Alexander froze, his heart hammering against his ribs as he stared at the sudden apparition of Ketovan, who had materialized out of thin air to shield Reina.
The apex Commander-rank grasshopper, possessing a malicious intelligence far superior to its lesser kin, instantly recognized the terrifying disparity in power. Knowing full well it stood absolutely zero chance against a high-tier vanguard of the Church of Hegemon, the beast abruptly shifted its target. It locked its compound eyes onto the heavily injured Alexander, seeking a quick kill before it was obliterated.
It flew toward him with a sickening screech, its massive scythe-like claws coated in a lethal combination of dark green venom and, surprisingly, violently swirling wind mana. Alex pushed his adrenaline-soaked body to its absolute limits, trying his best to duck beneath the oncoming arc. He threw his torso violently to the right; the physical claw missed his neck by a mere fraction of an inch, but the pressurized wind surrounding it did not. Two hyper-condensed wind blades sprouted from the vacuum of the swing, cleanly severing Alexander's right arm at the elbow.
Blood sprayed across the jade-like surface of the leaf, but Alex didn't let the shock paralyze him. Acting on pure survival instinct, he unleashed a sharp gust of his own wind mana to telekinetically pull Emperor's Will back into his remaining hand. Catching the hilt of the conceptual cutlass with his left hand at the exact moment the insect rebounded for a follow-up strike, he brought the blade up to block the descending scythes.
Desperate to create a window of escape, he activated his sensory skill, channeling Command – Sight directly into the beast's retinas to completely blind it for a fraction of a second. It was a tactical blunder; rather than incapacitating the creature, the sudden darkness only enraged the apex beast further, causing it to thrash about in a blind, homicidal frenzy.
Alex ducked again, executing a desperate roll that barely salvaged his remaining left hand. The Commander-rank monster stood a towering fifteen feet tall, structurally built for asymmetric warfare; even without actively channeling its core skills, its natural anatomy allowed it to cover distances thrice as fast as Alexander. But now, thoroughly provoked, it fully unleashed its core potential. Destructive winds surged wildly around its carapace, laced with a toxic mist of venom and corrosive necrotic mana.
The massive claw swung downward, a lethal executioner's strike aimed directly at Alexander's neck.
Before the blade could touch his skin, a hand entered the frame. Ketovan stepped smoothly into the strike zone, his bare hand casually reaching up to catch the descending, venom-coated claw. The insect trilled in absolute shock, trying its best to pry its weapon away from the relatively small human, but Ketovan's grip was like a hydraulic vice. His fingers dug effortlessly through the hyper-dense, reinforced outer shell, crushing the exoskeleton and sinking deep into the soft muscle tissue beneath.
The astronomical pain was instantaneous. Realizing it was entirely pinned, the Commander-rank beast made a horrific calculation: it used its opposite limb to chop off its own captured claw to save itself from further mutilation. Falling back in a frantic burst of speed, its eyes locked onto Reina on the far side of the leaf.
It flew toward her, intending to use the pinned mage as a final, desperate human shield. But just as its remaining limbs were about to latch onto Reina's defensive barrier, Ketovan reappeared, delivering a brutal, casual kick that sent the fifteen-foot monster hurtling across the platform.
Ketovan followed up the strike instantly, raising his blue greatsword and manifesting a pale blue, translucent domain that sealed himself and the thrashing beast inside an isolated spatial pocket. The Commander slammed violently into the boundaries of the domain. Realizing that killing the vanguard was its only viable path to survival, the insect gathered the remnants of its mana and launched a desperate, suicidal charge straight at Ketovan.
Ketovan didn't even bother to raise his blade. He simply snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the local laws of physics inside the domain buckled. The beast's momentum vanished as it suddenly began to float aimlessly, completely unanchored like an astronaut trapped in zero gravity. It thrashed its legs and wings wildly, trying its absolute best to find leverage or move normally, but no matter how much kinetic force its core laid into its movements, its frantic struggles were entirely futile.
Ketovan snapped his fingers a second time.
The zero-gravity field inverted instantly. The Commander-rank beast plummeted violently to the surface of the leaf, the impact so severe it was left utterly unable to even lift its torso. A localized gravitational force hundreds of times greater than the planet's usual environment slammed down upon its frame. Its main skeletal tendons began to snap one by one under the unbearable atmospheric weight. Deep, glowing fractures rapidly spider-webbed across its core, bringing the creature to the absolute verge of death.
Ketovan calmly walked toward the agonizing monster and delivered a swift, effortless kick to its head. The sheer kinetic output of the strike detached the head cleanly, sending it rocketing out of the pale blue domain, past the borders of the leaf, over the branch, and entirely out of the giant tree's massive canopy into the abyss below.
On the other side of the clearing, Alex was on the absolute verge of losing consciousness. His Omniarch physiology was fighting a losing battle, trying its best to repel the hyper-concentrated Commander-rank venom coursing through his veins, but the residual foreign wind mana cutting through his cellular structure made it incredibly difficult for his passive regeneration to function efficiently. Just as the darkness began to take him and his active combat skills naturally deactivated, his vision flared with a massive, rapid-fire succession of leveling notifications:
[Level Up! Normal Rank 11 – Normal Rank 12]
[Level Up! Normal Rank 12 – Normal Rank 13]
[Level Up! Normal Rank 13 – Normal Rank 14]
[Level Up! Normal Rank 14 – Normal Rank 15]
[Level Up! Normal Rank 15 – Normal Rank 16]
[Skill Acquired!]
[Skill: Command – Venom]
[Skill: Command – Fear]
[Skill: Command – Gravity]
[Skill: Command – Vital Points]
[Skill: Command – Wood]
[Skill: Command – Plants]
[Skill: Command – Willpower]
[Skill: Command – Projectile Mana]
The moment his fading consciousness processed the text for Command – Venom, Alex mentally seized the authority, activating it with the last remnants of his willpower. Slowly but surely, the agonizing, dark green toxin coursing through his bloodstream recognized his dominance; the poison began to neutralize, dissipating into harmless ambient mist.
With the venom cleared, his Healing Mana acted instantly, rushing to the stump of his right arm. Cells rapidly divided, and his right hand began to visibly regrow. However, the process was heavily restricted; the foreign wind mana left behind by the Commander-rank's strike was still aggressively swirling inside the wound, disrupting the cellular alignment. His own level 16 Command – Wind was simply not powerful enough to repel or dominate the high-tier winds produced by an apex Commander.
Recognizing the issue, Ketovan walked over and knelt beside him. He extended his hand, manifesting a dark grey sphere that enveloped both himself and Alexander. The moment the specialized domain stabilized, the foreign, hostile wind energy inside Alex's arm was violently suppressed, dissipating into nothingness.
Reina rushed over, her face pale with concern as she quickly cast a high-grade Healing Snow spell over his regenerating limbs. Ketovan opened his personal Healing Domain alongside her, layering the restorative energies. Under the dual influence of two high-ranking support spells and his own conceptual body, the agonizing trauma finally receded. His arm fully mended, his bones knit back together, and as the exhaustion of the rapid leveling washed over his mind, Alexander finally closed his eyes, drifting off into a deep, restorative sleep.
***