Reign Of Worm - Chapter 17 Elder Shadow Crab

Monster hunting time! You know, I know this sounds crazy, but I’m actually starting to enjoy this type of thing. Wake up, eat some dirt, kill some peeps, evolve, and sleep. I don’t need any sleep though. It just relieves my mental fatigue.

That said, I need to figure where to head today. Honestly I don’t want to mess with another spider, so where I previously went is out of the question. Why? Because spiders taste disgusting. Really fucking disgusting.

This time I head away from the tunnel with the nine-legged spider. Not too far away, mind you, but far enough that I think I won’t encounter any of those disgusting things. I truly do not like them. Anyway, this new tunnel I chose is very wide, but definitely not too tall. It isn’t a problem for a worm like me, but I bet most creatures wouldn’t fit in this, at least not any stronger than me. Let’s go!

Full of excitement I worm my way into the squashed tunnel. There seems to be no one here. Did I choose an abandoned tunnel? I’ll go a little farther just in case. Don’t want to get jumped by an angry monster or anything. So father into the tunnel I go.

I think it is about five minutes of just straight worming before I finally get something. I was just chilling, worming slowly through the tunnel, when something made me focus ahead of myself. And what did I see from that? Crabs. A damn lot of crabs. I thought crabs were aquatic, why the fuck are they here!

Why am I so angry? Well, now the playing field is really dangerous. The features of a crab allow it to sweep through this tunnel vastly unhindered. It even offers protection from stronger enemies. Not to mention, how the fuck am I supposed to bite a crab to death?!

Well, on the bright side I can level up bite really quickly. Not that it will matter if I die. I’ll need a game plan, and a damn good one too. But I don’t want to just back out in the face of a real challenge, so I better get thinking.

The first and most obvious thing to do is find a crab or separate one from a group. I am not confident in handling more than one right now. I have no idea of what they can do, and I’m going to be really careful because of that.

The first thing I do after hammering out some nails is back off. There are way too many crabs in there, and even with my upgraded heat-sensing glands I can barely make out them individually. And even then it’s very blurry. Progress.

After backing off from the center of the tunnel a little bit, I stop and dive into the side, digging myself a little hidey-hole. This is the second thing that needed to be done. I’ll either wait for some time and watch the crabs’ habits, or find a solo crab to lure out and fight. Either one works, it’s just a matter of what I come across. And I won’t get hungry either. This soil is very moist and nutrient-full. While it won’t give me life matter, it will sustain me quite well. Now we wait.

—

It has been so long. Not even kidding, I think I’ve been here for almost a day, and I’ve barely seen any crabs moving through the tunnel. My best guess is that this isn’t the only one they use. But that isn’t the main point. These crabs are fucking creepy! If I had to describe their appearance, it would be like the outer shell of a crab, but completely black and they have spider eyes. If that wasn’t enough, parts of their body randomly shift into the shadows near them. I’ll have to watch out for that in combat.

I’m completely rambling in my brain, as I do, when I see a solo crab move past me. I’m so caught up in my inner monologue that I almost miss it.

Oh shit! I almost passed up this chance! This crab is the perfect target! It’s fairly obvious that this crab is injured, or was born deformed, I’m not judging. It looks like it’s limping, and on its left where a claw should be is just a flailing limb. I don’t know if Jeremy is rewarding my studious ways of stalking prey, but damn this is just too juicy of an opportunity to pass up! There’s only one problem. This particular crab is massive. Seems like a deal-breaker? Yeah no. I have been waiting for a crab to be alone for way too long and I’m not typically a patient guy. I’m going for it, I guess I’ll just be a bit more careful than normal.

Alright, more of my inner dialogue successfully completed, I head out of the wall to slowly stalk behind the crab, being extremely careful. I don’t want this chunk of life matter to see me before I’m already eating it. Successfully out of the wall, it took way too long for my taste, I get worm ass in gear and dash towards the crab, aiming at its left rear leg and just going for it, chomping my mandibles down in between the hard outer shell of the body and leg.

