Blade Over Magic

Chaos IX

The ant glanced back down at the wound that was now starting to heal. But it was no longer indifferent.

Excluding the fact that the sensation was still jarring for it, what bothered it more was the fact that despite clearly gapping Xander so thoroughly in stats, it actually appeared to be on the backfoot.

It had no idea why this was. But it was clearly an issue.

It slowly looked to the side and saw a small device hovering in the distance. It looked like a sphere with some enchantments on it, and it could feel the mana extending into the distance. It could also feel that it was being observed through this object.

This was a recording device that was currently projecting the fight to another location. Most likely, the people from the nearby city had sent it to see exactly what they might be dealing with, should Xander fall.

The ant didn’t know about this, though, all it thought about was the sensation of being observed. Then it recalled how when its energy was still dispersed and wasteful, Aubrey had a harder time observing it. It’s how she struggled to predict its movements when it blitzed her and Falael. This stopped when it got its energy control.

Realizing this, it suddenly had something akin to an epiphany.

At that moment, the ant’s aura, which had been tightly locked inside its body, suddenly seeped out. It wasn’t violent like when it hatched. Neither did it extend far beyond its own body. So from an outsider’s perspective, it looked like its body was covered in a strange dark shroud, though still mostly visible.

When this happened, the ant sensed the feeling of being scrutinized change. It felt less... all-encompassing now.

It suddenly felt an unfamiliar feeling bubble within it. One that made it want to act impulsively, but not in an unpleasant manner. Excitement, perhaps?

It shot forward again, and this time, Xander wasn’t already moving to react to it.

Its guess had been correct. Its energy seemed to make sensing it through magical means more difficult. So when it shrouded its body in it, Xander suddenly had a harder time perceiving it through vibrations.

This made the excitement in its body surge. If he couldn’t perceive it using that strange means, he couldn’t react to it properly! So eliminating him should be much easier.

It swiped at his neck, aiming to behead him, but to its surprise, he managed to duck just in time. Believing it was a fluke, it swung its other limb diagonally, aiming to slice him in half diagonally. But Xander still spun, evading the attack by a hair’s breadth. He countered and thrust his sword rapidly in quick succession.

Air Bullet.

The air bullets didn’t cause much damage as their raw power wasn’t crazy, but the did manage to disrupt the ant’s advance, giving Xander a chance to use Water Screen.

Seeing the familiar move, the ant immediately jumped back, expecting the Ice Breaker combo again, but it never came.

Instead, Xander had abandoned the Water Screen and used Vibration Traversal to get within range of the ant. It immediately swung both limbs at his head, but he evaded again and thrusted forward at the wound that was still healing.

Rupture Thrust.

The ant felt something inside of it fail as the hole was made to go all the way through it. The ant wobbled as it swung its limb down frantically. Xander had committed to the attack, so he’d still need a moment to retreat.

That’s what the ant thought.

But to its shock, Xander let go of his sword without hesitation! He barely avoided getting his arm removed and backed away, only to charge straight in again.

That’s when he pulled another weapon from his spatial ring, and when the ant saw it, it was... perplexed.

It wasn’t the slender, long blade like the one that was currently stuck in its hip. Rather, it was quite short. Not as short as Aubrey’s dagger, but it was getting there. Barely reaching from his knuckles to his elbow. Yet it was almost grotesquely wide for a dagger. It looked less like an elegant blade—like his longsword—and more like a metal wedge, the tip broad and triangular.

Just as the ant pulled out Xander’s first sword and threw it away, wondering what his goal was, Xander got close... and even closer still.

It swung at him again, but again, he dodged by the smallest of margins, then got so close it looked like he wanted to hug the ant.

The ant tried to cut him anyway, but it soon noticed an issue.

It had to be stated that the ant was much taller than Xander. It was at least two meters tall compared to his meager 5’5. Hence, it always had the advantage in reach when they exchanged. Xander’s skill just made that advantage seem minor.

However, the moment he got so close, it suddenly found it far more difficult to actually swing its limbs at him properly.

Just like that, Xander had made use of another form of combat called Infighting, or Smothering the Reach, a technique used for fighting larger opponents with greater reach that oneself.

The ant couldn’t immediately adapt to suddenly losing its reach advantage, which gave Xander the chance to his his new weapon—a Gladius—to attack.

Gripping the blade tightly, he drove the blade forward with the weight of his hips and shoulder, almost like a boxer. Moreover, he didn’t attempt to aim at places like its chest and and face. Instead, he aimed low, going for the inner thighs, belly area, groin, or underarms.

In just a short moment, the ant found itself getting struck several times. With Xander especially punishing that earlier wound in its hip, preventing it from healing properly.

Panicked, the ant tried to back away, but Xander stuck to it like glue. As soon as it tried to retreat, he maintained the distance with Vibration Traversal.

Xander didn’t get so close only because his usual blade was gone. In fact, he had other swords that did its job just fine. No, he got so close for a few key reasons.

First, when he realized that his perception advantage had gotten neutralized, he deduced that evading the ant’s attacks with just pattern recognition and instinct—which he’d been doing—was bound to fail sooner or later. Especially when the ant was so much faster than him.

Hence, he switched tactics. Making use of his smaller frame, he entered its effective range to render most of its attack methods effectively useless.

It couldn’t escape him properly because he stuck so close to it, and on top of that, it couldn’t just crush him with its tyrannical strength, because Xander wasn’t only attacking. Not only did this distance allow him to limit its attack options, he also caused it another problem. Mechanical Advantage!

The ant was absurdly powerful, but its body still followed the laws of physics to a certain extent. Of this was the fact that Xander’s proximity prevented it from finding the leverage to push him off. After all, strength required space to move, and by crowding the ant like he was doing, he denied it the room to properly express its power.

The ant did try things like cutting across Xander’s back with its limbs, but as soon as it did that, he would swing around its body and start attacking its back, which was even worse for it.

The ant wasn’t unharmed by all of this, either. After all, despite the Gladius technically being a sword, it was a punching weapon that excelled at doing damage at close range. Xander also made sure to strike at its joints, as well as that hole from earlier, and each strike was naturally amplified by channeling while also sending jarring vibrations through its body.

On top of this, since Xander was unable to sense its vibrations remotely anymore, being so close allowed him to sense them properly, the repeated impacts and sustained contact rapidly letting him get the correct frequency.

Vibrations aside, the ant was shocked at the damage Xander was doing. After all, even if one could strike its body repeatedly, it didn’t necessarily mean they could damage it. That was the whole issue the Lunatics faced. After all, its shell had a high resistance to magical and physical damage.

But Xander wasn’t just relying on those two things, he was also relying on physics, and physics said that structural integrity is entirely dependent on uniform stress distribution, and by repeatedly hammering spots where stress concentrated, like the joints and cracks, at their exact resonance frequency, even the most indestructible armor will inevitably experience catastrophic mechanical failure.

CRACK

The ant suddenly felt a jarring pain in its left knee joint, followed by a sudden loss of balance as Xander’s repeated strikes caused the shell as well as the joint inside to break.

It fell forward, and Xander made use of its own momentum again as he smashed the Gladius into the mouth of the the falling ant, while also changing the properties of Boulder Strike on the fly so it matched.

Mana Breathing plus Xander and the ant’s momentum plus Boulder Strike plus the properties of the Gladius. All of these factors culminated to produce terrifying effects.

Xander’s strike landed...

And the ant’s jaw shattered.