Okay, so I can’t use my thread, so basically I’m kind of defenseless. I can’t use magic, and I can’t really rely on my poison against an army. I could use some of my skills but the most I can do is drain the mana out of everything with my [Darkness creation], and then maybe stomp them to death with [Sonic step].

That won’t to much, but at least I will be covered in darkness to I will be harder to spot. [Darkness creation] Full throttle!

Wow.

I certainly didn’t expect an effect like that. I expected to have some smoke to cover me and some to lie on the ground, but in an single instant, the whole battlefield was covered. I could still see perfectly for some reason, but certainly the vision of my enemies will be at least a bit impaired. They also won’t be able to use spells against me. I love having the infinite mana.

[I said no cheesing.]

As soon as I heard that, my darkness disappeared as fast as it appeared before. That’s it for a smokescreen huh? At least I managed to decrease the overall mana of my enemies. Now that I’m back to being defenseless, let’s think again about what I could use. If the normal thread is out of question, then [Mana thread] is probably forbidden too. Not that I could deal any damage with it.

But what about the rest of my Ethereal skills? If I used my spirit form, I could avoid fighting and just slip through all of my enemies. I already drained the mana from them, so there’s no way they could hurt me. But again, to complete this challenge, I need to defeat my enemies, not run away from them.

But what if I use [Transform spirit] to give myself a bit better battle form? My mana is infinite, so no matter what I turn into, I could stay in that form indefinitely. It would be stupid to turn into something else, since I would have to get used to that body, but if I add just a slight alteration, then it wouldn’t impair my fighting ability.

[Proficiency reached. Gained skill [Upgraded thought process lvl. 4] ]

Come to think of it, that skill made me think a bit faster, so I’m able to have this internal debate even while an entire army is closing on me. Now what could I change about myself to turn my body into a killing machine? Could I possibly sprout a giant machine gun on my back and swat the monsters like flies? I probably could, but it would take too much time since I would need to comprehend inner workings of the gun.

Going for a melee would be a safer option, a sword would be probably the easiest and the most effective. What part of my body should I transform then? The obvious answer for that would be my front limbs, since they were already adjusted for weapons from my earlier evolution, so turning them into literal ones, wouldn’t be much of a change.

I quickly turned my body into a spirit, and then started modelling my limbs. I went for a single edge, since I wasn’t really sure about my durability and opted for a sturdier design. I made both of my front limbs into these sword like appendages, while focusing on sharpness and durability, so there shouldn’t be anything capable of withstanding my slash.

I was a bit disturbed though, because of how scythe-like my limbs turned out. I was really trying to make swords since they would look cool on me, but now it’s just… edgy. I look like a mantis with those. Well, maybe not that much, since they are also mixed in the crowd, and are stupidly huge when compared to me. Also green.

Oh, it looks like they are faster than the rest of the insect monsters, they will reach me any moment now. I jumped up when I sensed danger coming at me from the side, and sure enough, I just dodged a swing from a giant sickle. These mantises would make a good lawnmowers, even though the gras was already quite short, it got trimmed perfectly at even smaller height.

I have to admit, the degree of precision in this cut was far beyond me, to master gardening to this degree, this mantis must have been tending to one for a long time already. Too bad its gardening adventure ends here. A single swing from my… okay let’s call this scythe since it doesn’t really look like a sword, was enough to decapitate it.

Before its head landed on the perfectly cut grass, another pair of gardener mantises were about to make me into garden decoration, so I used 3d maneuver to sort of double jump in the air, safely escaping from deadly lawn scissors. Well, I can’t use my thread as a weapon, but if I use it for other purposes the dungeon master probably won’t get angry.

I spun a thread while still being in air, and then threw it at a huge fly that was circling around my head. It stuck to its carapace, and as expected the fly was strong enough to lift me off. Okay, now that part was done, it was the time to start clearing out the skies, after that I will face no interruptions when I face the gardening army.