The enemy has lost sight of Quinn. Is running away the best move to take in this opportunity? I am anxious about how far Quinn can run in an injured state, but there is also the move of throwing the Main Body to let it escape, as I did before. First, should I land and regain my stance?
I land so as to suppress the impact flexibly with three points: both legs and one hand. Simultaneously, the sound of creaking bones ran up from the base of my legs. My hip bone and spine are cracking. The sense of pain that had been temporarily paralyzed by adrenaline reignites.
"Gubuh—"
I swallowed the bloody vomit that welled up from my esophagus. It seems my internal organs were damaged more than I thought. While my consciousness is on the verge of shorting out from pain, I cut off my presence with 'Zetsu'. I circulate aura internally and apply it to the repair of the body. It would be good if I haven't been noticed, but...
Glare.
The enemy's eyes, peeking through a break in the dust cloud, were fixed on me. Did the precision of Zetsu waver due to the pain? A blunder. My training is still insufficient.
I switched my thoughts instantly. Considering the difference in speed between Quinn and the enemy, escape is already difficult. My body moves before deriving the answer to what is optimal for survival.
Instep. I step forward with force. My injured body screams at that sudden acceleration, but I have no leeway to heed it. I approach the enemy's side without hesitation.
The giant cheliped that is the enemy's weapon boasts an overwhelming reach. Now that my location has been noticed, it is difficult to escape that vast attack range by trying to flee poorly. However, precisely because it is huge, there are places where attacks do not reach.
That is right near the enemy. Rather, by diving into its bosom, I enter the blind spot of the claw.
Being huge is a threat in itself. Great weight and the energy to move it easily twist and crush prey. Against that, there are two means for a small one to stand against it. Either hit it unilaterally with attacks from a long distance or initiate from a range close enough to stick to it.
The spirit of infighting lies in the will to step in without fear. That is not a recklessness that disregards oneself, but something that cannot be accomplished without the power to coldly deduce the enemy. I steel my resolve and concentrate my consciousness.
I face it with an orthodox style, holding my left hand in front of my face and pulling my right hand slightly back. The enemy is aware of my approach but has not been able to respond. The movement of the cheliped is agile, but the movements of the other parts are speeds I can follow with my eyes. Even if I'm about to be crushed, I can dodge.
I sense a chance for victory. I kicked the ground and closed the distance in one breath. However, a miscalculation occurs there.
As if it had been stored inside its body, a hidden cheliped appeared. Crabs originally possess a pair of claws, one on the left and one on the right. I was distracted by the developed right cheliped, but it had a weapon hidden on the left as well.
It is small compared to the right claw, but its short reach is suited for close-range combat. The enemy had splendidly defied my expectations and possessed a means for interception.
I made Quinn proceed regardless. If I stop my feet here, the situation will only get worse. I cannot turn back. The left cheliped approaches at high speed while opening its claw. If I get caught in that, Quinn's body will likely be snapped like a twig and cut in two.
It is not an attack I can defend against no matter how much I reinforce with aura. I thrust Quinn's left hand forward as if offering it. And I activate the technique I had prepared.
'Carbuncle.'
A red cactus appeared like a glove covering the left hand. That lump of metal halts the left cheliped that was closing in to sever me.
This was a technique I devised to create armor for the left hand. Boxing is a martial art fought with fists. It goes without saying that it is better to have armor protecting the hands. The right hand had the Main Body clinging to it, serving the role of a gauntlet, but the left hand had nothing.
This idea was a plan I had been considering since before I aspired to be a boxer. Feeding Quinn's aura to the virus to create a red cactus. It is simple to put into words, but this is a technique that compels quite delicate work. I must use suppression programs to suppress the infection outbreak locally. It took time to master.
If I get caught up in a fulminant progression, the cactus will take root in Quinn's left hand. If that happens, it's instant death by poison. I have managed to reach a level where I can deploy it in actual combat now, but I failed many times in the process of practice.
The cactus is quickly formed in a spherical shape to cover the left fist. However, since the wrist area is wide open, it slips off immediately. Since aura that has erupted and turned into a cactus cannot be cancelled later, it won't come off the hand unless I do this.
Therefore, it is not suitable for constant use as a glove. It is a weapon for a single-blow surprise attack. Technically, it is possible to make it cover up to the wrist, but in that case, I cannot remove it without cutting off the left hand, so I must consider when to use it.
Still, it becomes a more powerful weapon than punching with bare hands. This glove can be enhanced by 'Shu'. The advanced technique 'Shu', which improves durability and power by infusing an object with aura, changes in precision depending on the strength of attachment to the object and the degree of familiarity with its use. The cactus, which is as good as created from my own body, became a weapon with high aura conductivity for me.
And as long as it does not deviate from the shape of a cactus, some degree of shape change is also possible. I can extend the spines sharply to make it a spiked glove. With this, the power increases further.
Boxing styles vary by athlete, but if right-handed, one often throws a quick jab with the left hand to test the waters. Then, seeing an opening, they often attack with the right hand, which carries power.
'Carbuncle' is also a technique for using the left hand as a diversion. For Quinn, the right hand holding the Main Body is a solid defense and weapon for dealing heavy blows, but it is also a weak point that should be protected the most. There is great anxiety in suddenly smashing that against an unknown enemy.
So first, I observe with the left. I attack with the left, defend, gauge the enemy's strength, and then unleash the main right. For that purpose, I don't care what happens to the left hand. Let them cut your flesh so you can sever their bone.
The cactus glove, caught in the cheliped, creaks while making a grinding metallic sound, but it seems there is a lack of power to destroy it reinforced by Shu. The enemy's movement stops. Anticipating that opening, Quinn was already swinging the right fist.
There is not a shred of holding back. Due to 'Stack', the offensive and defensive power drawn from the Main Body's eggs had concentrated in Quinn's right arm. Disproportionate energy was forcibly injected into that slender arm, and the muscles swelled to the verge of bursting.
If I poured in all the overlapping revealed aura, Quinn's arm would likely snap off all too easily. I tether that collapse with aura repair, assess the very limit of bursting, and distribute the energy to the entire muscle without waste. Accelerated thought made that calculation possible.
And a punch is not an action performed only by the muscles of the arm. It comes from the action of the wrist, elbow, shoulder, waist, hip joint, knee, ankle, and toe joints, and the muscles and tendons that move them. I direct my consciousness even to each part used to release a single fist.
If one can see aura, they should notice that 'Ko' is being performed on various parts of Quinn's body. 'Ko' is a technique that concentrates aura in one place on the body. If one gathers all of the revealed aura into a fist, its power increases to many times, tens of times that of a normal punch.
On the other hand, the aura reinforcement rate of the body other than the fist becomes zero. It is in a state of Zetsu, and defense is nonexistent. Also, Ko is a technique with a high difficulty level in its use itself. One must perform the contradictory aura operations of increasing aura output with 'Ren' from a state where the spirit pores other than the fist are closed with 'Zetsu'. In addition to that, one retains the leaking aura on the body surface with 'Ten' and 'Gyo', and then performs the release of power with 'Hatsu'.
In exchange for concentrating the total power of the aura on one point, one loses all other defense. The difficulty of handling the five techniques of Ten, Zetsu, Ren, Hatsu, and Gyo simultaneously. Unless it is an exceptional situation, it is not a technique one can use casually in combat. But Quinn is using that on multiple places over the whole body.
To be precise, this is not 'Ko'. When the aura of the entire body is 100, 'Ko' is the state where 100 is gathered in the fist and the other parts become 0. Quinn is using a normally impossible technique of distributing 100 to each location, a numerical value exceeding her own revealed aura amount.