CHAPTER 39: DEFENSE MECHANISM

(A/N Big thanks to everyone for the Power Stones and Golden Tickets, they mean a lot. As usual, please don’t hesitate to comment or drop a review. ENJOY)

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"You’re dead, boy".

"Yeah, you’ve said that before," Orion replied with a scoff.

His body suddenly tensed; he could feel a tremendous amount of mana flowing into the earth below him.

He willed mana into his legs, muscles tensing before exploding off the ground just in time for a piece of earth to jut out of the ground.

’He predicted it,’ Barnes thought, bewildered.

His hands clenched as numerous boulders shot out of the ground, before converging on the airborne Orion.

Orion’s spatial sense registered the locations of the boulders immediately, his hands blurring in motion, unleashing strikes to turn them to a cloud of dust, before landing back on the jutted rock.

Not a second passed before he burst into motion, performing a back flip over Barnes, who hand sent a devastating punch out behind Orion in hopes of capitalizing on the lack of visibility.

His senses painted Barnes’ body like a perfect sculpture, he sent a horizontal strike straight to his neck while in the air, yet it proved ineffective as a layer of rock grew on his neck protecting him from the strike, a dull sound rang out in response.

’Rock skin, tricky,’ Orion thought, cataloging the newest ability.

His feet landed on the ground, yet he had no time to rest. He felt it again, mana in the ground, faint, smaller than last time, but still there. He jumped back immediately, avoiding a small spike from impaling him.

’He’s testing the amount of mana that won’t alert me.’ Orion noted.

Another flow of mana, far smaller in size, but he sensed it, moving out of the way in time, the earth portrution was smaller than the last one but damaging nonetheless.

"Your sensitivity to mana is impressive, abnormal in fact," Barnes conceded with a confused frown.

"Shut up, saying the obvious doesn’t make you look smarter," Orion replied with an eye roll.

’My lack of any means of attack apart from my sword is severely limiting me; he can make a move from any location. I’d rather not reveal temporal distortion for now, it takes a lot out of me, saving it for a perfect opening is my best bet’ Orion thought.

"If you are trying to irritate me, I can assure you, it’s working." Barnes said with a scowl before placing his hands on the ground and whispering "Tremor".

Orion’s eyes widened, his attunement to mana giving him a clear understanding of what was happening underground. The bastard’s mana had spread throughout a seventy-meter radius.

He couldn’t jump out of this range in time, and he had no idea what the attack would do, but from his guess, it wouldn’t be pretty. So, his only option was to jump high, and Barnes most likely knew that.

’It’s a trap, either the attack would last way past my hang time or he’d ambush me in the air, but I’m willing to bet on the latter, he shouldn’t be able to keep an attack of this dimension on for that long a time.’ Orion concluded.

’But I won’t give him that satisfaction,’ Orion thought, his gaze hardening.

He focused on the mana surging beneath the earth. He could tell from the way the mana flowed that his attack was most likely some sort of seismic activity; considering he was the target, the center of the seismic waves had to be below him.

He raised a single foot upward before stepping on a precise point directly in front of him, mana surging out of him in concentric waves, his body blurred off the ground in sound-breaking motion, his sword at Barnes’ neck before his opponent could realize.

The concept of waves wasn’t foreign to him; it might not have been his area of expertise back on earth but he knew enough to know he could destabilize the waves by affecting the nodes, he just had to find them, of course all of this hinged on whether his opponents attack was mana-infused vibrations or pure earth force but he doubted it could be the latter, the pedo was to unimportant to be that skilled.

The place he had stepped on and applied mana was exactly one of the nodes of the wave; the mana of the attack had reacted violently, propelling him directly to his enemy.

This maneuver brought a whole new realm of possibilities to how he viewed mana; it seemed his attunement to this magical thing was another cheat code in the making.

Barnes was beyond shocked. One moment, he was preparing to ambush the brat when he leaped up; the next, he was already at death’s door. He couldn’t understand what had just occurred, but he had no time to hypothesize.

