With my arm blade, I slashed at the incoming Ambushers and Bombers while doing my best to avoid the detonation. I also picked up any nearby crystals and immediately started recovering mana from them. I needed as much mana as I could get my hands on to be able to deal with the Knights. I lacked the mana to deal with all of them at the same time so I had to kill them one by one. And the best way to do so was to go with the age-old strategy, divide and conquer.
With more than 30 percent of my mana recovered, I now had some leeway to use the Detonate skill. I morphed my arm into a whip with a ball at the end. I didn't make the spikes on the ball because I was just going to detonate it anyways. I swung my modified whip passed the first Knight towards the second one.
*Thuck BOOM*
When the ball hit the Knights horn, I detonated it causing it to be pushed back and crash into another Knight. With two of them delayed and another Knight further behind, I only had to deal with 2 Knights for the moment. Pulling back my whip I started to create another ball on it while extending the mud at my feet to form a 3-meter-wide puddle. I had to un-condense my mud body in order to do this so my main mud body became quite soft and squishy.
The Knight it the lead stepped into my puddle and I immediately detonated it like a landmine. Two of its six legs were blown off its body by the wide explosion and it was knocked upside down. I wanted to deal the finishing blow but the other Knight got close.
"SCREEEEEEE!"
The Queen was probably screaming profanities at me seeing me easily deal with the Knights. But in fact, it was not easy at all. My mana had run low again and I started to get a migraine. It took all I could to maintain my concentration so that my ball whip didn't detonate near me. I swung it at the rushing Knight and knocked it away it with the detonation which conveniently took out some of the Bombers and Ambushers in the air.
My brain started to scream like the Queen as the migraine worsened. I looked around and picked up one of the Knight's blown off leg and started to dissolve it. I did this while moving towards the downed Knight which I then started to cover with mud to dissolve and hopefully Assimilate. The mud started to form a dome around the Knight but unfortunately the Knight that was lagging behind these two caught up and started climbing over my dome.
"Ugghh fine! Take this!"
With no other choice I detonated the part of the dome the Knight was on top of. This definitely killed the Knight that was inside and the one on top was blown away and crashed into the two Knights that crashed together earlier.
"Lucky!"
Taking this chance, I dissolved the remains of the dead Knight to recover mana. My migraine started to lessen but it was too late. I failed to notice that one of the Knights which I whipped earlier came up behind me. It used its horn to try and stab me right through the chest. I did my absolute best to dodge the sudden attack but I wasn't fast enough and the horn stabbed through my right shoulder.
"AAAHHHH!"
Feeling extreme pain from having my good arm almost ripped off at the shoulder, I screamed and tears formed at the sides of my eyes. I wasn't sure what was more painful, this or the mud monster dissolving my flesh. But with my mind on full throttle thanks to the Mind Enhancement skill, I took this chance to latch onto this Knight with my mud legs and arm. Holding onto the horn with my right arm, I un-condensed my mud body again and started to completely cover up the bug. It looked as if my lower body was buried in a mound with only my upper body sticking out. The mound started to be dyed red thanks to the blood gushing out of my injury. I quickly started to dissolve the Knight but it was struggling as much as it could while trying to break free.
"SCREEEEEEE!"
The Queen wasn't standing by. It pointed what I think was its butt toward me and to my disgust, it started to give birth on the spot.
*Thook Thook Thook*
Three objects popped out of its insect rectum and shot towards me. I once watched a video of a woman giving birth to a baby during my Sex Education class. This Queen reminded me of the video except instead of the baby coming out gently while the mom was grunting heavily, three babies were ejected from the mom's butt like a rocket being launched out of a rocket launcher.
The objects changed shape midair and revealed to be Cockroach Bombers.
"Shit! They really were rockets!"
It seemed that throughout the fight, this Queen had been constantly giving birth to cockroaches which explains why the Ambushers and Bombers never ran out no matter how many I killed. I wondered why she didn't spawn some Knights or Defenders but maybe due to their size, they took longer to make.
I braced myself for the impact with my maximum output mana barrier. The acid splash of the detonation wouldn't hurt me much but the impact will do some harm.
