Chapter 142: The Calamity's Hunt
The mana clone that had been hidden in the forest dissolved, and Lucas felt his core refill in the span of a microsecond.
Emptiness that had followed his Mana Explosion vanished, replaced by the familiar density of power at full capacity.
He stood at the center of the cratered pathway, his katana in his hand, his goggles concealing the cyan light of his eyes as he faced the twelve elites who remained.
They were all Six Stars and Seven Stars, the strongest of the group that had broken toward him, and they had watched him kill eighteen of their comrades in the span of minutes.
But they did not attack.
The silver-haired agent had just detonated a spell that killed everything within fifty meters, and now his mana signature which should have been depleted was burning as bright as it had been at the start of the engagement.
They did not understand what had happened, and that uncertainty held them frozen.
Lucas did not give them time to resolve it.
He raised his free hand, and mana gathered at his palm in a rippling wave of compressed force.
He released it not as a spell shaped with precision but as a crude, overwhelming surge—a wall of mana pressure that swept outward from his position and slammed into the elites like a physical tide.
The technique was not subtle, and it was not efficient, and it consumed far more mana than a properly structured spell would have required. But that was precisely the point because Lucas wanted to hide his Mana eye technique.
Mana Telekinesis
Lucas possesses an ocular-derived ability (from his Mana Eyes) that allows him to exert force on anything within his mana field as long as mana exists in the target or the surrounding space. The ability is extremely versatile he can pull enemies toward him, push them away, hold them in place, or manipulate objects and terrain.
Limitations:
Massive mana consumption even with his 10x expanded core, sustained use drains him rapidly
Effectiveness scales against the target's own mana resistance; stronger opponents can resist partially
Cannot be used simultaneously with high-cost spells like World-Severing Line without severe drain
This ability has been implicitly present in his kit but never used, because Lucas would be in a battle which it wouldn't be needed or is needed, but it would cost too much mana.
[Mana Eyes: Telekinetic Force] — The ability to push, pull, lift, or immobilize targets within the user's mana field through direct mana manipulation. Cost scales with target mass and mana resistance
The mana wave caught the nearest Six Stars and flung them backward, their bodies tumbling across the cracked stone.
The Seven Stars braced against it, their own mana flaring as they anchored themselves, but the force was enough to make them stagger and lose their footing. Lucas was already casting another spell.
[Mana Spell: Astral Chains]
Glowing chains erupted from the ground around the elites, wrapping around limbs and torsos and throats.
The chains would not hold them for long—the Seven Stars were already straining against them, their mana cores burning bright as they fought the binding—but Lucas did not need them to hold.
He needed them to pause.
The chains bought him three seconds, and in those three seconds, Lucas felt the shift in the air behind him.
Tisha had arrived.
She did not announce herself with words or threats or bloodlust. She simply appeared at the edge of the crater, her body already changing.
The Calamity Tiger stirred within her, its blue flames bleeding through her skin, and her form began to shift.
Her limbs lengthened and thickened with dense muscle. Her fingers curved into claws that gleamed like polished bone. Her hair, already blond, took on a faint blue luminescence, and her eyes—her cold, calculating eyes—became the slitted pupils of a predator.
The partial manifestation wrapped around her like a second skin, humanoid but unmistakably bestial, and the mana that radiated from her body was dense enough to make the air feel like water.
She took a step forward. The ground cracked beneath her foot.
Another step. The elites who had been struggling against Lucas's chains went still.
A third step. She smiled.
"Leave us," she said, and her voice was calm and low and carried the absolute authority of someone who had never needed to repeat herself. The elites did not hesitate. They withdrew, retreating to the perimeter of the depot, their weapons still raised but their attention now fixed on the two figures who stood in the center of the crater.
Tisha's smile widened. "Let's have some fun."
She moved.
Lucas's Mana Eyes tracked her approach—230 meters per second, a speed that exceeded his own maximum by eighty meters. His body could not evade, so he did not try. He raised his katana and cast his enhancement spells in rapid sequence, his mana flooding through his muscles and bones and nerves.
[Mana Spell: Body Enhancement]
[Mana Spell: Body Reinforcement]
[Mana Spell: Musculature Weave]
His speed climbed to 150 meters per second, and he twisted his body sideways as Tisha's clawed hand swept through the space where his chest had been.
The wind from the strike alone tore at his coat, and the shockwave that followed sent cracks spider-webbing across the stone beneath them.
Lucas landed in a crouch and immediately launched himself backward, putting distance between them, but Tisha was already there.
Her speed was not just greater than his—it was effortless, the casual movement of a predator who had not yet begun to try.
Her second strike caught him across the ribs.
The claws did not penetrate his reinforcement spells, but the force behind them was immense—enough to shatter the bones of a 9 star cultivator, enough to destroy half a small mountain if she chose to unleash it fully. Lucas was sent flying, crashed through the remains of a collapsed supply cart, through a wall of rubble, through a stack of crates that splintered against his back. He came to rest fifty meters from where he had been standing, his body screaming, his vision swimming.
Tisha walked toward him. Her pace was unhurried, her claws flexing at her sides. "You are strong for your age," she said, and there was something almost like respect in her voice. "But you are not strong enough."
Lucas pushed himself to his feet. Blood dripped from his mouth, and his left arm hung at an angle that suggested something beneath the skin had cracked. He raised his katana, and mana gathered at the blade's tip.
[Mana Spell: Searing Lance]
The spear of white-hot mana shot toward Tisha's chest. She did not dodge. She caught it with her claws and crushed it, the energy dissipating into harmless sparks against her palm.
Lucas had expected that. He was already casting again.
[Mana Spell: Mana Vortex]
The rotating sphere of compressed mana raged in his hand, spinning at a speed that made the air around it scream.
He hurled it toward Tisha, and this time she did not try to catch it. She raised her hand, and water answered—a dome of liquid that materialized around her in an instant.
[Water Spell: Ocean Veil]
The vortex struck the dome and detonated. Steam erupted in all directions, and the shockwave tore through the crater, sending debris flying. When the steam cleared, Tisha stood untouched, her Ocean Veil still rippling around her. The vortex had failed to penetrate.
Lucas did not wait for her counterattack. He raised his hand, and his fingers formed the signs for his most dangerous spell. The mana in the air around him began to compress, to condense, to gather into a single point of absolute focus at his fingertip.
[Mana Spell: World-Severing Line]