After waiting for a few seconds, Gideon could see Jaice flying straight at him closely followed by the 3 Steel Coated Mantises swinging their scythe-like arms trying to cut her tail which was just inches away from them.
Gideon shook his head seeing this which he had seen many times in the past 6 months from the day he bought her from the Monster Breeding Center.
He thought 'You will never change.' trying hard to not facepalm looking at this antic action by Jaice.
"Ha Ha" this scene made Manav chuckle and said "Your bird knows how to play with her prey, my friend. She is indeed the best partner to lure the monsters." Still keeping his board sword at the front, ready to fight.
He could see the mantises clearly and they were about knee height for Gideon and were about a meter in length and 16 cm in width.
Swoosh..
Cling.. Clang.. Cling..
Within seconds, Jaice flew past the 3 standing as front-line defense. Gideon, Steel Horn Bison and Manav defended the attacks that came at them by the startled Steel Coated Mantises that saw them only after coming too close to them and swung their arms immediately out of instinct.
Clang..
Meera, standing about 5 meters behind them, immediately shot an arrow that couldn't penetrate the steel coat of the mantis that just slashed against Manav and fell to the ground.
"Use your Spirit Energy and infuse it to the arrows before shooting." Manav said to Meera without looking back, but showing a little displeasure on his face after seeing the first attack from his girlfriend failed to do any damage to the monster.
This is one of the reasons why they couldn't use guns while fighting monsters.
While the firepower from the guns will be useful against low tier monsters, for the higher tier monsters, it would not even leave a scratch on their skin without infusing Spirit Energy into the bullets.
But the bullets are too fast that the infused Spirit Energy would disperse before the bullets can leave the muzzle of the guns and they had to rely on heavy weapons like cannons to deal with explosions to fight against higher Tier monsters which could make a little damage to them.
Gideon had to take 2 steps back to defuse the power of the Mantis's attack because of its speed and power. He deduced that all the 3 Steel Coated Mantises were in Tier-1, level-2 which was the reason it was a level-1 task. If they were at a higher tier, it would have increased the severity of the task.
He noticed that Manav didn't move an inch when defending the mantis's attack and realized he would have gained the strength from his monster partner, Metal Horn Bison which also gave him the ability to wear such heavy metal armor and carry a broad sword that surely weighed more than 5 kg.
Gideon continued to block the attacks from the Steel Coated Mantis that swung its scythe like arm using his short sword while moving back a step for every attack he blocked to defuse the power he felt from the attacks.
He could feel his hand shake a little every time he blocked an attack and was not sure how long he could keep blocking. He needs help from Jaice to go on the offensive, but she was just sitting on a branch of a nearby tree gaining the Spirit Energy she used while luring their targets here.
He gripped his short sword with both his hands, infused his Spirit Energy into his short sword and got ready to block the next attack which came in immediately. He blocked one of the scythe arms while having to crouch to dodge the other to prevent cutting his head.
With the minor speed he gained from the Soul Integration which he got through the element of air, he was able to dodge easily not getting a single scratch from the ferocious attacks.
Still, he was doing poorly in defending the attacks while Manav had been firm with his monster partner, standing toe to toe with the mantises they were fighting.
He wanted to call Jaice to help, but he knew she needed a few more minutes to regain the Spirit Energy she used and join the fight, or she would be very little helpful.
He needs to fight hard and win without her help to gain a little faith in himself to take any more hunting tasks as he can't rely on Jaice in every fight as there could be more than 1 monster he has to hunt on every task he would take in the future.
With this in mind, he started performing the Constitution Enhancement Exercise which immediately made him feel pain all over his body, but he gritted his teeth and continued performing it to get the adrenaline rush that he needs in the fight.
He reached the 14th step within 2 minutes, which gave him the strength to stand against the Steel Coated Mantis toe to toe and block its attack without taking a step back to defuse the power.
He was still unable to push to the 15th step as he felt something was blocking the path to complete the 14th step which he felt for the previous steps, but were easily broken. But this block was firm, like a wall made of steel, not breaking as the other walls broke.
But the adrenaline rush that came with the 14th steep gave him a slight upper hand in the fight which he needed the most and started to go on the offence for the 1st time after the fight started.
He still did not push the mantis back as he wanted to see if this fight would allow him to get past the 14th step and continued to block and dodge the attacks without much trouble which he had earlier.
With the pressure he had in the fight, he tried to perform the 14th step faster and faster trying to break the blocking wall that was stopping him to perform the next step in the Constitution Enhancement Exercise, but he couldn't see any improvement in it.
He continued fighting for another 5 minutes, he took a second to glance at Manav and his Bison to see they had already finished their fight with the help of Meera and was watching him fight.
He can't blame them as they had come to an agreement before the fight that no one will interrupt others' fight unless they ask for help.
It had been almost 10 minutes since he had started the fight and he started feeling the fatigue, his eyelids getting heavy and his whole body screaming in pain because of the continuous strain from the exercise.
SLURCH...
He felt pain on his left thigh and looked at it to see blood flowing out of a wound that was inflicted from the attack of the Mantis. He paid the price for getting distracted in the middle of a fight.
With the pain from the wound, he felt the dizziness leave his body and performed the 14th step faster.
To his surprise, the wall blocking the completion broke and he was able to start the 15th step which gave him even a little more adrenaline push which he needed now.
With the little extra strength and speed, he swung his short sword towards the Steel Coated Mantis to attack for the 1st time since the fight began and he was able to inflict a wound on its chest.
He was little excited to go on the offensive in the fight for a change and continued swinging like a madman without any specific target to hit which pushed the mantis back a little.
ZHING.. THUD
After another 2 minutes, he was able to slice the head of the mantis and its body dropped on the forest ground with a heavy thud.
He slumped on a nearby tree as the fight took more than he bargained for. He looked at his watch and realized it took him almost 15 minutes to kill a single Steel Coated Mantis in a real fight.
Manav gave him his backpack from which he took a bandage and antiseptic lotion to treat his wound and stop the bleeding.
Then, he started to harvest the monster he killed using a small knife he kept in his backpack. The organs of the monsters, specially its scythe-like arms and steel skin could be sold for a good price in the Adventures Association for at least a 100 dallans which will be a good profit for him from the 33 dallans from the task commission of 100 split into 3 between them.
It took him 5 minutes to harvest his kill and they immediately started to move from there as monsters would get attracted to the blood smell of the dead mantises and Gideon had little to no energy to get into another fight.
It took them 40 minutes to reach the dirt road leading to their village and started to walk slowly as they still had more than enough time to reach the defence wall before the gates are closed.