I checked my energy level. The bar was a quarter full. If I timed my attacks right, it wouldn't matter that much, but if the fight got out of hand, I could be in trouble. I didn't have the luxury of waiting as the beetle started lumbering toward me.

I wasn't going to give it the advantage of striking first. I made straight for its head as it made to meet me in the middle. As I ran, I prepared my De Point attack. While killing all the smaller bugs, I found that I could hold the ability for a short time to be released when I wanted.

As we got closer to each other, the beetle opened its mouth to try and bite me. The maneuver I was going to try was tricky, but I could take the armored behemoth head-on. The larger beetle might seem more intelligent than the smaller ones, but it couldn't be that much brighter. The fact that it was expecting me to attack it from the front was proof.

Just before I reached its head, I jumped to the left. I rolled on the ground into a kneeling position and struck with my attack aimed right at its leg. My jump was timed perfectly, and my roll was perfect. Even my spear thrust was solid and straight. The problem was that it went straight by the bug's leg.

I didn't have time to be upset. I got up to try and run around it. Once again, the beetles back opened up. I dodged to the side just before being impaled on a particularly sharp part. If I could have gotten underneath that part, then I would have been able to end the fight quickly.

The beetle moved in the opposite direction, and I was forced to jump back to keep its bulbous backside from hitting me. I was about to take another shot at its rear leg, but it continued pivoting. Before it came all the way around, I gathered my energy and struck out right at its neck.

My aim was good that time and I could feel my spear sink in, but it wasn't that deep. The giant bug made a deep keening sound and scurried quickly away. Before I could press my advantage, it rushed toward me with its mouth agape.

"Target the neck from now on," I yelled. I didn't actually think it would do anything. I only hoped it would. That hope paid off as an additional aim point appeared on my goggles display. It was yellow, unlike the green dot on the head, probably indicating that it was more challenging to strike.

I raised my spear in defense and lodged it into the creature's mouth. It didn't even bother to clamp down; it just kept pushing me forward. It tried to dig my feet in, but the beetle was too strong.

It finally clamped down on my spear and lifted its head up. The motion threw my balance off as it lifted me up and continued to push forward. I found myself almost being dragged underneath it. My death grip on the spear was the only thing stopping me from being trampled.

The beetle lifted its head higher and me up with it. I was flung up with so much force that my body worked like a pendulum. I flew at the apex of my swing when the beetle either let go or could not hold on to my spear. Unfortunately, the apex of my swing wasn't down; it was up and away.

I flailed my arms in a circle as I flew up into dead sail. I turned sideways, unable to right myself before plunging down at least twenty feet. I slammed into the ground on my side. The beetle was already bearing down on me.

I started to roll sideways continuously; it was all I could do to keep from being flattened. Over and over, I rolled, my vision flitting between the legs of the Rock beetle and some encroaching trees. I tried to angle as close to a tree as possible without hitting it.

My hastily created plan worked. My head spun by a tree, narrowly missing it. The behemoth of a bug wasn't able to dodge. It was too focused on my body as I fled and wasn't paying attention to its surroundings. Its hulking body slammed into the tree, causing a loud boom and the tree to shake violently.

For a moment, I thought that the tree might be unable to stop it, but it held for the moment I needed to get to my feet. The bug took a half step back and then used its massive jaws to bite a chunk out of the tree. It wasn't enough to make the tree fall, but it swayed dangerously.

I had an idea.

I gathered my power and slammed a De Point Attack into the tree in the same area where the beetle took a chunk. My idea sucked. My spear sunk into the tree down to the shaft but didn't do anything more.

The beetle took another chunk from the tree. It was a little lower than the first, and the tree swayed again. It would have ignored the tree to attack me if it had been smarter. I was thankful that it wasn't.

My spear was stuck deep into the tree. I pulled as hard as I could but couldn't pull it out. I thought that was amazing, considering my enhanced strength from cultivation and being in Symbiotic Mode.

I had another idea. Hurray for me!

I jumped above the spear, and using it for leverage and balance, I placed both feet against the tree. As if standing, I pulled on the spear and pushed with my legs. The beetle took another bite from the tree, and it swayed again. I pushed even harder on the tree, enough to collapse its remaining support.

My spear slid from the tree. I fell to the ground with a saving tumble, and the tree tipped over to crash down on the ginormous beetle. I was sure that with the massive amount of rock armor the beetle possessed, the tree wouldn't hurt it. However, that wasn't the idea.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

While it was distracted, I jumped forward and once again perched atop its head. I aimed at its neck and stabbed down. My blade sunk in but only as deep as it had from the side. It appeared I still had a lot of work to do.

The bug thrashed its head wildly to shake me off. I couldn't stay atop its head and didn't want to go in whatever direction it was trying to shake me. So, I jumped toward its rear as it started thrashing.

Right as I jumped, its back opened up. The other times it opened, I couldn't get a good look. While in the air, I could see that it split down the middle and opened like a ladybug's wings. I didn't have time to hope it didn't fly as the rock-covered wings zoomed toward me.

I arced backward through the air as the wings came up, and luckily I coasted past the split in the wings. The beetle tried to hit me out of the air, but it missed. I ended up in the perfect position to take it down.

I didn't hesitate.

