He kept up [Mana Shroud], but only tried to detect threats nearby, not trying to blend into the environment, and not trying to find natural treasures. It was unfortunate, but working on the 12-sided mental defense of [Mind-Soul Bulwark] was more important. He had initially hoped that he'd be able to finish it in the night, but the construct was far trickier than he had initially expected, even with his third proficiency step in the Skill, courtesy of the lunar fulger's lightning.
Regardless, it was barely an hour walking before they were attacked by a large mantis, the creature seamlessly blended into a treetrunk and striking at Nalpol as he passed by it. The creature's pair of curved, long blades hit deep into his shoulder before the others near him could react. The strike barely finished, the mantis retreated before the shield wall and turned to the elf scout, who was already pelting it with his Mana-formed arrows.
Axl threw a pair of [Venombite Fang]s, but both missed, the creature somehow noticing the attack even from the back, its eyes at the side of its narrow face clearly having no blind spots. The elf scout frantically backpedaled, but the mantis was catching up.
Charging at the creature, Axl used Limerence to rouse his [Filial Deathshroud], lashing out at the mantis with his unfortunately unprotected soul. There was some resistance, the feeling of pushing against thick water, but he soon reached the ill-defined shape that was the mantis's soul, and let the image of the [Filial Deathshroud] attack it, the stark white cloth forming an even rectangle, like a crude axe, and slicing in the soulshape, like felling a tree.
The mantis stopped in its tracks and collapsed to the ground, a weak gargling escaping its chittering maw. Barely a moment later, Brillhit and Alifren's arrows struck its head, killing the creature. It seemed to be well into the middle of the F-Grade, from the surge of Karmic Energy Axl received, which was a disappointment, since for sure the two archers noticed how little they got. So much for keeping his soul-based attacks secret.
Without a word, Axl turned to Nalpol and fed him a pair of potions, his rather serious injuries slowly healing. While they all had some of his potions already, having bought them from the longhouse healer, Axl still gave each party member a pair for emergencies, but didn't want those to be used out of combat, if possible.
"Well done," the orc leader said between heavy breaths. "Well done."
He looked tired and weak, even as his body was fully restored, and motioned for them to continue, hesitating slightly before taking the forefront again. Axl thought about volunteering to do so, if only for the rest of the day, but something about the party leader's bearing made him hesitate. It took Axl a while for his Charisma to piece together the complex motley of shame, and realizing that, he simply returned to the tail of their formation.
Their march continued, and twice more the mantis attacked, always solitary creatures, and always taking them by surprise, even past the elven scout's detection and as Axl increased his focus on [Mana Shroud]. Both times, the mantis were able to injure one of the orcs before Axl could activate his soul attack to incapacitate them, one in fact dying from the attack outright, probably because it was still in early F-Grade, from the much smaller amount of Karmic Energy it provided.
Breaking close to mid-day at an easily defendable ruin, Axl left the group, claiming to want to scout the area for possible natural treasures, none of the others wanting to join, needing a break from the constant mental tension. Even the normally stoic Brillhit seemed on edge from being constantly unable to detect the hidden mantis before they struck, and welcomed the break.
Axl wasn't actually looking for treasures, however, and simply wanted to talk to Moxlin in private.
"Moxlin," he whispered, "I need to ask you something."
The spider crawled up to his shoulder, alert, likely also feeling the building tension from the mantis attacks. "Make it quick, it's not safe with those things around."
"I'm working on it," he replied. "But more importantly, yesterday night I had an unusually vivid dream, one about my life before, but there was this elf woman in it with purple eyes and hair. I couldn’t tell that she didn’t belong, as if she was using Charisma against me."
"Are you serious?" she hissed. "This is not the time to discuss your weird elf sex dreams. Just go for the orc girl already, it's getting painful to watch her pine after you."
"No," Axl grunted. "It's not like that, this dream felt more like—" he stopped himself. He was about to say that it was more like a Dao Vision, but he hesitated about sharing it with her, even now. And it really wasn't anything close to that level, only a clearly unnatural experience. "It was too vivid, like a soul attack from my tempering, or my training session with Ramsen."
"If you say so," she replied, clearly not fully convinced. "But I don't know anything about that, soul attacks are beyond rare, at my hive it was only mentioned occasionally in passing among a list of other unusual types of forces to be careful of trying to go against. I still can't believe you can do something like that. What is even your build?"
