Chapter 89: Pursuit

The mantis slammed into the outside wall of the corner, its enormous claws sliding against the dull black material of the cube with a loud screech, sending a shower of orange sparks into the corridor.

Kothar looked back, and seeing how quickly the mantis scrambled to its feet, he immediately started firing off his Bolt Barrage. 

The bolts of lightning arced through the air, illuminating the dim corridor, the pale blue of Kothar's Bolts revealed the mantis clearly. It was covered in a jointed carapace that was a shiny black color, with sharp blades on the inside of its legs and jagged serrated edges on its scythe like claws. 

As the first bolt slammed into the mantis' chest, it let out an unearthly screech and so jarring that Kothar wanted to cover his ears, except his hands were occupied with trying to fry the massive creature with as much electricity as possible.

The screeches continued to echo out from the mantis, and a disgusting burnt hair smell filled the corridor. The smoke from the successive bolts cleared, and Kothar saw that while the body of the creature was smoking and its head twitched erratically, it nonetheless continued to stalk forward, the serrated mandibles on its face clicking ominously.

Kothar mumbled a string of curses under his breath, and sprinted away from the rapidly pursuing mantis, which managed to keep up even with Kothar's lightning enhanced speed.

[I knew we couldn't trust that g****** Pebble, look at its neck!] Silane yelled, while she also analyzed the 3D map she had created to find the best possible escape route.

[It could always just be chance, who knows how many Freemen Krieg hired to hunt me down.] Kothar looked back at the mantis, the black Pebble swinging from its neck by a knotted vine, he swore under his breath again, if this was the caliber of Freemen after him, he would have to be careful not to run into more than one at a time.

Nearing a junction in the corridors that wound through the cube, Kothar charged up a pair of portals. He had yet to try dual casting in battle, but along with Silane's high speed calculations it came easily to him. 

[Portal around the corner at the junction up ahead, it'll take the mantis a long time to catch up, and hopefully it can't track us through the walls.] Silane planted a blinked red target in Kothar's vision, with her ever helpful capability to overlay things directly over Kothar's vision.

[Perfect. Let's hope that Spatial Mana can pass through the material of this cube.] Kothar slung out both portals, opening the first one around the corner and throwing the other straight at the wall.

Thankfully, the portal passed through, and the familiar distorted noise of a portal opening rang out. He leapt through the portal, the mantis hot on his heels, since Kothar had slowed down to aim his portals.

The mantis swiped at a claw at the disappearing Kothar, who closed the portal behind himself.

An anguished screech echoed throughout the cube as a section of the mantis' claw was sliced clean through by the closing portal, spinning through the air and spraying the surroundings with a green goo. [Want me to translate all those screeches?] Silane asked, struggling not to laugh at the goo-covered Kothar, the sliced off claw laying at his feet.

[No, thanks, unless it was yelling 'This is how we greet each other on my home plane!', I don't want to hear it. Let's see what we can find out from this.] Kothar picked up the section of claw, which was surprisingly light, and the shiny black exoskeleton gave a clear ringing sound as he tapped it.

[It was mostly telling you that it would torment you if you ran, and cursing you for the lightning. Try using a small spark on the exoskeleton.] Silane was just as, if not more curious than Kothar, the mantis had brushed off enough electricity to take down most.

Kothar sent a small burst of lightning at the piece of claw and watched, dumbfounded, as the lightning barely travelled through it at all.

[Just my luck, running into an enemy with a giant insulator for an exoskeleton.] Kothar frowned, and stowed the now warm exoskeleton away.

[You could always try your new Lightning Spell, it'd probably cook it's insides.] Silane suggested, according to her calculations, Kothar's newly learned spell should be enough tot take out the mantis.

[True, I could even use the Plasma Unit, or a Void Disk, but I'd rather not sue too powerful an attack and risk bringing this old cube down around my head.] Kothar looked at the walls, they looked as if they would stand for eons, but one could never be certain. Appearances could be deceiving.

[Alright, let's hope we can stay out of the mantis' way until we leave this place. Speaking of, I wonder if the Pebble will let you leave.] Silane had added a pulsing green and black dot to the map that slowly moved toward Kothar, it was her best guess at the route the mantis would take to get to where Kothar had ported to.

"Pebble, return to home plane." Kothar spoke into the Pebble he had stowed away in his cloak.

"Returning to home plane will forfeit your reward so far of 1500 Credits. Would you like to proceed. Y/N?" The usual projection of words appeared, but this time it appeared in front of Kothar's face, rather than just above the surface of the Pebble.

Kothar furrowed his brown in thought, and declined the return portal. While the Mantis was dangerous, he was fairly sure he could outrun it, and he wanted to investigate whatever was powering the cube.

[You want those Credits so bad?] Silane mocked Kothar, who simply smiled and tapped his electromagnetic sensor belt, from which the vibrations had increased to an extreme intensity.

[Wow.] Silane was at a loss for words. An enormous door, at least 10 meters high rose in front of them, from behind it came a low humming sound.

Kothar took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.