I raised my spear and coated it with De energy, then stabbed it down with as much force as I could while initiating the point attack. There was a crunch as the spear broke through the beetle's secondary armor. After a slight initial resistance, the blade plunged deeper into the beetle. I wanted to stab as deep as possible, so I kept pushing.

I was too overzealous with my desire. When the spear was halfway down, its wings started to close. I jumped away, trying to pull my spear, but it was lodged too deep.

My jump was poorly executed, so it was mostly a fall backward. The beetle's wings closed around the shaft of my spear just as my body hit the ground. I think the bug thought I was still on its back because it continued to shake wildly as if it was trying to get me off.

My spear protruded from its back, lodged between a couple of craggy protrusions. The creature's wings shuddered a couple of times but couldn't move much more. I was just about to run up and jump on it to try and get my spear back when it turned around and spotted me.

The behemoth chortled deeply in my direction and then rushed at me. I turned around and ran. It was all I could do to keep from getting trampled. I moved at a continuous angle, so the beetle had to constantly turn as it ran. It wasn't as maneuverable as the smaller ones, which allowed me more time to think of something.

I needed to get to my spear, of that I was sure. I tried to quickly turn left or right to get around it, but the bug was locked on me. I could turn around and jump to its back, but I didn't want to risk being snatched up by its mouth. I needed to get higher.

I turned to run toward the nearest tree I found. Upon a second look while running, I found it was the worst tree I could have picked. There were no low-hanging branches I could easily climb up with or even swing on. It was also significantly smaller than the last one. I didn't want to risk it being able to stop a rush from the beetle.

I quickly scanned the area, but I was out of luck. There weren't any other trees I could quickly get to, and the beetle was right on my heels. I decided to rely on luck instead of skill.

About five paces from the tree, I leaped up and twisted my body. My feet thankfully hit the tree right where I planned. I bent my knees to absorb the impact, then pushed off toward the Rock Beetle.

Its maw snapped at my body as I sailed over its head. I didn't have the ability to pay attention as I was catapulting straight toward my spear. I could see the beetle try to lift its wings again, but it only resulted in a stuttering movement.

I wasn't so accurate with grabbing my spear as one of my hands missed, causing my shoulder to slam into it. The force clamped my teeth together that sent echoes through my head. I would have broken something if the spear hadn't given way a little to my body.

Still, I managed to hold on to it. It was a good thing because the beetle didn't like the movement of the spear inside its body one bit. It started to thrash and loudly chortle in what I could only assume was pain and anger.

"Oh, you don't like that, huh?" I said while standing up. "Well, how do you like this? Give me back my spear, you bastard!" I screamed while frantically shaking my spear back and forth.

The beetle did not like what I was doing to it. It became louder in its dislike and wilder in its wild writhing. I didn't stop shaking my spear and yelling at the top of my lungs. I was determined to not let go until the bug was dead.

That determination was tested when it started hurtling toward the same tree I had jumped from. I was about to find out if it could take it out with a charge. I squatted down and gripped my spear tighter in anticipation. What I didn't do, was stop shaking the spear and screaming.

The giant beetle slammed into the tree, releasing a tremendous crunch that resounded throughout the area. Splinters, sticks, leaves, and other debris scattered haphazardly across my body. Luckily, the bulk of the destroyed tree didn't fall on me, but it did slam into the body of the bug I was riding.

The creature's legs seemed to give underneath it, and I was jolted brutally as my mount dropped a couple of feet to the ground, yet its momentum had yet to dissipate. I would have been thrown off if not for me gripping the pole with all I had. Although my spear was beginning to loosen up. A squirt of its chartreuse blood squirted out to the side on one particularly nasty jerk.

The velocity of the beetle caused it to slide a half-dozen paces from where it fell to finally stop against another tree that held up against its bulk. The bug wasn't moving, but I kept working my spear around to ensure it was dead. I was also still trying to work it out from where it was lodged in the gap between its wings.

I pushed and pulled for a few more minutes until I could finally pull the spear free. The entire time the Behemoth Rock Beetle didn't even twitch a leg. I jumped down and put some space between us anyway. I was sure it was dead, but I had stepped on a lot of bugs in my life, and some of them liked to randomly twitch. I didn't want to be on the receiving edge of a full forced kick from the giant.

I walked around to the front of the beetle. It was more of a limp at that point, but I made it. I tapped its head multiple times with the tip of my spear. It didn't move. I listened and looked for other signs of more beetles, but I didn't detect any. I was supposed to have advanced hearing now with my advanced armor, but I couldn't tell the difference. I probably had to activate it or some such nonsense. Although, I didn't feel like messing with it at the moment.

My DTA didn't light up with any targets either, so I figured I was finally done.

"Companion Mode," I said while stabbing my spear into the ground.

The process of donning my mask happened in reverse, at least as far as I could tell based off of feel. The small plates along my cheeks retracted panel-by-panel. Then the portion covering my nose and mouth receded. The only thing left was the frame of my mask, which was outlining my face, but it also started retracting. I silently hoped that the goggles would go away too. I appreciated the abilities it granted, but it would have been nice to feel my unobstructed face again. Unfortunately, the goggles stayed.

-Please wait while additional ambient De is collected…

I could only nod at the message. While the bar slowly filled, I took a moment to sit down and rest. Without the additional stats Symbiotic Mode provided, I was exceedingly tired.