Chapter 295: Chapter 295. Mantis is the boss
The grind began after Theo kept the ants back to their camp to start their burrowing.
The baron gave Theo a random prideful smile, which Theo was confused about but he went and started his journey again.
10 hours.
It took 10 hours of continuous grinding for Theo to finally reach something. They took a lot of micro breaks in the process, but by the end of it, Theo was left practically half dead in the safe zone.
"How much left for you...?" Theo asked the two attendants sitting by his side.
"18572..."
"20992"
Both Elias and Clara spoke respectively making Theo look at them with a bit more hope.
"I need 2000 more..." Theo said with a cheeky smile making both the attendants annoyed and happy at the same time.
Clara got up right away yet her legs were wobbly while on the other hand, the ape picked Elias right by the clothes after getting the instinct that Theo had just mogged them.
Theo laughed and coughed while they both went inside, it was night time now but with the baron’s help, they placed a lot of torches around to see properly.
But what made Theo sit on this particular spot was because all the trees with their small glowy orbs could be seen in hundreds from there.
The torches were needed but Theo could still see most of the forest and also, more of it due to the glowy orbs spanning for so long.
He kept pushing off the notifications that were still popping off.
The mantis, who had supposedly taken only a few breaks, was still fighting and eating as if it was having the best time of its life.
Theo had told it to come and rest but the number of happy emotions the glutton had while fighting made him reluctant to stop it.
’On the plus side, I am getting constant EXP’ Theo thought and closed his eyes.
The forest might have had trees and even moss, but after looking for some while, Theo found one interesting fact.
There were no insects of any sort in the whole area aside from the ones he brought into this world.
Theo slept away for a few minutes and woke up with some energy again before stretching and getting into the battlefield again.
"How many have we killed by now? 1000? 10,000?" Theo spoke out loud before stabbing some right at the crawler’s head with numb and heavy hands.
"It shouldn’t be more than 2000... I think?" Elias said while looking at all the corpses.
It had come to a point that it looked like a port where a lot of fish were just kept to sell, only, these fishes were all white in color.
"I don’t know about numbers, but we did give them a feat, young master." Clara spoke while using daggers this time and stabbing anything that came close. The boar and pup had all the energy in the world too, and so did the ape.
Chip had flown around the world for some time to find anything big to defeat but it came back by the dark to have some rest.
Theo looked at the side where a bunch of crawlers lay and the funny part was, not all of them were dead.
The crawlers had started eating their own kind that were kept in piles which made a lot less workload for the others.
But not the mantis, it was too adamant on saving its food that it perched itself on the pile it made and kept a watch on it.
Another 5 hours of the same thing and Theo finally got a notification that was pushed away by 3 others as apparently, the mantis always killed three at the same time during the metallic strike ability use.
{You have reached level 7!}
{+1 to all stats}
{3 Free use points gained}
Theo closed it right away and went running to the mantis and when it saw Theo approaching, it jumped one time and became white particles moving up.
If not for the night, Theo wouldn’t have been able to follow it and see the mantis perch itself on a tree branch.
’Get back here right now or I won’t protect myself’ Theo said through the bond.
The mantis’s face moved left and right many times as if thinking whether Theo was telling the truth or not.
Theo let the two crawlers coming toward him approach him only to open their big mouths and perch them on his leg.
When the mantis saw that, it jumped right away and became a flash of light before getting on Theo’s shoulder and then jumping down again.
Theo felt the air flow by his ear, and a light shiver went down his spine, a light thought came to his mind.
’If the mantis was an enemy, I would have died just now’ Theo thought yet after acknowledging the thought, he pushed it aside right away.
He didn’t want the mantis to get grumpy with him again, like the other time.
While it fell, it casually hooked the crawler with its foreleg and went down, tearing open a deep wound on it.
The mantis jumped again, this time, in between Theo’s legs before blurring away and hitting the alive crawler attached to the other leg, cutting it into two pieces.
"!!!" Theo flinched back in panic, and it was not because the mantis had used its ability so close to him.
’Was I just... zapped?’ He thought with wide eyes before he jerked his legs and got the crawlers out of the scaly armor and picked the mantis from the body so that it could not run away again.
’You glutton, does your metallic strike skill have electricity in it?’ Theo asked but it was more so a question for himself.
The mantis did not reply with a confused expression, but with that of desperation.
’... You want me to take everything you hunted back to the camp?’
The mantis threw an emotion that could be compared to a nod, making Theo sigh, it was going to be a long night.