Atticus's Odyssey: Reincarnated Into A Playground

Chapter 902 Homing

Chapter 902  Homing

'Yes. This is the second challenge.'

Atticus's gaze narrowed. He wasn't surprised, he had already suspected that the next trial would be the second challenge. His question had only been for confirmation.

And as soon as he received it, his actions were immediate.

His mind spun with speed, his lips parting as he bombarded the spirit with a rapid series of pointed questions.

"Tell me everything about these beasts."

"They're called Abyssal Worms. They typically live underground in healing grounds like this. They hunt by tracking the life signatures of their prey, then tearing them apart."

The information hit Atticus like a hammer, his mind processing every word with lightning speed.

"What are their weaknesses? How do I kill them?"

"There are no set weaknesses. You just have to be fast enough, in any case."

"What are the cases?"

"You kill them when they burst from the ground or in their domain, the ground itself."

Atticus's brows furrowed as his sharp eyes tracked the beasts, observing their movements as they erupted from the ground and shot back inside.

'They're too fast,' he noted coldly.

At their speed, catching them seemed inconceivable. Atticus was confident that his passive strength and speed alone surpassed even grandmaster+ ranks, and yet, these small creatures outpaced him?

'If I had my elements, this would be easy,' his thoughts briefly drifted, but his expression hardened in the next moment. 'There's no point lamenting the impossible. I'll use what I have.'

He darted forward, a streak of blue trailing behind him.

A beast erupted beneath him, its jagged teeth snapping shut.

But it only bit into empty air, Atticus was already gone.

Another burst upward as he landed, even faster this time.

SNAP!

Its jaws narrowly missed as Atticus twisted midair, landing silently once again.

He moved. Faster. Sharper.

Everywhere his feet touched, the ground cracked, and beasts lunged, relentless in their pursuit.

But Atticus was already gone before they could reach him.

His movements were surgical. Minimal. Elite.

His piercing gaze flicked side to side, tracking every beast as they burst from the ground.

A pattern. He needed a pattern.

The first challenge had followed this same rule, there had been a hidden method to their attack. If Atticus had realized the swirling nature of invisible wolves assaults earlier, he could have passed that trial with far less effort.

'The katana always leaves clues. I just have to find them.'

The beasts attacked in waves. Spiraling. Coordinated chaos.

Atticus evaded them without fail, but he knew he couldn't keep this up forever. Running blindly or flying across the platform was futile; his mana reserves would deplete before he reached the end.

Which meant there was something here he was missing. A clue embedded within the challenge.

'Is it footwork?' His thoughts spun like a storm.

It made sense. After learning how to move his mana in the first challenge, the next logical progression would be learning how to move his body.

The beasts, constantly forcing him to adapt and adjust his movements, were an obvious indication.

Yet, no matter how he scrutinized their erratic lunges and burrowing retreats, Atticus couldn't find a discernible pattern.

'Let's try to kill one and see.'

Atticus's eyes sharpened, scrutinizing every detail of the beasts, their shape, weight, speed, and trajectory.

Luckily, they were all more or less similar, so Atticus didn't need to analyze each one individually. In less than a nanosecond, he was finished, his gaze turning cold.

He would test his theory.

The ground beneath him trembled.

In the next instant, two beasts erupted from below, their jagged teeth snapping toward his legs.

WHOOSH!

Atticus shifted. No wasted motion.

He twisted just enough, leaving barely an inch between his body and their fangs.

His piercing gaze locked onto them, movements sharper than ever.

The air around his fingers coiled as swirling mana wrapped tightly around them.

He turned sharply, his arm shooting forward like a whip.

CRACK!

Swirling mana shot toward the beasts with unrelenting speed, tearing through the air like a spear.

But before the attack landed, the ground shifted beneath him again.

Two more beasts burst forth, their teeth snapping at the spot where his feet had been just moments before.

But they caught nothing but empty air.

Atticus was already gone.

His figure shot upward like a bullet, the force of his movement cracking the hard platform beneath him.

High above, he twisted midair, his hands still moving toward the earlier beasts. Swirling mana coiled into deadly arcs.

His eyes sharpened.

At the last moment, the beasts veered sharply to the side, as if propelled by an invisible burst of air, evading his strike.

THUD!

They dove back into the ground, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared.

Atticus's expression darkened. "What the hell…"

He turned to the spirit. "They're faster in the air?"

