Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 184: Feel it with your heart...?

Starting from the third-floor corridor, the battle area became noticeably wider. The corridor was widened enough to accommodate two carriages running side by side. This gave Olvera more room to maneuver, but also made the attacks of the shadow beasts in the dark more covert and difficult to defend against.

Two new types of monsters are added on this level. One is a huge gray-black fungus, which often grows in the dark places at the base of the wall or in the corners. It has a weird appearance, and has four huge mouths in the front, back, left and right. When it opens its mouth, it reveals a mouthful of sharp fangs, and emits a bleak rotten green fog. The cap of the fungus, which is permeated with pus, is covered with cannon-like jet nozzles, which can flexibly change directions and angles. From a distance, it looks like countless pairs of compound eyes are rotating on a piece of rotten meat, which is ugly and disgusting.

This [Turret-Shadow Beast], which Alice called "Big Spray Mushroom", is, as its name suggests, a turret that is fixed in place. When the enemy enters the shooting range, it will spit out corrosive acid mist and launch gray-white mycelium balls to attack. Since it cannot move, it is easy to deal with it as long as you avoid the first few waves of shooting and get close.

But where they live, many other kinds of shadow beasts often gather, relying on the artillery behind them to launch an offensive against the enemy, with the cover of gunfire and rain of bullets, the threat level is even greater. Therefore, if you want to destroy these guys, it is as difficult as capturing a heavily guarded fortress.

At first, when only the holy sword was broken, Olvera might have felt it was difficult. But now, she only needed to stand at a suitable distance, release "Continuous Chanting", and then she could happily pour out magic and bombard and suppress the enemy in reverse.

Generally speaking, after two rounds of magic, these mushroom turrets and some shadow beasts with low health and low defense will be destroyed first, turning into black mist and dissipating. After that, Ovira switches to the holy sword Broken Steel to deal with the remaining enemies with relatively high health but at the end of their strength.

Apart from the small loss she suffered in the beginning due to being unfamiliar with their attack methods, these guys failed to cause more trouble to Ovella's advance.

There is also a new enemy, a flying insect-shaped shadow beast with curved blade feet shaped like giant sickles, covered in black armor, and six pairs of transparent cicada wings on its back. Alice calls it "Spy Mantis". Of course, its real name should be [Assassination Shadow Beast].

As the name suggests, their attack method is exactly the same as that of assassins, using darkness to conceal their whereabouts, hiding their breath, and patiently waiting for the opportunity to come. When the enemy passes through their territory and exposes their backs without any defense, they will quietly flap their cicada wings and glide at high speed from low altitude, with the two pairs of giant sickles in front of them crossed and erected, and chop at the enemy's weak points with lightning speed.

After an attack, regardless of whether they hit the enemy or not, and what the outcome is, they will turn around without hesitation and return to the darkness, continuing to lurk and wait for the next opportunity to appear.

"This is it."

"Holy Lock..."

She didn't lose, as she still had the magical skill of rolling and dodging. The monsters that spawned on the road could hardly pose any threat to her, but the repeated harassment was really too annoying.

Olvera's mind moved slightly, and the holy sword in her hand turned into light and disappeared. In its place, a sacred golden chain appeared. One end was wrapped around her forearm, and the other end was connected to a huge sharp brass pendulum, which trembled slightly like a diamond-shaped crystal. The chain, which was more than 20 meters long, covered the entire space, and like light, it hit the floor, walls and ceiling and refracted back, forming a complex and sophisticated metal network.

Although Alice was the designer of the battle system, her understanding of weapons was obviously not as good as its owner, so she decisively passed the buck: "Let's ask Saint Shallia."

At least, Olvera tried several times but failed. The closest time she came was just a hair's breadth away, with the broken steel edge of the holy sword brushing past the transparent cicada wings that were constantly vibrating and humming behind them, but ultimately fell into thin air, causing the princess to feel depressed as if she had no place to vent her strength.

Because they were so fast, Olvera's magic was difficult to lock onto. She fired wind blades several times, but only cut through the phantoms left behind by their high-speed movement. The only chance to hit them was when they flew out of the darkness and swung their giant scythes, but it was fleeting, and it would be difficult to catch them without the sharpest combat instincts.

There was silence in my mind for a while, and then I heard the clear and calm voice of the shepherdess: "See through, fight back... Concentrate your mind, empty your mind, and feel with your heart instead of your eyes. Using the guidance of the thread of fate, you can see through the enemy's attack, capture the most critical moment in a flash, and fight back. Victory or defeat is only a matter of seconds. The more you pursue the precise release of the thread, the more patience you need..."

