Chapter 6: A Straightforward Path Leads To Death..

"Hello" ---> Normal speech

"'How"'---> More than one person/silmutaneous speech

'Are'---> Personal Thoughts or Mind Coversations.

{You!}---> Veldora's speech.

<Confirm>---> Aibo's speech

(Confirm)---> The Voice of The World

[Slash]---> Techniques or Skills usage

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The path from where we are before is pretty straightforward. I learned many things about how I moved and floated. First is the fact is that when I float above the ground that distance is fixed and so if I went up a slope I will still kept that distance from the ground. Secondly is I noticed that Magicules acted like Molecules. They have charges and when I met them with the opposite charges they actually pushed each other back and expand their surface area. 

Similarly to charges in a molecule but backwards. The same charges of Molecules pulled each other and the different charges push each other. But from my observation, the positively charges Magicules are only from outside our body and inside there are only negative charged Magicules. I don't know why this happened but I will kept on searching for the answer.

As I and Rimuru kept on moving we eventually found that the path were blocked by a large gate. This gate is huge and was even half the height of Veldora based on my observation. 

"How heavy do you think that is..?" I asked Rimuru.

"I don't know.." He said while looking at the gate up and down.

"Can you cut it with your Water Blade?" I asked Rimuru half jokingly. He just look at me deadpan until suddenly..

*Creak*

"Shit! Hide quick!" I immediately hide behind a rock big enough to cover us both. 

"Whew! I finally got this thing open, the whole lockin' mechanism must have rusted out.." I heard someone said. 

"Yeah I'll bet! Nobody's even tried going inside here for 300 years or whatever, right?" A second voice replied.

"There is no record of anyone attempting entry. Are you sure we're in the clear? We're not leaving ourselves for sudden attack..?" A third voice asked them.

"Gah-hah-hah-hah!" The second voice laughed.

"Come on. Maybe this guy

was invincible a few centuries back, but it's just a big overgrown lizard,

y'know? I told you guys 'bout how I bagged a basilisk solo once, didn't I?

It'll be fine" The second voice said pridefully.

"I was wondering about that, actually" The third commented.

"Are you sure that's the truth, Kabal? Basilisk is a B+ ranked monster, You truly handled them by yourself?" The third sound a little unconvinced by the second.

"Quit playing around! I'm B-ranked, y'know! Some huge reptiles ain't fazing me!" The second one sounds annoyed.

"All right, all right. Just keep your guard up, if you could. And remember,

we can always use my Escape skill if things turn sour…"

The third reminded them.

"Can we save the friendly chitchat for later?" The first interjected.

"I need some quiet. It's just about time for me to activate my Concealing Arts" The third said.

'Even if you say that I think you three did not make any attempt for stealth..' I thought in my mind after seeing this three individuals.

But how can I understand what they are saying. Is this some kind of Magicules stuff I did not understood yet.

<Confirm. Analysing effects... Successful> 

<Extra Skill 'Magic Sense' can be adapted to decipher sound waves that have a willful meaning stored in them> 

'..So I just could only understand what they spoke not their language..?" The more I thought about it the more it didn't make any sense.

Well time to hit the books of language again.. in my past life I only learned 4 language in total. My native Japanese, English, Spanish and Latin. Probably the only time I liked learning languages are when I'm speaking and learning from natives.. I've been through a lot after all to think about it.

'But that's for later.. for now' I looked at Rimuru and saw him having the urge to tail the humans that entered the cave.

"Rimuru.." I said lowly.

"I know.." He said while sighing. We are both monsters in form and we also couldn't speak. What if they thought us were attacking them? We'll be sliced into nothing.

"Let's safe the human stuff when we could talk.." Rimuru added to his sentence.

"I agree.." I agreed.

Then we looked at the trio again and looked at one of the slim ones doing something. They suddenly began vanishing from our view, not completely but enough to conceal them from natural enemies.

'Hmm.. I might need a counter for it..' I thought looking at the structure of what they say was a Concealing Art.

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"Good grief.." I sighed. I am currently floating very still trying to not getting eaten by 'that' thing..

In front of me was a unusually humongous Praying Mantis. It stood tall, probably as tall as a normal human being. It's pair of claws looked like the scythe of a reaper that shines through the dark cave. The only irregularity of the Praying Mantis is that..

'It can't see..' The Praying Mantis can't even see. I'm assuming that normal monsters can't acquire Magic Sense by themselves so that means..