The spirit nodded. "That's right."

Atticus frowned as he landed, his movements remaining precise and efficient as he evaded more attacks. His mind worked furiously.

It didn't add up.

"If they're faster in the air, why aren't they exploiting that advantage?"

Their speed in the air had been incredible, an explosion of motion that even Atticus couldn't match.

And yet, despite that clear advantage, the beasts weren't staying airborne. They only burst from the ground, attacked, and then dove back underground.

It was… unusual.

Beasts and predators always used every advantage they had to kill their prey. Holding back wasn't in their nature.

"This is another hint…" Atticus's gaze flicked toward the platform beneath him.

"The ground."

An idea sprouted in his mind.

He landed softly on the hard platform, his stance firm. As soon as he felt the ground jutting beneath his feet, his mana churned.

Swirling mana erupted beneath his feet, rotating with intense power, tearing apart a significant portion of the platform.

The beasts reacted instantly, zipping away from the attack, evading the swirling mana threatening to rip them to shreds.

A second later, the ground healed, returning to its original state as though nothing had happened.

Atticus narrowed his eyes and deactivated the mana beneath his feet. He resumed evading the beasts, his bursts of movement sharp and precise.

"They're significantly slower underground," he noted.

The reason for his earlier attack wasn't to kill the beasts, it was to test their speed underground.

"They evaded my surprise attack, but it wasn't as fast as their movements in the air."

Atticus had initially considered destroying the platform completely to expose the beasts, but with the speed at which it healed, it seemed impossible. Plus, catching the beasts in the air was out of the question.

Now, a better idea had formed.

"I have to kill them underground."

While Atticus searched for a way, the spirit hovered silently, watching him with narrowed eyes.

"How will he handle this?"

During his own trial, the spirit had run back to the beginning of the platform to catch his breath multiple times. But since the trial began, Atticus had only moved forward, with no intention of retreating.

"How can he move so perfectly?"

The spirit could see it at a glance. Atticus's movements were nothing short of flawless. He used only as much energy and mana as necessary, nothing more, nothing less.

Only old foggies with centuries of training and experience should be able to achieve this. So how?

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. 'Does he plan to come up with a solution in this kind of situation?'

There was no time to rest, no time to think about anything else but survival. Or so the spirit believed.

But then, his eyes shone as he saw Atticus's mana begin to churn.

Atticus moved like streaking lightning, fast and deliberate. Trails of azure light followed his sharp movements as his glowing blue eyes locked onto the beasts. A small smile crept onto his lips.

He had figured it out.

The beasts were faster in the air but slower underground. Which meant the solution was clear: he had to kill them underground.

He couldn't go into the ground himself, so he thought of a method to achieve this.

Mana signatures.

In physics, there was a law, like charges attract while unlike charges repel.

The same principle applied to mana signatures.

Identical signatures attracted one another!

This was the foundation of everything Atticus was about to do.

His gaze turned icy, his figure darting forward as he evaded two beasts bursting from the ground.

His movements slowed, precise to the last detail, as his piercing blue eyes focused on the beasts. Their jagged teeth snapped violently at the empty air.

Atticus's mana surged through his body like a storm, his focus sharpening to an extreme.

There.

In the next instant, the outer mana signatures of the beasts imprinted themselves in his mind.

Atticus raised both palms, brilliant blue light radiating from them. His mana churned harder, responding to his thoughts as he mimicked the beasts' mana signatures.

BOOM.

Two bursts of swirling mana formed in his palms, coiling like living rings, their razor-sharp edges glowing ominously.

Without hesitation, he thrust his fists forward, the swirling rings shooting out with unrelenting speed.

The beasts reacted instantly.

They dove back into the ground, their sleek, black forms vanishing into the platform.

But it wasn't over.

The rings didn't dissipate despite missing their targets.

Instead, as though alive, they twisted sharply mid-flight and streaked toward the ground.

WHOOSH!

The rings tore into the platform, following the beasts relentlessly.

A loud, piercing screech erupted.

The ground trembled violently as the mana rings shredded the beasts underground without mercy.

Blood sprayed from the cracks in the platform before it healed itself completely, leaving no trace of the carnage.

The spirit hovering above narrowed his eyes, his expression frozen in shock.

"He figured it out already…" he muttered.

'What a crazy human.'