The Shapeshifter - Chapter 58 Possession

Having lost the will to fight, Alex collapsed in front of the Praying Mantis. Just as his body was about to fall to the ground, it miraculously stopped mid-air. With his back still bent, ‘Alex’ slowly stood up.

The Praying Mantis was wondering why the human stood up. Wasn’t its will to live crumbled before the almighty Mantis.

Before it could even rejoice, its scythe-like claws that was on its way to behead the enemy, suddenly didn’t hit its mark.

The scene of a tear-filled head, flying out of the body; with a blood red fountain spurting out of the neck as a backdrop, didn’t play out as it envisioned.

What played out was an almost similar scene, but with different body part and blood color.

Green colored blood sprayed out in front of the young mantis. The claws that it prided so much was chopped off and was now covering its vision.

Immediately, a sand-like swordlight followed through as it attempted to hit its neck.

Although its vision was blocked and the mental attack it suffered, it was still able to raise what’s left of its limb and tried to block the attack. (The mental attack here was about how its pride [claws] was crushed [chopped].)

Arrogant as most fierce beast was, the young Mantis wasn’t part of the ‘most’. It still kept its head cool and didn’t succumb to its arrogance.

The act it made just now saved its life. Although its left limb was obliterated, it was still able to slow the sand-like swordlight. With its tough skin, it was able to receive the attack that was aimed at its neck.

“Hmm? What a shame.”

A disappointed voice came out from the human in front of it. Even though it only heard the voice, the mantis’ body trembled and it hastily retreated behind the other insects.

The insects who took the place of the Praying Mantis sneered at its actions. They’ve trained their whole lives just for this day, where they get to kill humans. The orders from the queen cannot be violated! What a weakling!

A lion-sized Grasshopper took the chance and bolted straight to the young human. When the grasshopper was two meters away from its target, it opened its mouth and was preparing to devour the humans head.

There was only a meter away between the two when suddenly, the Grasshopper’s eyes widened in horror. With a casual swing from his sword, the young man was able cut the grasshopper into two.

Green blood dyed the young man’s white shirt as he held the sword and inspected it, not seeming to mind the blood on his body.

“Yes, this is how it feels! Unfortunately, this will be the last thirty minutes of my life as a human.” a sad voice filled with reminiscense came from ‘Alex’.

Although the body was Alex’s, the soul was not his. It was from the Scorpion Emperor. Back when he had given Alex his inheritance, he also imprinted a spell on Alex’s body. It was a [Lifeline] spell; a self-created spell that automatically triggers when the person who had the imprint is unable to fight back and is nearing death’s door.

The [Lifeline] spell takes a portion of a soul from the Scorpion Emperor and forces Alex into unconsciousness.

Since the Scorpion Emperor wanted to pass his inheritance to Alex, a portion of his soul was no longer important.

“But really, I didn’t expect [Lifeline] to be used so soon. How long has it been since I died? Two years? Haha.”

After laughing at himself, the old emperor looked down and caressed the sword in his palm. Faint traces of sand-like aura was emitting from his fingers, as he slowly touched the cold steel. The steel sword seemed to be remembering the aura of its master and was gradually absorbing the aura.

The slight sheen that was coming out from the sword was gentle and majestic. It wasn’t the kind of aura that one would expect from a sword master.

The Old Emperor gazed at the enemies. More importantly, it lingered on the mantis that escaped his clutches. He was slightly interested about this mantis, being more talented than the others.

‘I’m gonna kill you, lest you end up killing my people!’The Old Emperor flashed a mocking grin at the young mantis who was coincidentally looking at him.

To the Praying Mantis, that smile was as terrifying as a grim reaper’s.

It had to escape, it was still too young to die.

It retreated at the direction of the two “leaders” that was watching the bloody fight against the humans.

The Mantis kept on looking back as witnessed the slaughter being made by the old emperor. It hurried even more as it finally reached its destination.

However, before it could even stand on the side of the huge Stick Insect, the giant’s arm extended and burrowed just in front of the Mantis.

It looked coldly at the Mantis and then issued a low screech as if saying “What are you doing here? Get back there and fight!”

The Mantis felt wronged and let out a low screech of its own. It then walked slowly to the front and acted as if it was being blocked by the other insects.

