V2Ch23-Omnivore

Hopefully we don’t run into too many more of those, James thought. I don’t want to get guts all over my clothes, and they really stink.

He used Pillage, selected Stats, directed the new equipment into his bag, and then walked on.

Five minutes later, a half dozen giant centipedes burst from the sand.

James threw out two Air Strikes, used Pillage again, bagged the new gear once more, and continued on his way.

This happened ten times, at shorter and shorter intervals each time. An increasing number of Monstrous Desert Centipedes attacked each time, until finally, amidst a pile of broken centipede bodies, a squad of Superior Desert Centipedes flanking the Desert Centipede Monarch popped out.

Well, at least this has to be the last of them, he thought.

He threw out an experimental Air Strike, but unlike the previous monsters, it seemed the wind couldn’t bisect these centipedes with one hit. The first attack left only thin cuts on the Superior Desert Centipedes, and no visible damage to the Desert Centipede Monarch at all.

Oh? Maybe an actual challenge?! James found himself smiling against his own better judgment. These centipedes were just slowing him down, and he had already killed something like a hundred of them. He needed to get across this desert and find the Dead Marsh, where his allies would be waiting. But if these last ones were actually worth slogging through all their wimpy kin, at least he’d enjoy ripping through these final specimens a bit more.

James darted around, using his superior Agility to dodge attacks from the Superior Desert Centipedes. Two of the giant, clumsy creatures tangled themselves up in each other’s legs trying to reach James with the pincer-like appendages on their heads.

He thought those pincer-like parts must be venomous fangs of some sort. He’d heard somewhere that either millipedes or centipedes were all venomous, and he didn’t imagine Orientation would have spawned the non-venomous one.

“Hold on tight, Hester!”

James lunged at the closer of the fallen creatures and threw a punch at the joint between the head and body. The creature tried to grab him with its forcipules, but James was faster. His fist smashed all the way through the joint he aimed at, penetrating to the other side. The centipede’s head snapped backward, and the body instantly turned limp.

The other fallen centipede that was nearby used the moment when James’s arm was entangled in the centipede’s joint. It tried to grab him, but James swung the dead creature up into its path to block it.

In the next moment, James yanked his arm free and sprinted out of range.

The other two Superior Desert Centipedes appeared at his flanks.

Wow! Are they using strategy? I’m kind of impressed. But the monsters kept their distance. They seemed to be aware that he could kill them in one hit if he landed a blow in the right place. And James’s Mind of the Predator and Way of the Predator were perfect for that. It was only a matter of time before they slipped up and suffered a fatal blow.

But why does it feel like they’re neither trying to close the distance nor to run away?

James suddenly became aware of motion just outside the frame of his peripheral vision. A powerful attack from the big one!

He swiveled his head to see it directly. Between the Desert Centipede Monarch’s forcipules, a ball of condensed Mana had gathered. As James looked on, he could see more Mana rising from within the creature’s body to fuel the attack it was charging. The Mana was pure white.

I shouldn’t let that hit me. No further thought required.

James dashed toward one of the Superior Desert Centipedes, planning to use it for cover. But the Desert Centipede Monarch’s body stiffened suddenly in his peripheral vision. James knew it was about to fire its attack.

Predator’s Sacred Armor! A glowing forest green aura enveloped James’s body in an instant, and he felt his skin stiffen as if he was made of iron. His body slowed with the diminished flexibility. At that moment, the Monarch’s ball of Mana became a large beam of light, streaking toward James at a speed he knew he couldn’t dodge. He stood his ground behind the aura armor and toughened skin, arms crossed in front of himself to protect his head.

The light hit—and the aura held! There was pressure, but the aura armor remained intact beneath that pressure.

Held up, even as the attack continued.

Began to falter visibly under the ray of intense energy.

Flickered slightly, a tiny bit of heat pouring through.

Cracked.

And shattered!

Searing white light fell upon James directly now, burning his arms, his clothes, his forehead—wherever it touched.

Finally, the light faded. He was still standing. His shirt was torn to rags. Chest heaving, arms burned raw.

But still standing. His face below the forehead remained unburnt. Beneath the rags of his shirt, his chest only looked like it had a rather unpleasant sunburn.

“Is that, hah, all, hah, you got?”

He began Silent Spellcasting. He had underestimated the centipedes because of the lower grades’ weakness. Now he would fight with his shield of non-elemental Mana, the Skill he’d stolen from Sierra’s brother David.

As he charged his Mana, the Superior Desert Centipedes attacked.