Ouch! Even in between the shell pieces this crab has some serious defense! That said, one leg down, at least one more to go. Of course, it isn’t going to be easy, Mr. Crabs has seen me, and I’m a nice hard pile of cash.

I dash to the crab’s other rear leg, and I’m about to bite down when I see a bright flash of heat swinging down at me from the shadows. Damn! I roll out of the way, and just in time as well, for one of the legs of the crab had emerged from a shadow above me and stabbed down, damn near piercing my fragile worm body. That was close, and this battle is clearly nowhere near over!

Having missed his first attack the crab is now wide open. I won’t miss a chance! I quickly contort my body around and bite at its leg that’s now stuck in the ground. Clack! My mandibles may be tough, but I can barely put a scratch or dent on this dude! It seems like this crab losing its leg to me was a complete fluke! Argh, that pisses me off! Furious at my inherent weakness, I bite down with my mandibles repeatedly. It hurts badly, but I refuse to give it up! I continue even as I start to feel pain in my mandibles, not stopping until half of the leg comes off!

Nice! I got the leg! Seems good right? Yeah nope. The crab previously was too focused on freeing its leg to attack me, but I just helped it with that! The battle just got a whole lot harder! I roll around, repeatedly dodging the crab’s maniacal attacks. Damn seafood just won’t let up! I will get my buffet tonight! Reinforced by my unethical wish for seafood, I desperately look for an opportunity to turn the tides of this battle. After all, I won’t be able for much longer, the crab is speeding up as the battle goes on, and I have no idea whether all the noise from this has attracted more crabs or not.

Chance! The crab spikes down with its only claw and I just barely dodge out of the way, just in time for it to slam its claw into the side of the wall! Using the short time gained from it pulling the claw out of the wall, I dash into the claw and start biting furiously. One bite, two bites, fourteen bites! It takes fourteen bites before I can remove the second to last limb of the crab. And that’s not all, I had to execute those bites while being fucking flung around by the crabs flailing as it tries to get me off of it.

But it worked! The crab is now down to one more limb before it becomes useless! Of course, while it’s now slightly easier for me as the crab can only use one limb, its shadow movement skill or whatever doesn’t mean I can take a breather. Quite the opposite really. I’m now at a loss of how to get this last annoying limb off of my precious food.

The crab is now warier than ever of its last leg getting stuck in the tunnel’s thick soil. After all, it’s quite literally on its last leg, and if it fails to defeat me before losing it, well then it’s over. I, on the other hand, am now relaxedly dodging the attacks of the crab, intently looking for a chance to defeat it. And sure enough, there it is!

For all this crab’s efforts to not get its only limb stuck in the tunnel, it somehow forgot about itself. It seems pretty obvious to me that I wouldn’t pierce myself, but what does the stupid crab go and do? Of course it stabs itself! I’m not really complaining though, I’m not that greedy.

Using this chance, I quickly make work of the crab’s final limb, this time severing it completely from the joint to make it easier on my now aching mandibles. And damn do they ache. But nope, I’m not done even after that. The stupid crab refuses to even succumb to its wounds! I don’t have much time, so I have to take some more forceful measures.

Actually I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier. It was right after I severed the last limb of my foe that I remembered that my mouth expands, and that I had some sharp-ass teeth in there too. So, well I won’t describe my actions. They are pretty terrible. Anyway, after what feels like forever, I finally get the trusted notification. Thank Jeremy! I almost died so many times!

[Level 1 Elder Shadow Crab defeated]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[fourteen life matter acquired]

[Unlocked basic profile of Elder Shadow Crab]

[Bite leveled up]

What’s this? Elder Shadow Crab? Looks interesting, but I’ll deal with it later. Right now I’m pretty sure some more crabs are heading this way, so I gotta get out of here! Especially since I’ve eaten what I can of the crab. Let’s go! Back to home!