The Lakeside (3)
The giant crab's claw came crashing down, and I barely evaded the strike by a hair's breadth.
The movement itself was massive and deceptively sluggish, so dodging was not entirely difficult. Yet when the claw struck the ground, the ensuing shockwave vibrated through the earth with terrifying force. That tremor was anything but ordinary.
F-first, circulate mana...!
Soothing my startled heart, I channeled my mana. A cool, invigorating sensation coursed through my muscles. Because I had practiced circulating it every spare moment I had, I was able to react without hesitation.
"Gurgle."
In the meantime, the giant crab raised its pincers once more. For a creature with such colossal bulk, it moved with surprising agility. The moment I saw it tense, I immediately kicked off the ground. Trying to face that strike head-on was a fool's errand.
Thud!
"Gah?!"
Because the terrain was unfamiliar, I made a careless mistake. As I backpedaled, my heel caught on something uneven. For a split second the world tilted, and the open sky flashed before my eyes. Yet even as my body fell backward, my survival instincts kicked in.
"Khhk...!"
A heavy jolt shuddered through my back, but it was bearable. Right before hitting the dirt, I curled into a tight ball to disperse the impact—a clean breakfall executed just as Sword Master had instructed in his posts.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Even as I tumbled and stumbled, the giant crab did not pause. Perhaps owing to its surplus of legs, it bore down on me at startling speed despite its towering frame.
Slip—
I scrambled to push myself upright, but my footing slipped against the slick lakeshore mud. In that fleeting second, the monster's claw rose high overhead, casting a dark shadow over me. Getting to my feet in time was impossible. Acting on raw reflex, I thrust my shield up to block.
Praying that the slab of defense would hold, I wrenched every drop of mana from my core.
CLANG!
A sound like iron violently clashing against iron rang out, followed by a bone-jarring shockwave. My arm went numb from the impact, but I held my ground. It was still weaker than a strike from a Muscle Mushroom. Before a follow-up blow could land, I threw myself sideways in a frantic roll.
BOOM!
Mid-roll, the crab slammed its claw down into the earth where I had just been lying. Feeling the tremor ripple through the ground and into my flesh, I rose silently to my feet. The giant crab shuffled its numerous legs, pivoting its bulky frame, and locked its sights on me once again.
Forget about blocking and countering.
If I tried to parry blows like that, my arm would shatter first. I needed an opening, but finding one on this armored fortress was no easy task.
Its attack patterns are simple enough, but that raw speed is the real problem.
I kept my legs constantly moving as my mind raced. This, too, was a combat tip Sword Master had imparted: Keep your feet moving while you think. Only by staying in continuous motion could you deny your opponent an opening and seize control of the engagement.
CRASH!
Sure enough, Sword Master's advice paid off. The giant crab whiffed its strike entirely, burying its claw into the empty patch of ground I had occupied only a fraction of a second earlier.
Now was my chance. Channelling mana into the Heavenly Demon's Sword, I lashed out with everything I had.
A shimmering haze rippled along the dark edge before the blade sheared straight through the claw.
SLASH!
The pincer tip sheared off cleanly, tumbling into the mud. It was not a fatal wound—only the clamping tip had come off rather than the entire limb. Given the creature's immense bulk, there was no helping it; I was not like certain monsters who could bisect a mountain with a single sword beam.
One piece at a time. Whittle it down.
Still, this was more than enough. If I systematically dismantled it piece by piece, it would fall.
WHOOSH!
The giant crab swung its truncated claw in a furious arc. Even stripped of its pincer, the massive appendage was essentially a giant bludgeon, making the swing lethally dangerous. I never stopped moving, analyzing the monster for another vulnerability.
Wait a second. This guy...
As I circled, an glaring weakness leaped out at me. A fatal, structural flaw.
By biological design, crabs can only walk sideways. No matter how much this creature had mutated in size, its fundamental anatomy remained unchanged. Which meant its forward attack radius was dreadfully narrow. Wildly swinging its arms could not compensate for such an inherent blind spot.
Most importantly, its turning radius is miserably slow!
