Chapter 280

Nothing about the river looked safe.

The water moved quickly, a branch having been the test object, currents underneath sweeping it the moment it hit the water.

Max could sense creatures underneath the surface, some that had turned toward him as he approached the bank near the trees.

The river twisted and turned through the jungle, and he couldn’t see more than a quarter mile before it vanished around a bend. Even then the river was only about three hundred yards wide.

At least I don’t have to swim, but I really want to know what’s underneath.

Not being able to purify the water was his biggest problem, and as much as he trusted his poison immunity and his regeneration, it took a lot of effort not to have taken a drink yet.

Ten yards away, a creature waited in the mud, hidden by the brownish tinted liquid, yet Max could sense it. It had to be twenty feet long and felt like a crocodile from his world, only much bigger.

Pulling out the bone he had taken from the ape, Max held it in his right hand.

It was almost too thick for him to grip but it had resisted multiple strikes against trees and rocks. Proof that the constitution these creatures had were far beyond things from his world. Even the tower monsters didn’t have the fortitude these did, outside of perhaps some of the bosses, yet he had been weaker then.

I guess we’ll see how the water monsters play.

Using his left hand he scooped up a little water, taking a drink, his parched throat ignoring the taste of dirt.

Not even Everett’s best alcohol tastes better than this does right now.

Sighing, he took another, watching as the creature moved forward slowly, never disturbing the mud too much as it came straight toward him.

Its movement was deliberate, steady, and showed no fear.

He was in the animal’s territory—why should such a large beast be afraid of a single man?

Each drink sated his thirst even more, and Max stood up when the creature was about four yards out, its shape just starting to be visible to the naked eye if one knew where to look.

Grinning he took a step back and turned away.

Like an arrow fired from a bow, the beast shot out from its spot, leaping from the water and to the spot of land he had been standing on.

Max sensed it all and waited till its momentum provided it no way to dodge.

Spinning as he sidestepped, he swung the four-foot bone.

[ Quick Attack ]

[ Power Strike ]

It was the second time he had gotten to use this attack, and it was incredible. Even he could barely follow the movement of it. It made him understand why he hadn’t been able to activate any defensive skills when the mole had used it.

The twenty-four-foot-long crocodile took the full brunt of the attack against its eye socket, bones shattering from the power.

It had tried to turn its jaws, lined with teeth that looked sharp enough to tear Max in half, but the new skill was just too fast.

Now, the gray-skinned beast was knocked sideways and down from Max’s attack.

A grunting sound came from both the strike and the impact with the ground as it bounced, rolling through the ferns that decorated the river edge.

Before it had stopped rolling, Max was next to it, swinging over and over, striking the joints of its front legs, keeping an eye on the claws on its large feet.

Seven more strikes had landed, and before the crocodile had done anything but launch itself from the water, it lay dead, black blood staining the bone and the greenery.

Wiping his brow, Max smirked as he felt hair on his scalp.

I guess I can let it grow for a while.

Giving one more strike and making sure no attack came from a potential act of playing dead, Max moved to where the beast lay.

“What I wouldn’t give for a knife…”

The hide on it was tough, and it was one of the reasons Max had used the bone. Armor that stopped a dagger or sword was great but often found themselves suffering from a blunt attack.

Rolling the beast over, he opened its jaw, running his finger along some of the teeth and smiled.

Leaving the corpse there he moved to his stomach, turned backpack, and retrieved the tooth from the snake.

***

Holding the bottom jaw of the crocodile in his hands, Max couldn’t help but grin.

Using both hands he began to push on the two bones at the middle part of the U shaped section, squinting, as he wasn’t sure where it might break first.

Increasing the pressure he gave, it finally snapped on the left side, leaving a three-foot section of jaw with teeth lining it. The other piece was about two thirds of the remainder of the jaw, and dropping that piece, he went to work on the corpse.

It took some force for the teeth to saw through the dense section of hide at the top, but Max managed to finally break through, and once he could slip the bone saw into the hole, cutting became a much easier process.

Soon, a ten foot, very rough on the edges, section of hide had been rolled up, stuffed into the expanding backpack, and he was ready to keep moving.

Lifting up the corpse, Max tossed it into the water, watching it splash and begin to slowly sink.

About six seconds later the water erupted as other animals inside the watery domain moved to partake in his bloody offering.

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The fight flowed downstream quickly as the current carried the meal away, and Max grabbed his bag, ran to the water, and quickly began running on top of it, moving upstream as he went.

So glad I kept these pants!

He could sense other animals moving under him, a few scattering at his presence as he moved, but a school of three-foot-long fish started chasing him, trying to catch up as he moved across.

Slowing down, he could sense their sharp teeth and something else inside their mouths.

A sucker?

