Seketika setelah Lex menginjak tatahan pertama ke lantai kedua, beberapa hal terjadi. Pertama, pengetahuan mistik tentang penggunaan bentuk yang tepat saat memukul menghasilkan hasil yang berbeda muncul di dalam kepalanya. Kedua, intuisinya mulai bersuara keras tentang bahaya yang mendatang.
Namun, sejak kini Lex sudah terbiasa dengan keadaan darurat. Responsnya cepat namun halus, tanpa bergerak koncep seperti menghindari serangan yang tidak terduga.
Ia mengangguk ke depan cukup untuk melonggar sebuah pedang tipis yang menusuk menembus leher belakangnya. Fakta bahwa Lex merasa perlu melonggar berarti pedang itu cukup tajam untuk menebus pertahananannya.
Dengan tenang, ia menggerakkan tangannya ke depan dan berpusing ke depan ke dalam posisi handstand menggunakan satu tangan, memudahkan ia melihat ke belakang. Sebahagaku yang aneh itu telah menyerangnya, dan sedang menyiapkan serangan lagi setelah ambush-nya gagal.
Makrok itu berdua kaki, tetapi memiliki empat lengan—dua dari bahu, dan dua lagi menyela dari punggung.
Lengan yang berasal dari bahu panjang dan tebal, masing-masing memiliki delapan jari berbulu tajam yang berakhir di ujung yang tak mungkin kecil. Lengan lain yang keluar dari punggung, meski lebih pendek, memiliki empat jari dan jempol, dan masing-masing memegang senjata. Salah satunya memegang pedang yang Lex gunakan untuk menyerang, sementara yang lain mirip seperti senjata api.
Makrok itu juga memiliki ekor panjang dan tebal yang menjulur di belakang, berbentuk seperti ekor lizard. Meski ekor itu tidak tampak terlalu fleksibel, ukuran yang sangat besar menyiratkan kekuatan yang imens dapat menghancurkannya.
Tidak terlalu penting. Lex sudah ingin mencoba sesuatu sebelum ini, dan ini adalah kesempatan yang sempurna. Dengan mata kirinya, ia menggunakan Evisceration. Mata kirinya adalah khusus, ia sudah tahu itu. Evisceration adalah serangan berbasis jiwa yang sangat kuat, ia juga menyadari itu. Yang ia tidak ketahui adalah apakah hasilnya akan lebih besar dari yang diharapkan jika ia menggabungkaneduanya.
Hasilnya… uhh, ia tidak tahu cara menilai hasilnya. Meski telah dipromosikan, kesulitan menggunakan Evisceration tidak berkurang. Bahkan, sebab utama ia menghindari menggunakannya secara serienya adalah karena takut melukai dirinya sendiri. Meski sekarang, Despite pertumbuhannya, ia tidak yakin dengan implementasinya yang sempurna.
Namun, ia tidak tahu apakah ini karena ia lebih baik daripada yang ia asumsikan, atau hasilnya adalah akibat penggunaan mata kirinya, tapi ia tidak terluka. Kecuali itu, tidak ada yang terjadi. Makrok yang aneh itu langsung mati akibat seranganannya dan jatuh ke depan. Mungkin ia perlu menemukan makruk yang mampu survive serangan itu untuk menentukan apakah ada perbedaan.
Itu mungkin lebih sulit daripada yang terlihat, karena serangan jiwa selalu sangat fatal.
Lex memizam tubuhnya ke belakang, namun cepat dan elegan, ia menggerakkan kakinya sehingga tampak seperti selesai melakukan handstand. Itu sama sekali tidak masalah, gerakannya memungkinkannya melonggar proyektil.
Meski tak mau mengakui, kekalahan mudah clonenya sendiri telah memberinya pemahaman tertentu tentang kelemahan dirinya. Meski proyektil itu lemah lebih dari pedang dan tidak akan menebus pertahananannya, tidak ada alasan mengapa ia harus membiarkan kontak. Siapa yang bilang ia harus sepenuhnya mengandalkan pertahanannya hanya karena kuat? Sebagai gantinya, langkah-langkah perlindungannya perlu menggabungkan berbagai strategi.
Intuisi tajinya dan kontrol tubuhnya yang sempurna memungkinkannya melonggar kebanyakan serangan, sekaligus menciptakan lapisan baru yang harus dioveri oleh penyerangnya.
Ini mungkin terlihat tidak berbeda dari yang ia lakukan sebelumnya, karena ia selalu melonggar serangan dalam pertarungan sebelumnya, tetapi ada perbedaan fundamental. Dulu ia melonggar karena semua lawannya biasanya Lebih kuat darinya, dan mampu menyakinkannya. Namun dalam kasus-kasus di mana ia bisa melarikan diri, ia memanfaatkan penuh pertahanannya. Adalah perbedaan antara secara strategis membiarkan serangan menyentuh tubuhnya, dan membiarkan serangan menyentuh karena terlalu malas untuk melonggarnya.
Lex menciptakan tantangan kecil untuk dirinya sendiri selain segala macam yang mungkin dibuangkannya. Ia memutuskan untuk melihat berapa banyak lantai yang ia bisa lewati tanpa membiarkan aneh punya mencret.
Setelah semua itu, tidak ada kekurangan dalam pertahanannya.
Lex berjalan maju, hanya melirik musuhnya cukup lama untuk membunuhnya dengan Evisceration.