'It must detect sound or motion..' Because every time I slightly moved the Praying Mantis will slashed it's claws towards that area. 

'I now regrets splitting way with Rimuru..' I thought as I remembered my dumb decision.

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"What should we do, August-sensei?" Rimuru asked me. We are currently looking at an intersections in the path. It splits into multiple parts that we couldn't see the end of.

"I think we should split up, we already knew that we can communicate, so let's just gave info of each other once every hour or so" I suggested to Rimuru and he agrees.

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'Even though I knew we could communicate with each other even far away but still..'

'Shouldn't have done that..' I really regretted it.

'Shit.. I need to move, I can't just stand here..' I thought of a way to kill the Praying Mantis.

'That could work.. I'm counting on you, Aibo!' I thought of a plan that could work but I need Aibo to manage my Skill for immediate use.

<Confirm. Managing Skillset.. Success>

'Great now..' I braced my mental and..

"[Blast]" I blasted myself towards the Praying Mantis. The mantis immediately noticed my movement and is getting ready to intercept me. When I'm almost right infront of it, It swung it's claws down towards me but I was ready.

"[Barrier]!!" I casted a sudden Barrier in front of me stopping both the claws in place.

<Confirm. Casting [Blast]> And with the help of Aibo's precision and quick work, the Praying Mantis was hit with the blast, but instead of sent flying it suddenly exploded into pieces of flesh.

"..." I just floated there in silent looking at the pool of blood and flesh of the Praying Mantis.

<Confirm. Analysing Monster 'Praying Mantis'... Success> Aibo went to work with analysing the monster and shared it's information with me.

<Information of Monster:

•Name--> Killer Mantis

•Rank--> B-rank

•Intrinsic Skills--> [Killer's Instinct] [Assassin's Claws] [Exoskeleton]>

"Hmm.. I see" I looked at it's intrinsic skill traits. Such simplistic way of killing it's prey by slashing them into bits. It's main weapon may also not only be it's sharp claws as sharp as a sword but because it's a Mantis in human size it's speed is formidable as well. It's reaction speed could not be underestimated as well. It could react to my movements just as I started moving. 

Also because it's an insect I can guess what Exoskeleton will be. Killer's Instinct is an intrinsic instinct in hunters and assassins to locate their prey without relying only on vision. That is also how it could locate me with ease. The Assassin's Claw should be why it's claw was silent and swift. That is all for my understanding of the Killer Mantis Intrinsic Skills.

<Confirm.. Condition for Copycat is met.. Please choose which Skill to copy..> I heard Aibo said. My Copycat could now copy one of it's Intrinsic skills. It's a little unusual how but I'm going to learn more about it later.. As for the Skill I wants to copy.

"I don't have any bones so Exoskeleton would be useless, the same as Assassin's Claws so the best choice would be.. Killer's Instinct!" I declared.

<Confirming choice.. Success. Copying Extra Skill 'Killer's Instinct'... Success. Managing Skillset.. Success. Congratulations on acquiring the Extra Skill 'Killer's Instinct'> 

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"Great! Woah!" I suddenly felt a huge change towards my senses. Unlike before everything became.. clearer. 

I could feel almost everything, from the slightest fluctuations in the air to the moving water inside the cave systems. I could feel them all! But then suddenly it all turned back to normal like before.

I was a little confused at what had happened so I decided to ask Aibo.

"What happened? Does my Skill stopped working?" I asked Aibo.

<Confirm. User experiences an overload of information from the surroundings. If not for my Thought Acceleration, Processing Speed, and Eidetic Memories the User's soul would be overloaded through sheer information> 

"Ehh... That is a little.." My imaginary sweat dropped from my face at my own recklessness. I got to excited for my own good. But right now the positive side is that I could feel 'intention'. 

It sort of a weird feeling and I definitely haven't gotten use to how I could see in the first place but I guess it's quite convenient. 

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Around three days had passed since my first fight. I kept my communications with Rimuru every single time the day changes so I could keep track of it. 

Along the way of my exploration, I asked Aibo to drew a map of the caves part that I have travelled based on it's depth, length, width and condition. And just like that I have a convenient little mini map. 

"Hmm.. The caves covers branches that crosses each other, yet the monsters of one part of the caves never crosses to the other parts. Why is that..?" I examined the map in my mind. 

