Chapter 77 - Land Of Predators (1)

'Need to take down his tail first.' Zok thought before jumping out of the Scorrione's way yet again, 'One hit from that can spell trouble for him. Thankfully, I decided to confront it by myself. Otherwise, Cero's slowness would have inevitably gotten him into trouble.'

__

You have dodged a critical attack!

The level gap has been reduced by 1 level(s). All of the user's stats have been increased by 30 points for 10 minutes.

Current probability of winning: 100.00%

__

Seeing as their level difference was not that big, Zok decided to confront the beast by himself. And now he was thankful for doing so. The beast itself was not fast, but its tail was another story altogether. 

The duration from when the tail coiled back and struck was a little over a second. Thus the time frame to dodge the attack was pretty narrow. So much so that even Zok was having trouble dodging it. If it hadn't been for the beast's messed up accuracy, he would have been hurt once or twice. 

He was forced to dodge the stinger once every 20-30 seconds. Zok considered that duration to be the cooldown period of the beast's attack.

As for lethality, Zok knew the stinger was much dangerous, As both, the beast's description and the notification he received after dodging the strike informed him about that in clear words. Every single time the stinger struck, it was a critical strike and it was thanks to that Zok managed to quickly get to the beast's level. 

But even then, the stinger was still a bit problematic to him as it was preventing Zok from getting close to the beast to directly deal some damage to it. There was another reason why he wanted to attack the stinger first.

It was for the poison it held inside. It had been a long time since his spear had absorbed anything of worth and he planned on rectifying it by making it absorb the beast's poison. 

'Since it's a poison that the beast uses to hunt other beasts, it would be useful for when I decide to get back here and start hunting in the desert for real.'

it was like killing two beasts with one move. That's why Zok was dead set on removing the stinger out of the equation first. However, it didn't look like he would be able to do it by himself. The creature was too big for Zok to dodge the stinger and then simultaneously attack it as well. 

He had already tried it and failed miserably and almost got in between the beast's pincers. It was clear that he needed help but he did not want to endanger his pets for it. It was then he had a big brain moment and realised he did not need the help of his pets at all.

'Shira!' Zok exclaimed before explaining his plan to her using the hivemind. 

Shira immediately agreed to the plan and readied herself. In the meantime, both Cero and Kaira were left to protect her. They were standing in unknown territory and it was safe to assume that there were more predators than just the Scorrione in front of them. 

Zok had already made up his mind about killing the beast for three reasons. First, the beast was not an aberrated one, and hence was not the strongest of its kind. Secondly, since the beast was not the strongest in its species, Zok did not want to waste his control points on it by trying to tame it.

The final reason why Zok wanted to kill the beast was that he wanted to obtain knowledge about the desert more than he wanted yet another pet. Thanks to the index, he knew that the beast had some knowledge, thus Zok did not want to waste such an opportunity.

As Zok was thinking about all that, the scorrione started recoiling the stinger to attack once again as he walked out of the range of its pincers. A moment later, the stinger struck the ground like lightning and just like before, Zok was able to dodge it with little to no problems. 

However, when the scorrione tried to pull its stinger back, it realised that the stinger was stuck in the sandy ground. But that was not the case as moments later dozens upon dozens of vines erupted from the ground, enveloping the beast and restricting its movement. 

'Cero, rock stomp now!' Zok yelled as he charged headfirst into the beast.

__

You have successfully hit the <Abyssal Stinger Scorriones> using [Berserker's Charge].

The target has been stunned for 1.5 seconds.

__

The stun was just an addition to what Zok actually wanted to achieve. His intention of using [Berserker's Charge] was to get close to its stinger before Shira's vines weakened and the beast was freed. 

As for Cero's attack, well, Zok instructed him to do so in order to keep it busy. So that the beast would not know what he was actually planning to do.

Cero's attack knocked the beast up in the air, but with the vines wrapped around it, the scorrione was not sent flying and instead it flipped over where it was standing before, exposing its unprotected underbelly to its enemies.

Zok used this moment to slash away the stinger in one swift move. The beast let out a soul-chilling screech as its stinger was ripped off. 

'Damn it! Its screams will attract unnecessary trouble our way.' Zok cursed through the Hivemind, 'Everyone, kill it now!'

Cero, Kaira and Zok, all three of them jumped right into killing the beast. It took them a couple of minutes to do so, but at last, they were able to do it. Zok had set his preference for Kaira to obtain the majority of the exp awarded.

[Your familiar <Kaira> has slain a level 31 B-grade Abyssal Stinger Scorriones. Exp +6500]

[Your familiar <Cero> has slain a level 31 B-grade Abyssal Stinger Scorriones. Exp +100]

[You have slain a level 31 B-grade Abyssal Stinger Scorriones. Exp +100. Knowledge +17. Defence +11.25.]

[You familiar <Kaira> has levelled up to level 20.]

'Hmm... it looks like even after setting the preference, the rest of us get a minimal amount of exp either way.'

These were all notifications that Zok had expected to see, but there was one notification that he did not...

[You have obtained a new skill for your primary class <Dodger>: ???]

'A new skill?'