Chapter 59 - Prinoras (3)

'Tsk... that bastard has my spear too deep into the palm of its hand. I can't do any serious damage to it unless I get the spear back. Fck!'

There were enough troubles already for Zok to handle with the Elude class reset and now his spear only made matters worse. Cero was handling himself quite well, but after the initial element of surprise was gone, even he couldn't do much. The Prinoras were able to dodge his attacks easily because of their long legs.

Unlike Zok, Cero couldn't deal damage to them until he got absurdly close to them... or could he?

'Cero, use Rock Stomp in my direction!' Zok yelled over the Hivemind as he prepared to dodge another attack from the Prinora. 

The next moment, the snowy land burst open and numerous rocks as big as the Prinoras erupted out of nowhere. Ideally, this sudden eruption of rocks would have flung anything into the air, but Prinora were too heavy for that to happen. Either way, the rocks made the Prinora in front of Zok lose its footing and fall on its back on top of receiving some damage. 

"That's it! Good job Cero!" Zok exclaimed as he rushed over to the fallen Prinora.

Zok hadn't thought Cero's attack would be able to kill the Prinora, but he had hoped that the attack would at least immobilise it for long enough for him to retrieve his spear back. And that's what happened. 

While Zok was retrieving his spear, the battle between Cero and the other Prinora didn't stop. The second Prinora saw what Cero did to its fellow creature and went berserk. Rather than keeping distance and dodging attacks, as it had been till then, the Prinora rushed towards Cero in a blind rage.

Even Cero was taken aback by the sudden change in tactics and hence wasn't prepared for the attack in time. The Prinora smashed its wooden club right on Cero's head with a look of satisfaction on its face. However, that look was short-lived as the next moment the ball of mass attached to Cero's tail slammed hard against the Prinora, sending it flying to where it was before. 

It was one of the attacks that he had learned after evolving successfully, <Whip>. It was one of the deadliest attacks in Cero's arsenal at the moment. The attack was so strong that just the slightest swing had enough strength to shatter someone's bones into a fine powder and the Prinora had just received that attack on full power. 

As for Cero, the Prinora's attack had no effect on him. The exoskeletal structure of its head was more than strong enough to parry such fragile attacks. In fact, the wooden club was smashed into pieces as soon as it hit him in the head. 

The only weak point Cero now had was his unarmoured underbelly. But that too was provided with some protection from his thick skin. Zok heard the loud explosion as he finally managed to pull the spear out of the creature's hand. 

He quickly looked sideways and realised what had happened and couldn't help but smile. Ever since evolving, Cero was more independent than before. Which in hindsight was a good thing as Zok no longer needed to keep giving his commands to actively follow in a fight. Cero could basically learn from the situation and fight by himself. 

The white snow soon turned blue with the creature's blood spread all over. Cero's one attack did quite a number on the Prinora and it was as good as dead. Zus who was seeing all that while chewing the herb was shocked. 

Never in his life had he seen anyone fight, as well as Zok and Cero, were. The creatures he always treated as invincible were being swatted down like insects just like that. No matter how he thought about it, he only had one answer for this...

'They are monsters... literal monsters...'

To Zus it was no longer a mystery why the shamans decided to kill him. He was too strong for them to handle on his own. If Zok was so strong at just 15 years, he couldn't even imagine how strong this young man would be in ten or twenty years time. The shamans must have thought of him as a threat to their authority and hence decided to eliminate him before Zok could do anything to them.

"Things have turned out to be so interesting..." Zus couldn't stop smiling, "I must have done something good in my life to have encountered such a man in my life. If it's him, I can get my revenge on the shamans... and Skah for what he did to my wife and children."

Zus was as happy as he could be, even though he was hurt, bruised and bleeding out. He thought he would be able to get out of there when he first met Zok, but this time he was sure of it. As long as he stuck close to Zok, he could achieve anything in his life. 

"Cero! Finish 'em off!" Zok's scream snapped Zus out of his trance-like state.

There was no point in waiting to kill them anymore. It was better to kill them... or he could try something else. After fighting them, Zok realised they could be a bit useful to him. Especially, since they were already high levelled. 

However, even if he decided to tame them, he would only require one of them to live. The rest of them were just waiting to be killed and Zok wasn't in the mood to drag the battle longer than it was absolutely necessary. He didn't want any more of them to show up while they were wrapping up things. That's why he ordered Cero to kill them while he checked if he had enough pints to tame one of them.

He tried to open the tab and tame the beast, but instead, he got a notification he had never seen before. 

[Creatures living inside an Instance dungeon cannot be tamed.]