"Should I check it out..?" I said to myself and floated my way there. It wasn't far, in fact it was quite close. But alongside my journey there I encountered something isn't fun..

"Hii! What is that?!" I said while panicking. 

[Blast] I used blast to push me away from a sudden attack. I looked back at the attack and saw the area effected were corroding. 

"What the actual damn is that?!" I looked at the source of the attack and saw a disgusting monster that would make anyone shivers..

"Shit!" I dodged again yet another corrosive attack. It was closed as it almost hit me. The attack was in form of high speed stream of corrosive acid. And the monster who did it was in form of a.. Slug!

[Blast]! I launched myself towards the Slug and prepared to attack. One thing that I learned is that I could actually charged the power so I could release my [Blast] with more power and range than normal. But for payback it is going to exhaust a lot of my magicules. 

[Blast -Overcharge-]! I launched my charged attack and released it 1,5 m in front of the Slug. The attack created a wave of air pressure when it hit the Slug. But surprisingly instead of dropping dead, It seemed.. perfectly fine.

"?!" I instinctively hid behind a thick cave wall openings. But I didn't heard anything so I took a peek out. And there I saw everything where I was stood were.. corroded into nothing. 

"Shit! How the hell it survived that?! Even the cave walls took a deep bend with that attack!" I am very surprised at it's durability. With my current reserves of Magicules, I could only launched normal [Blast] three times.

"Tch! This is my only chance!" I quickly formed a plan that was only a technical theory could work based on my observations on Magicules characteristic and I've only done it with inanimate object once.

[Blast]! I blasted myself once again towards the Slug. The Slug immediately attacks but I have already thought of the countermeasure.

[Blast]!!! I blasted away the stream of corrosive acid towards the cave walls. The Slug was startled and I took that chance to attack.

I stick myself towards the Slug. But before I launched my attacks I heard Aibo.

<Confirm. Full Resistance [Resist Pain] [Resist Acid] [Resist Corrosion] [Resist Paralysis].. Successfully Activated>

All I heard were my Resist, Resist and more Resists. I do not know why I even had that much Resistance towards all of them but I ignored them for now and focused back on the enemy.

I kept myself sticked towards the Slug and I felt painful burnings on my body. I think it's mostly from it's corrosive acid body. I took a deep breath and focused all of my remaining power on my last [Blast].

"Goodbye abomination! [Blast -Internal-]!!!" I used [Blast] on a different manner than my other blasts. Instead of using it to propel the magicules in front of me, I used it to propel the magicules inside an object..

This however requires precise Magicules control in I successfully used it perfectly. I watched as the Slug exploded into tiny pieces staining the cave walls. But before I could relax, I suddenly felt danger incoming.

<[Barrier -Full-]> Suddenly Aibo used a [Barrier] that covered 360 degrees of me. Then not even one second after, a steam explosion suddenly occured out of nowhere.

*Psssshhhh~* 

Slowly steam started to cover the whole cave area. But it also started to dissipate faster than it needed to cover the whole area.

When the steam dissipates, I couldn't see a single speck of even the Slug's corpse. The Slug's corpse completely disappeared.

'But what was that, Aibo?' I asked Aibo for any explanation of the sudden steam.

<Confirm. Steam was coming from remnants of Slug's corpse. The corpse released toxic and corrosive steams> Aibo explained.

"Then how do you know about it..?" I asked Aibo where it's information came from but it stayed silent.

"Aibo!" I demanded it's explanation for where does it's data's came from. But I have an idea where it came from.

"There is little quantities of the steam inside the [Barrier] isn't it?" I asked Aibo calmly. It finally made a sound confirming my suspicion.

"*sigh*.. That means luck saved me on that one but still, Thanks Aibo" I thanked Aibo for it's save. It made another sound which I assume it just says 'You're Welcome'.

"So then.. I can't copy it's Skills huh.." I sighed remembering about the lost but suddenly I heard.

(Confirm. Common Skill [Control Magicule -Low-] Successfully Acquired)

"Hmm.." I processed the information about the Skill. It seems like it is a normal and basic Skill. It purely made controling Magicule in general easier. But this effect is on a very low proficiency it won't be such an overpowered Skill like thing. 

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It has only been 1 day after I fought the Slug but now..