But compared with the beam he’d been forced to tank, they were relatively slow. James punched through the first one that reached him and killed it in one hit. The next one managed to grapple him with some of its legs, holding him for a few seconds. In the moments it took him to tear

the legs off, the other Superior managed to get a good hit in with its forcipules.

It injected the venom—and in the next moment, James was sloughing off that layer of flesh like a costume, discarding the poison and recovering from most of the damage from the Desert Centipede Monarch’s blast in one move.

The discarded skin stuck onto the legs of the centipede that had grappled him.

James grabbed the other centipede’s forcipules with his hands and pulled hard. They cracked and tore away from its head, and the creature twitched in obvious pain.

The centipede that had been grappling James tried to help its fellow, but as it lurched toward him, something yanked it off course, causing its forcipules to land in the sand. The monster looked back and saw that James’s discarded skin was still attached to its legs. The skin was alive, pulling at those limbs with terrible force, and the centipede immediately lunged to try to inject more of its poison into the skin creature.

While those two beasts grappled, James punched the centipede he was fighting, aiming for the same head-body joint he’d identified as a weak spot before. He again killed this one with a single punch.

As he slid his arm free of the body, he took a moment to look back over at the leader. But it seemed to be in some form of refractory period. The creature was clearly trying to charge the same big attack from before, and it seemed to stand immobile while the big attack was charging. But the Mana was coming slowly.

Don’t force yourself, big guy, James thought, grinning. You could pull a muscle straining yourself like that!

He turned back to the last remaining Superior Desert Centipede, which was now ripping James’s skin creature apart with its limbs while repeatedly injecting it with venom. The damage from venom left huge patches of the skin creature blackened and decomposed as if it had been dead for weeks. But the creature was still clinging weakly to life, trying to win James an extra few seconds.

James lunged across the short distance that separated him from the Superior Desert Centipede and slashed at its neck with his right arm. He was no longer smiling. Even though the skin creature was literally just his discarded skin animated by his Skill, he didn’t like to see something that was fighting for him taking such abuse.

Predator’s Strike! His whole arm became a blade. It struck the joint he had previously identified as the weak point. The head toppled to the sand.

Thank you for your help, he thought at the creature. It just wriggled weakly back at him, as if to say, ‘Yes, yes, now go on and kill the big one.’

James turned back to the last monster standing. The Desert Centipede Monarch, now probably the last of his kind. It looked like a water tower, standing strong and unmoving there. Its black head atop its reddish body stood proudly erect, Mana gathering slightly more quickly between its forcipules now. Its flesh still bore no scars. Almost majestic, if all the centipedes weren’t so ugly.

I wonder if it was born this way, or if it had to fight for its place in this food chain, he thought.

He walked slowly toward the big guy. His Silent Spellcasting finished conjuring, and he felt an invisible shield was now in place around him. He accelerated his pace. He knew exactly which move he wanted to try on the big guy.

As he got closer, James sensed some degree of fear in the Monarch. Its Mana charging carried a great sense of urgency now. It seemed to know it would only have one more shot. As James closed to within thirty feet, he began sprinting.

The creature fired its attack immediately, this time not at where James was, but at where he was going to be. A familiar but slightly smaller and weaker-looking beam of white light blasted forth.

This time, James was able to throw himself to the side and dodge. And then the Desert Centipede Monarch moved its head, so the blast shifted to follow him. James tucked and rolled, forcing the beam to chase him across sand. He knew from the previous attack that every moment weakened it.

Finally, the centipede’s attack caught up to him. It struck his shield, which became visible once hit. The beam failed to break through. The shield didn’t seem to be strained at all.

James began pushing forward through the energy beam. The centipede continued struggling to break through his defenses, slowly lowering the angle of its head to keep attacking as James drew closer and closer.

Until he was within a few feet of the centipede’s body.

Then James used Meteor Strike. His flaming fist smashed through the centipede’s center of mass, leaving a burnt out hole all the way through the body. The Monarch tottered from side to side but remained standing and continued its energy attack.

James pulled his arm out, and he threw another mighty Meteor Strike into its body, whipping through the same elevation of centipede flesh, until his arm met the hole it had already made. Like an axe felling a tree. With more than half of the flesh from that midsection burned away, the centipede slumped to the ground.

To its credit, the creature never stopped firing that desperate ray of energy.

In its last moments, the centipede’s energy attack had dropped to the lowest level of intensity James had observed in any monster attack since Orientation. But James respected the determination.

The light beam flickered and died, and he realized the fight was finally over.