While the giant crab flailed its blunted claw, I darted across the shoreline and seized the space directly behind it. The beast scrambled desperately to rotate, but it was far too sluggish. It could not angle its claws backward to swat at me. It was the tragic curse of a creature biologically doomed to scuttle sideways.
SLASH!
While the crab struggled to wheel around, I bypassed the claws entirely and struck at its legs. A single swing sheared through two articulated limbs at once—the devastating craftsmanship of the Heavenly Demon's Sword enhanced by Aura.
THUD!
Deprived of two supporting legs on one side, the monster lost its balance. Watching its chassis list heavily to the side, it was clear the beast could barely keep itself upright. My goal was simple: strip away its mobility entirely. Capitalizing on its turtle-slow turning speed, I pressed the advantage mercilessly.
SLASH! SLICE!
Sticking strictly to its rear blind spot, I systematically carved away its limbs. Once two legs on the opposing side were severed as well, its ability to pivot collapsed altogether. Slicing off the remaining legs was child's play.
SHHHK!
With a final sweeping strike, I sheared off its remaining pride and joy—its massive claw. Stripped of all limbs, the giant torso crashed facedown into the dirt. Being a crustacean, its torso continued to twitch and writhe even after being completely dismembered.
CRUNCH!
Leaping atop its carapace, I drove the Heavenly Demon's Sword straight down between its eye stalks, dead center into the upper shell.
SKRRRRRRR!
Gritting my teeth, I wrenched the blade downward like pulling a lever. Because the Heavenly Demon's Sword could slice through ironwood as effortlessly as tofu, the blade carved through the thick shell with frightening ease. Once the tip reached the base of the carapace, I gave one final, violent pull.
SPLAT!
Lacking legs to anchor it, the carcass did not split neatly in two, but the violent convulsion ceased. The monster went entirely limp. Satisfied, I flicked the bits of viscous entrails off the blade.
"Phew!"
I exhaled a ragged breath. Adrenaline surged through my veins, setting my heart thumping against my ribs like a war drum. If I had not figured out its anatomical weakness, that fight would have dragged on into an absolute nightmare. Far beyond a mere struggle, one wrong step could have cost me my life. Yet oddly enough, it was exhilarating.
"Gurgle."
"Chitter."
Before I knew it, smaller scavenger crabs were already scuttling out from the shallows, clambering over the carcass to feed. Even when it was one of their overgrown kin, they faithfully fulfilled their roles as the forest's clean-up crew. Watching them pick at the remains, I opened the interface and snapped a shot to post on the Gallery.
[Photo of a gargantuan crab carcass]
A giant crab way bigger than an adult human just lunged out at the lakeshore;; It was swinging its claws around like massive clubs.
Thankfully, its turning speed was slower than molasses, so taking it down wasn't too hard. Seriously, what kind of freak monster is this;;
I posted the thread but did not stick around to read the comments. Returning to camp was my immediate priority. Not only had I bruised my tailbone on the fall, but I had rolled through lakeshore mud and gore. Leaving myself covered in this grime was not only foul, but an invitation to sickness and infection.
Next time I head out, I'm definitely bringing proper boots.
This skirmish had driven home just how crucial reliable footwear was in the field. When my foot slipped earlier, my life had genuinely flashed before my eyes.
Catching my breath once more, I began trudging back along the riverbank.
The fish carcass is... over there.
I had marked the trail well. Between the half-eaten fish carcass and the chewed-up crab remains, retracing my steps was simple enough. The prospect of hiking all the way back while caked in sticky muck was nauseating, but I had no choice but to endure it.
"Gurgle. Click."
"..."
Spotting a decent-sized regular crab scuttling past, I reached down and gently scooped it up. Opening the auction house, I promptly purchased a sturdy backpack—not a small hip pouch, but a full rucksack meant to be strapped across both shoulders.
I can't resist.
The moment I got back to the cave, I was cooking these up. Since I had to feed Wonmo and Fast Tree Sloth too, I scooped up two more crabs and stowed them inside. I considered grabbing an extra for Passing Dwarf, but unfortunately, our dimensional trade cooldown would not reset until tomorrow. Crabs made top-tier drinking snacks, so I resolved to come back for more the next day.
