Liam swiveled his head fast enough to see the Wave Rider Crab quickly making its way towards him. He forced himself not to use Shadow Step, since he was trying to get used to his new crafting fighting style and tried to roll out of the way. As he rolled, the Wave Rider Crab had reached his location. He was able to dodge being hit by the first set of legs by rolling in between them, however, as he tried to fully get out of the way he didn’t see the bigger claw coming and was struck in the side.
The force of the claw striking him was enough to send him flying off of the platform. To his surprise and luck, he landed on his side on the edge of the next platform. His body rolled as soon as it touched down. He didn’t waste any time and swiftly got back to his feet only to see the Wave Rider Crab turn around to face him, bend its legs and jump onto the same platform.
Liam ran to make space between them. What he didn’t account for was the weight of the Wave Rider Crab. As soon as it landed on the platform, Liam’s feet was launched a couple inches off of it due to the force of the Wave Rider Crab roughly landing. His knees buckled and he fell onto them after coming back down. He scrambled to his feet once more and turned around to face his opponent.
Bubbles were starting to froth all around the Wave Boss’s mouth, and he stood ready to dodge the bubbles that he believed the creature was going to shoot out once again. However, as Liam stared at the creature’s mouth he noticed slight differences from the creature. Last time the Wave Rider Crab had its mouth closed when it formed the concussive bubbles. This time its mouth was closed and drops of liquid spilled out from the corners and the middle of the mouth.
Liam didn’t like the looks of this and started to sprint to his right. He did so just in time. As soon as he moved a powerful Jetstream of water was shot in the direction where he had stood. The Jetstream was cut short as Liam sprinted as fast as he could towards the Wave Rider Crab. As soon as he got within striking distance, Liam lifted his hammer as high as he could and struck down with all his strength against the larger claw.
His hammer bounced back a bit after landing the blow. Reverberation shook down his hand and up his arm, making Liam grit his teeth. Jesus Christ that hurt! How hard is the shell of this crab’s claw? Liam thought as he retreated out of striking range. Liam activated his Spot Frailty to see if he had done enough damage to cause the shell of the claw to start to lose durability, however the spot his hammer struck was still dark green.
Liam clicked his tongue as he tried studying the giant cerulean crustacean. He stared at the giant claw and then at the smaller one. He wasn’t sure why the two were different or if the smaller claw had a purpose at all. He would need to be wary of it just in case. After his attack with the bigger claw he was starting to get an idea what its purpose was for. The durability was great and the force of it striking led him to believe its purpose was both a shield and a blunt weapon.
Liam glanced at his Health Pool briefly and even though it was already starting to tick by up slowly, a third of it had been taken away after getting hit by that claw. He needed to figure out a way to attack and not get hit by that bigger claw. Luckily for him he had also determined the bigger claw was slow when used to attack. Maybe that’s the purpose of the bubbles? To push someone to the edge so it can ram them with the bigger claw? Liam thought.
He then noticed small bubbles start to form once more around the monster’s mouth. This time the mouth was open. Liam watched to determine if his theory that he was forming earlier was right. To his satisfaction he was right. Four three foot bubbles formed and were blown one by one towards him in the same fashion as earlier.
As Liam moved away from them he thought to himself, Froth from the mouth wide open equals concussive bubbles. When closed a jet of water. Got it. Now can I use that to my advantage, or is it useless to use?
As Liam moved out of the bubbles trajectory he noticed the floating bubbles had changed course. As they changed direction the two in the back had skimmed each other and caused them both to pop. The air that escaped out of them washed over the other two and caused them to pop as well.
Liam was both intrigued and surprised. He didn’t think the bubbles would change direction when he moved which helped him to find out they were homing and locked on to him. After watching them change direction and watched the two that had touched each other, he hadn’t expect them to pop. He would have believed they would connect them form a bigger one. However seeing them react in that fashion both gave him an idea on how to get rid of them and a possible use for them. He wasn’t sure if it would work and the timing would need to be close to perfect, but he had time to test his theory out.
He quickly made his way back to the center of the platform and waited to see if the monster would use that bubble attack again. To his delight, the Wave Rider Crab did as he had hoped. It sent out four more bubbles after him. Instead of running to his left or right, Liam waited for the bubbles to get closer. After they reached a certain distance he jumped back a bit creating enough room between him and the bubbles so they wouldn’t pop. He kept doing this getting closer and closer to the edge of the platform. He gauged the distance and believed he was just the right amount for his plan and stepped within the range that he thought he needed to be for the Wave Rider Crab to start moving. To his delight the creature started skittering around on the left with the bigger claw leading the way.
Liam watched the crab and the bubbles and waited. He wanted to time this right to see if his theory was correct. Once he believed the timing was perfect he started sprinting to his left. He looked over his shoulder and watched as the Wave Rider Crab approached the bubbles that had started to turn. The two back bubbles barely touched and popped causing the other two to pop as well. The concussive air wave that escaped from the bubbles shot out just like he wanted as the Wave Rider Crab got close, however, the massive creature wasn’t close enough to receive the force from the air blast. Instead of the air blast hitting the creature and knocking it off balance like he was hoping, the amount that did touch the crab before settling only knocked the larger claw upwards a bit, making it come to a halt to allow time for it to come back down.
