Free Web NovelChapter 31: Hunting praying mantises with a scythe [7]
I was sent flying back by the giant praying mantis attack, so I spun in the air acrobatically and stopped my momentum by grabbing onto a bamboo stalk.
"Quite angry, aren’t you?" I said, looking at the mantis standing where I had been a moment ago.
The giant praying mantis glared at me, then crossed its scythes over its chest in an X shape. First it started with a small glow but then a green energy wrapped around them and grew brighter and brighter.
"What is it doing?"
The giant praying mantis slashed forward.
Twin curved arcs of green energy shot out of its scythes and tore toward me at a fast speed.
Swoosh!
"I’ll be damned!" My eyes went wide and I let go of the bamboo, dropping just in time as the green arcs cut straight through where I had been holding on, then continued slicing through the bamboo behind until they finally lost momentum.
I looked back at the wreckage and whistled. "You can do that too?"
The giant mantis made the same motion and hurled another pair of green wind arcs — they tore through the air with speed.
At my command, a wall of darkness rose from the ground to block them, but the arcs sliced through it like paper and kept coming.
"It can cut through the wall?!" I said, dumbfounded.
No time to run. I dropped my scythe and threw myself into a kickflip into a corkscrew, one arc passing over me and the other below, but I wasn’t lucky enough this time. The lower arc grazed my back and shredded the back of my shirt.
I gritted my teeth when I landed. I wanted to curse, but more wind arcs were already incoming.
I snatched my scythe off the ground and started weaving between the bamboo trees, blocking and parrying what I could, the ones I dodged cutting down the stalks behind me.
I felt my mana draining fast, so I shrank the darkness circle from 15 meters down to 8 to conserve it.
I kept dodging and blocking, and that bastard was spamming the wind arcs like it had an unlimited supply. They just kept coming.
When one swept from below I jumped over it, but before I could even land, two more were already inches from my head and torso.
My hands blurred as I swung the scythe, cutting down every arc within reach.
I wanted to switch to the katana so badly and just cut the mantis into pieces, but my ego refused to finish this fight without the scythe.
Fine. If it wanted to throw arcs at me, I would do the same!
Easier said than done, but I was going to try nevertheless.
Two arcs came at me, so I summoned a ring of massive darkness walls around me to buy enough time to do what I had in mind.
The ground shook as the arcs slammed into the walls.
I focused and thought through what the mantis was doing.
The first step was concentrating energy onto the scythes at high density. The second was releasing that energy forward in a cutting arc.
’What are you trying to do?’ Ezio asked.
"Copying what the mantis is doing. Since I can’t get close to it right now, learning a long-range technique wouldn’t hurt." I said as I pushed a large amount of darkness energy into the blade of my scythe.
’Good idea. And if you learn it, you can apply the same principle to the katana later. One thing I’ll tell you: compress the darkness energy instead of just pouring it in.’ Ezio said. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
’When you just pour energy into the blade, the attacks won’t be very sharp or powerful. But if you compress it tightly around the edge instead, you stop wasting it and make your attacks far sharper and stronger.
’Think of it like fitted clothes versus baggy ones. With a proper fit, you can move better. And if you try to force too much energy in without compression, the material breaks down under the pressure, like trying to squeeze someone twice the size into a shirt meant for a child.’ Ezio explained.
"Ah, got it." I said.
It was like water. Water in a cup thrown at you does nothing. Water compressed to a jet can tear through walls.
Boom!
Two more walls gave way to the mantis’s arcs.
I closed my eyes and focused.
I let the darkness energy seep into the blade, and instead of forcing everything in at once, I let it coat the full edge and then slowly compressed it. I misjudged the pressure and failed.
I tried again, calmer this time.
Darkness energy into the blade, then compressed. I thought of pulling on a glove, fitting it snugly to every finger.
The energy compressed and compressed until it clung to the blade like a second skin. The air around me dropped noticeably cold.
It had worked. Now to test it.
"Thanks, Ezio." I said with a smile.
’You’re welcome, kid. You’d better make sure the money I’m owed goes up if you lose the Rite of Passage.’ Ezio chuckled.
"That’s not happening." I laughed.
Boom! Boom!
The last of my walls finally gave out, the impacts throwing up clouds of dust, and the arcs went quiet.
I held my scythe horizontally with both hands, pulled back, and waited for the dust to settle. I had a surprise ready for the mantis. freeweɓnøvel.com
When it cleared, I could make out the giant mantis tilting its triangular head, probably confused as to why I was still standing without a scratch.
"Eat this!" I shouted and swung the scythe forward.
A massive, elongated black arc of darkness energy tore out of the blade and ripped through the air, heading straight to the giant praying mantis.
It moved so fast the praying mantis had no time to react, and when it connected, a huge black explosion erupted and shook the entire bamboo forest.
