I still had that smile on my face; that smile of happiness.
A wind blew past my head, but I stood there motionless, staring blankly at the massive mantis that was just a carcass a second ago.
In my left ear I hear,
"Bruh"
In my right ear, a ringing sound, almost like a flashbang grenade exploding right in front of me.
One second passed...
Two seconds passed...
Ten seconds passed...
One minute passed...
Five minutes passed...
The silence lasted for a while.
I can see the mantis itself looking at me confusedly, unsure whether it should attack or not.
Suddenly, I hear a sound. I jump in shock, surprised by this sound, as it was neither the mantis or [FMC].
I look to my shoulder and I see Momo lying there, seemingly just awaking from her long nap, yawn loudly (but very cutely) in my ear.
SCREEEEEEEEEECH!
Now that, was the mantis.
"Bad time to wake up, don't you think Momo?"
"Uhm....Wh...what happened?" Momo says while rubbing her eyes.
"You kind of just agroed the mantis over there, you see?"
I point towards the flying insect, or rather in the direction of it, since I couldn't actually see where it was. Momo followed my finger and caught a small glimpse of it,
"Oh."
That's it?! That's all you have to say?!
"I'm sure you can kill it!"
Momo gives me something that looks like a thumbs up with a big smile on her face, and disappears somewhere-----probably into the system. Speaking of the system, I got more info on the mantis.
I look around me, and all I see are poisonous plants staring at me menacingly, about to strike.
The environment is my friend, huh? Very believable.
Then it comes.
I feel the wind to my left leg disperse, and instantly jump. I look down and see a whip-like tendril slice the air beneath my feet.
I guess the fight's starting.
"Oh come on, I can't see anything anymore!" I hear [FMC] complain.
"Too bad! Well focus up, lets kill this thing fast."
First priority: Analyze the environment.
I create a web beneath my feet and [FMC] connects it using her bullet. I launch myself way up into the air, and finally see the wide landscape of the now plant-covered cavern.
"Create a hang-glider!"
"I'm on it!"
As I am in the air, [FMC] is already setting up the hang-glider about 30 feet below me. Right as I get close to the anchor points of the hang-glider, I hear,
"Its done!"
And I instantly shoot a bullet and create the hang-glider, grabbing onto it, and gliding above all the poisonous plants. As I am gliding, I notice that four reddish plants, which don't seem to be doing anything, extend from the flowers all the way to the ceiling. I deduce that these four plants must be some sort of special plants the mantis relies on.
Right as I was about to turn, I here a whoosh sound and see the mantis fly above me. I make a sudden right turn, trying to avoid the slash coming from the mantis but it was too late. The mantis cut through the paraglider and I started free-falling, about to land in the middle of those venomous plants. I shoot another web, trying to catch my fall, but the bullets suddenly disappeared.
What the?!
Before I could understand what happened, I fell to the ground, landing on my side and rolling in the dirt.
"Ouch....Hey! The bullets stopped working! What's happening on your side [FMC]?"
"I have no idea! I can't shoot anything either!"
I try to hide in some flowers, but their tendrils keep slapping at me, forcing me to run around and dodge based off pure reaction time. I frantically scroll threw my menu, until I finally see a message in my inventory,
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
How am I suppose to play now?! And a whole 10 minutes?!
"Umm [MC], I seem to have a recipe grid here? or something?"
"Wait what does the recipe say?"
I try to communicate to [FMC] while dodging all these attacks, but my stamina was running quite low.
"It says I can use some sort of flower to create a 'charm' which makes copies of the user"
"Here, take this!"
I send the Flower of Disguise to her(don't ask me how, it just worked), and she quickly produced a charm out of it.
After I receive the charm, I try using it, but nothing happens. The mantis is getting closer and closer, it's even slicing up its own plants to get clear vision on me! I am chased until I reach the wall of the cavern, trapped by the mantis. I have already ran for so long, and used up so much stamina. I collapse, laying on the ground waiting for the mantis to kill me.
It was a good fight, mantis.
I raise my hand towards the mantis and sit there, wondering if I would even respawn in this world. Even the mantis seems to be pitying me, as it looks at me with eyes full of what seemed like tears. I then see a shine, and a blade comes right at my throat as I wait for impact.
But I don't feel anything.
I gingerly open my eyes, to see what happened. I was somehow near the other wall, opposite to the mantis. I look down on my hands, and squeeze them into fists, wondering if this was real. I then look at my inventory, and see that my charm is on a long cooldown. Did the charm....?
I didn't have time to think, as I heard a shaking sound resounding in the opposite side of the cave. The mantis sliced through one of the large red plants(since I was no longer there) and caused the ceiling above the plant to cave in a little, dropping debris from the sky.
Yes, Allllllllllll Skill.
I rise up, and prepare for the fight to continue.
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Only three more flowers left.
Oh boy.
The only way to cut these flowers is to make the mantis cut them itself. And the best way to do that is....getting it mad
So I shoot a bullet at the mantis, and hit it square in the chest.
The traces of what-seemed-to-be tears in the mantis's eyes clear up, and having completely disappeared, were replaced with bright red eyes. The mantis readies itself for battle, and rears its head back. I am already prepared for the mantis's attack, and was waiting for it to strike, when suddenly, the cavern turns pitch-black.
What the...?
