Marianne looked around at the battlefield atop her mantis. As she had expected, it made short work of any rats that got close to it. Their skin and armor never stood a chance against its sharp scythe claws. It could easily bisect them without any effort at all. And if any rat was lucky enough to swing their weapons against its legs, they would find that its armor was not so feeble as theirs.

Unfortunately for her, she didn't realize that those rats were merely acting as a distraction, as the real threat sneaked around inside the mantis' range unnoticed. Indeed, one of the assasins' managed to get close to the giant insect, even to the point that it climbed onto its back, heading straight for where Marianne was, her being none the wiser. It would have not given its presence at all if not for the horrid stench that surrounded its filthy body. But even with the odor, it still moved quick enough that when Marianne noticed something terribly smelly coming from her, it already was ready with its pair of poisonous blades.

And, when Marianne turned around to see what was behind her, it already launched its blades like a pair of scissors towards her neck.

Her eyes widened as wide as they could go, her face quickly turned into that of horror. She could only watch as the rat's blade inched slowly towards her neck in slow motion. They said that in the moment of your death, everything would slow down to the point that you could watch your death coming, without you being able to do anything about it.

Her reflex automatically made her swing her dwarven axe towards the rat. It wasn't any skilled attack. It was merely a desperate and sudden move, done without thinking, as she had no idea at all that an attack was coming.

It was too late however, as the rat's blade thrusted more swiftly than the speed she swung her axe.

Now, this was the part where why a bond between a beast trainer and their creature was so important. It made the creature they tamed willingly sacrificed themselves to protect their master, even if the master themself didn't order them to.

This was exactly what happened, as Marianne's beetles swarmed to her neck near instantly, the moment they detected a change in their master's body. It was not a command Marianne ordered, as she was too much taken by surprise to think properly. Instead, they acted by their own instinct, as their instinct worked far faster than a mind of a human like Marianne. All those hours spent with them clinging to Marianne's skin taught them the subtle changes that happened when their master switched to a different state of mind. They could tell when she was happy, when she was nervous, when she was scared, and, most importantly, when she was in a mortal state of shock and terror.

Thus, with their bodies, they acted as a buffer to stop the blades from touching Marianne's neck.

Now it was the rat who was taken by surprise. Here it had a clean surprise attack to its target, but suddenly, these bugs came out of nowhere and blocked his assault.

And that surprise was enough for Marianne's axe to connect with its body, sending it down below to join its brothers who were distracting the mantis.

It didn't die of course, as the blow was weak. But it was enough to foil his almost fatal attack towards the girl.

The beetles that protected her soon died, whether it was from the blade's sharpness or the poison. They dropped like dead flies, some of them going to Marianne's lap, some of them got stuck on the mantis' body, and some of them fell down to the floor beneath her.

Marianne could only sit up there, still in a daze. Her brain was still freezing, trying to process what just happened.

She would need someone to snap her out of it, quickly, as the rat she just repelled would surely go for a second round if she didn't order her mantis to kill it first.

[@Rekaigan]