Allfather said they're edible, so they ought to taste great, right?
Parasites were not much of a concern, and I doubted they would kill each other and spoil in the bag. From what I had observed so far, these scavengers only devoured their own kind when they were already dead corpses.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
Just as I was secretly gloating over my harvest, the ground beneath my feet trembled violently. In my experience, whenever the earth shook like this, nothing good ever followed. Alarms blaring in my head, I whipped around to scan the surroundings.
SPLASH! CRASH!
From the deeper waters of the lake, giant crabs began surfacing one after another. Every single one was either identical in size to the behemoth I had just butchered, or slightly larger. There were at least five of them. I stared at the sight, utterly dumbfounded.
Taking down just one had pushed me to my limits, and now five had crawled out at once. If I had lingered at the kill site even a minute longer, I would have been turned into paste.
Is this really a lake? Not an ocean?
The absence of sea salt in the air confirmed it was freshwater, but the sheer scale defied reason. Treading with absolute care, I slipped away so as not to draw their attention.
Miraculously, until I reached the mouth of the river, not a single one spare me a glance. They were far too occupied using their massive claws to tear into the carcass of their fallen kin.
Faithful to their base instincts, as always.
Evidently, carcasses took top priority in their tiny brains. The title of scavengers suited them to perfection. Backpedaling step by step, I finally turned my back on the water. It was high time to head back to the cave camp.
BOOOOOOM!
At that exact moment, a tremor on an entirely different scale ripped through the terrain. The ground shook violently—far more intense than the tremors caused by the scuttling giant crabs. For a terrifying second, I wondered if a genuine earthquake was striking. Then, an ear-splitting roar echoed from the lake that made it impossible to look away.
KABOOOOOM!
The sound of an immense column of water detonating into the sky and raining back down washed over the shoreline. In sheer shock, I turned my head back toward the lake.
"..."
The moment I laid eyes on the scene, my jaw dropped. My mind simply stopped working. I had thought the giant crabs were big enough, but something dwelling in those depths mocked the very concept of size.
...What in the absolute fuck is that?
If the giant crabs I had fought were the size of heavy cargo trucks, the monster emerging now was the size of a multi-story building. In vertical height alone, it rivaled an entire apartment complex. It was so impossibly gargantuan that it made a mockery of perspective. Could you even call that thing a crab? It looked like a walking high-rise fortress.
[Video clip: A building-sized monstrous crab towering over the truck-sized giant crabs]
What looks strange here? Take a guess!
I closed the Gallery interface and quickened my pace. I wanted to return to the cave as soon as humanly possible; the damp chill clinging to my clothes made my entire body feel heavy and sluggish.
...Wait, why is the back of my neck itching like this?
Perhaps because the life-or-death tension had eased, my senses grew hyper-alert. And with that heightened awareness came an unmistakably sharp itch crawling across my nape. Unable to ignore the irritation, I reached behind my neck with my right hand to scratch it.
Squish—
My fingers sank into something soft, cold, and gelatinous. The moment that sickening texture brushed my fingertips, I froze dead in my tracks.
Instinct screamed at me that whatever was back there, it was extraordinarily bad news.
I flicked at it, but it refused to budge, firmly anchored into my skin. Gulping down dry saliva, I gripped the mass with my fingers and yanked with all my might. It stretched outward like sticky, elastic jelly before finally giving way.
POP!
Accompanied by a sharp sting and a sickening suction sound, the thing ripped free from the back of my neck. It was so massive I had to clutch it in a full grip, its surface coated in slimy, viscous fluid. Trembling, I slowly brought my hand in front of my face to inspect what I had pulled off.
Squirm— writhe—
Thrashing wildly inside my clenched fist was not a harmless red slime. It was a hideous, mottled brown leech, writhing its bloated body with terrifying vigor.
And it was obscenely, monstrously huge.
"KYAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
I want to get out of this damn forest right now.