I look around the cave, and see nothing but darkness. I felt that something was off, and as I stand still, wary of my surroundings, I hear a loud buzzing noise rapidly getting louder from behind me. I roll to the left, but feel something graze my cheek, leaving a red mark on my face. I then look ahead, and see two red eyes floating in the air, full of malicious intent.
The eyes disappear once more, and I here another buzzing sound, this time coming from the left. I quickly construct a shield to my left, but this time, the scythes penetrate the shield, stopping inches away from my face. I run forward to the next pillar, and sit there waiting for it to appear, when I suddenly hear that buzzing noise coming from above me now.
"Create a double shield above me, quick!"
I see the two shields pop up, and fill both of them creating a thick hexagonal shield. The scythe of the mantis noticeably moved slower, but was still able to pierce through the thicker layer.
When did this thing get so strong?
It was like fighting an invisible ghost. The only thing I can do is to block the attacks, with no way of counterattacking.
The one thing I noticed is that its eyes close whenever its about to attack, almost like a trigger....
It hits me now. Even in this dark cavern, a mantis is unable to see with its eyes closed. The only way for it to know where I am is by its antennas, in other words, it smells me.
Do I really smell that bad?
I become slightly depressed, after considering the fact that I may smell, but then realize,
"That can't be it!"
"What are you talking about?" I hear [FMC] say,
"Oh, its nothing..."
Wait no, it must be smelling my blood right?
To test this theory, I wipe some of the blood on my face on one of those red flowers, and hide underneath some flowers surrounding the large flower.
The mantis swipes at the blood, and cuts the flower in half, causing yet another rumble.
Man this mantis must be stupid!
The darkness finally clears, and I can see the mantis flying in the sky, even angrier than before.
"HAHA did you see that? Who would fall for such a stupid trick like that?"
Almost as if it can hear me, it screeches once more, and I fell myself beginning to float in the air, feet pointing towards the ceiling.
"Are you that mad that you just had to inverse the gravity of the WHOLE cavern!?!"
In a few seconds, I find myself staring at the floor, with my feet glued to the once ceiling of the cavern, and a giant mantis flying upside-down straight at me.
I create a web beneath me, and jump above the mantis, but instead of going over it, I land on its stomach.
Its quite squishy here....
The mantis seems to realize that something was on its stomach, and flipped around flying erratically to throw me off. I instead grabbed its antennas, and hold on as long as I could without falling off. It flies into one of the walls, but [FMC] creates a platform beneath my feet so I could hold steady. Unsuccessfully throwing me off, it tries again, this time flipping itself over and sending me headfirst into another wall. I create a wall to my left at a 45 degree angle, and the mantis swerves to the right to avoid crashing into it.
I keep controlling the mantis's movement, and decide to try to fly it into a flower. It takes a while, but the mantis finally flies in the direction I want it to, completely breaking the ceiling the flower was supporting. With three of the four flowers gone, the cavern is about to collapse. As I am deciding what to do with the fourth flower, I feel the ceiling shake, and debris falling from the sky.
Is the ceiling gonna collapse already?
The inversed gravity finally goes away and I fall to the ground, and the ceiling begins crumbling even faster.
I tell [FMC] to create a dome around me, and just in time, I am protected by the rocks, my view blinded by rocks and dust. After a few minutes, the dust begins to disperse, and as I wait for the dust to settle, I look around for the mantis, but can't see it anywhere. Looking at the cavern, I see all the flowers dying across the floor, with the final red flower collapsing under the weight of the ceiling. Unnaturally though, a kind of like a second layer of ceiling still stands, with a gaping hole right in the middle of it. I cautiously get out of the dome, and look around for the mantis, but can't find it anywhere. I decide to walk towards the hole, and see what is beyond the ceiling. As I walk towards the center of the cavern, all the plants surrounding me disappear, leaving behind that disgusting goo across the whole floor. Looking up into the hole, I see a tunnel going upwards, probably extending to an opening which I could not see. I used lumus bullets to light up the tunnel, and find no enemies hiding in the tunnel.
"Is that thing dead?" [FMC] asks,
"I can see the tunnel in the ceiling, must mean we're out of combat..."
"Maybe, but I just can't shake off the feeling that something is wrong..."
I decide to climb up the tunnel, with me and [FMC] alternatingly creating platforms for me to jump on. After climbing for a couple minutes, a light could be seen coming from above. Taking the last couple of jumps carefully, I poke my head out of the tunnel, and see a completely new cavern, with a massive tree at the end of the cave. There was no space behind the tree, but the whole cavern stretched out in front of the tree.
The tree had a trunk 50 feet in diameter, with it extending up by about 150 feet. Leaves can be seen growing from the branches, each one with a bright blue hue, shedding smaller leaves of the same color. Each branch growing from the tree was longer and thicker than my own body. From the leaves of the tree, red fruits can be seen hanging from the leaves, each luminous and vibrant, given off a crimson glare. The fruits were decently massive, about the size of a watermelon, but seemed to have a hard outer shell surrounding the tender flesh in the inside.
I was already expecting something grand to be seen, but this tree far exceeded my expectation-a beauty which I have never seen before.
While I was indulging myself at the sight of the tree, I hear [FMC] say,
"Now my vision is gone."
Although I anticipated that this would happen, I groaned in frustration, and slowly look upwards, seeing that massive orchid mantis sitting on the tree, seemingly absorbing the tree's power.