[You killed Desert Centipede Monarch, Lv. 22! You gained 1300 exp!]

[Predator in Human Skin leveled up!]

[Evolver Human leveled up!]

[Required conditions met! New title obtained: Xenocide II!]

A second level from the centipedes, that’s nice, James thought. He examined the title.

[Xenocide II: As an entity responsible for causing extinction events for two species that had over a hundred members each, your nature is truly that of a monster to be feared. Your enemies will find their names erased from the history books. As such, enjoy a 15% bonus to all Stats when facing an enemy of another race. Enjoy a 25% bonus when facing an enemy who is the last or only member of their race.]

Whoops, I did it again…

He lowered his arm and finally exhaled. He felt exhausted.

“I didn’t even really want to fight any of you stupid bastards,” he muttered. “There I go, reducing ecological diversity again.”

“I think that after you killed the first group, they could smell the traces of their dead relatives on your body,” Hester said a bit hesitantly.

What a bloody nuisance! he thought. If you could smell it, you could have said something sooner. Could all this really have been avoided with a bath?

“I tried so hard not to be covered in centipede guts,” James said. “I thought I did a good job until I had to fight this last group at close range.”

“Actually, you’re probably right,” Hester said, sounding uncertain. “Maybe you just walked deeper into centipede territory.”

“Well, at least there was one enemy worth the killing,” James said, looking down at the Monarch.

Pillage. While he had turned the vast majority of the Monstrous Desert Centipedes into Stat points, he stole a Talent from the Monarch.

[Desert Centipede Monarch’s body processed.]

[You obtained Solar Helm, Deadly Necrotic Venom Sac, and Ego Exoshield!]

[Talent Obtained: Solar Power!]

[Solar Power: Naturally harness the power of the sun wherever it touches you. It can charge your attacks or aid in your recuperation of energy. Generates Skills “Solar Ray” and “Solar Recovery.”]

Almost as if the creature had willed him to have its strongest attack, he obtained it.

Very nice, James thought, yawning slightly. He felt sleepy. But he could also feel his energy coming back a little more quickly now, and the sunlight shining directly on him was the obvious source. Thank you, Solar Recovery.

The Ego Exoshield seemed very pleased to become a part of James’s arsenal, wiggling and jumping back and forth like a dog jumping up and down. But James just gave it a tired smile and directed it into his magic satchel with the other equipment.

From one of the Superior Desert Centipedes, he obtained the Skill Necrosis. From another, the Skill Tough Skin. The others, he turned into Stat points, unimpressed with the abilities he’d garnered thus far.

He walked back over to his skin creature, which was dead and half-rotted away in the sand. Then he picked it up and ate some of it to recover a bit of his lost Stamina.

“Oh dear,” Hester whispered quietly to herself.

He ignored both her and the disgusting flavor of the necrotic venom in the skin until he recognized that the Stamina he was recovering wasn’t enough to justify consuming something that tasted so nasty. Or rather, he wasn’t desperate enough.

So much for Omnivore, he thought. The Skill theoretically allowed him to consume the body of anything that had once lived, and absorb the properties and energy of the material consumed. But in practice, his sense of taste was still going to be a limiting factor there.

“Well, onward through the desert then,” James said. “About how far in do you think we are?”

“Maybe halfway,” Hester said doubtfully. “You walk a lot faster than most people, but you also stopped and killed everything you came across.”

“Alright, I’m not walking any further, then.”

James used Shed Skin, infused a large quantity of Mana into the skin with Monster Generation, and created a balloon-like monster from his discarded skin this time. Then he did the same thing again. His Mana was all but used up by the end, but he now had a viable means of transportation across the desert.

One monster to grab each shoulder, he thought. I need some sort of flight Skill. This feels silly. Maybe I’ll find some birds to kill. He’d seen nothing living in the desert so far except centipedes, but he recalled vultures always seemed to appear only when something was dead or dying.

He ripped off the remaining shreds of his shirt to make it easier for the Skin Balloons to latch onto him.

“Wow!” Hester exclaimed. “What a creative use of that Skill!”

“Thank you, Hester.”

“You know, you probably could’ve avoided all those fights and finished crossing the desert by now if you’d used it sooner. We only saw ranged attacks from the boss, right?”

James suppressed a groan.

“I’m going to take a nap now,” he said. “Please let me know if you see any monsters or other threats while we’re flying.”

“Sure thing!”

At a silent command, the Skin Balloons tied themselves onto one of James’s shoulders each and took off.