*Boom boom boom*
The three detonated when they touched me and my mound. The impacts hit me and almost knocked me out. It was a good thing the mana barrier and mud reduced the impact.
"SCREEEEEEEE!"
Seeing that I was still fine, the Queen rampaged but didn't shoot another volley of Bombers at me. Out of ammo? Well that works out in my favor because I'm just about done with this Knight. The three other Knights had finally got back up and started rushing towards me under the Queen's commands.
[Skill Harden acquired through Assimilation]
Finding out that Harden was a DEF raising active skill, I quickly dissolved the rest of the Knight and regenerated some mud with the mana I got from it. I reformed and condensed my body again. I activated Harden and saw my DEF rise by 5 levels.
"Let's see you try and pierce me again, you horny shit heads!"
With 20 percent of my mana left, I decided to go for a more conservative plan rather than just blowing up mud at the Knights. Two of them already had cracked defenses. I made them my targets. I changed my arm into a rapier and dashed to the enemies. There were considerably less Ambushers and Bombers as the constant detonations had taken out most of them. They left behind crystals and green balls which I absorbed into my body as I stepped on them.
I soon reached the first Knight. It tried to stab me with its horn but I evaded it. I found out that the horn stab move was pretty linear which made dodging quite easy. I just had to time it right. I moved to the side of the Knight and stabbed my rapier arm into one of the cracks in its carapace that I made earlier. Making the mud branch out and drill through its body, I then detonated it thus killing the Knight.
The second Knight had rushed to me to avenge its fallen brothers. It was the one that was relatively unscathed so I evaded it and headed for the other one. Repeating what I did to the first Knight I quickly killed this one too. With only one Knight left, I planned something special. We charged at each other but I jumped into the air just before we met. I moved myself to drop kick the Knight. The Knight tried to pierce through my legs but with Harden active, the horn merely scratched the surface. My feet hit the base of the horn, which was the Knight's face. Before I could fall to the ground I grabbed onto its horn with my right arm. My injury caused me to wince in pain at this action.
Gritting my teeth, I took my rapier arm and stabbed with all my power right into the small mouth of the Knight. I didn't branch out the mud this time but instead pumped a chunk of mud through the rapier into the Knight.
"Exuplooooosion!"
Mimicking a certain explosion loving girl from an anime I watched, I detonated the mud that was inside the Knight.
*Splat*
There was a muffled boom sound and a splatter of cockroach guts erupted from the Knight like a popped water balloon.
"*Exhale*.. haaaah. Now I can finally go for my initial target."
Seeing that the last of its boy toys had died at my hands, the Queen unfurled its wings and started to fly away.
"Oi! Where do you think you're going?!"
I looked around and found one of my golf rocks which I through earlier on the ground near me. I turned my left arm into a driver golf club, lined up the shot, and then yelled…
"FORE!"
*Swoosh Thud*
The rock flew through the air and hit one of the Queens wings which sent it falling down.
*Thud*
Making a dull noise as the body of the Queen hit the ground, it started squirming as it had fallen onto its back. I quickly jogged over and worked my mud manipulation to encase the Queen.
"Hehehe. You know, even though you were my first target, to actually take this long to kill shows how great you were as a support unit."
Seeing that their Queen was done for, the remaining cockroaches started to scatter. I impaled one of the fleeing Defenders without killing it with a mud spike that I extended so that I could try and get a skill from it with Assimilate.
"Now with all that I had to go through, let's what you got for me."
With an evil smile on my face, I activated Dissolve and Assimilate on the Cockroach Queen.
CHAPTER END.
Name: Ruby Sen
Age: 17
Race: Half-Human?
HP: 10 [23%] <+1>
MP: 15 (+5) [27%]
STR: 10 (+10) <+1>
DEF: 10 (+35) <+1>
INT: 17 (+10)
WILL: 15 (+10)
SPD: 8 (+5) <+1>
<
Assimilate
Mana Manipulation
Physical Resistance
Weaponized Limbs
Foresight
<
Dissolve
Morph
Body Enhancement (Active)
Mind Enhancement (Active)
Mana Release
Sensing
Analysis
Camouflage
Sculpting
Detonate
Harden (Active)
<
Tongue Enhancement