Chapter 94: Savage Battle
The mantis immediately counterattacked. A green glow burst from its body like a powerful gust of wind and slammed into Alex before he could drive the sword any deeper.
He slid backward across the road, his shoes carving deep grooves into the concrete, and before he completely regained his footing, the mantis was already swinging another scythe toward his head.
Alex raised his sword and blocked the attack. A second slash came almost immediately, followed by a third, and then another without giving him even a moment to breathe. The mantis had no intention of letting him close the distance again, choosing instead to dominate the fight with the superior reach of its twin scythes.
Their weapons clashed over and over until they became little more than blurred streaks. Every collision sent another shockwave through the street, cracking the pavement beneath Alex’s feet and shattering more glass from the abandoned cars nearby.
Sweat slowly gathered on his forehead as the pressure continued mounting.
Alex realized he was being pushed back. Every swing from the mantis carried greater speed and greater force than the one before it, cutting into his Mana Thread and forcing him to repair the vibrating Mana Thread almost continuously.
The damage gradually reached a point where the thread was breaking apart faster than he could restore it.
Without Lightning Reflex, he would have been fatally wounded long ago. Even with the spell active, he was barely matching the mantis’s speed, and every exchange demanded nearly all of his concentration. His muscles burned under the strain, but instead of feeling pressured, a small smile appeared on his face.
He had missed this feeling of the thrill of battle, the exhilaration of pushing himself to the limit, and the sensation of his spell’s improving rapidly. All monsters he found after returning to the Earth were either too weak, or they died in one hit.
The mantis was different. He was enjoying the fighting it, even if he was on the backfoot.
The balance finally broke when one particularly heavy strike sliced straight through the Mana Thread.
The ordinary steel blade underneath offered almost no resistance, splitting neatly into two pieces before the broken half spun away across the road.
The mantis didn’t hesitate for even an instant as another slash immediately descended toward Alex’s neck.
Alex released the broken sword instead of trying to save it. A mana dagger instantly formed in his hand, meeting the descending scythe before shattering into glowing fragments.
The brief delay allowed him to lean backward just enough to avoid losing his head, but another strike was already coming toward his wrist.
He created another mana dagger, then another after that. Every construct was sliced apart almost immediately, yet each one bought him another fraction of a second to evade.
More importantly, each new dagger lasted slightly longer than the previous one as his control over compressed mana improved under the pressure of battle.
Alex knew the improvement wasn’t happening quickly enough. If the fight continued like this, the mantis would overpower him long before he truly mastered the spell. Ignoring the danger completely, he forced even more unstable mana into his mind until his concentration climbed to an even higher level.
Alex deliberately shut down his senses of smell, hearing, taste, and touch through Battle Instinct Spell, relying almost entirely on Mana Sense and eyes to perceive the battlefield.
The freed mental capacity became available for something far more important.
Instead of sending lightning-element mana only through his spine, Alex pushed it into every nerve throughout his arms and legs.
Electricity raced through his limbs, dramatically increasing the speed at which his muscles responded to every command.
Almost immediately, he stopped losing ground and began matching the mantis blow for blow.
He didn’t stop there. Every mana dagger he created became coated in compressed lightning-element mana, causing blue arcs of electricity to dance along their edges.
Whenever the daggers collided with the mantis’s scythes, tiny bursts of electricity spread into the monster’s body, making its movements pause for the briefest instant.
Alex took advantage of those tiny openings. While continuing to defend himself with both hands, he quietly used the wand inside his pocket to begin forming a Fire Bullet above his head.
At this distance, the mantis would have almost no chance of avoiding the spell once it was fired.
Then the monster’s eyes flashed.
Battle Instinct screamed danger inside Alex’s mind, and he instantly realized he had fallen into a trap. The mantis hadn’t been slowed because of the lightning. It deliberately allowed those tiny openings to appear, encouraging him to divide his attention.
The next attack came faster than anything before it. A green glow suddenly covered one scythe, and the blade accelerated toward the side of Alex’s chest with explosive speed.
He instinctively crossed both lightning-coated daggers to intercept it, but the glowing scythe sliced through both constructs before they could offer any meaningful resistance.
The attack reached his chest almost immediately. Alex abandoned offense and poured every bit of mana from Advanced Body Reinforcement into defense, compressing and hardening it into a thick barrier between himself and the incoming blade. The barrier delayed the strike for only an instant before it shattered apart.
The scythe continued through the chainmail hidden beneath his clothes, breaking metal links and slicing through several ribs.
That brief delay brought by the mana shield, and chainmail gave Alex just enough time to reinforce his left lung with an enormous amount of mana.
When the blade finally reached the organ, it stopped as though it had struck solid steel instead.
Although the lung survived, the force behind the attack did not disappear. Alex was launched sideways through the wall of a nearby house, smashing through brick and timber before crashing heavily onto the floor inside. Pain exploded throughout his body, and he immediately knew several bones had broken during the impact.
Even then, none of his spells stopped running. Advanced Body Reinforcement, Lightning Reflex, Battle Instinct, Mana Sense, and every other active spell continued operating at full power despite the enormous strain on his body.
Blood filled Alex’s mouth, and his vision blurred, but his concentration never wavered.
The dust had barely begun to settle when the mantis appeared above him. It didn’t give him even a second to recover before raising one enormous scythe overhead and driving it straight toward his chest.
Alex twisted at the last possible moment, saving his heart, but the blade still punched through his ribs and pierced his lung. Crippling cold pain exploded through his body, yet Battle Instinct immediately forced it into the background, leaving only the information that he was seriously injured, and that this was an opportunity.
Blood rose into Alex’s throat, but he refused to cough. Even while impaled, he continued moving with ruthless efficiency as his hand shot up and clamped tightly around the scythe buried in his chest.
By locking the limb in place, he prevented the mantis from pulling it free or twisting it deeper.
A flicker of shock passed through the monster’s eyes as it realized Alex deliberately accepted the injury to create an opening.
Before the mantis could react, Alex drove his free fist toward the base of the embedded scythe.
Advanced Body Reinforcement flooded his arm with strength while lightning-element mana surged through every nerve, multiplying the speed of the punch.
Speed became force, and force became destruction as his fist smashed into the scythe with explosive power.
A sharp crack echoed through the ruined house before the hardened limb shattered near its base.
The mantis screeched and instinctively tried to retreat, but Alex refused to let it.
He grabbed the broken stump and yanked with all his strength, dragging the monster off balance and forcing its upper body toward him.
Before it could plant its remaining scythe into the ground for support, Alex lunged forward and seized both sides of its head.
Mana flooded into Alex’s skull, reinforcing it as much as possible before he slammed his forehead into the mantis’.
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