Alien Evolution System - Chapter 170

“Then there is no further need for words,” said the Collector as it clicked its mandibles and steadied its stance, its raging heart beat breaking the monotony of the howling winds. “We both engage in battle to the extents of our limited capacities.”

“Yes,” said the fighter simply. He looked down from atop the thin peak of the mountain at the Collector with calm expression.

The Collector resumed the fight, its neural processing systems now having nearly fully recovered, allowing its reflexes to operate back at a threshold of 93%, enough for it to feel comfortable engaging in further combat.

One observation that the Collector had made was that the fighter did not have proper airborne capabilities. He possessed the ability to ‘walk’ on air by creating momentary platforms of magical energy on his feet, but aside from these, he had no way to independently project force to propel himself through the air in a wieldy manner.

In an air battle, the Collector with its varied flight capabilities was highly superior. Yet, the fighter specimen did not have to take to the air unless it desired to, for the Collector’s ranged capabilities were weaker than its melee attacks and could easily be deflected by the fighter.

Then how about this?

The Collector slammed all four of it fists into the mountain face it had crashed into, using seismic shock on its arms to generate immense amounts of permeating force. The shockwaves drilled through the mountain, sending deep cracks running across its length while it rumbled.

The tip of the mountain the fighter stood upon shook as it began to break apart. This forced the fighter to leap into the air, and this was when the Collector attacked, flying upwards towards the fighter. Mid-flight, the Collector fired several volleys of purifying light shards, but instead of directing them straight at the fighter, used Sapia to circle them around omni-directionally.

Meanwhile, the Collector flew forwards with its monomolecular blades. Now, the fighter would have to deal with the Collector and the countless shards encircling him.

“Kai!” The fighter roared as he surged his magical energy in a massive eruption before reacting to the Collector’s multi-pronged by opening a palm and thrusting it into the air before him. This was not a directed attack against the Collector, but instead one that sent out the fighter’s immense burst of mana outwards in a green shockwave.

The shockwave crashed against the Collector, sending it hurtling dozens of meters backwards before it steadied itself in the air, and the light shards that closed in on the fighter were scattered and broken apart into nothingness.

Such a maneuver was expensive mana wise, the Collector noted, but the fighter did have much more mana to spare than the Collector, and the Collector was not going to calculate its battle plans based off of the fighter’s words of honor to hold back.

The fighter air walked away, landing square on the face of another mountain side. His toes dug into the vertical face of the mountain, keeping him completely anchored.

The Collector observed the fighter and noted his mana levels had dimmed again to near nothingness, meaning he was once more ready to emit it outwards in a single explosive moment.

Knowing this, the Collector rushed in again with what was seemingly a conventional dash attack. Yet, the Collector had understood one crucial factor.

The fighter’s combat style was focused on countering through throws, utilizing the enemy’s own force against them. However, counter oriented strategy relied on the fighter’s honed predictive instinct to make it work.

The fighter’s observational skills were truly remarkable. Those eyes of his could determine and predict the movements of the Collector’s every physical movement without the need for a magical crutch like Sense which projected a noticeable aura outward, wasting magical energy and leaving the self vulnerable to mental attacks.

But it could not have been that the fighter truly was seeing the future. Its predictive sight was based off of some physical anchor, and the Collector had ascertained that this was in muscular movement. The fighter’s immensely gifted observational skill had been, through countless hours of training, specialized entirely to reading physical movements, seeing how every single individual muscle fiber moved, twitched, and interacted with each other.

This, the Collector could tell because the fighter was an expert at controlling power flow, and power flow, even if it was enhanced by mana, came from the flexion of the muscles themselves.

Then how to circumvent such excellent kinetic-muscular vision that exceeded even that possessed by the Collector?

The answer was simple.

The Collector dashed inwards, and when it was in striking range, the fighter ready with his hands forward to counter with a throw, the Collector struck. However, the Collector did not strike with its own muscular force. Instead, it used Sapia to move itself externally.

Purple outlined the Collector’s body as its two monomolecular blade arms sliced towards the fighter’s head while its two lower light blade arms aimed to gut the fighter.

The fighter’s eyes widened as his time window to react dramatically shortened. Still, he managed to react, for the Collector’s Sapia controlled movements were not as fast as its raw physical stats. But the lost time prevented the fighter from executing a throw, and instead, he had to use his explosive charge of power to hold back the Collector’s monomolecular blades.

It was likely sheer instinct that told the fighter that those blades were instantly lethal, and he deftly held both of them between the fingers of his two hands. Yet, this left his stomach open for the light blades.

This, too, the fighter managed to deal with, concentrating magical energy around his abdominal muscles while flexing them to tense them with a solid [Guard]. The light blades shattered against the [Guard], dealing no penetrating damage capable of initiating its flesh destroying abilities

With expertly applied force, the fighter shattered the Collector’s monomolecular blades with his fingers, but any motion the fighter spent not throwing was motion free for the Collector to make its own attacks. Its two upper arms were occupied, but its two lower arms, even if the light blades were shattered, could still punch.

The Collector drove a dual punch powered with chaos mana, coilboosters, seismic shock, and blood burst.

A deafening explosion-like sound rocked the air as the Collector’s fists smashed into the fighter’s [Guarded] stomach, driving him into the mountain face he stood upon. The mountain shook as the fighter was sent drilling through the mountain, carving out a sizable tunnel deep into its sturdy face.

The Collector calculated that this would have been enough to deal significant damage to the fighter, but not enough to neutralize him. The permeating shockwave force of the punches would travel past the [Guard], but the damage would still be mitigated to some degree, not to mention the significant inherent durability of the fighter himself.

The Collector therefore did not enter the tunnel it had carved out by punching the fighter into it. Instead, the Collector made some distance, hovering back in the air where it would have a better view of the mountain top.

A hole smashed open from a facet of the mountain, and out of it, the fighter leaped outwards, standing back on the surface again. The light blue robes he wore were torn around his stomach, and the blue scales lining his flesh were shattered. Swelled, purple flesh indicated significant bruising.

“Impressive,” said the fighter as he projected his voice outwards with mana. “But now that I have seen your trick, it will not work on me again.”

The Collector understood this. The fighter’s analytical and observational skills were superb, and now that he knew the Collector could use Sapia for its movements, all he had to do was adjust his timing for it.

Regardless, any wound the Collector inflicted was lasting while the fighter’s throws would have their damage healed so long as the Collector possessed enough mana for it.

The Collector engaged in another ranged attack, attempting to assess how much the damage it had inflicted affected the fighter’s capabilities.

The Collector hovered in the air as it fired off volleys of purifying light shards. This time, the fighter did not deflect them, but instead began to run down the face of the mountain, dodging them at super speed. Each of his steps allowed him to cover dozens of meters in instants, carving out tiny craters in the rock, and in sheer running speed, he was comparable to the Collector’s flight speed.

The Collector flew downwards to match him but kept its distance, continuing to fire light shards. It analyzed the pattern of the fighter’s dodges, and after three seconds, made a prediction of its own and fired off a hypersonic spine from its Spine Spitter arm.

This was several times faster than its light shards and an ability the Collector had yet to reveal.

As a result, it surprised the fighter, and though he managed to react again at the very last moment to avoid it from piercing his heart, he could not fully evade the damage, and the spine slashed through his shoulder, leaving a gaping gash within it.

The fighter did not react and continued to move downwards, now into thickening fog where visibility would be low.