It looked back at the giant Stick Insect and noticed that it wasn’t looking at it anymore and slowly inched towards the area where the insects are winning.

The Old Emperor watched all of this in amusement. ‘What a cunning little mantis’ was what he thought.

There was still about twenty five more minutes before the possession ends. By that time the user, Alex, would be in a weakened due to overexertion of body and soul.

Twenty five minutes was more than enough to finish all of this, but the Old Emperor decided to slow down with the killings and observed.

Although the Old Emperor killed dozens of insects in the span of a few minutes, there wasn’t a speck of blood on Alex’s body. There was just sweat on his white shirt and dusts on his pants.

With too much time in his hands, the Old Emperor decided to inspect Alex’s body so he could help this predecessor of his later on.

‘Hmm. Seems pretty average, too thin, I can’t even see some muscles! And what’s with this cape? This outfit is weird, uncomfortable and offers no defense! I’m not surprised he triggered [Lifeline] this early!’

Actually when the Old Emperor was at Alex’s age, he was pretty bulky and muscular. Despite being a mage, he decided to create spells that would be suitable for melee combat as it gave him more excitement when he fights.

“Oh! There seems to be a decent one amongst these people.” The Old Emperor saw the Big Baldie, using his pair of axe to chop the enemies heads one by one. If the Big Baldie continues at its pace, he would definitely face the two giant insects in five minutes.

Although the he kept on mumbling inaudible words all this time, the insects still kept on rushing at him. The matter of dying didn’t even appear on their heads. All they thought about was that the enemy was already exhausted and with their fighting capability they should be able to finish the human off.

After another minute of fighting, the corpses of the insects was already piled up behind the Old Emperor. Although fierce beasts may have been a bit dumb, but they’re not that dumb.

They could also tell the difference in strength between them and the human with the sword. They halted as a start, then slowly backed off from this sword master.

Upon noticing the cowardice of his brethren, the giant Stick Insect screeched so loud that an ordinary man would have his eardrums bleeding for days.

The screech was filled with anger and subdued quite a few of the insects and stopped from fleeing. While there were some cowards who fled the scene like what the young Mantis did.

The Stick Insect has a fiery temper and immediately used a dozen of its arms and killed those deserters.

Seeing that their comrades died at the hands of their superior, they didn’t hesitate anymore and launched a group attack against the Old Emperor.

It was better to die trying, than to die without fighting. They knew that whether they face the Old Emperor or the giant Stick Insect, they probably die either way. But fighting against the Old Emperor gave them a glimmer of hope.

As the insects initiated the attack, some jumped and some rushed; the Old Emperor gathered his sand-like aura at the sword and swung it at the enemies.

The insects snickered when they saw the Old Emperor swinging his sword, when they were still five meters away from him.

‘This human is doomed!’

‘It was a good thing that I’m at the very front, so that I can deliver a death blow.’

‘The dumb human’s now tired that even his brain went faulty.’

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The minds of these insects soon froze when they saw a sword light, the shape of a crescent moon rushing towards them at an incredible speed.

Their minds were fast enough to process the sand-like sword light, but their bodies failed to keep up.

The bodies of those insects were cut in half as the sword light dissipated into nothingness.

“What do we have here? A bunch of Beast Cores! Hahaha! Kid you’re gonna make a progress soon!” The Old Emperor laughed loudly and drew quite a bit of an attention from both the insects and the tribesmen.

“Eh? You still don’t have a Space Ring? How can we keep all of these? Oh oh oh! I know!” The Old Emperor immediately touched the brooch and removed the cape from his back.

“Oh? This brooch? Is useless!” Even though he said useless, he still kept it on his pants and soon he collected the beast cores from the Fierce Beasts one by one. He cut their bodies once more and dug out their cores.

He didn’t care about the others looking at him weirdly, he just wanted to collect his spoils of war to help Alex.

‘Old man! Something’s coming!’ A voice was heard inside the head of the Old Emperor.

“I know. And it already took the bait. Hehehe. Just watch and learn kid.” the Old Emperor muttered.

The trembling of the earth could not be concealed or maybe the creature didn’t want to make its presence unknown. Soon, a huge shadow covered Alex’s body.