Chapter 27

Chapter 27

I danced with death. Death, in this case, was ugly, sporting the general shape of a slinky bus and the personality of a parking officer. It was also extremely outmatched, and too stupid to realize it.

With a glance behind me, I took heed of the two webbed lines behind me and adjusted my bearing accordingly. As the millipede blundered forward next, two limbs reaching for my skin, instead of stepping back, I moved forward. My body moved of its own accord, twisting to avoid one limb, even as my shield rose to meet the other.

The millipede’s limbs were long and thin. They were also partially hollow, with some sort of channel allowing it to transmit the poison to its victims. Unfortunately for the butt-ugly monster, that also turned the limbs extremely fragile.

The shield met the leg at an angle. With a moment’s thought, I activated Deflect and laughed as the limb bounced off at a ridiculous speed and downright unhealthy angle. A second later, it dangled precariously, broken near what made it out for a knee joint.

It screeched and renewed its efforts to poison me. I smirked and stood tall, shield ready to take it on.

The limb came in low and swift. I raised my foot, even as I lowered the bottom of the shield to the ground, putting my weight on it to make sure it wasn’t knocked back.

The millipede’s leg struck the shield’s surface with a hard thud. For a monster with no actual facial features, it sure did a good job at showing confusion. Well, for the half a second before my Wave of Reflection hammered right into its vulnerable lower body.

I pushed forward and turned, abusing the monster being momentary stun-locked to reposition myself. Then I used Identify and grinned as I saw the results.

Vicious Millipede

Level 13

Health: 98/430

Further information locked

Finally. Using the skill on every damn Millipede I’d encountered over the past couple of days had allowed me to raise my Identify skill to thirteen. And, apparently, once the level of Identify matched the level of the target, it allowed you to see their health. The fact that there’d be even more to discern with a higher skill level just made me happier.

It also allowed me to conclude beyond a doubt that this Millipede was ripe for harvesting. I considered my situation for a second, then nodded to myself. Time to seal the deal.

As the beast stumbled forward unsteadily, hampered by a total of four broken or disjointed legs, another limb shot forward, glistening with poison.

This time, instead of letting the leg hit my shield, I estimated the distance, took a half-step back and grimaced. This part was the worst.

The limb struck the meaty part of my upper right arm. A hot, burning sensation immediately entered my veins. I didn’t need to see the notification to know that I’d been poisoned.

The next attack was steadier, fast and sneaky. One limb carved in from the left, even as another surreptitiously snaked in from the right, trying to take me by surprise.

I nearly laughed. A swift step to the right took me out of reach of the sneaky swipe and into range of the harder strike. My shield rocked with the impact, but didn’t budge.

A second later, the Millipede was dead from my Wave of Reflection, and I sank back on my haunches as I waited for the next tick of poison to kick in. I grunted in pain as it hit and sniffed.

Health: 582/710

Really now? That had been the third tic, and it took me for less than ten health a piece? That was the weakest of the lot I’d clashed with so far. That, or my Poison Resistance was growing too effective. Judging from the number of times I’d been poisoned so far, this instance would cost me less than a hundred health total before it petered out. Less, of course, if I decided to activate Internal Scourge, but that wasn’t the point here.

I was on my second day of Millipede hunting. I was running out of grilled meat again, but I had enough steaks stashed in my Personal Universe to last me at least a week, once I’d prepared them. Looked like tomorrow was going to be a barbecue day.

Defeating the monsters, it turned out, had been the easy part. Locating them in the first place had been much, much harder. They definitely didn’t advertise their presence, outside of the subtle glinting of their webbing. Yet, even if the beasts turned out to be territorial, helpfully making sure I never stumbled into more than one millipede in each area, they also had some sort of colonial mentality going on.

It was like… kids moving away from their parents, only to find a place farther down the street. Kinda sad, really.

Every time I took down one of the ugly beasts, I was able to tour their respective areas and, in the distance spot hints of webbing from my next target. On the three occasions where I couldn’t see anything, I assumed it was because I’d managed to find the edge of their collective area. In those cases, I backtracked and, eventually, found another area to attack.

At this point, however, I was running out of targets. I’d circled my current area before attacking and found nothing. My mental map, spotty though it may be, granted that I likely had toured the entirety of an area the size of several square kilometres. As far as I knew, I’d made it the entire way around. I also included a trip to the centre of the area, where gaming logic would likely see some sort of big-ass Millipede boss ready for my ass – only, there was nothing at all. So much for area bosses.

My bug hunt had paid off, in spades. I’d located and killed a total of fourteen of the monsters. Along the way, I’d perfected my approach and defenses. This allowed my Life Steal to keep me close to full health, without reaching full, because I wanted Self-Heal to keep increasing. It also allowed me to take the occasional hit on purpose to raise my Resilience and Poison Resistance, without ever being in danger.

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The days of battle carried me all the way to Level 15. That gave me a grand total of three available attribute points and talent points to play with.

Now, I ignored the poison coursing through my veins and located a place where I’d be able to be well hidden while I picked my options. A few minutes later, I sat with my back against a sun-warmed rock, downing a mouthful of luke-warm water as I watched what I’d already picked and what was available to me.

Talents:

Tier 1:

Improved Defense 5/5

Tier 3:

Life Steal 2/5

Tier 4:

Deflect 2/5

Wheel of Magic 1/5

Tier 5:

Internal Scourge 1/5

Personal Universe 1/1

Wave of Reflection 5/5

All told, my current choices weren’t too shabby. As long as I had a shield and wasn’t blindsided, I’d take my odds against anything that wasn’t a dragon. The real issue here – outside of my shield and armor eventually falling apart, of course, was that this didn’t give me any real options against ranged attackers attacking from farther away than maybe ten to twenty meters. It also left me virtually defenseless against attackers who didn’t cause proper damaging attacks. A pro wrestler could take me down, and I wouldn’t be able to lift a finger against him, right up until he cracked my neck. So, those two were the areas I really needed to focus on.

I decided to run through the tiers available to me again, just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Tier 1

Dodge

Hardiness

Improved Stamina

Taunt