Quill started walking with care down the hill and towards the valley where the pillar of light was. He probably got a hundred feet before several more adolescent Landshark bullets leapt out of the ground and tried to attack him. Though said attack was fairly ineffective as he dispatched them quickly and efficiently. With that taken care of he began his careful steps only to get about another hundred feet before getting attacked again with similar end results.
If this was going to keep happening every hundred feet or so it would take forever to actually get to the pillar of light. So now he was starting to debate on whether or not he should just run through a good chunk of the land and then run away, leading as many as he could back and just chuck every single one off the cliff.
“Sounds like a good idea to me. Will be more fun than just walking a few feet and stopping, walking a few feet and stopping, walking a few feet and stopping. Especially since we don't know how they seem to sense you.”
She had a point. Well not the fun part but it was probably more efficient and he didn't want to spend who knows how long trying to get to the pillar of light. Without further ado he broke out into a Sprint towards the pillar. While running as fast as he could, the ground started to erupt behind him as the various land bullet sharks tried to snag him but he was thankfully a little too fast for them.
Once he felt like he attracted a good number of the sharks, he curved his run around so he wouldn't be running through all the sharks that were chasing him and began sprinting away. All while being chased by what he assumed was a whole lot of hungry unnatural beasties.
His survival instincts suddenly blared and with quick thinking, he manifested spider legs to launch himself into the air just as another Landshark bullet erupted from the ground under his feet. Only this one looked a little different than the others.
Instead of its head looking like a goblin shark like the adolescence, It looked and was shaped a lot like a bullet, probably how they got their namesake. Smooth stone plates wrapped around its entire face to the point where there weren't even eye holes or nostrils on the monster. However there was the thinnest crack down the very middle which opened up to a massive jaw with several rows of serrated teeth.
Quill had to extend his spider legs even higher in the air while tucking his own legs in just to avoid the things jaw snapping shut on him with an audible bite. He threw a quick identify as he quickly had his spider legs scurry away from underneath the creature so he could get the information.
Landshark bullet (Adult)
Level 49
These creatures can move through the earth like it was nothing more than water and will only pop out of the ground when hunting. The adults faceplate are quite prized for shields and armor
Neat, the thing was over 10 levels above him. Sure he had been punching above his weight since the beginning sure but he wasn't sure if he'd been punching 10 levels above his weight so fighting this thing directly didn’t appeal to him.
He dissipated his spider legs once he got a small amount of distance. It wouldn't do him any good to try and lure these monsters away only to then just completely lose them because he went too fast. He was pretty sure his own running was still too fast so he had to cut the speed down just a bit as he ran towards the cliff.
He definitely allowed a few to try and attack him during this period, quickly cutting them apart in brutal fashion. This was to just wear down their numbers a little and to allow the sharks to think they could catch him and for the stragglers to get closer.
Eventually he made it to the cliff and stopped running as he positioned himself on the edge. He soon had a ton of adolescent sharks leaping at him from the ground and after a quick stab from a spider leg or a cut from his pizza cutter, he threw them off the cliff and into the water down below with the help of some extra manifested hands. Some of the sharks even missed him entirely and just flew off the cliff anyway. He wondered if the system would magically change their names to lemmings if they kept that up.
It didn't take long though before the adult shark launched itself at him but with the same results as the adolescent, a quick cut and a quick chuck, he threw the thing over the edge. What he hadn't expected was the adult shark to suddenly pivot in mid fucking air while spinning its entire body and launched itself back at Quill just like a bullet.
In retrospect it made sense if you completely threw out every kind of logic in existence. He barely managed to dodge the bullet-like attack that crashed into the cliff side under his feet with an audible bang, flinging dirt and rocks everywhere. All while he simultaneously kept up with the adolescent sharks attacking him. Once again the skill of split thinking and mental focus coming in clutch.
However it seems the adult shark was not done in the slightest as it flew threw the air and back down into the ground, burrowed deep only to launch itself back out of into the air towards Quill still spinning.
Clicking his tongue and annoyance, he knew he needed to do something about this thing before he slipped up and got seriously hurt by it. As it came closer he manifested a curved barricade with Spears shooting out of it.
He did the same thing underneath his feet which quickly earned results from the other land sharks skewering themselves underneath him. But he didn't have time to think about that as the full force of the adult Landshark bullet slammed into his barricade and he felt himself strain under the massive pressure of his manifestations. Small cracks appeared but it still held firm as the shark tried to drill a hole to reach him.
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Eventually the thing lost its momentum and quickly capitalizing on that, he moved some of his manifestation across the ground underneath the land shark before having spikes shoot upwards so it could pierce the underbelly of the monster. Once he did that it was just a matter of tearing apart its insides before the creature fell down dead.
He let out a small breath of relief before focusing up on the rest of the land sharks that were attacking him. After about 5 more minutes of that he seemed to have gotten rid of the rest that had followed him.
You have leveled up to level 35
congratulations! you can now pick a free class skill!
