Chapter 142 (2)
The beam of profound blue energy lanced from his finger, no wider than a needle, traveling at a speed that should have been impossible to avoid. It was aimed at Tisha's heart.
The Calamity Tiger screamed. "Move."
Tisha's body moved before her conscious mind could process the warning, the beast's survival instinct overriding everything else. She twisted sideways, her speed reaching 300 meters per second, and the World-Severing Line passed through the space where her heart had been.
It struck the ground behind her and carved a hair-thin trench through stone and earth and the remains of a collapsed wall, the beam slicing through matter as if it were paper.
Tisha stared at the path the beam had taken.
Her expression did not change, but the Calamity Tiger's voice echoed in her mind, urgent and cold: Do not let that touch you. That attack severs existence itself. If it strikes you, you will not heal. You will not recover. You will simply cease.
She looked at Lucas with new eyes. The boy was bleeding, his ribs were cracked, his arm was damaged, and his mana was draining faster than it should have been. But he had just fired an attack that could have killed her, and that changed the calculus of the engagement.
"You are full of surprises," Tisha said.
Lucas did not respond. He was already moving, his Flash Step carrying him toward the wreckage of the weapon warehouse.
Tisha followed, her speed dwarfing his own, but Lucas was not trying to outrun her. He was leading her.
The weapon warehouse was a graveyard of shattered steel and burning fuel.
Munitions that had not detonated in the initial explosion lay scattered across the rubble, their casings cracked and leaking volatile compounds.
Fuel stores that had been protected by reinforced walls now blazed with unchecked fires. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burning chemicals. It was, in short, a death trap waiting for a spark.
Lucas raised his hand as he ran, and mana gathered at his palm. He did not shape it into a spear or a blade. He simply released it a crude wave of pressure that swept outward and slammed into Tisha as she closed the distance.
The force was not enough to injure her, not enough to even slow her significantly, but it made her stumble for a fraction of a second. She righted herself immediately and continued her pursuit.
Lucas released another wave. And another. Each one was the same—a blast of undifferentiated mana pressure that pushed against her with no particular skill or precision.
To Tisha's senses, it registered as a desperate, wasteful technique, the kind of thing a panicking cultivator might do when he had no other options. It consumed enormous amounts of mana, and it achieved almost nothing.
But it gave Lucas the half-seconds he needed to plant his charges.
[Mana Spell: Delayed Surge]
His hand brushed against a cracked fuel tank as he passed, and a compressed charge of mana adhered to its surface.
Another charge on a stack of ammunition crates. Another on the structural support of a half-collapsed wall. Another on the gas line that fed into the depot's heating array, and another on the weapon storage bunker, and another on the coolant system that was already venting volatile vapor into the air.
Each charge was small, invisible, set to detonate on a delay that only Lucas could track.
Tisha caught him at the edge of the weapon warehouse. Her claws raked across his back, and his reinforcement spells held by the thinnest of margins.
He was thrown forward, his body skidding across the rubble, and he came to rest at the base of a collapsed crane.
Blood pooled beneath him, and his breathing was ragged, and his mana was dipping lower than he wanted.
"You are finished," Tisha said. She raised her hand for the final strike.
Lucas looked up at her, and through the blood and the exhaustion and the pain, he smiled.
[Mana Spell: Sensory Overload]
A pulse of chaotic mana erupted from his body, washing over the area in a wave of scrambled energy. Tisha staggered not from physical force, but from the sudden blindness that struck the Calamity Tiger within her
The beast's senses, so sharp and so reliable, were suddenly filled with static. Tisha could still see Lucas with her physical eyes, but the Hunting Instinct that had warned her of the World-Severing Line was gone, drowned in a sea of conflicting signatures.
Lucas stood.
[Mana Spell: Mana Clone]
Three copies materialized around him, each one identical, each one carrying his mana signature. He cast his next spell before Tisha could recover.
[Mana Spell: Phantom]
His real body vanished from perception—not just sight, but sound, scent, and mana signature alike. Then he cast his final spell.
[Mana Spell: Echo Step]
The three clones scattered in different directions, and behind each one, afterimages of Lucas's mana signature bloomed like ripples on a pond.
To Tisha's recovering senses, it seemed as if a dozen Lucases were fleeing through the wreckage, each one indistinguishable from the others.
She snarled and gave chase. Her claws tore through the first clone—it dissolved into light. She caught the second—another illusion.
The third clone vanished into the smoke, and she pursued it, her speed carrying her across the depot in seconds. But by the time she caught and destroyed it, the real Lucas was already gone.
He reached the crater where Austin had fallen. Kaya was there, her lightning body flickering as she helped Ethan limp across the broken ground.
Ethan's arm was wrapped around her shoulders, his sword still in his free hand, his face pale from blood loss.
Austin lay unconscious on the rubble, his eyes still seeping blood, his mana signature so faint it was almost imperceptible.
Lucas created one final Mana Clone and directed it to lift Austin's body. Kaya looked at him, at the blood on his coat and the angle of his damaged arm, but she did not ask questions. She simply nodded once.
"Go," Lucas said.
They moved toward the treeline at the edge of the depot. The forest was close—three hundred meters, then two hundred, then one hundred. Behind them, Tisha had realized the deception and was closing fast, her speed carrying her across the depot at 230 meters per second.
Lucas raised his hand and triggered every Delayed Surge charge he had planted.
The depot erupted.
The fuel tanks detonated first, their volatile contents igniting in fireballs that rose a hundred meters into the night sky.
Tisha was caught in the center of it. She raised her arms, and the Calamity Tiger's power wrapped around her like a shroud of blue flame. The explosions washed over her, the fire and the shrapnel and the concussive force, but she stood against them. She could not pursue through it. The chaos was too complete, the destruction too widespread, and by the time the explosions began to fade,
Lucas and his team had vanished into the darkness of the forest, swallowed by the trees and the night.
Tisha stood at the edge of the destruction, her claws still extended, her eyes scanning the treeline for any trace of movement. She found nothing.....
The Calamity Tiger's voice echoed in her mind, calmer now that the chaos had subsided.
That one is dangerous. Not because of his strength—there are many stronger than him. But because of his mind. He planned his escape while you were still trying to kill him.
Tisha did not respond.