Chapter 88 - Bloody Art

"Huh?" Cleo froze as soon as she passed the barrier. 

It wasn't a part of the plan. 

'What's wro...' Tom thought, stepping through the barrier as well. Cleo wouldn't make a mistake like that. Either something already attacked her, or something bad happened. "Cleo?" Tom whispered as soon as he passed the invisible wall sealing the boss room away from the floor's corridor. 

"Hey, Tom," Cleo turned her head away. Even though her avatar had no face at all, Tom could imagine what kind of face she wore. "Did you ever happen upon a boss marked as "Ranked type?" the girl asked. Her avatar's body turned completely still. 

And then Tom felt it. 

He didn't have any kind of system that would tell him that this boss was any special. As soon as he made his first step inside the room, a powerful aura shook his insides. 

'This is nothing like before,' Tom thought. He was confident in his power, yet he turned still. 

This thick, suppressing aura overwhelmed him. It felt as if he took a dip in the lake. Against the water that surrounded him, he could spit all he wanted, yet it would never make a difference. 

The spider reacted instantly. Claudia didn't have the time to enter the room yet when it lunged towards the friends. 

'Guard,' a thought exploded in Tom's mind. It didn't come from his mind, but more like he was finally able to notice it. Not because of his own skill but from the mere influence of the aura overwhelming him. 

'So that's how it works,' Tom thought passively, seeing the spider's leg rushing towards his throat. 

His hands moved on their own. 

'Haste,' once again, his body appeared to have a will on its own. By invoking the spell, the mana within Tom's flesh surged forward. It didn't push his hands in a different direction. It bent the space with its might. Without moving an inch, Tom set his hand in a perfect counter. 

'Come,' his mind awoke to his power. With the momentum from his mana, he brought his spear up and supported it with his arm. 

Once the attack came, Tom gently pushed it away, once again bending the space to allow for the smooth transition of the energy. 

That's where the spell would lift off. Tom successfully repelled the attack he otherwise couldn't. 

Yet, his momentum carried on. Without as much as a single thought, Tom rushed forward. 'So you can use it in that way,' he suddenly realized. 

Or rather, he felt it. 

The sensation of his very own mana resonating with the structure of his guard spell etched itself into his brain. 

'Well, let's try to gamble on this,' Tom thought, making the decision in an instant. 

He rushed forward before either of the girls could react to the attack. Instead of throwing his spear towards the monster directly, he threw it to the side...

And started running in the opposite direction. At the same time, he closed on the spider from the left while his spear flew to the right. 

For but an instant, the spider's attention moved away. The overwhelming presence that shocked him at the entrance disappeared.

'So that's what it was.' Tom's eyes flashed. 

The pressure returned all at once. Its weight slowed Tom down, grinding his dash nearly to a halt. 

'And now that you forgot about the spear,' Tom thought. The spider attacked. This time, it spat out a thick blob of acid. 

Tom didn't have time for a single thought. His body had to react all on its own. So just like before, he pushed his mana in the same way that he felt it moving before. 

But instead of using this ability in short bursts like before, he kept the magical pressure on. 

The attack came... And went. In the distance, Cleo came to her senses, rushing forward. 

Oh, how incredibly slow. In the world of movement between Tom and the spider, she looked like a snail still learning how to move. 

Claudia was only coming to her senses. 

'Figures,' Tom thought, sliding through the space. He didn't move at all. The distances between places that should be fixed now turned out to be fluid. 

Tom continued to push his mana in the same way... When a sudden wave of exhaustion struck him down. It forced him to drop the act, returning to the world of normal physic.

But it didn't matter. 'I got you,' Tom thought, raising his spear towards the spider's belly. 

Tom's body was in tatters. The mere moment when he dropped the use of the mana, its rebound came back like a shockwave. His skin was all covered in small cuts, each oozing first droplets of blood. 

But his spear was stuck inside the spider. Right as his abilities kicked in. 

Near the doors, Claudia finally started to move. Cleo reached the midpoint between the doors and the place where the fight took place. 

'Spear combinator,' a name of one of his skills flashed through Tom's consciousness. And all at once, his combo-related skills awoken. 

The bloody spear weakened the spider's body, healing Tom in return. Next, Origin mage turned the monster's insides into a mess, devolving them into basic tissue and a magical mess. Doing so also greatly boosted the rate of absorption. 

And then, right in this ticking mess of dense spider's mana, Tom unloaded all the absorbed energy through his energymancer skill.

Tom's power only served as an ignition point. Sparked in the mess of raging mana, it instantly consumed the entirety of the spider. The explosion that ensued next warped a huge area around the spider.

It came off right above Tom's head. 

'That was unexp...' Tom thought when the crushing avalanche of devastating magic shrouded his already weakened body. 

"Ugh," the pressure was insane. A thousand needles of burning pain penetrated every inch of Tom's body. In a flash, he was burning alive in the raging storm of the mana. 

'I n-need to...' For a mere moment, Tom's will vanished. Facing such an overwhelming strenght, all his efforts would be simply meaningless. 'HOLD!' 

Right as he was about to truly vanish along with his dying body, Tom's will ignited. 

"Bloody spear!"