Chapter 53
Chapter 53: Earth Spike Slingshot
“This wouldn’t really be a one-shot spell, but at least it could achieve the same effect as a powerful one-shot spell...” Blake muttered as he stood in the usual place where he tested his spells and rune formations, in the forest some distance away from Vera’s isolated space.
Now that he already got the general idea of the spell, Blake had only spent a couple of hours making a rough but realized concept of his abstract idea.
And right now, he is currently trying to make the first prototype of the spell.
‘I should simplify the process later, but for now, let’s all do each part of the spell manually.’
Blake drew the demonic runes with his fingers and summoned two earth walls that stood parallel with each other.
Then he summoned a single earth spike to his right before then using a darkness tendril spell to pluck the earth spike from the ground and place it on the ground while leaning it on his shoulder.
Blake then released the darkness tendril that he used to pluck the earth spike before he cast another two darkness tendrils with each hand and attached them to the two earth walls that he had summoned earlier.
.....
Blake intentionally didn’t pull on the two darkness tendrils that were attached to the earth walls as he would be jerking himself forward if he did that.
Instead, Blake put his two hands that had the other attached end of the darkness tendrils to the dull bottom of the earth spike.
With a thought, Blake moved the darkness tendrils that were attached to his two hands onto the base of the earth spike.
Seeing that he succeeded in attaching the darkness tendrils to the earth spike, Blake then started picking up the earth spike with both hands as he carefully placed it in front of him while making sure to hold it tight so that he wouldn’t accidentally release it.
The earth spike was as expected, quite heavy due to its sheer size and the sturdiness of condensed earth.
However, with his physique stat being somewhat increased by quite a fair amount from his base, the human stat that he had before, Blake was able to hold and carry the earth spike easily using both of his hands.
With his current strength, Blake still wouldn’t be able to carry it as effortlessly as Robus did, but his current capability was enough for him to use the earth spike in his new in-progress spell.
So using both hands, Blake started holding the earth spike from its base before pulling it backward, stretching the two darkness tendrils to their limit.
And when Blake had found it impossible to pull the earth spike backward any further because the opposite pulling force of the darkness tendrils was already too strong for him to properly handle, Blake looked forward and scanned his surroundings to see any target that he could aim with the earth spike.
And soon, he found a tree about 35 meters away right in front of him, not too close yet not too far away either, a perfect distance for him to check whether the earth spike would still be as effective and powerful from that distance.
So Blake quickly aimed the earth spike in that certain direction before releasing his grip on the earth spike.
The moment the earth spike was free from Blake’s hands, the darkness tendrils soon did their work and jerked the earth spike forward with immense strength.
And just like how the darkness tendrils released their attachment after they finished their job pulling Blake forward or up the tree, they also released their attachment with the earth spike the moment the earth spike has been launched forward.
What Blake had just created was basically a catapult or a slingshot that was made using the combination of earth constructs and darkness tendrils.
The two earth walls were used as the base of the catapult, the darkness tendrils were the stretchy part that launches the ammo, and the earth spike was the ammo itself.
And with the darkness tendrils being stretched as far away as possible, they came back forward with much greater strength as they brought the earth spike with them, resulting in the earth spike being propelled forward with a speed that was no less than when Robus threw the earth spikes with his bare hands.
The earth spike traveled straight forward into the target that Blake had aimed for earlier and it looked like it was about to crash onto the tree trunk head-on.
However, Blake’s aim with the catapult was not as good as he imagined it and in the end, the Earth spike didn’t strike the thick tree trunk in the dead center, but rather on its side.
The earth spike went and passed through the tree trunk with ease as it created a hole as large as one-fifth of the width of the thick tree trunk.
And it didn’t stop moving forward for another 15 meters before it finally crashed onto another tree trunk, destroying the front half of the earth spike while also creating another deep crevice in the tree trunk that it had crashed into and finally lost all the momentum carried behind it.
Blake watched all this with great interest as he wanted to see how much power the earth spike could carry.
And seeing the result with his own two eyes, Blake could say that he wasn’t disappointed at all.
Although Blake kind of missed his aim on the first tree and only succeeded in hitting a small chunk of the tree trunk, the fact that the part of the tree trunk that was hit by it had completely disappeared into a hole showed the fact that the earth spike carried enough or even more strength compared to his darkness bullet when being shot at point blank range.
Then seeing the earth spike could travel another 10 meters or more and still cause a significant degree of destruction in the other tree trunk, Blake could imagine the earth spike putting holes in the huge crow’s body if he were ever to use it back then.
Blake then heaved a sigh of relief before nodding in satisfaction as the first prototype model of his new in-progress spell had been a huge success.
There were still a lot of things that he needed to work on such as simplifying the process and the spells needed to cast it because he drew 6 sets of demonic runes to use the earth spike catapult spell earlier.
And he also needs to learn how to aim correctly with it.
But those were problems for later as Blake was currently feeling hungry and he wanted to do a little celebration for completing the first spell prototype by eating bird meat that he had marinated for quite some time now.