Axl shrugged, disappointed but not entirely surprised that Moxlin didn't have any clues for him on that front. He did another perfunctory lap around the party's hiding place before returning, and spent the next hour focusing on progressing his mental defense before they headed back out.
The rest of the day was a slowly mounting tension as one mantis attack followed another. Even if most were early in the F-Grade, they still managed to be undetected before striking, and most of the time injured somebody before Axl could use his [Filial Deathshroud] to put them down. He also noticed that the deathshoud's attack wasn't an unlimited resource, that using it built up some sort of tiredness in him, a heaviness that sapped at his concentration and focus. The first few uses didn't seem to matter, but after that, each use felt heavier and heavier. It wasn't Internal Mana, that's for sure, but Axl had a hard time figuring out any more.
Not only that, but the attack was never quite a seamless as moving his body or [Mana Shroud], which at this point was as natural to use as breathing. The soul-based attack felt like starting to push a boulder, having to overcome the initial resistance of stationary inertia. By the time the sun was setting, Axl had thus made little progress on his 12-sided mental defense and was quite exhausted.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
He took the first watch to get it over with, and after that, still didn't let himself sleep, simply performing some meditative cultivation, bringing the external Mana into his soul, finding that it helped quite a bit with the fatigue. Then he swapped between working on the 12-sided mental defense and meditating all night, by morning feeling somewhat more refreshed, and made some progress with the mental defense. But he was unsure it would be enough to finish by the next night—the last night they would spend before reaching the challenge rift, so he would absolutely have to sleep, not wanting to go into a challenge rift feeling so damn tired.
The next two mantis attacks went as before, both injuring Alifren, the orc having a crying fit at the end of the second battle, Nalpol and the other orcs holding onto their party member with a careful tenderness Axl could barely manage to witness. Instead, he turned aside and focused on [Mana Shroud] to watch out for other threats.
By the third mantis attack, Axl finally got it. He managed to sense the faintest strand of their Mana from the tree, a threading line running parallel to the trunk, like a falling white string in a snowstorm. Reaching out with his left hand, which Axl found helps activate the soul attack somewhat, he crushed the creature's soul, and it peeled off the trunk in a slow, limp fall.
The party looked at him, eyes filled with relief and admiration, even some fear from Brillhit.
"I can sense them," Axl finally said, if only to break the awkward silence. "Things should be easier from now on."
Nalpol simply nodded and proceeded to dress the mantis of its long claws and its larger carapace segments, the party soon continuing on. The previous tension had entirely evaporated, replaced with a lightness and joy blaring to Axl's Charisma.
Axl didn't share their newfound relief, since he had for a while noticed that there was another mantis, a much larger one, stalking them from a distance. It felt somewhat like the centipede vanguard and swarmer, stronger variants that likely controlled the less powerful creatures.
Likely, it was attracted to all the mantis his party had been able to kill, and Axl wondered if this was how the stronger creature got that way in the vale, waiting for its weaker kin to be killed in large numbers, then moving into the threat that could serve as proper fodder for its own leveling. Or maybe it was just stalking the woods while its brethren waited for its prey, with no greater coordination than that. Regardless, this was a real problem they had to deal with, preferably before the monster chose to strike.
Slowly and carefully, Axl moved to Nalpol's side and whispered to him the situation, the orc's grey face paling as he started to sweat. He returned to his position at the rear as the head orc gestured subtly to the other orcs, Brillhit in the trees above also somehow seeing the information and repositioning subtly.
The plan was for Axl to redirect them to a favorable location, perhaps a narrow pathway where the mantis would be hard-pressed to enter, or a ruin where the orc's shield wall would be a more total defense. The creature seemed to have noticed this, however, and it charged, Axl barely having time to turn to meet the mantis as it left from behind a tree, two scythes cutting at his head.
The mantis was almost a full meter taller than him, and its bladed arms with a far longer reach than his sword. Axl could only step back, redoubling the focus of [Mana Shroud] into empowering his Attributes, since even his maxed-out use of Agility was not enough. He threw [Venombite Fang]s at the creature, a spray of three of them, all with centipede poison, but the creature dodged two and knocked the third out of the air with its bladed arm.