Darting out occasionally was a long tube with small teeth on it.

Shuddering at the thought of fifty fish getting onto his flesh with those things, Max picked up his speed and continued running for another thirty minutes along the top of the water.

He passed multiple animals on the bank, each of them looking surprised at his means of travel. Another one of the gorillas was at the water’s edge, biting off pieces of a smaller crocodile as it nursed a bloody arm.

Only the strong survive…

When he felt he might have gone far enough to change his trail and possibly shake off the hunter, Max moved toward the other side.

Leaping onto the dry section of land away from the edge, he glanced up at both suns.

Max guess he had about four more hours of sunlight, and he wanted to make sure to use as much of it as he could.

***

Damn, these things are smart!

More spores exploded around him, filling the air with orange clouds of gas, blocking his sight, and making his lungs burn.

Up in the trees were a pack of six armed monkeys that tossed down some large orange bulbs, screeching and hollering as they chased him for another mile.

The ground had turned sandy, such that he would start to sink if he slowed down, and it was here that these things had ambushed him.

At least twenty were still in pursuit, the others having given up, it seemed.

None came down from the branches, and Max dodged another bulb one sent his direction, darting around a tree, and avoiding the clouds of orange spores from the ones that continued on ahead.

It didn’t matter if he changed directions; they shifted, communicating through their screeches.

He had managed to kill about six by sending ice attacks at them, but leaving a trail of destruction and burnt trees for his captor to possibly follow hadn’t been in his plan.

Instead, he summoned an air wall right as one tossed a bulb at him, smiling as it exploded in its own face, the six-armed creature howling at him.

It took four more miles before they suddenly stopped, staying at some hidden line Max couldn’t see or feel.

Around him, the trees were changing from the jungle kind to a smaller and tiny leaf kind. Even the shrubs were beginning to decrease in numbers, and the usual long leaf variety instead became thornier and more compact.

I’m getting closer to the desert, which means something out here is too hard for these things to fight.

Slowing and then stopping about forty yards away, Max turned and smiled at the dozen of six-armed monkeys that screeched at him, their yellow eyes glaring as they bounced up and down on branches, gesturing with each hand.

“It’s been fun! We’ll do this again hopefully never!”

Laughing, he turned and started moving deeper into the new area, sensing the change in temperature as well.

No longer was it just humid. It had been getting hotter also.

***

Max winced as the scorpion’s stinger pierced his back.

Six on one wasn’t the odds he wanted, but poison didn’t affect him, and his regeneration took care of the strikes he accepted while blocking the ones that would do more harm.

Each one was the size of a horse, and their outer shell was covered in hairlike follicles that were as sharp as a needle. A six-foot-long one, at that.

Another pair of pincers came for him, from both sides, and the one he had just clubbed with the bone wasn’t getting back up.

He heard the hairs on the scorpion he had just killed breaking as he ran up its purple body.

His Sonar saw the tail strike coming from one that had been waiting outside the ring and lifting the club. Max blocked the attack, getting his feet back on the ground, and he wheeled around, the club striking the closest pincer and cracking the shell.

Another fragment on his club chipped off upon impact.

Max frowned, summoning an ice spear as he gave himself a little more room to maneuver.

This was the third pack of scorpions he had faced as he moved through the thinning trees and rocks and burrows began to appear.

He weaved and bobbed around the large insects, striking them down with spells and club, sad that no stats came at all.

Two remained, and one ran off, leaving its injured partner in this attack behind.

“Seems like it's just you and me now,” Max said, as he moved toward the last scorpion.

He sent the spear he had made of ice forward, which pierced the shell with ease, and he watched as the insect dropped to the ground, twitching slightly as its life drained out of it.

You back yet?

Half a minute passed, no reply coming from his skill.

The only sounds that came was the last breath exhaled when the scorpion died, its body thudding against the sandy soil.

“I guess it’s still just me,” Max said as he studied the bone, seeing the fracture that was growing down the length of it and knowing that soon it would be gone.

Moving to where his gorilla backpack sat, he prepared for the next stage of this journey.

***

“That’s a lot of sand…”

Staring out over the blue-colored sand, Max looked up at the gigantic moon in the sky. It had a blue color that touched everything, washing the landscape in an eerie light.

Before him was a stretch of sand as far as he could see at night.

Trees no longer appeared here, having vanished about a mile ago, and even now the shrubs that had been present were almost all gone.

A memory came to mind.

His team… his family.

Facing the first boss in the tower.

That sandy desert area.

Chuckling at the memory of the pain he felt from being eaten alive by the acid, instead Max focused on how that moment had been a crucible.

It had forged them, turned them into a team that didn’t back down.

Looking at the vast space before him, Max shifted the bag on his back and started running.

Three days… I have three more days to cover as much distance as I can.

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