[MA] 74. Scout (Patreon)

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The Scout was a little slower than Shen. He was upset at realizing the creature used no technique. It sprinted at him, then used its pointy fingers to try to cut him open.

Shen deflected with his spear. The Sharp Qi on the spearhead's edge easily cut the thing's fingers off, and it leaped back. The chopped-off fingers turned into white smoke like Void Spawn did when killed.

The creature didn't move its head at all; it was kept straight, following the body's movement. He wondered if it even needed the head. Void Spawn were made of ever-moving liquid, but not a single extra drop fell from its hand when he cut its fingers. Shen noticed the Scout was made of the same substance on the inside.

The fingers regrew after a few dozen seconds, and it rushed at Shen again.

It was faster this time but still slightly slower than him. Shen deflected its attack again, but its fingers weren't cut off. The spearhead penetrated only halfway through. The liquid felt like solid flesh to his spear, except harder than any he had ever cut. The Scout followed with another swing, this time using its other hand.

Shen dodged, Backstepped, then used extra strength to cut its two arms at the shoulder. Combat and Sharpness backed his swing, and the arms were forcibly separated from the body, turning into smoke too.

The creature got away again. When its arms regrew, they were two thin straight blades made of liquid. It seemed no matter how much it regrew, the extra fluid just materialized. It didn't have to take from elsewhere on its body.

It rushed at Shen again, and this time, it was faster than him.

Considerably so.

Even with his rank and agility stats, Shen almost lost track of his foe. The Scout reached him and tried to chop him into three with a simultaneous horizontal swing of both blade-like arms. Despite Shen's lower speed, his footwork allowed him to step to the side to avoid one swing and deflect the other. When his spearhead met the arm, instead of feeling like flesh, it felt like hitting solid metal. He caused no damage to the creature at all.

The Void Spawn was not only growing stronger but also learning. It had taken his fleshly form, to begin with, but now it copied the material his spearhead was made of. It had also improved its form to better suit its killing purposes.

And it evolved fast.

Strike after strike, it tried to hit Shen, failing every time but becoming slightly quicker. Shen dodged and deflected as best as he could. His qi-filled body and stats were just enough to fight it to a standstill. He reckoned he could kill it any time he wanted by using his techniques but wanted to understand it better. The Void was humanity's ultimate enemy, after all.

Shen didn't know if it could improve without getting damaged—

It could.

Its arms suddenly just exploded. They turned into shrapnel that came at him at a fast speed. He tried to dodge using his Footwork to the utmost, but it still wasn't enough to entirely avoid it.

Tiny bits of the Void that felt like metal shredded the left side of his chest and belly.

He used qi to counter the invading pieces, hoping his soul would help with that too, but the Void was nothing like magic or qi. It didn't care about his will at all. His qi could also defend himself against purely physical attacks, but the Void bits were more. They cut through flesh and qi alike with astounding efficacy, and there was no battle of will at all. It felt like pushing his will against a door; it did nothing.

It became evident that only Concepts could affect the Void.

The bits of Void pierced his flesh. The thoughts in his mind suddenly became a lot louder. But that wasn't the worst of it.

Shen felt when his soul was pierced.

| WARNING! HEALTH, STAMINA, AND MANA CANNOT REGENERATE WHILE YOUR SOUL IS HOSTING THE VOID!

Each bit of the shrapnel inside his body started cutting through his very essence. They cut his soul with ease that magic and qi could only envy, and there was nothing he could do. Only at the Ethereal Harmonizing realm would he be able to push qi into his soul; until then, it was simply impossible.

So he got away from the creature the best he could and did his best to fight the bits on his body in the hopes they would start hurting his soul. The Scout didn't follow; it was regenerating its arms.

The more Concept-infused qi Shen pushed against the Void parts, the less they resisted. Suddenly, one of the bits turned into smoke.

He realized that there was a threshold of "Void power" in each piece that was spent by throwing Concepts against it. A few seconds later, all pieces had turned into smoke. He didn't have to deal with the smoke at all; like in the air, it quickly dissipated into nothingness, simply ceasing to exist at all.

The pain in his soul disappeared too, and his health started regenerating. By now, the Scout had also recovered its arms. It came at Shen.

And it was much faster than him.

Shen was already using Boundless Qi in his body. That wouldn't be enough, so he also pushed Combat Qi throughout it. Both aspects of qi blended perfectly together, for they came from the same Path. Shen pushed that amalgamation into his spear, which was already affected by Sharp Qi.

In the learning ability class, the wisp teacher had said he would be able to use three Concepts if he got the upgrade. She hadn't been lying.

But she had been underplaying it.

As the Void Scout approached, Shen also pushed Zephyr Qi outside his body and spear, surrounding both. It would provide extra defense and push the air around him away for additional speed.

The creature reached him only an instant after he was ready. Its blade arms now had joints like elbows, making them more maneuverable. Shen deflected the first swing and was surprised to see the Scout thrusting against him with the other arm. If the shrapnel hadn't been proof enough, this made it evident it wasn't learning just from him.

