Chapter 376 -376 – Taming Trails – 5
The forest around them seemed to hold its breath, ancient trees bearing witness to another conflict in their endless cycle of growth and death.
The abyssal agent hadn’t expected his opponents to launch themselves directly at him. Most enemies would try to flee first, especially when facing someone with a clearly superior mana signature in rank and power.
But this suited him… he had already spent considerable energy navigating the forest’s treacherous terrain, and a prolonged chase through the hole-filled ground would have only further exhausted his reserves.
Did they know they were slower and had decided that escape was futile? Or was this some type of desperate strategy born of cornered desperation?
It didn’t matter. The result would be the same.
He stood tall, planting his feet while his transformation began. The chitinous plates of the Abyssal Scorpion emerged first, covering him in black segments that gleamed with purple veins. The organic armor rippled as it formed, creating a living carapace that pulsed with dark energy.
But of course, that wasn’t everything, the advantage of not being square-minded like the boring inhabitants of Yano.
Over these, his Rock Spirit’s plates manifested, adding layers of metallic gray stone that didn’t just overlap but integrated perfectly with the biological armor. It wasn’t one ability over another; it was an enhanced body that received both advantages.
The fusion created something beyond the sum of its parts… a harmonious merger of organic flexibility and mineral durability.
And Yino’s classic transformation went beyond simple protection.
His body began changing shape, growing in mass and height. His frame expanded from that of an average man to something approaching a living siege engine. His arms extended disproportionately, gaining almost 50% extra reach that would give him significant advantage in close combat.
The joints readjusted to accommodate the new configuration, while his hands transformed into enormous hybrid pincers of stone and chitin.
By the time the transformation finished, he had gone from being an average man to a war machine two and a half meters tall, with arms that extended as far as his legs.
‘Evolution accelerated and directed toward a single purpose: destruction.’
Ren and Lin separated, attacking from opposite flanks. It was a basic but effective tactic against individual opponents, designed to split attention and create exploitable openings.
The agent chose Lin as his primary target. She was clearly the greater threat; he needed to ask the child some questions, and his experience dictated eliminating the most dangerous enemies first whenever possible.
The boy’s strange energy signature made him an unknown quantity, but the woman radiated the confidence of a seasoned fighter. Ignoring her was no doubt a bad idea.
He lunged forward with surprising speed for someone of his transformed size, his right arm extending toward Lin in a devastating blow with his stone pincer. The reach of his extended arms would allow him to connect long before she could respond—or so he calculated.
But Lin had been observing his transformation with a critical eye.
At the last second before impact, she dropped into a crouched position, allowing the blow to pass over her head by millimeters. Simultaneously, she switched the manifestation of her panther lizard on her legs to that of her crane, suddenly extending her lower reach just enough to create an unexpected angle of attack.
The maneuver was perfect.
The agent had calculated his safe distance based on the slightly shorter legs he’d observed when the panther lizard wrapped around them. He didn’t expect them to suddenly extend, much less that she was a double…
Her mana signature read as at most a Silver 3.
A new double from Yano here… guarding that kid alone… when one or both of her beasts were still Bronze level?
Lin’s kick connected directly with his lateral knee, a point that even in his transformed state remained a relatively vulnerable joint. The force of impact, with 240% enhancement and perfect technique, was considerable.
But it wasn’t enough to hurt him.
The agent’s thick dual armor absorbed the impact as if it were a child’s blow. The defensive multipliers from his dual transformation created protection that bordered on the absolute against this level of attack.
Still, the agent staggered from the force of the blow, since he had yet to recover his balance… but he would recover instantly since there was no way they could generate real damage.
“Clever,” he growled, his voice distorted by the transformation into something barely recognizable as human, “but insufficient.”
At that precise moment, Ren attacked silently from behind the abyssal agent. Isaac’s dagger gleamed in his hand, the weapon that had cost three times the Silver 1 price to elevate it to Silver 3. In theory, it should be sufficient to pierce any armor of its rank and even a bit higher thanks to the huge multiplicative hardness of concentrated mana.
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