I am tired, very tired. This is quite literally the longest battle of my existence and, like an idiot, I’m the cause of about fifty percent of my tiredness. This little crab lizard thing is a little bitch. Yep, I said it. It’s a little bitch.

  It has yet to harm me, but I have also yet to harm it. It is fast and all it wants to do is run the fuck away.

  At first I allowed it to just pitter patter around, waiting for what I assumed would be an eventual attack or something crazy to happen, but there was nothing of the sort and I didn’t have time to waste.

  Who knows what’s been happening outside the dungeon.

  I simply didn’t have time to allow it to run around, and after about thirty to forty five minutes of it literally just pitter pattering around, I decided to take the fight to it and that’s when all my problems began.

  Once it noticed me moving in its direction, the damn thing would stand still and wait for me and when I neared it, it would just run away again. Even when I tried to lull it into a false sense of safety and walked up to it very calmly, followed by using a Surging Step to close the distance in a flash, it would still pitter patter out of the way.

  Little fucking bitch.

  From there I’ve been chasing it around the arena trying to get a hit, trying to do what I need to do and complete this battle and move on, but all it has done is run away from me and now I am fucking exhausted. It’s been hours, hours of running with nothing to show for it but the condescending look I just know this bastard is giving me and my tiredness.

  Of course the Ebb and Flow skill has been passively recovering my stamina throughout the battle, but it wasn’t here to work miracles. Even my newest Trait was working wonders on my stamina recovery, but with much I’ve pushing myself, I was still drained.

  Even now, as I stood here breathing laboriously, not moving to attack the little crab bitch, it just stood there and watched me, making no noise and not moving in my direction, just watching. Oh my gosh, I’m gonna find this fucking species and I’m going to eradicate them from whatever planet they call home and if it’s multiple planets, I will travel to every single one of them and do the same thing. Oh, you fucking crab bitch.

  Anyway, I was tired and I wasn’t gonna chase this piece of shit around for any longer. So I just stood there watching it while I thought about how to get out of this situation. I was obviously not fast enough to catch it nor were any of my abilities quick enough to kill or damage it with its speed and mine.

  I’m sure all it would take is one Ocean’s Maw connecting to get rid of the little thing, but while Ocean’s Maw is a pretty big skill, It also took a second or two to really activate and it couldn’t cover the entire arena all at once. All I’d be doing is wasting mana.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  I just stood there, continuing to watch it watch me back while my mana and stamina recovered to full. By the time both of those things were full and I felt like I was at my peak again, not even an hour had passed. It probably took a little less than 30 or so minutes to recover fully, but I’d been thinking a lot during that time.

  I’d been calling this little bastard a crab as something of a dig this entire time, but what if it really is a crab…what if that wasn’t far from the truth? What if, like crabs, it was a scavenger that fed on the carcasses of others? What if, in a long list of what ifs, I played dead and allowed it to come close? And once it did, I’ll kill it once and for all.

  Like with all of my theories in this new reality of ours, I could be dead wrong, but what did I have to lose? If it didn’t take the bait then I would just have to figure something else out. There is no harm in trying.

  Once the idea settled in my mind, I made a show of wobbling and losing my balance, breathing laboriously, the whole nine yards. Eventually I dropped into a theatrical fall where I pretended to die.

  Thud

  I heard it echoing around the room as I fell backwards. Of course my spear was still gripped in my hand and then I waited. A minute passed, five minutes passed, ten minutes passed, and at this point I was ready to get up and stop this farce because it obviously wasn’t working, but I didn’t mind the extra few minutes of rest that I was getting.

  Then I heard it, a few pitter pattering steps. It wasn’t very close to me yet, but it was moving. It paused. It waited a couple seconds and then took a couple more steps, then another pause followed by a couple more steps.

  Eventually it was right next to me.

  At this point I could’ve gotten up and attacked, but no, not yet. Not for this little bastard. It moved forward slowly and slightly and now it was looking directly down at me. I could quite literally feel its presence right next to me and, boy oh boy, I wanted to get up, but no, I waited a little bit longer. Then, after a second, I felt a very pointy leg calmly land on my chest. Then just as that leg was starting to press down into my chest, I sprang up and grabbed it with my off hand.

  What followed after that is not something children should see.

  It turns out that the crab creature wasn’t all that strong, just very fast. Strength was not one of its qualities. I was able to pick it up and sling it around with great force and boy did I do that for a significant period of time, continuously slamming it onto the ground with blood and gore flying everywhere.

  Boom! boom! boom!

  Perhaps I would’ve continued doing it longer if I didn’t have more important things to handle. I slammed it one final time for good measure and then drove my spear through its body. That felt good, but I’m still going to hunt the shit out of your species the second I get a chance. Damn crab.

  The only good thing that came out of that battle, apart from obviously winning it, was that it allowed me to rest for a significant period and recover fully. So yeah, good for you, damn crab. After taking a breather and calming down a little bit, I moved to the next battle.

  Battle 44 – Umbral Drake

  What appeared before was obviously another Drake, but this one was a level larger and was covered in beautiful black scales that resembled the darkness of the night sky itself.

  And that wasn’t all. Even now when I wasn’t directly next to it, I could feel nothing but sweltering heat engulfing the entire arena. It was like I was suddenly transported into a sauna accidentally raised to the highest temperatures.

  Sweat was already beginning to gather along my brows.

  This wasn’t going to be a simple one.