Arrows hit its body, two made of air Mana and one from Alifren's bow, but they did little damage to the creature's hard carapace. The shield-bearing orc trio approached, their defenses heightened, but the creature slashed at Axl again, and he had to step to the side at the descending cut.
He drew [Webcutter] and slashed at the arms attacking him, getting a glancing blow as the creature stepped back, a thin line of yellow blood on his blade. Wanting to press the attack, Axl charged forward, at the same time assaulting the creature with [Filial Deathshroud]. Instead of reaching a fluid wall, simply slowing his attack, it felt like he was charging through a wall of thorns. Axl felt cut with every move, but still he pushed on, coiling the ephemeral sense of the cloth into a tight spiral and stabbing into the creature’s soul.
The attack hit, and the creature paused for a moment, Axl stabbing it squarely in the chest, between plates of chitin. His movements were sluggish, however, the soul attack had partially harmed him as well. The creature woke up soon, jumping back as it was pelted by arrows, the air behind it stabbed by one of the orc's spears.
The mantis hovered in the air, a pair of wings fluttering behind it, unfurled from its body. Alifren's arrows kept flying at it, but the mantis simply jittered left and right, easily avoiding the attacks. It was as if the creature was hesitating, unsure if it should press the attack.
Axl heard a specific click from far behind, easy to miss in the chaos of battle, and he struck again with [Filial Deathshroud], this time trying to avoid pushing too hard into the mental wall of thorns the creature had around its soul, even if it meant the attack was less effective, a thin, long stab with the fluttering cloth as it coiled into a long spear.
The mantis paused for a moment, its eyes dull, and as Axl fumbled a [Venombite Fang], letting the weapon fall to the ground, a massive green bolt of light struck the creature's head, its Mana dense and finely aimed at the creature’s mouth. It reeled, falling to the ground, and Axl had recovered enough to charge forward, stabbing the creature on its ruined palate, feeling [Webcutter] stab into its brain.
Axl kept pushing until he felt the surge of Karmic Energy.
He fell to the ground together with the limp mantis corpse, dizzy. He had overdrafted his soul-based attack and could barely move. In a panic, he looked to the rest of the party, but the orcs simply formed a defensive perimeter around him, shields out, the elf scout turning back to scanning the area. He breathed heavily, and Axl could tell he was dreadfully low on Mana, his camouflage skill fully off, his bow-arm shaking.
Focusing on his breathing, Axl consumed a healing potion he had stored in his [Gastric Cauldron]'s orbital storage, but found it did very little, not really helping with whatever he had done.
"Are you alright?" Alifren asked, kneeling in front of him. "Do you need a potion?"
Axl slowly managed to shake his head. "Recover soon," he said, each word like giving birth to a ball of needles.
"That one was at least upper F-Grade," Nalpol said. "If not the head of this pack, or damn close…"
"Store the body," Brillhit said, still short of breath. "In case they are cannibalistic. It could draw more in."
Nalpol and one of the other orcs peeled off to quickly cut it up into small enough pieces to fit in the party leader's dimensional amulet, Moxlin helping with the effort. By the time they were done, Axl was able to stand up again, his legs weak, but ready to walk.
They proceeded more carefully, at half the speed they had before, and when they found a ruin that would serve as a good enough refuge, they called the day short, even if they had many hours till nightfall. Axl was close to feeling back to normal, but his fumbling attempts at a 12-sided mental protection were worse than before, barely able to hold up half of the necessary facets before the construct melted away.
Still, he didn't dare to sleep without it, and sat cross-legged and oscillated between meditative cultivation to restore his overdrafted mind and the mental defense. The pain in his head and shaking body got worse and worse, but he forced his will and attention to narrow to the task, one facet of the regular solid at a time. Eventually, he could get eight facets up before he collapsed forward, coughing blood, then ten a few hours later, losing sight in one eye and most of his hearing. At least that way he could more easily ignore Moxlin shouting at him from his shoulder.
Feeling a scratching rasp against the small marble of his soul, with one final push, the twelve walls of the defense were up, an even, solid defense glowing with pale, yellow light. He even gained a proficiency step with the Skill, which he had hoped would happen.
Skills: Mana Shroud (Rare, Proficiency G.6), Mind-Soul Bulwark (Rare, Proficiency G.4), Attuned Drill Strike (Rare, Proficiency G.2)
He didn't even have the energy left to close the status menu before he fell asleep.