Flat-Brim Samurai Chapter 18
Whoosh… The wind rushed over the plane, Cias breathed out hard and ran through the trees, got caught into a pack of coyotes which got dispatched in about 5 seconds. He whipped out his spear and sliced through them quickly with one slash for each one. Swoosh swoosh swish swish swoosh, not even having to use his ki, his physical strength destroyed his opponents. All of their heads were cut off, in order for him to eat them. That was basically his warm up for the morning as he continued to run without a thought after packaging up the meat. After his run he cooked up some of the meat and then ate it. After a short 30 minute break, he was back to his training.
He refined his ki control and manipulated it throughout the air kind of like swishing the water of a river in a spiral. He condensed it over and over again, to both big and small volumes. Effectively working out his soul which would strengthen his ki reserves kind of like doing a hold in calisthenics and the top and bottom of a pull up. Then he decided to train his durability by chucking his ki at himself. He then did some climbing and pull up variations including muscle ups. Pushups, squat variations, core workouts, the whole gauntlet of calisthenics workouts. Muscles tearing and repairing even stronger after every so and so of reps. In the middle of one of his sets he saw something, a horrifying bug that somehow managed to enlarge itself through a Ki mutation… a giant praying mantis.
He faced the praying mantis, launched at him and hit a front punch with no ki. Nothing happened (It didn't move) and Cias said ,"Oh, crap" and got slammed right into the ground by the mantis's claw. Right then he realized he grossly underestimated his opponent. He just attacked instead of analyzing his opponent because he "felt good" and "strong". The pain of the strike across his chest and abs hurt more than he had ever felt before. The mantis immediately followed up with a strike downward towards Cias and he rolled over… The thing about bugs is that they have insane relative strength and becoming giant doesn't help their opponents at all. Adding to that, Mantises usually already have insane fighting IQ and capabilities so fighting them was like fighting a seasoned fighter. If this bug had just turned into a giant mantis it wouldn't be as much of a problem but this one was about to evolve into a humanoid mantis.
After that, Cias reinforced his body, dodged the next blow, got up and chucked an uppercut to the abdomen of the mantis with all of his might. But still it only budged him maybe an inch. ,"What the hell is this thing made of!!!" Cias screamed out and then got pelted by a valley of blows. BAM, Cias's ribs were broken CRACK, his jaw was fractured, BOOM, His quads tore. Feeling immense pain, he began regenerating as fast as he could but it wasn't fast enough to fully recover. He was grabbed by his leg and slammed over and over, destroying Cias's body further.
After getting thrown into a tree, barely surviving he got up once more. Cias used all of the elements and special moves he'd unlocked after taking out his spear. It turned out that using his Art: Spear Bolt imbued with Art: Fire created an ultra powerful heatwave firebolt that actually damaged the Mantis enough so that he could escape. Abandoning his pride, he ran away from the foe that had far outmatched him, nearly broken beyond repair. He was disappointed in himself to the highest of degrees and yet he felt like he had made the right call. ,"I'll get you one day" he told himself, finally getting home to rest. He slouched onto his bed and tried to sleep, he was angry because most of the time, he was the one winning but this was his first official loss in real combat. He was too embarrassed and ashamed to even look at himself. And with that, he was done but not out, for as long as Cias held this emotion of regret for not training harder he filled himself with a determination to win, and to beat his opponent, to beat Apollo and become the best. ,"Soon, you damn bug… you'll be the one running away." Cias said with a toothy grin on his face, ready to face his newest opposition in time.