Chapter 51: Dungeone Dive [7]
It had happened so quickly.
Silas barely remembered the moments leading to the deep gash appearing on his chest, the events flitting past his mind as if it was a ghost of something that had never happened, not entirely real.
What was real though, was the pain from the cut.
A little too real maybe, because he couldn’t exactly suppress the pained scream that tore out of his mouth.
It was around 3 seconds earlier when it started.
Gareth had moved first, heading in a straight line towards where the mantis was, no doubt anticipating a direct clash. The rest of the party had followed through, Yura taking cover in the bushes, Antonio disappearing into the trees, and the mages casting a protective barrier around the lair to stop any kind of interference.
Silas had only noticed the absence of the mantis after it was gone.
He glanced at Gareth first, his immediate thought being that it was trying to catch their captain off-guard.
But no, he was completely safe, the mantis wasn’t near him.
Then it hit him.
His eyes widened despite himself, head already turning around.
Beasts compared strength not according to composition or presence. No, they used a completely different metric from the ones humans used. They looked at the pure potency of the individual’s mana, and acted accordingly.
The person with the most potent mana in their group was...
"Cover Aris!"
Too late, it was already within striking distance.
Aris wasn’t the sturdy type, he knew that from personal experience, he would not survive a complete strike even if he knew it was coming.
What his body did next, it didn’t even ask his brain for permission. The mana moved on its own, permeating the muscles on his legs, strengthening them, making them volatile. A push to the ground and he was already off, a sonic boom erupting from where he was a moment ago.
Silas reached Aris the exact moment the Mantis went for the strike, raising his blade to intercept it.
Unfortunately, the mana blade shattered the moment it came in contact with the foreleg of the mantis, and it continued through, the strike already adjusted to aim for Silas’s chest.
He barely managed to reinforce his skin as he got cut, a single millimeter the distance between where the cut ended and where his heart was.
The momentum he inherited from the strike was worse. For the third time this day, he was flung off like a bullet shot out of a gun, crashing into the barrier the mages were finishing up.
So here he was now, his ears ringing, the pounding in his head muffling even that, and enough blood to fill a bucket leaking out of him.
He could faintly hear the clashing of metal with whatever that forearm had been made of.
Hopefully Gareth reacted in time, he thought, coughing out the chunk of—he honestly didn’t know what—before forcing himself to sit up.
The world was spinning, a lot. But he still stood up, steadying his swaying legs as he summoned another mana blade. He had used up most of his mana trying to block that strike, so the blade looked less sturdy than it did before.
It was all that he was going to get for the moment.
Yura was already by his side, casting a spell to stop the bleeding, then casting another major spell, partially recovering the bones that had been broken in the clash.
He felt a little bad about making the woman push herself so much. But he couldn’t exactly open his mouth to tell her stop right now, because Silas was pretty sure he would drop dead if let his focus shift to anything other than his own body.
Which was somehow... fine.
Fine because somewhere along the point of getting hit and almost dying, he had figured out the way to kill the boss.
He raised a hand, indicating that enough had been done by Yura for him to get back into the fight again, and took a step forward, his dulled eyes taking in the scene infront of him now that his vision was finally clearing up.
One of the mages had joined the battle, summoning shields made from the ground to assist Gareth in his brawl against the mantis, Aris was still recovering from the surprise of escaping death by a hair’s breadth, hesitating as he figured out how exactly he could help Gareth in the current situation. There were arrows raining down from the trees, none of them having been able to pierce through the carapace of the damned insect so far.
One thing he couldn’t help but notice, was that Aris looked visibly rattled.
Almost enough to look like a normal person. Which was...
Silas took in a deep breath, and slowly let it go.
He pushed out any thoughts that weren’t necessary at the moment, and tightened his grip around the crumbling hilt.
Gareth wouldn’t be able to finish off the mantis, because he wasn’t fast enough. Aris most likely wont be able to get close enough, given how wary the mantis was of him. Which left Silas.
His mana reserves were almost drained, to the point that if he was forced to push further he would exhaust himself completely to the point of unconsciousness. Which was basically a death sentence in this situation.
So he had one chance. One chance to use everything he had in order to finish this in one strike.
A particular thought surfaced on his mind.
He clicked his tongue.
"Damned thing."
He grabbed the hilt by his other arm, and raised the sword above his head, whispering the chant the best he could with his raspy voice.
"I call upon the grace of Kairos."
The wound on his chest, which had been closed by Yura’s power, tore open once again, the violent shredding of it a morbid sight that Silas was glad no one would see.
Gritting his teeth through the pain, he finished his chant.
"Teleia Stigmi."