
Good job, dumbass!
***