All of his minds moved to bring the world to a standstill the moment the demons burst forth from the ground below, letting him take them all in for what they were.

They shared matching body plans, looking like giant millipedes, the portions of them stretching above the ground already bigger than he was and hinting at plenty more still down below as they gently swayed while he worked to figure out how he wanted to approach things.

He could already tell Thera was preparing a spell from the subtle movement of the earth and was willing to leave it to her, letting him focus on making sure Verbum would be safe, or at least that was his intent. The fact that he could make the world feel like it was moving in slow motion meant he didn’t think he had much he really needed to be worried about, but the monsters in front of him showed him how wrong that belief was.

All at once, it looked as though what Ben had taken for hundreds of legs had exploded out towards them, separating from their bodies with enough force behind them to make them appear fast even against the frame of reference he was acting within as they targeted the three of them with a heavy degree of precision, obviously to act as weapons and leaving him no desire to see what would come from taking those hits.

Oh, fuck me, this is going to be tight.

With almost no room to think, Ben let loose almost his entire reserved of mana, pouring it into the ground to rip up dirt to be shot out as bullets, each of them set on a collision course with the many projectiles flying through the air, carrying enough force to be sure to knock them off their path, even if he didn’t have enough in him to get all of them.

As high as his mana had grown to be, it wasn’t unlimited and he couldn’t be perfect in defending against that volley of attacks. He didn’t bother trying to affect the shots he was sure would miss, but there was one other thing he was able to do to make sure that both Thera and Verbum would be safe. He didn’t waste any mana on protecting himself.

But that’s fine because I’ve got something else for that, barrier shoes, do your stuff!

…I said barrier shoes, do your stuff!

…Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit!

His shoes weren’t working. That was the thought that first raced through his head as he tried to activate them, but it was wrong. The enchantments were still in perfect working order and he still had an external power source in the form of the mana batteries with him. No, he was simply discovering the limits of his enchantment in a way he’d never had to before.

This was his first time trying to use that barrier since he’d gained any sort of thought speed skill, and now that he was attempting to put it up with his minds moving at their full potential, he was confronted with the horrible reality of it. While there was no lag to be seen when thinking like a normal person, when a person was seeing the world at over a thousand percent faster, it was like they weren’t even activating.

He watched in horror as the demon's attack came closer, while at the same time his barrier started to slowly rise from his feet, knowing it wouldn’t make it as dozens of spikes already rushed past the limits of where his defense would start and leaving him with little in the way of options.

He placed his faith in his jacket, wanting to believe that it would handle the blow fine for all of the enchantments he’d placed on it and directed the rest of his focus to the spikes coming straight at his face.

So close now, he could see that what he’d mistaken for legs at a distance were instead some sort of specialized scales, not that it helped things. He couldn’t move his body as fast as he could think so there was no dodging them, instead it was a matter of deciding what hits to take.

His legs were a write-off. They weren’t important enough to try and protect compared to his more relevant bits so he didn’t even consider how many times they were about to be stabbed, instead focusing on the seven that would be hitting his face and neck. Automatically, he accepted the two that would simply skim the sides of his head before ordering the remaining five on the level of danger they were to him before he began squeezing the few remaining drops of mana he contained to do everything he could.

Destruction was a part of his material manipulation that he put to quick work as he pushed his mana to dull as many spikes as he could, not destroying them entirely, meaning he’d still be taking hits, but enough that they wouldn’t dig into his flesh and skull. Four of them he was able to get to a slightly less dangerous state before he felt himself falling just short of mana exhaustion, leaving the final one that was going to dig into his neck.

As a final act, he did his best to cancel the barrier he could see was still slowly going up, wanting Thera to have no problem getting to him to provide whatever aid she could before he cancelled the effects of his thought speed on all of his minds. He knew it was going to hurt and saw no reason he should have to experience it in slow motion.

The notifications going off in his head coincided with pain everywhere as he was knocked to the ground, unable to keep himself standing because of the damage to his legs, nor able to breathe with the hole in his neck. The rest of his face was battered by the projectiles he’d dulled and the only part of him left unharmed was his torso, safely covered by his coat which had decided to show its full use.

At the same time as he fell, Thera’s spell came into effect, enveloping the five beasts in a thick shell of stone and crushing down, trapping and killing them before she ran over to his side, her life magic already on her fingertips as she first worked to close the wound on his neck before moving elsewhere, letting him get the air he needed to speak.

“Guess who just got piercing resistance!” He shouted cheerfully despite the pain, leaving Thera to shake her head as she worked to close the rest of his wounds.

“I’ve literally never heard of that skill before. How the hell have you been stabbed enough to get something like that?”

“I don’t know but I’ll take it. The more defensive skills I get, the better off I’ll be next time anything like this comes up. This just means next time I’ll need something like slash resistance. Or maybe fracture resistance? It would be pretty cool if I could get something that would keep my bones from breaking. Or skin for that matter, would that be laceration resistance? Honestly, the possibilities are endless here.”

“How are you so calm about this!” Verbum screamed, rushing to their side with fear in his eyes, his concerns about the two forgotten now that he’d been in the presence of a real threat. “You’re bleeding everywhere! How are you joking around?”

“Ah, I guess since you’re so important you don’t actually see this much, but this sort of thing happens on this world a lot,” Ben explained. “This is barely even worth being bothered about by this point so long as I have a lovely healer nearby. You honestly just kind of get used to it after a certain point, you know?”

His explanation was obviously only leaving the other in a worse mental state as Verbum envisioned the life he might have been forced to live if not for his third-tier skill, with Thera rushing to try and fix the patently false belief that Ben was forcing into his mind.

“This is absolutely in no way a common occurrence for normal people,” She said firmly. “Ben just has the worst luck in the universe is all, my planet isn’t some nightmare world where everyone is constantly on the verge of death.”

It was a statement Ben wasn't going to let off without a fight though. “We’re literally in the middle of an invasion against a race that’s never lost with the fate of the planet at stake.”

“I’m talking about besides that. The majority of adventurers don’t get hurt enough to get some of the defense skills you have, let alone an average person. Don’t go trying to scare him.”

“Hey, I’m just calling it as I see it from one summoned to another, I think you’re just too used to seeing the world as it is and accepting it as normal. Gotta trust me here Thera, this planet is significantly more dangerous than my last.”

She could see in his eyes he fully believed what he was saying and wasn’t going to back down on it so she just shook her head and finished healing him, letting Verbum deal with a growing sense of fear as a side effect while he took what Ben had to say to heart.

It wasn’t long until Ben could sit up, his physical state well enough to get back to the matter at hand as he and the other two started making their way over to the fallen demons.

“So investigation over?” He asked. “These five have been clearing out the land. Either eating or hunting seems like the most likely option here.”

“I’m perfectly happy to call it that so let’s just go already,” Verbum begged, getting ignored again as Thera shook her head.

“If there’s five then there might be more. We need to keep on our toes for at least a bit. Come on.”

They dragged Verbum to the corpses, expecting his skill to work better now that he had something more relevant to focus on but got one final surprise at the end.

“One of these is still alive,” Ben said, holding up a hand to stop Thera from finishing it off then and there as it clung to its last bits of life. “Give me just a second, maybe I can actually make this a bit quicker and easier on all of us.”

It was only the one and it was still entombed in the stone Thera had crushed it with, meaning he wasn’t too scared of another attack, but he still stood as far back as he could before making his attempt as he connected to the demon’s mind and reached back into its memories.