(Rudeus POV)
Although I do not know how much my maniac state will affect my seriousness, the desire to avenge our fallen friends was strong enough.
So, let's begin with changing into something more fitting for the incarnation of thunder!
First, claws on each finger and toe, followed by horns sticking out of the forehead. Next, the shawl made out of lightning.
NEXT, the special changes involving my hair. Thunder-shaped ponytail, and instead of spiky hair, let's set them up to go backward.
Aaaaand for the waistcoat part, let's put lightning patterns on it. It would have been cooler with a cape, but let's not go too far out of the box.
It would have taken much more time if I hadn't pre-activated my thought acceleration. Otherwise, these would have been a really~ awkward 10 seconds of silence from me.
"Hehehe~ Now, let's get this started."
My starting attack was throwing my giant shuriken and holding on to it with my extendable arm (I just found out it could do that), which constantly pumps mana into it to keep it charged.
The essentially lightning yo-yo was aimed at the levitating monster that fought Soldat and the others, bringing it back to a position where it could no longer look down on its opponents.
The other, which fought Eris and Jino, received a thrust attack from the three daggers I had watched between my fingers.
There were some unexpected difficulties with the giant wheel of electricity and makeshift speer heading towards them.
For instance, the speaker's target just took in my attack. It was some sort of mass mix of various unorganized insect parts formed into what should have been a humanoid shape, standing around two and a half meters tall.
What I think was his abdomen-mouth filled with mandibles just swallowed my left arm and was crunching on it. Good thing it's a prosthetic.
And about the shuriken's target, it missed it. No, I don't have bad aim! I'm not a stormtrooper! That thing used the force—I mean, Gravity Magic—to redirect its trajectory.
To put it simply, the monster was a human-sized fairy. She had flawless porcelain white skin, transparent butterfly wings, white sparkling long hair, pointy ears, eyes like a black sparkling pearl, and a body of slender beauty. Her wings weren't moving at all. She must be using her Gravity Magicto to make her float this whole time.
She was like an unfinished life-sized figurine with no clothes but missing nipples and genitals. Is that still considered indecent exposure? I mean, I wouldn't mind accidentally getting a quick squeeze on her, but Sara and Eris are here, and I don't want to pull off a Paul.
Anyway, let's kick their asses!
Since I can't get through the mixed insect, let's go after Missis All Sparkly.
First, I used a close-range [Electric] to paralyze the messed-up insect and then pushed my makeshift spear upwards, with no blood splattering at all.
With my arm now free, I tensed my electrified muscles, leaped off, and aimed my claws at the butterfly, intending to behead her as she levitated above the ground.
That is, until she pulled off... a freaking CHEAT!
Despite my superior speed, I did not even come close to contact. She isn't just a Gravity Magic user but a Gravity Magic Master!
What diverted my attack was a force field that redirected me to be thrown behind her upside down.
How did she even do... oops. Silly me. I forgot to use my Demon Eyes. Hopefully, they will work just fine while I'm like this.
The right eye turned into the Foresight Eye, and the left eye turned into the Magic Eye. The latter one was used to examine it for weaknesses or loopholes. And lucky me, they indeed work.
But before it came to any analysis, my Foresight Eye saw that upon landing, the mixed insect would send out a whip attack at me from the right behind two of those stag beetles that killed Patris.
It didn't have that before, so my instant conclusion was: Biokinises, the ability to change its body mass at will. Cool, but hella creepy and somewhat explains its messep-up apperance.
To counter it, I sent out my right arm to grab my giant shuriken, charging it and decimating the flying insects and the whip, leaving nothing behind.
Upon landing safely, another quick thought occurred, turning me slightly angry.
"Hey, wait a minute!" I shouted with lightning bursting out of me. "You two are the bastards who took off my hands!"
Ghislaine didn't mention something about elite insects being there, so I guess the queen still had a batch of them in the oven. But talk about early bloomers. These things sure grow fast as hell.
It doesn't seem like they are bothered by it. The morphing insect turned its right arm into a giant pincer before charging at me for close combat. Meanwhile, the sassy fairy looked bored to the side, brushing its hair.
Instead of talking to monsters who probably don't understand me, I went and delivered a powerfully charged palm strike to the mixed insect's chest to paralyze it first. It recovered fairly quickly before, but this should keep it in check for a few seconds at most.
As the Magician amongst them, the fairy must be dealt with first to avoid interruptions. Another big 'surprise' is bound to happen, and killing her before is better.
With the same momentum as my dash, I side-stepped a lot to make her lose track of me as I came closer for another attack.
In the next second, my Foresight Eye saw that I would get crushed while my Magic Eye saw the mana where it would happen being manipulated to go downward.
Redirecting my momentum with Gravity Magic, I avoided going into that trap and getting crushed by what I could tell was a Gravity Spell set up by the fairy.
Lesser insects were coming at me, and so I evaded them. As soon as they got into the area of the Gravity Spell, the area expanded into a four-meter radius pillar before crushing their bodies with instant pressure.
And look at this. The fairy is just yawning instead of getting upset that her trap failed.
Her behavior may indicate that she is not as vigilant about her defense as she should be, giving me an idea.