Orion could see victory already, his sword already breaking through flesh, drawing blood, yet he felt it, resistance, his enhanced mind and body could feel the way his sword was reacting, somehow Barnes’ body was hardening, not producing any rock like earlier, but simply hardening.

He knew if he continued and couldn’t cut completely through or deal fatal damage, his sword was going to get lodged in his neck, and that was risky, cause Barnes was definitely going to retaliate.

He stopped immediately, before jumping back and creating space between them; he couldn’t risk it.

Blood dripped down his sword, courtesy of Barnes, although he couldn’t end him, it was a small victory and a matter of pride, he made the bastard bleed, next he was going to make him dead.

Barnes put his hand on his bleeding neck, his face taking on a painful scowl.

’I’m bleeding, a boy made me bleed,’ He thought, his anger rising.

He turned towards Orion, who held his gaze, a defiant look on his face.

"What’s with the face, don’t tell me you’re shocked, like I said a d-ra"

Orion couldn’t complete his sentence as he suddenly blanked out, eyes widening before checking his chest to find a rock pierced clean through his heart, blood flowing from his mouth.

He unconsciously took a deep breath before the scene cleared like a fog lifted, his body suddenly moved before his mind could catch up, a large rock passing by at sonic speed where his chest had been.

Orion’s body shuddered in realization. He was a single step away from death, his body had moved without his command, and he could swear he had just seen himself dying, but before he could ascertain what was happening.

The same vision occurred again, this time he could see and feel his head being pierced through, yet, like the former, it faded, his body moving out of the way again.

If the first time was confusing, the second was enough to clarify that he was somehow seeing the future. The seer was activating without instruction.

A defense mechanism of some sort, but this couldn’t go on forever; he could feel his mana draining at an alarming rate.

All these thoughts passed through Orion’s head in less than a second before he exploded off the ground, trying to get out of Barnes’ range.

Orion made sure he was more than 80 meters away from Barnes before crouching down, his breath coming in ragged gasps, sweat dripping down his head, his eyes never leaving Barnes. He might have escaped death, but the experience of seeing and feeling his possible death had taken its toll on him, both physically and mentally.

"I have had enough of your shenanigans, I’ll admit, I underestimated you, no, I greatly underestimated you, but I can tell you are an enemy now, and I’ll treat you as such," Barne’s said, his neck still bleeding, but his voice taking on a chilling finality, malice radiating from his tone and eyes.

Normally, Orion would have retorted with a quip or some means of undermining Barnes’ words, but he was currently still shaken by his brush with death, and he could tell that nothing he said would cause the man in front of him to waver; he was going all out now.

Barnes appeared in front of Orion like a specter, rocks enveloping his hands to form a blade, and he sent a straight diagonal slash towards Orion’s head.

Orion could feel it, the way Barnes wilded his mana onto the surface of the earth, gliding on it, like a skater on ice, his speed increasing several fold, his senses alerted him to the blade coming towards him yet this was different, it was fast, too fast, he could react, his subconcious could react, but reacting didn’t mean finesse.

His neck bent slightly, while his blade came up to intercept, both movements trying to mitigate the effect of the strike, yet they were crude, too crude to be effective.

A long gash appeared on the side of Orion’s face, inches from his left eye, blood welling out slowly.

Barnes’ face didn’t even twitch, as though he expected Orion to dodge. The kid was intelligent and had a knack for survival; he could tell that much, but he would prevail; no inexperienced brat was going to end him in the middle of nowhere.

His mana flowed again.

Orion’s mind fully caught up when the gash appeared. It was painful, but he was used to pain; he had suffered worse with the field fangs.

He felt Barnes’ mana flow into the earth again. Something else was coming; he had to move immediately. His own mana flowed into his legs, trying to burst into motion, yet resistance; he couldn’t see what was stopping him, but he didn’t need to, his spatial senses had alerted him, his leg was enclosed in the earth. ’Barnes,’ He realized immediately.

His mind tried to find a solution, yet before he could think of anything, another vision came.