"Switch weapons." Alice gave a timely suggestion: "I think the Holy Lock is more suitable."

Olvera was the weaver, standing in the center of the golden web, alert to the possible attacks in the darkness, and whispered, "How do I use this weapon?"

"I said stop stop stop!"

Alice couldn't help but interrupt her: "I don't understand, Saint Xia Liya, can't you explain it in more concise and clear words?"

There was another long silence, and then Saint Shallia said apologetically: "Sorry, Alice, I can't seem to learn your way of speaking." Whether it was the so-called battle system, numerical values, weapon mechanisms or skills, she couldn't understand anything. Although she also had the relevant knowledge given by the game console in her mind, she could only interpret it in the way she understood, and couldn't do it like Ling Ge, who could easily come up with various game terms after a simple study.

Perhaps, this is an innate difference caused by identity and personality.

"I can't do anything to you!" Alice sighed. It was time for the genius player to appear again. "Give me some time. I'll study the mechanism of this weapon. Before that, Olivia, you should play with that Scyther first...right?"

She opened her eyes wide, as if she had seen something incredible.

Because Olvera suddenly lowered her head, three teammates (including a sheep) lost their vision. What they could see with their naked eyes became narrow, and they could only see the stone tiles on the floor that seemed to be coated with a layer of residual light under the light of the lantern.

She chanted to herself, "Concentrate, empty your mind... not with your eyes, but with your heart... the thread of fate will guide you... see through it, and then fight back..."

Oh my god, she actually believed it! ?
Alice felt helpless and wanted to tell Ovira that "using your heart to capture the enemy's position" was something that could only be done in third-rate light novels, and it was impossible to do in reality...

Buzz-buzz-!
The low trembling sound, like air vibrating glass, suddenly penetrated everyone's eardrums, echoing so clearly that one could even imagine the scene of those transparent cicada wings vibrating the air. The chaotic and disordered airflow blew through the space, hitting the huge metal net woven in the corridor, constantly refracting and turning, and through the conduction of the chains, reconstructing everything around in a three-dimensional form in the eyes of the girl.

She seemed to be standing at a more detached angle, looking down at the things in the net from a high position, making all the tiny things visible, and the figure of the mantis shadow beast was no exception. The other party was vibrating the transparent cicada wings behind it hundreds of times per second, passing at high speed from low altitude, and crashed into the net like a swift black lightning.

It was moving at high speed while still having amazing dexterity and agility, fluttering and flashing between the gaps between chains, easily avoiding the obstacles in front of it, and attacking Olvera. However, such evasion was doomed to be futile, because even if the body avoided the intercepting chains, the turbulent airflow caused by the trembling of the cicada wings behind it, the dust and haze swept away by the body passing through the void, and even the cold murderous intent it accidentally released... would all touch every line that made up this giant net, and through the conduction of the lines, update the information of its movement to the owner who wove this net.

In the three-dimensional map that Ovilla saw, its position was changing all the time, but it was also under control at all times.

five meters.

Four meters.

three meters.

two.

One.

It's now!

The princess looked up suddenly and saw a pair of pitch-black scythes crossing and attacking her, tearing through the cold air. However, time became extremely slow at this moment, as if a rushing stream fell into a swamp, sluggish and stiff. This gave her enough time to react. She lightly moved to the side and dodged the enemy's attack. At the same time, she pulled her wrist, and the chain net covering the corridor instantly gathered, tightly wrapping around the enemy's body like countless sacred giant snakes, causing him to whine in pain.

The flow of time did not return to normal until this moment. Olvera grabbed the chain with her backhand and threw it hard, throwing the assassination-type shadow beast that was tied to death by the chain out, and it hit the hard wall fiercely. Accompanied by a rumbling sound and a sad and shrill scream, the stone bricks shattered, and the sunken pit was full of cracks, which was hideous and terrifying.

Olvera pulled hard again, and the chain retracted. The brass pendulum at the end drove the enemy's body back. Its body had been severely injured in the previous collision, and it was tattered and had no power to resist. The princess took a step forward, switched to the holy sword, and slashed at the powerless enemy in the air.

Click!
The crisp sound penetrated the pitch-black armor covering its body, and the body of the Mantis Shadow Beast began to break in the middle, split into two, fell to the ground dejectedly, and turned into pitch-black mist that rose up and dissipated.

　Oh, I almost forgot to update. Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)