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Even though his timing was off and only the larger claw was affected by the bubbles, he had received his answer. The air blasts that came out of the bubbles were enough to cause the creature to be off balance and possible fall back into the sea. With that discovery, Liam ran away from the edge of the platform and back towards the middle of it. Ready to try this again.
Once more, after the Wave Rider Crab rebalanced itself, it shot out four more bubbles and waited. Liam readjusted his timing and went through the same process, however this time he waited a bit more before making a run to his left. This time the bubbles exploded right in front of the Wave Boss, causing it to throw its larger claw up into the air bringing four of the front legs along with it.
Liam watched waiting for it to fall into the sea. However, even though it was unbalanced and swinging both claws around, the momentum it had going up was slowly coming to a halt. Liam tried to calculate if it would fall or not for a split second before coming to the decision that he wasn’t going to take the chance of being wrong and sprinted towards the crab. As soon as he reached within striking distance he swung his hammer under then over his head gaining as much momentum and force as he could before slamming it down in the middle of its under belly.
Liam heard a soft crack as the head of his hammer connected, however, he wasn’t able to see if it did enough damage to lower its durability since it fell backwards into the sea. Liam raced over to see if he could spot where the creature was. He looked in and remembered that he wasn’t able to see anything before. He then remembered how the creature emerged from the water and ran back towards the middle of the platform.
Unsure where the Wave Rider Crab was, Liam slowly scanned the water around the platform. Nothing was spot. Not a single bubble or ripple. As he continued to do this he noticed something. The water was strangely calm. That calm didn’t last long as the water slightly and slowly dipped before it returned back. That small dip happened again, but this time it dropped a little more before returning to the same height.
He found that strange. He then heard water drop on water as it happened again. It wasn’t entirely quiet, but it also wasn’t loud. As the water dipped again it dropped a bit more but as it returned back to its normal height a layer of water rolled over the spot he was staring at. The sound of water hitting water grew a bit more causing him to look to his right; the area of the platform that faced the sea.
Waves were starting to form. As soon as he noticed the waves crashing against the platform, a bigger one than the others had crashed against it causing water to spray upwards. He then noticed two eyestalks poking up from the water out in the sea. Another wave of water crashed against the platform, causing the water to not only spray upwards, but a small amount ran across the floor of the platform.
It didn’t take long for Liam to put two and two together what was going on. Seeing how violent the waves were starting to get and remembering what Mercer had told him earlier. This was probably the Wave Rider Crabs way of getting a wave high enough for it to ride. He didn’t waste any time to wait and find out if his hunch was correct. He bolted to the platform to his right.
As soon as he reached the edge he jumped. As his feet touched down a stronger wave crashed against the platform spraying even more water. A small amount of water had sprinkled on him, but he ignored it as he pressed on to the next platform. He jumped again, but as he jumped a spray of water shot up and drenched his legs and feet. Not only did he get drenched, but the force of the water had pushed his feet backwards a bit causing him to roll as he came back down.
Liam spared a glance back at the sea as he reached the edge of the platform he was on now. His eyes widened at the size of the wave coming his way. He let out a slur of curse words as he jumped in the air. Right as he landed onto the next platform the wave that was heading towards him rolled over it and collided with his legs. The force of the wave was enough to knock him off his feet and drag him close to the edge of the platform.
After the water had stopped, Liam stared out towards the sea and saw the next wave must be the final one since it rose twenty feet into the air with the Wave Rider Crab riding on top of it. Liam’s heart thumped fast against his chest as he realized he needed to get to the rocky lane as fast as he could before it could collide with him. He swiftly scrambled back to his feet and ran as fast as he could towards the final platform before the rocky lane.
He made it to the next platform and was pushing his legs as hard as he could trying to pick up as much speed as he possibly could. In the corner of his eye he could see the wave getting closer and closer. Panic was slowly creeping in as the wave swallowed half of the platforms that were closer to the sea. The one he was located on was the back platform on the right side of the watery arena.
Each step his feet took more of the platform to his left was swallowed. By the time he reached the halfway point of the platform he was on the other ones were completely swallowed. He pushed it out of his mind and focused on trying to make it to the rocky lane. As he approached the edge of the platform, the wave had already swallowed a quarter of it.
As he reached the edge, Liam pushed off his feet and leaped towards the rocky lane. In the corner of his eye he was the wave was coming down with the Wave Rider Crab falling down on the platform he had just escaped from. However, before he could get completely out of the way. The edges of the wave collided onto his left shoulder and side. The pressure rocked his body causing him to dip to his side.
A thunderous boom crackled in the air as the Wave Rider Crab crashed down onto the platform Liam was just on. However, Liam wasn’t able to see or understand why as he gritted his teeth and braced himself for impact as the corner of the rocky lane quickly came for his face. His left shoulder and side collided with the wall of rocky lane due to the pressure of the water that came down. Luckily for Liam, he was able to grip the rocky lane with his right hand and hold on with dear life as his right foot hooked into a hole. After the wave finished coming down, he pulled his body up to the rocky lane and rolled away from the edge. He breathed heavily feeling the muscles in his body throb as he gulped for air.
He waited a bit before peering at his health and stamina. His health had dropped below half while his stamina was down to a quarter. He pulled out a health and a stamina potion and quickly downed them before getting back to his feet. He looked back out into the watery arena. As his eyes landed on the platform he was just on they instantly widened as he whispered out, “Well fuck me.”