The Spider screeched at the White Fenrir that had shrunk in size.
The webs in the surroundings began to move.
Some combined to form spikes, while others were moved like snakes that wanted to entangle Finn.
The spider was going all out!
Finn had lost strength, but he was now agile. He scurried around as he thought of how to end this on time.
If not for the Mana Veil stopping the webs from sticking to his body, he would have probably died. And Finn was not ready to figure out how things would fare if his material body was destroyed.
He lacked any direct attack skills. For this battle, his hopes were water magic and earth magic, but they were even harder in battle.
Finn could only manipulate a particular amount of quality while using them. For water, he could only create and use 8-10 balls at once, while for earth, he could only manipulate materials that already existed, but he still needed peak concentration for that.
Now that he couldn't get close to the spider, Finn needed to be diverse in his usage of everything he had.
As he ran around, Finn turned towards the direction of the spider that was now hanging from a tree.
He formed water balls and merged them, launching them as larger water pistols.
The spider jumped from one tree to another, causing the webs that were chasing Finn to slow down a bit.
Finn took this opportunity to morph his body. It was a body he once had… A human body!
While flesh squirmed on the surface, bone and organs of a White Fenrir moved within, together, they all formed a makeshift human body.
Finn took on the shape of a human that was 2 meters tall, but his body's flesh was like a slime. He lacked an eyes, nose, ear and a mouth, and the body surface was blue in color.
At the moment, this was the best Finn could do when morphing to a human.
Finn's hand already had a ring on it.
Even while turning to a human, Finn didn't stop moving. Now that he was done, he created more water balls that he launched at the spider.
The spider moved once more, giving Finn the opportunity to bring out and wear the black and red clawed gauntlet. The effects of these gauntlets will change the tide of this battle!
Now that he was ready, Finn began jumping from one position to another using the trees as footholds, going further up, towards the spider while he dodged the webs that didn't relent in chasing him.
As he jumped mid air, Finn launched ten claw slash attacks directly from his hand at the hanging spider. This was an effect of the gauntlets!
As the spider swung to change position, Finn created footholds in the air using earth magic. With mana concentrated in his leg muscles, he instantly covered a huge distance and closed in on the spider creature.
Finn concentrated on creating just two claw slashes, each on one hand. As he did, he was moving mid air, using the trees or stones created with magic as footholds.
~SWOOSH~
Two white arcs of energy left Finn's hand as he swung them.
The first one precisely hit the web that hung the spider, and before the new web the spider launched could connect to another tree, it was cut by another slash.
While he did this, Finn had covered more distance, now within a two meters away from the spider.
The spider avoided direct confrontation in its current state. It used the webs it was manipulating to pull itself away from Finn, towards the ground.
The moment it was about to reach the ground, the Earth shot up like a pillar aiming for it.
The spider manipulated half its webs using them to cut the earth pillar into smaller pieces of rock, creating a safe spot to land.
The moment it landed, it looked up at the slime-like human that was diving down towards it. Beside this human, was a huge ice that took the shape of a pointy cone.
This cone was aimed at the spider, moving at a rapid speed, giving it no room to breathe.
The spider created an even bigger shield from the web which was meant to do nothing but block this attack.
The ice cone made contact with the web shield and slowed down, but that was when Finn fell on top of the other side of the cone increasing the speed of its descent.
The spider retreated before the cone could descend. It was going to run away as it had given up on trying to win.
It couldn't manipulate thread again, and its web generation had slowed because of it was low on mana.
~RUMBLE!~
The ice cone had finally destroyed the web shield, making contact with the ground and kicking up dust.
This was going to be the spider's opportunity as it prepared to launch a web to get itself out of here.
Before it could exit the area though, a rain of claw slashes befell its body.
In the instant it turned its back, it was reaped of its life.
Finn was standing in the area with densely packed webs, ice shards and earth debris.
He stood silently, his head facing up with the battle replaying in his mind.
'Don't underestimate anyone. Be more diverse with everything you have. Improve your mana usage abilities. Get stronger.' Finn thought, feeling that the battle shouldn't have been this hard.
He only won this because he had more mana.
On Finn's featureless face, a mouth contorted to form a smile, showing rows of sharp teeth. Although it was still hard, he had killed the bastard that killed him.
He would have loved to kill the owl too, but Finn loved the idea of leaving this forest more.
'Now, let's test my Rune Gift and get out of here. I'm tired of seeing trees.'
This was the only thing he still had to do in this forest.
As he concentrated on his Rune Gift within him, Finn felt like he knew what to do.
He looked at the surroundings, precisely at the blue ethereal beings that were walking around aimlessly.
Finn walked to one of them and looked at it for a bit. He stretched his armed palm at the being in front of him, causing the weird being to be pulled into his body.
[Gift skill "Echo Absorption" has been acquired.]
Hearing this word, Finn muttered, "So this is how my abilities work."