Chapter 178

178 Run, please! part The first to land an attack was Bob, who slammed his warhammer with all his might at a Rock scorpion, leaving but a small dent on its hard shell.

“What are you doing Bob!? use a piercing weapon instead! They’re made of rock, try to aim for a weakspot”

“I-I don’t have any! I only carry my warhammer!”

Bob said in despair, it’s beeb a few times where his warhammer has proved less than effective but he always relied on his strength to overwhelm any opponent.

“Here! take this!”

Sera called for his attention as she handed him a small sword that looked almost like a butter knife on Bob’s huge hands.

“What am I even supposed to do with this!?”

“Pointy part towards the enemy, then swing it as fast as you can, if the enemy is not dead yet, simply rinse and repeat”

“You make it sounds like it’s so easy but...”

.....

Bob was about to rebuke Anne’s words, when he noticed that she was surrounded by scorpion corpses already. This opponent was a terrible match for Bob who relied solely on strength, Anne, Luke and Risa instead relied on their high speed and attack cadence. Archers weren’t supposed to be strong in close combat, but Anne was fearless, giving her an edge over beasts and humans alike. She wouldn’t close her eyes even in the most difficult situations allowing her to dodge incoming attacks that anyone but her would have no choice but to take head on.

Rock scorpions were falling like flies all over the place, their slow movements were easy to dodge if properly anticipated and their big bodies made them easy targets. Sera, whose only means of attack and defense was to cast fire magic could do nothing but support her allies, while taking care of Ryu who was still conscious but in pain.

His back had been burned, but he was in no immediate danger. In fact, just one medicine pill was enough to heal most of his damage and health points.

Meanwhile, Bob struggled to defeat even a single rock scorpion with the small sword, but then Sera noticed there was a weapon in Famine she wasn’t familiar with. She called for Bob’s attention again and handed him Lea’s spiked mace.

With a grin on his face Bob swung it over and over sending pieces of hard shell flying into the air with every hit he landed.

“We can’t keep this up forever! plan was to get the beasts to fight each other!”

Luke struggled against a rock scorpion that managed to interlock his venomous sting with his short sword.

“Uh, don’t be a crybaby! we’re doing just fine”

Ryu, who was resting on top of Famine’s loin, had the same field of vision Sera had, but his night vision skill allowed him to comprehend a lot better the situation of the battlefield. It wasn’t just that there were too many rock scorpions, there was a bigger danger lurking in the distance.

A huge, horrible, fat and gross bloated white worm squeezed its muscles in an undulating wave manner that gave Ryu the creeps. it was also, most likely, the culprit behind the acid attack he just received.

Most scorpions attempted to move away from it, but ended up being crushed or even eaten by it, but not before stinging it with venom as Ryu confirmed after using his consider skill.

>Giant white worm mass (Healthy)(poisoned)

“There’s a big enemy incoming, we need to fall back!”

“We can’t, there’s too many scorpions!”

Anne shouted trying to dodge the many attacks headed her way, most of them missed but one managed to jab its sting into her thigh.

“Mister Ryu, should I use it now?”

“Don’t even think about it Sera, if you do what you’re thinking we’re going to be spotted easily by the people following us”

Situation worsened by the second when Bob’s mace broke leaving him with nothing but an iron short stick. Famine, understanding the situation, drew closer to Bob allowing Sera to hand him another weapon, this time a long spear.

In Anne’s hand a spear would have become a slashing, blunt, piercing or throwing weapon at her convenience, but on Bob’s hands it was nothing more than a long stick.

Having lost his patience, he didn’t even attempt to hit the creatures’ weak spots, and instead put as much strength as he could on every blow. After even that spear broke, Ryu decided to ask Bob to retreat himself for a while. He was quickly breaking weapons without inflicting nearly enough damage to justify it.

The worm, still coming their way, stood still for a few seconds but kept undulating his muscles in a disgusting manner. Then, he shot another acid bolt towards the group, this time aiming directly at Anne who was already experiencing the first stage of the rock scorpion’s venom.

Bob, in utter despair, threw the first thing he found in the ground nearby towards Anne to cover her. The acid bolt hit the scorpion corpse, bouncing off its caparace leaving no trace of damage whatsoever.

“That’s it!”

Ryu climbed down the amarok and jumped towards the biggest rock scorpion corpse he could find. With the aid of his trusty obsidian dagger he peeled off the caparace from the body so cleanly it almost didn’t splatter any blood at all.

Piercing a hole through the caparace was difficult, but his enhanced stats amounted to his high crafting skill allowed him to do an outstanding job all things considered, and within a minute he had crafted a, very primitive, rock scorpion caparace shield for Bob. When the huge chunky warrior received the shield, yet another huge smile was drawn on his face. He understood what he was supposed to do and it washed away all the frustration he was experiencing from the previous battle.

“We can’t let that thing get close to us!”

Lea cried, completely disgusted by the bloated appearance of the huge whi worm the size of a whale.

“What do you mean kid? that’s exactly what we need”

Risa, excited by the heat of the battle, brandished her huge knife looking sword skillfuly getting rid of every scorpion on her close vicinity. She stood right in front of the giant white worm with her arm extended to the right and the huge sword almost touching the gorund, a strong breeze waved her hair and before her hair could settle, she jumped in the direction of the worm with a battlecry.

“Take this you...”

Ryu, who couldn’t understand the reasoning behind Risa’s confident attitude, was able to see the instant regret on her face when the worm opened its maw so wide it swallowed her whole.

“Risa’s been eaten, do something quickly!”

Luke shouted, but no one knew what to do, they were all busy fighting their own opponents. Moreover, judging by the worm’s appearance it would have been impossible to guess it was able to open its maw so wide, and now they all wondered just what other secrets could the worm possibly be hiding under that unsightly appearance.