Chapter 176: Inverted Dodge [@Thomasinho Golden Ticket Bonus - ]

Chapter 176: Chapter 176: Inverted Dodge [@Thomasinho Golden Ticket Bonus Chapter]

His danger senses flared hard, warning him about the incoming danger.

A sharp, pointed leg descended on him from the side, already committed to the killing strike and moving faster than his eye could easily track in this moment.

Before Alex could even give his body the command, his Adaptation Aspect’s honed instincts kicked into his nervous system.

His body bent sideways in a tight inverted L shape, spine and waist folding with precision that should not have been possible under normal conditions.

The motion was clean, controlled, and completed in an instant.

The air howled as the sharp pointed leg of the spider slashed through the space where his neck had been located a fraction of a second earlier.

SWISH!

Alex’s hair ruffled violently from the near-miss.

His eyes widened at how cleanly the spider had almost tricked him.

The leg had come from an angle that should have been impossible after its earlier vanish.

"Ooohh! That was so close!" Someone from the crowd shouted across one of the public viewing squares, voice cracking with the sudden release of tension.

"How is the he so agile?! My back would have broken in half if I did something like that!" A young boy yelled from another group, leaning so far forward he nearly fell off the bench.

Alex did not waste the opening.

He immediately rushed a large amount of mana from his Mana Heart into Amethyst Paradox.

Because of the inverted position, the weapon was already near the branch the spider was standing on.

He cleaved through the wood in one clean motion, putting everything he could into the strike.

Slash!

The branch snapped with a sharp crack.

The spider monster started to fall, legs scrambling for purchase that was no longer there.

Alex bent back upright in the same fluid motion and guided mana from his Mana Heart toward both legs.

He burst toward another tree’s branch, his boots leaving a shallow crack in the bark as he launched himself away.

"Nice move, Third Prince!" A young girl cheered from the crowd, voice high with excitement.

Several other voices joined her for a moment before the feed pulled their attention back to the spider’s recovery.

Because even before Alex landed on that branch, the monstrous spider threw a thick strand of web toward the exact tree trunk and propelled itself in his direction with violent force.

The web stuck hard and the creature used it like a cable to change direction mid-fall.

Alex noticed the trajectory the moment the web left the spinnerets.

The instant his first boot touched the branch, he used the contact to divert his momentum toward a different tree branch, twisting his body so the second jump carried him clear of the expected path.

The spider did not relent.

It threw another web the moment Alex had barely landed on the next branch.

Its next strand shot through the air with enough speed that the sound of it cutting leaves reached him almost at the same time as the visual.

"Tch..."

Alex could not get even a single second to breathe like this.

The back-and-forth continued for several tense seconds.

He kept trying to create even a small opening so he could attempt to use his newly gained Psychic Element or at least get a clearer feel for its sensation.

Adaptation was already running at full capacity, refining his every move, but he still needed time to locate the exact pathway of the element and force it to move under conscious control.

"Damn, that spider is getting closer and closer very fast in just a few seconds!" One of the older warriors in a capital tavern muttered, eyes locked on the feed.

The mug in his hand had stopped halfway to his mouth.

Alex knew the hard numbers.

His physical attributes were lower than the spider’s.

He was only able to evade because of precise mana control and Adaptation’s constant micro-adjustments.

Without those, he would have been eliminated long ago.

He had only caught the spider off guard at the very beginning because the creature had not expected him to be a real threat.

Now it refused to let him create another opening so easily.

Every web and every leap closed the gap a little more.

"I guess I cannot keep running forever, it’s almost caught up to me." Alex muttered the words under his breath.

He felt the pressure of the spider’s presence almost on his back, the weight of its intent pressing against his senses even before the next physical attack arrived.

He needed to change something.

On the next branch, the moment his boots touched wood, he did not jump away.

Instead he turned a full one hundred eighty degrees and faced the spider directly.

The sudden stop and turn forced the creature to adjust its own approach for a fraction of a second.

The spider was briefly surprised by the change in pattern.

Then it opened its fangs wide and propelled itself forward with extreme force, legs tucked for maximum speed.

Alex sent mana into Amethyst Paradox and into both legs in a single rushed surge.

He propelled himself forward as well, meeting the charge head-on instead of continuing the retreat.

Both of them collided in mid-air.

The impact created a large shockwave that tore through the nearby trees, stripping leaves and snapping smaller branches.

The force rolled outward in a visible ripple of displaced air and debris.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The spider was only sent back a few meters, its heavier body absorbing most of the collision.

Alex was launched farther, body tumbling through the air in a long arc that carried him between trunks and through thinner foliage.

"Oh no!" Someone shouted from the crowd.

"He seems a bit behind in attributes compared to that spider monster, did you people see how badly he was sent flying!" Another voice called out, the tone already turning toward resignation.

But while their observation was true, it was still incomplete.

While Alex did possess lower physical attributes, he could have used mana and the weapon to draw the exchange into a more balanced clash.

Instead he deliberately shaped the shockwave to propel himself backward.

He needed distance.

Adaptation had been running the entire time, and he was still trying to force the Psychic Element to move or at least to feel its core sensation clearly enough to use it.

Now, while he flew backward through the canopy, he kept reaching for that new element with every scrap of focus he could spare.

The world spun around him in a blur of green and brown.

Branches whipped past.

He forced his spinning body into a controlled tumble, keeping his eyes open and his mind locked on the unfamiliar pathways near the Mana Heart.

’Come on, I felt you once, show me the path again.’

Adaptation continued to refine every micro-adjustment of his flight path so he would not slam into a trunk before he finished what he needed to do.

The spider recovered faster than any normal beast of its size should have.

It was already turning, already preparing the next web or the next leap.

Alex could feel the pressure building again even while airborne.

He had bought himself a few precious seconds.

That was all.

Those few seconds had to be enough—!

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End of Chapter 176: Inverted Dodge

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