He twisted his body to the side, dodging it, and kept rotating to swing his spear at its head. It lowered its body to dodge—the first time it showed something akin to a technique—and thrust both arms against him.

Shen Backstepped. With Boundlessness and Zephyr acting together, he became but a blur. Still, the Scout almost followed his movement. Fortunately, it was only halfway on turning its body when his spearhead met its neck.

He expected either the resistance of solid flesh or metal, which the creature had previously shown, but he found neither. There was no resistance at all. The chopped-off head turned into smoke, but the lack of a head didn't seem to affect it at all.

The Scout finished turning to face Shen, then its arms exploded.

Shen was once again besieged by shrapnel, but he had been expecting it this time. He moved to dodge and rotated his spear like a fan. His Zephyr Qi helped move most bits away, both on his spear and body. He was hit again, but by less than ten percent as many bits as the last time.

He didn't disengage his time but swung his spear against the Scout while willing his Concept-infused qi to combat the Void parts inside him. It was the creature that scurried away, certainly intending on recovering its arms. Shen followed, using his techniques, qi, and Concepts to prevent its escape. They were just enough.

The pain in his soul was bad but couldn't stop him. The whispers of the Void were distracting, but he manned through them.

In the end, Shen might be slower, but he was the superior fighter here in everything else, plain and simple.

He used a flurry of thrusts. Half of them struck the Scout. It felt like hitting hard flesh this time.

The being started regenerating, and Shen kept attacking. The issue was that it was getting ever so slightly faster with each passing moment. Shen could tell he wouldn't be able to follow it for much longer.

So he pushed his speed to the extreme and swung with all his might... at its legs.

His spearhead cut through its knee without resistance. He had expected something similar after beheading it. The creature prioritized some parts but ignored those it didn't consider necessary. Fortunately, it was relatively dumb.

Without a leg, it couldn't run from him anymore. Shen cut both legs at waist height. Only a white liquid mass that had once been the upper body remained. Everything was regenerating but getting attacked interfered with it. It was too slow.

He thrust and cut and swung for almost a dozen seconds. He had started wondering about when it would die... when it did.

He reckoned that it had some threshold of Void power like the shrapnel. Once it was reached, the Scout just turned into white smoke and disappeared.

He had won.

| Void Scout (E ⁓ D) | 402,974 → 403,974 AP

A thousand AP wasn't bad, but Shen barely paid attention to it. Instead, he was mentally slapping himself.

The system had told him to kill Void Spawn as quickly as possible. Instead, he had decided to take the opportunity to train because he wanted to check his new power. If he had waited for a few extra moves, or if the creature had improved faster, he would be out of the tutorial now.

Arrogance, his old nemesis, had struck again.

He wasn't immediately teleported to the next stage, so he guessed he would have to wait for the others to finish with their Void Spawn. So he sat down to meditate.

While he had the time, he would review the fight, theorize improvements...

...and repeat to himself to stop acting like an idiot.

= - = - =

Alicia didn't think twice before throwing all the fireballs she could, one after the other, without stopping, at the Void Scout that appeared. She didn't even waste time Inspecting it; she just rushed to kill it.

She wanted to advance, and she wouldn't take any chances.

To her surprise, it died without ever moving from its place of arrival.

| Void Scout (E ⁓ D) | 243 → 1,243 AP

She wasn't impressed.

If that was the best the Void could do, she could protect Earth by her damn self.

= - = - =

Evelyn pulled the Scout down, making it much slower. Elam kept getting behind it and stabbing it with his daggers. Sandra stood in between it and the rest of the team, hacking and slashing her sword and using her shield to protect herself.

Lucius, the other who had been an E-rank when they arrived, used his ice mana to make the creature even slower. Linda used lightning. Kristen raised the very ground the Scout was standing upon to lock its legs.

In the end, they had gotten six E-ranks. Not bad, but not great either. Evelyn did notice the other four were all close-ranged fighters. Of the six E-ranks in the team, only two were such; the other four were mages. But even the two close-range E-ranks used mana to improve their attacks, while the four still at F-rank seemed to insist there was some hidden secret behind using stamina exclusively.

She wondered whether mana was better for ranking up or if it was just a coincidence.

The Scout died quickly enough.

| Void Scout (E ⁓ D) | 23,739 → 23,987 AP

If D-ranks gave 1,000 AP as she expected, it was pretty good to get around 250. That was a quarter just for slowing the creature down.

Or maybe not just slowing it down. If she understood it correctly, Concepts were anathema to the Void, and her Concept of Gravity had been affecting the entire creature all the time.

Anyway, she joined the commemorative cheering and smiled in relief. It hadn't been a mistake to come with a group rather than alone, after all.

They could do it.

[A/N: An entire stage in two and a half chapters. The tutorial's conclusion gets closer everyday.]

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