After reforming my left gauntlet a bit, I approached her, avoiding her gravity traps using my Magic Eye and occasionally throwing the lesser insects into the trap instead.
The weird thing was that they set off regardless, which means they have automatic triggering. As I said already, Gravity Master.
Once I came close enough, I attempted another claw attack. As expected, the force field redirected my gravity to be thrown away. This time, however, I found out its weakness.
With my Magic Eye, I saw that she could only protect one side at a time like an invisible levitating shield mana. This is exactly the kind of discovery I was hoping for.
While I was still floating over the ground, I had already aimed my left arm at her back, ready to fire my on-the-spur invented attack.
A gauntlet crossbow with a barrel at the end, loaded with a dagger, ready for fire.
I've been toying with the idea for a while, but it didn't pan out, given my lack of archery skills. That is, until I had the opportunity to implement the idea in this particular form.
The fairy had already repositioned her shield against me, but this certain attack was sure to penetrate her defense.
With every enhancement at my disposal, the arrow went off, cutting through the shield and stabbing right into her back. The shield had already taken effect, but the arrow only slowed down a bit because of the velocity.
Still, it sure gave her a startle that her defense had been broken. But what's about to come next will make her regret looking down on me. Because a string of my mana is attached to that dagger. And you know what that means?
"Taste this!"
Sending through a powerful electrical current, I shocked her with what was essentially a magical version of a Taser, the electrocution making her body twitch without the opportunity to scream. Despite all of that, she still levitated through what I can only tell was arrogance at its finest.
Before this, I figured that because of its size, my giant shuriken couldn't cut through her shield. But perhaps a smaller object with pinpoint momentum could.
I also predicted it might redirect my [Electric] to shoot at the people around me, and we don't want that to happen, do we?
Once back on the ground, I secured leverage by clawing the ground with my left foot and then pulled back the dagger wedged in her back through the mana string, pulling back my left arm and simultaneously swinging my charged-up right fist, punching her square in the face, crushing her skull into the earth.
Like a thunderstrike, debris flew all over, the electricity vibrating the air around the impact point.
I may call this move [A smite from Heaven], but nah, that would make me cringe too much once I return to normal.
Anyway, two down, one more (plus some small fries) to go.
The morphing insect recovered and is ready to launch another attack, this time with multi-whips adorned with pincer barbs.
Jokes on him; I'm not new to this shit! In fact, he is slower and less coordinated than the Sea Dragon.
The first two whips were coming from the left, which was mere feints for the faster one coming from the right, hiding behind two other whips, which I saw with my Foresight Eye.
Dashing forward, as soon as the ones from the right came close, I manipulated my gravity to allow me to run on a stance lower than my waist height, dodging the faster whip from the right that smacked into the left ones. Once the two on my right came, I got my left hand on the ground and swung my right foot's claws upward, cutting them apart.
Swinging my leg back down, I used the momentum to dash away even faster, this time giving the morphing insect the same medicine as its sister. A devastating punch!
But as I came through its body after obliterating its head, The rest of the whips were already coming at me.
As an inspiration to earlier, I got both hands on the ground and spun myself with my feet while charging with ambient mana, kicking and destroying the whips and the body behind me. I think the move I just did was called Windmill.
"Man, that was fun. Couldn't have done it in my previ... whoah."
I was standing in the center where I made the move. I knew I was because my surroundings were spinning for a few seconds afterward; rubble dust and insects caught in it.
Did I just cause a Magic Breakdance Cyclone? Because if so, then sign me up for lessons! Oh, wait. This is a medieval world. Only Nanahoshi knows what that is.
I could switch off my technique now, but my victory feeling against these elites wouldn't let me. So I left it active and went to help the others.
It went fairly easy. Some of them only needed a single punch to get killed, but others had a tougher exterior that needed the use of my daggers.
Until the daggers broke from being made with metal that wasn't mixed with the black stones. That damn cheapskate blacksmith.
Luckily, Sara was leaving behind some of her arrowheads around. I would hold them by keeping them between my fingers, three on each hand. They stacked up to blue knife claws.
I continued jumping between fights around the school grounds, allowing some to get a breather or leave the area.
The lesser insects were concentrated on me, probably because I'd killed their upper leaders.
But when I was about to kill the next one, my Foresight Eye picked up on an image of a burly fist about to hit me from the left.
I sped up my thought acceleration and gained leverage on the back of the fist through my left hand, rotating my body to kick the monster in the face.
It threw the thing back, but it didn't explode its head. It must have a very tough exterior if it took in one of my kicks.
As I turned my head to see what it was, I was met with an unpleasant surprise.
It was the muscle insect.
I thought I crushed that thing to avenge Connor and Ingolt. Why is it back on its weirdly human-like feet already?
Catching it from behind was the morphing insect was already back together—or at least I think it was. Seriously, who made this thing? It looks like a kindergartener's messed-up drawing of a super-insect come to life.
And it gets even more worse.
Getting herself out of her crashing spot was an angered fairy insect. While it was regenerating, its face resembled that of an angered oni more than a bored beauty.
Now all three elite insects are back on their feet as if nothing happened. All that could only mean one thing.
"Ah fuck. They're immortal like their mommy."
///