Insect Tamer's Ascension
Chapter 151 - 151: Bigger Dangers (5)- Incoming

With the three added corpses of the boars in the clearing, Theo sat near one of the big tree's shadows and waited for Elias to give him more information.

A minute passed, and finally, Elias spoke, "Young master, it's this way," he said and pointed in the direction of the northwest section of the forest.

Theo finally got up and looked at all the corpses on the ground until he finally found the mantis eating, frolicking as usual.

Chip had taken a small portion of the boar's strands of small meat to eat before it went to track the level 7 boar again.

There was a slight wait until the level 7 boar was finally found. According to Elias's observation, it was quite far, yet at the same time, even though it was far, it didn't mean it was unsafe to travel there.

Just another part of the outskirts they were at.

Theo all travelled for the next 15 minutes dodging past some boars stealthily. Theo even saw a female boar with seven little boars all around it.

The mantis was ready to go, but to him, it was not worth it to kill off some little beasts just for a measly amount of experience.

When finally, Theo reached near a certain clearing, his eyes widened, even the ape tread carefully.

Elias, for the first time, used sign language and told him to be careful and not make much sound.

Theo nodded; he knew the beings above level 6 were a lot more sensitive to things than normal.

He looked inside the clearing with vigilance and that was when he saw it in the middle of it—the boar was sleeping.

Even when it was laying down, Theo frowned, looking at its size. The boar was two times the size of the usual boars the mantis fought against.

Elias looked at Theo again and asked in sign language if this was something he wanted to do.

Now that Theo had seen the size difference increase so much again, and just from the appearance, he could tell that the boar's skin was thicker than usual.

Yet even after thinking about it for a few more seconds, Theo nodded. This was it.

He came near Elias's ear and whispered something that could not be said by hands, "I want to test the camouflage, Elias. If it doesn't work, I will leave it up to you, alright?" Theo stated and moved back to look at him.

Elias nodded and looked at the ape, whose eyes said the same.

Theo made up his mind and saw the mantis on his shoulder.

'This is it, mantis. This is our first difficult trial,' Theo stated through the mental command.

He didn't know or care if the mantis could understand him or not. He just wanted to let it out.

Yet the very next second, the mantis sent out some emotions his way that sent a shiver down Theo's spine. He grinned wide while looking at it, and then after a brief eye contact, the mantis hopped off the shoulder on its own.

Elias looked at it enter the tall grass and vanish. There was no way of finding it now.

'Go as close as possible, do not get detected,' Theo gave a command and waited.

The clearing was a lot bigger than he thought, and it was finely kept too.

The ground was not dug out everywhere. For the first time ever, Theo could finally relate something to what he read in the books.

'This is a beast territory. It's a lot stronger than what's around, and it has claimed it for its own use…' Theo thought.

Half a minute had passed and the boar had not detected anyone. This was a good thing.

Soon enough, the mantis sent a sudden emotion through the bond. Theo nodded at Elias and they all looked at the boar.

The mantis had reached the closest it could get and the boar had not detected it.

Theo knew the mantis wouldn't wait for a long time, so he kept sending some mental commands every few seconds for it to wait.

Till now, in his mind, for some reason Theo was sure that the mantis would be caught. That its camouflage would not be this good to work for something sensitive.

While the ape wasn't able to find the mantis all this time during the camouflage, the level 6 viper that they fought was able to detect it the whole fight.

Theo thought the same would happen again and it would be a chaos fight until now.

'Maybe I should get one of its eyes first and then make the mantis latch onto the face and use Spore Lash when it tries running…' Theo thought to devise a plan.

Yet the next second, the mantis became a flash of white light and reached the face within a split second before pushing its left foreleg inside the right eye of the sleeping boar.

Theo smacked his head. That was not a command but his own thinking. Something like this had happened before, but he again made the mistake of thinking that the mantis was still dumb.

SQUEAKK

The boar roared in a slight panic before it got up right away. One of its eyes was closed and Theo was ready for it to start running anytime soon.

But to another surprise, the boar just stood there calmly, as if assessing the situation first.

It tried jerking its head, making another light grunt-like squeak come out before the boar realized that there was something perched on its head.

From then on, the boar kept moving its head up and down, right and left, before it started hopping up and down too.

The mantis was latched on its body without breaking a sweat, its eyes on the boar's face in a wait.

While Theo was just thinking what they could do now, the mantis was on its other plan.

When it found the chance and a little stability, it pushed itself forward and when it was close to the one opened eye and the mouth, the mantis smacked both its forelegs together, making all the spores come out in a wide spray.

The boar instinctively closed its eyes, yet some of it was already in its eyes. The other mist was inhaled by the nostril and through the mouth.

Theo could still see a lot of it around the air, and that was when he felt a hand around his mouth with surprise.

"Don't make any sound,"