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 an activation 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 appearing 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. 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 see myself floating in the air, feet pointing towards the ceiling.
"Did you just inverse the gravity in 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 into the flower, 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?
I tell [FMC] to create a dome around me, and a second later, my view is covered by rocks and dust. 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, the 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 this 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.