He plopped his ass down on the ground with an exasperated sigh. He had forgotten that class skills were a thing, still he would have thought he'd have leveled up more given how many of the sharks his kill notification gave him. Perhaps he only got partial credit since most of them had drowned in the ocean.
“Pretty brutal way of killing them if you ask me. I couldn't be more proud.”
“Well they're sharks, they should be swimming in the ocean anyways. Also considering one of them could somehow pivot directions in mid-air, I feel like it's their own damn fault they can't swim in water”
He briefly glanced down the cliff to the ocean where a bunch of their dead bodies laid. Okay yeah, he felt a little bad now. If only there was a way he could get to the territory pillar of light without worrying about the land sharks.
So as not to get too depressed, he shifted his focus instead on the class skill selection, after he was done distributing his stat points evenly between body and mind of course. It almost felt like he had an even larger selection than previously but the biggest question was what was going to help him in the here and now.
A lot of the skills were… Well they just weren't helpful. Perhaps more forethought should have gone into choosing his class as opposed to anything else but given his selections at the time, he felt like “Rebellious Anarchist” was the best.
Sadly most of these skills did seem to come down to helping someone overthrow a system of government or tyranny. Sure, any other day he might be down for that but it wasn't really helpful currently. He wondered if he did manage to claim that territory pillar, would he really be a rebellious anarchist, or like most things in one's life it was just a meaningless title. Kind of like his actual title! He still wondered how he could get rid of being called a lunatic.
“Maybe get rid of your ailments of insanity.” she said with a Snicker
“Well it's not like I have a therapist around or a dosage of medication. I don't even know why it calls me insane when it can't even give me a satisfactory explanation as to what Insanity I might have. Like does depression count as insanity? Because if it does I'm pretty sure the entire world's population is insane at this point.”
He felt like he saw her shrug in his mind and he just sighed again before turning his attention back to the skill selection. It took a little bit, to the point where the sun was starting to set but he felt like he finally narrowed down to a single option.
Explosive Art (Uncommon)
The rebellious anarchist likes it when things go boom. A small boom? A big boom? it matters not so long as it goes boom. But if you pick this skill you can guarantee a better boom.
Explosive art increases damage by explosions and allows the user to increase or decrease the size and focus on a particular direction if desired. Higher levels increase these effects.
That's right he was finally going with explosive art. It was the skill he passed up beforehand and ultimately went with “surprise attack!” Granted it didn't help him with the here and now but if he ever found a way to get his hands on explosions, he could easily see this skill helping him greatly. Especially if he combined it with something like “surprise attack!” and his trap making skills. That would likely lead to a very deadly combo.
“Assuming you ever get your hands on explosions.”
“ I'm sure I will, it's just a matter of when. Regardless, I should be focusing on my current issue. I don't want to commit another mass genocide on a bunch of creatures that probably don’t deserve it.”
“You don't necessarily need to kill all of them. Just enough for them to know not to bother you ever again.”
“Okay but even if I do spare some, there is still the problem of them living in what I will assume is the heart of the territory. No, I need to figure out a way to bring some of them somewhere else.”
He remembered the description of is identify skill mentioning how they only ever surface to grab food. But a ton of them were surfacing to try and eat him. It also made sense that they were hungry if their main diet had been those Buffalo before which had all migrated across the strip to who knows where.
He briefly considered trying to lure all the sharks to where the Buffalo were but the issue simply was he didn't know how far those Buffalo travel and, even with the enhanced body, he wasn't sure if he could keep running all that distance. Or if even the Sharks were capable of traveling that far to try and catch a single piece of prey.
He manifested a pillar beneath his feet and shot upward into the sky. The graveyard looking thing off in the distance was probably a no-go as he doubted the dead would have a lot of meat on their bones. This was going off the assumption that there were Undead in the graveyard which he had a strong suspicion of. Still he had doubts that any meat they might have would be very appetizing.
All that really left then were the crabs .A whole lot of crabs. Now sure there were a whole lot of shark bullets underground. But just from what he could see on top of his pillar, the beach seemed to have almost no free space with how many craps there actually were.
Granted he didn't know if he would be introducing an invasive species to these crabs. But given the close distance he was just going to assume he wouldn't. That said, he was probably going to thin out some of the shark population before trying to lure all of them to the beach if for no other reason than they don't kill all the crabs too quickly.
“ That is assuming the crabs won't become the predators of the sharks. for all you know you're just introducing a different meal to them.”
“Yeah, the thought occurred to me. Still, at least they might have a chance as opposed to if I just kill them all." While they were difficult to deal with in groups, it was still manageable in his opinion. Even if he was attacked by multiple adult bullet sharks he still had some strong confidence in the fact that he could survive without too much of an issue.
He quickly started throwing bodies of the bullet sharks into a storage ring along with the adult one since its faceplate was apparently worth some good amount of money. Once he had felt like he was satisfied with quelling their numbers a little he'd start working on sending the rest to the beach.