Kecepatan ia berjalan tampak sepenuhnya biasa, namun setiap gerakan yang ia lakukan memungkinkannya melonggar serangan yang telah dimulai. Bilangan musuh di sekitarnya terus bertambah, begitu pula jasad-jasadnya. Ia mulai mempercepat, namun kehalusan gerakannya tak pernah menurun, dan segera berubah menjadi seperti ia berada di panggung menampilkan sebuah aksi.
Untuk sebuah alasan, gambar cepat-datang di dalam otaknya tentang tarian bonat yang ia lihat saat Midnight Games. Namun gambar itu menghilang secepatnya datang, dan Lex tidak benar-benar memikirkankonnya. Alih-alih, sebagaimana ia melanjutkan penjajakan ini, dengan pandangan yang menyiratkan kematian menyorot musuh-musuhnya, Lex menyadari sesuatu yang lain.
Meski resonansi belum mencapai titik yang signifikan untuk menghasilkan sesuatu, kekuatan tak terlihat yang menghubungkan tubuhnya mengingatkannya pada efek dari karakter formasi.
The moment Lex set his first step onto the second floor a couple of things happened. First, some esoteric knowledge about how using appropriate forms while punching produced different results appeared in his head. Second, his intuition started blaring about incoming danger.
But by now Lex had become fairly used to emergencies. His reaction was quick yet smooth, and lacked the jerkiness that came with dodging an unexpected attack.
He leaned forward just enough to dodge a paper thin blade that had aimed to slice through the back of his neck. The fact that Lex felt the need to dodge meant that the blade was sharp enough to cut through his defenses.
Calmly he moved his hand forward and transitioned from leaning forward into a single-armed handstand, allowing him to look back. A strange looking creature had attacked him, and was preparing to attack again after its ambush failed. It was bipedal but with four arms, two coming out from its shoulders but two coming out from its back.
The arms attached to its shoulders were longer and had eight fingers, each with a long and sharp nail that ended at an impossibly small point. The arms coming out of the back, while shorter, had four fingers and a thumb, and each held a weapon. One held the sword with which Lex had been attacked while the other looked like some kind of gun.
The creature also had a long and thick tail dragging behind, in the shape of a lizard's tail. While the tail did not look too flexible, the sheer size of it told of the immense strength it probably had.
Not that it mattered. Lex had been wanting to try something for a while now, and this was the perfect opportunity. Using his left eye, he used Evisceration. His left eye was special, he already knew that. Evisceration was an incredibly strong soul based attack, he also knew that. What he didn't know is if the result would be greater than expected if he combined the two.
The result… uhh, he didn't know how to gauge the result. Despite his promotion, the difficulty of using Evicersation had not reduced. In fact, the reason he avoided using it frequently was because he feared hurting himself in the process. Even now, despite his growth, he wasn't completely confident in his perfect implementation of it.
Yet he did not know if he was just better than he assumed, or it was the result of using his left eye, but he did not get hurt. Other than that, nothing much seemed to change. The strange creature directly died as a result of his attack and fell forward. Perhaps he would need to find a creature capable of surviving his attack to determine if there was a difference.
That might be more difficult than it seemed, for soul attacks were always extremely lethal.
Lex allowed his body to fall backwards, but quickly yet elegantly moved his feet, making it seem as if he had completed a cartwheel. It just so happened, his move had allowed him to dodge a projectile.
Though he didn't want to admit it, the quick and easy defeat of his own clone had given him certain insight into his own weakness. Though the projectile was weaker than the blade and would not have broken through Lex's defense, there was no real reason to allow contact. Who said he should blindly rely on his defense just because it was strong? Instead, the protective measures he took needed to encapsulate multiple different strategies.
His sharp intuition and perfect control of his body allowed him to dodge most attacks, suddenly creating a new layer of difficulty his attackers needed to overcome.
This might seem like it was no different from what he did earlier, since he was always dodging attacks in his previous fights as well, but there was a fundamental difference. Earlier he dodged because all his opponents were usually stronger than him, and capable of harming him to some degree. But in the instances where he could get away with it, he took full advantage of his defense. It was the difference between strategically allowing an attack to land on his body, and allowing an attack to land because he was too lazy to dodge a weak attack.
He created a small challenge for himself in addition to anything the pagoda might throw at him. He decided to see how many floors he could overcome without allowing a single rip in his clothes. After all, unlike him, they had no substantial defense at all.
Lex walked forward, only glancing at his enemy long enough to kill him with a shot of evisceration.
The speed at which he walked seemed completely ordinary, yet each and every move he performed allowed him to dodge an enemy attack which had started increasing. He seemed completely at ease as countless blades fell in his path and endless bullets chased him. Of course, he did not walk in a straight line, as that would be too predictable.
Instead, it seemed like he was slowly warming up for a dance. There was a rhythm that his body adopted that seemed to resonate with some unseen force. He moved his head to dodge a close shave, yet if someone saw him from a distance, it would seem he was bobbing his head to a song.
All the while, the number of enemies around him kept increasing, as well as bodies. He started picking up speed, but the elegance of his moves did not diminish in the slightest and soon it was like he was on a stage giving a performance.
For some reason, an image flashed in his mind of a ballet performance he saw long ago during the Midnight Games. But the image disappeared just as quickly as it came, and Lex did not really think about why he suddenly recalled it. Instead, as he made his way through this trial, and his gaze that heralded death washed over his enemies, Lex realized something else.
Although the resonance was not reaching a point significant enough to produce a result yet, whatever unseen force his body was connecting to reminded him of the effect of array characters.
Komentar Chapter (0)
Login buat ikut berkomentar.
Belum ada komentar di chapter ini. Jadi yang pertama!