"Why does this world keep on sending me obstacles.." I said while eyeing the 'creature' in front of me. The creature looked more like a mist rather than a physical creature. But the mist took a shape of some sort of humanoid. It has the height around 2 meters. It didn't have any spesific facial features. Instead it only had an oddly glowing red eye. It only had a single eye and to make it worse on it's black misty hand it held a singular weapon that looked intimidating.

The weapon was a giant staff that had a circular top. On top of the staff an animal was sitting on top of it. That animal was.. a pure black raven that looked like it was staring into your soul ready to bring your demise.

"Fate Must Flow, Destiny Will Tick. Death Shall Come For All Life Ever Exist" I heard the creature mumbled. Suddenly a terrifying sense of fear washed over me.

"W-What the hell..?!" Even if I can't shiver physically, I still could felt the pressure right into my soul. The pressure felt like it was certain demise fighting it. 

'I need to get away from here!!' I thought quickly. I silently float pass the creature while hidden. But suddenly..

<Warning! Danger Incoming!> I suddenly heard the warning from Aibo and instantly looked behind me.

"[Death's Embrace]" 

'[Blast -Overcharge-]!!'

I instantly used my Overcharged [Blast] to get away immediately from the creature. The power of the [Blast -Overcharge- was very powerful so it knocked me away quite far. 

Looking back at the creature, I saw behind it what true 'Death' looked like. Behind the humanoid now was a giant projection of what I instantly recognised as 'Death' itself. It was huge easily reaching to the cave's ceiling. It's body parts were skeletal but I couldn't really assume it is all it's body parts. It wore a black robe typical with the Death of your imagination. It's head was only but an empty skull. But it'd a gaze that will truly fill who saw it with impeccable 'despair'. On it'd hand was a normal looking Scythe that held no more of a meaning other than to reap lives. 

Then suddenly it used it's one hand to swung the Scythe horizontally. When it did, it released a wave of something so dark even light would't penetrate it. Everything that the wave passed through immediately decayed into nothingness. Not even a single remains left. Wether in was an inanimate object or even animate object, nothing were spared. 

'Shit! I'll definitely die if I got hit with that!' 

[Barrier -Tenfold-]!! I instantly used my full power [Barrier] I could hold for now. Instantly a square thin barrier that looked like glass formed in front of me. When the wave hit the [Barrier -Tenfold-], it was instantly decayed.. The [Barrier] didn't even stand a chance against it. 

"Damn it!" I screamed in my mind thinking of ways to avoid the wave.

<Confirm. Suggesting user to use [Blast] downwards to propel User upwards> I just had the biggest facepalm moment in both of my lives.

'Why don't I think of that?!' I instantly looked upwards and saw the ceiling was high enough to dodge it completely.

[Blast]! I aimed my Blast downwards creating a force that propelled myself upwards towards the ceiling.

*WHOOOSH*

I felt the literal wave of Death passed right in front of my eyes. It felt terrifying and outright depressing. It literally felt like an emptiness, such vast emptiness that everything touches it also became a part of it.

'Shit! That is some of my luck for 10 years used for that damn dodge' I was mentally exhausted after a few days full of fighting and learning everything. Now I must fought a creature that could erase anything? Hell nah!!

"The Wave of Fates Will Crash Onto You.. [Crushing Waves]" The creature suddenly appeared in front of me. It taps it's staff onto the ground and suddenly behind it a giant wave of liquid as black as the void suddenly appeared.

It looked at me in the eye causing anyone to look at it shiver uncontrollably. That did not exclude me from those groups. I also shivered though not physically but mentally. It then raised it's staff and points it towards me. In that moment I knew.. 

'Crap.. It will be hard to dodge this isn't it? I'm almost out of Magicules and I couldn't even use my [Blast -Overcharge-] again. If I need to use it, I probably will need to damage myself further' I thought about it. I am too slow to dodge it normally by floating away and I'm too weak to kill that 'creature'. What should I do..?! 

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Author Notes:

[So I knew this is a little sudden but expect a little slower update for around 1 week later. I have midterm exams that are pretty much bullshit level of materials. So I'll probably left this on a cliffhanger for now and I'll try to make a new chap as fast as possible. Stay Tuned!]

[August: Want me to teach you some of your hard materials..?]

[Author: I don't need your help! I'll do it myself! I can't expect a person who struggles against only a *Censored Information*, taught me anything]

[August: Tch! Why must you censor that important Information?!] 

[Author: Heh! No spoilers dummy!]

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