Over the next adrenaline-soaked minute, it took everything that Nick had to remain unbloodied. The frogs, which he had decided to call spear-tongues, attacked with precision and impeccable coordination.

Whenever a tongue forced him to leap to one side, the second was aimed at the ground where he landed. By the time that he dove out of the way, the first beast had recovered and was ready to strike again.

Although he was holding his own for the moment, he knew that if the melee continued much longer, this stalemate would lead to his defeat. Right now, he was completely engaged in defense and unable to launch an attack of his own. Whenever Nick inevitably failed to get out of the way in time, the second beast would take advantage of the opening and end his life.

In short, he needed to close the distance and strike with his sword, and he needed to do it fast. The problem was, if he committed to a charge, the spear-tongues would simply leap back to maintain the distance. Even more worrisome, he doubted that he could dodge their natural weaponry if he had less time to react to each blow of their relentless barrage. He was barely managing to hold on as it was.

To make matters worse, he was reaching the point of exhaustion. His last reserves of stamina were rapidly running out. Taken together, this was a bad situation. A dilemma that was growing more treacherous with every beat of Nick’s heart. He couldn’t get close enough to thrust with his sword, and his mana darts were much less effective against the beasts’ magic repelling armor.

The fight was going to end in blood-drenched catastrophe if he didn’t find a way to alter the dynamics sometime within the next few seconds, before he fucked up and took a direct hit. Now that he had experienced the beasts’ agility firsthand, he was certain that he would receive a critical wound the moment that his stamina ran out or his attention waned.

On that note, if the frogs spread out to flank him, or even worse, if one managed to maneuver behind and blindside him, Nick was a dead man. He expected the spear-tongues to reposition as soon as they decided that their frontal assault wasn’t sufficient to end the fight. Which was exactly what happened four desperate dodges later.

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While one of the frogs unleashed a furious volley of lashes that took every point of his dexterity to evade, the other circled around the battlefield in a series of low leaps, entering his blind spot from close range. Setting itself up to land a killing blow from a distance that would be challenging to dodge, even if he was able to see the strike coming.

It was a brutally effective tactic, elegant in its savage simplicity. He would have appreciated it even more if the attack in question wasn’t trying to claim his life. The coordinated flanking maneuver would have been enough to take Nick down if it wasn’t for one small fact, that the attempt was exactly what he had been waiting for.

He had been paying close attention to his opponents, and he was certain that this was the frog that had been stung by his mana dart earlier in the fight. The creature that knew firsthand that the diminutive bolts of mercury light really fucking hurt.

The instant that the advancing frog leapt to land behind him, he spun on his toes to face the beast, dropping down low to let the other’s tongue come streaking over the top of his head. He moved his sword into his left hand while reaching into the pocket of his jacket with his right. Shifting to evade the tongue’s second strike on the retraction, Nick fired his mana dart at the encroaching amphibian, deliberately aiming toward the right side of its torso.

As he had hoped, the beast lurched left to avoid the painful spell… putting it straight in the path of the baseball-sized rock that he had thrown with full force the instant he knew where the creature would land. Nick knew a bit about old-school survival of the fittest himself, thanks to his experiences back on the tutorial island.

After finding the flashbang orbs in the dungeon, he had spent time every day improving his aim. When the orbs were used up, he had continued with the practice, increasing his proficiency with the forefather of all human weaponry, big old rocks. After picking up the throwing skill with his new class, he had trained even harder.

Thanks to Nick’s daily diligence, the lump of stone left his hand and went streaking for its target, clocking the frog right between the eyes, slamming into soft vermillion flesh rather than the resilient black ridges guarding its body.

Now it was time to find out if it was enough to make a difference.