[You have no choice, Timothy, you must fight.] The system said.
At first, even Tim second guessed the logic behind her words, but then, she also added. [The ambusher will likely follow you, especially if it’s a bubonic shifter, so it’s pointless for you to swim away. That aside, even if you escape with your life, you don’t really have the privilege to waste another hour. You need food immediately, and it so happens that the ambusher is edible, well, most likely edible. Kill it, and eat it!]
With that said, Tim didn’t put up a debate. He heeded the system’s recommendations, and in effort to intercept the ambusher in a safer manner, he made a sharp turn to the right, and then started swimming as fast as he could.
He had intercepted the electrical signals behind him, and in order to launch a proper, defensive attack, he had to make some distance away from the ambusher. He had to get a bit more comfortable, if he was to have a fighting chance!
Tim used both the flaming fins ability, and the freezing blood ability, to propel forwards, as fast as he could with this new-ish body. Apart from that, along the way, he also spammed a bunch of magical and very damaging lightning shots out of the barb of his tail, and these shots inevitably slowed the ambusher down, at least a little bit!
“Hehe,” He grinned.
Tim was faster than the ambusher in this particular setting, he got lucky. Other than making an upper advantage for himself, against the ambusher, now, he also had the freedom to proceed with the next step of his counter-attack plan!
It was time to face the attacker head on, which should be more effective than spamming a bunch of thunder bolts. Tim made a sharp and complete U-Turn, where he then caught a glimpse of the attacker. He could see the attacker’s head, because its head was glowing, faintly. The attacker looked much like an anglerfish, a big one, even!
One known fact about anglerfish was that they had a rod-like extension, which stretched out from right between their eyes. This rod had a lantern-like bulb on its other end, and this bulb, otherwise known as the lure, emitted light. Tim’s attacker emitted light, that was the fact of the matter right now, and he was insistent to use this fact to his advantage!
Tim shot a single bolt of lightning at the target, except this time around, his lightning shot was precise, and more intense. He didn’t spam bits of thunder across the water, no, he was being very calculative!
At that very moment, the system bothered him with a visual notification. She partially blocked his vision at the worst time possible, to make an announcement which wasn't so important.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She said, [Be weary of your mana, Timothy. You just spent 280 points of mana under ten seconds. I understand that the situation is dire, but dual-wielding your powers is twice as expensive, even now when your mana pool and mana consumption was recently halved. Be careful.]
“This is a horrible time to worry about mana, system. Don’t bother me, I’m trying to fucking survive here!” He exclaimed.
Quite frankly, he was desperately hoping that he would survive. The idea was to kill the anglerfish on the spot, and for a split second, he forcefully believed that his plan worked. Although he didn't see it happen, Tim believed that he had succeeded, and the anglerfish was dead. But that was not the case, he was in trouble!
The anglerfish has had a countering solution as well. Tim didn’t see much, because the system had spammed him with a notification at the worst time possible, but the fact of the matter was that the anglerfish had dodged that thunder bolt, effortlessly!
The anglerfish had shifted its body, and turned itself into a donut-like species. This in turn, forced the thunderbolt to follow that singular path it had taken, and pass right through the anglerfish. The bolt didn’t touch the anglerfish at all, not even for a microsecond! It survived, it was alive, and kicking, which in hindsight was very concerning.
It was concerning, but it also confirmed the anglerfish's identity. It was less of an anglerfish, and more of a shifter, a bubonic shifter, that is! For a brief moment, Tim wasn’t even aware of the aforementioned fact, but he was in danger nonetheless.
“Shit,” He said, sharply.
Tim was then scared shitless, as he saw the anglerfish do a horror-inducing performance. It shifted from that donut-like form, and seemingly upgraded itself afterwards, to become a bigger, and likely more dangerous fish, a fish that Tim may not be able to fight for too long!
This was a bubonic shifter alright, there was no doubt about it, this thing was terrifying. For a moment, Tim cursed the sect members, and the system as well, because they hadn’t told him how terrifying these shifters could be! He was absolutely petrified, and for a moment, he felt frozen into place.
The shifter exploded in size within seconds, and during those seconds, Tim thought. “The scariest part about this fucker, should’ve been its nostrils, so, what the fuck is this!? This is way worse than some nose darts!”
Tim had every right to complain, but that won’t get him far. Negligence got him into trouble, and if he was to escape with his life, then he had to use every following, beating second to his advantage! He didn’t have the privilege to idle around, not for long, at least.
The anglerfish was now a blue octopus, which shouldn’t be as terrifying in comparison, yet it was! Unlike the typical octopus which had eight arms, this octopus in front of him had twelve arms, and was about ten meters wide (with its arms included), which was double the size of the typical octopus!
All-and-all, this was terrifying, because Timothy was at least five times as small in comparison, and who knows how much weaker! He was stunned, and regardless of how desperate he was for a solution, he may not swim away with his life today!
He mumbled, “I’m fucked! My extingus breath won’t protect me against this big and ugly bastard's tentacle slaps!”