Chapter 468: The State of the Beetle?
Blurring in between the trees, the Jungle Lord ran with immense speed, carrying two attractive young ladies in his arms as one of them guided his movements.
Their surroundings blurred, both Lillian’s and Viesta’s hair whipped and fluttered behind them.
Viesta didn’t know the reason why they had suddenly ended up in this situation. Casting a glance over to her partner, she stared at Lillian’s eyes, which expressed clear signs of shock.
As she was about to ask, the Jungle Lord immediately stopped in place, ceasing his built-up momentum and causing a gust of wind to blow over from behind them.
Then, he leapt back, dodging as a large object crashed through the trees like a hand sweeping through a bed of flowers and uprooting them. Lillian held an arm over her face, blocking the shredded splinters flying their way.
What was that?
She lowered her arm and squinted her eyes, piercing through the cloud of splintered wood and settling her gaze on the body of a familiar over-sized insect with a human face.
The Beetle stood in the centre of a large open area; it was dreadfully injured. It was missing two of its legs that—its stumps oozing with blood—and had countless shallow cuts covering its face, with one of them stretching over its closed right eye.
What had it encountered for them to give it so much trouble? Even its glossy black shell had sustained damage! Not enough for the Beetle to appear as a turtle with a cracked shell, but still...
Lillian watched as the Beetle spun around, swinging something through the air by its teeth with a furious look on its face. She looked closely and found it to be biting down on what seemed to be...
A root?
**
The Beetle strolled through the jungle happily, looking for its meal before its half an hour lunch break came to an end, before it had to return to act as guard.
It salivated at the sound of a meal, daydreaming slightly as it intentionally slammed its large body into the surrounding trees with clear dislike towards their existence.
And without knowing, it had suddenly found itself in an open area in the jungle. It looked around and found the surrounding plantlife was shrivelled and dead, as though they were stripped of their needed nutrients. Had they suddenly been inflicted with some sort of decay?
Even the trees around the perimeter curved around from the centre of the area, clearly wanting nothing to do with whatever was there; they were clearly afraid.
If the Beetle had an eyebrow, it would definitely raise it. Although it cared not for these trees in the slightest, even going out of its way to tear them down, it knew something was suspicious when it saw it.
Shifting its attention towards the centre of the area, the Beetle found what seemed to be a tree larger than the rest around it. Its bark was of a darker colour, and its green leaves had a tint of lilac to them, which caused its face to twitch.
The sight of anything remotely purple caused its mind to flash with remembrance about the cursed tree, and the fact that this colour was found on a tree gave it even more of a reason to unreasonably tear it down.
As it strided forward, the Tree’s roots that covered the ground beneath it lashed upwards like an awoken snake, sensing its malevolent and hostile thoughts towards its body.
Covered in a sheen of mana, the roots sliced deeply into the joint of one of its legs, slicing it off completely and causing blood to overflow out of it.
Its eyes bulged and reddened at the pain as it roared in pain, then it was assaulted with countless lashing roots that attacked its body from all sides like a flurry of whip-like swords.
Sparks flew off the area it struck its exoskeleton, and blood flew out of the area it struck its exposed flesh. Soon enough, the seemingly endless attacks ceased.
The roots hovered over the Beetle, making them look taller and more frightening as they seemed to deter the monster away from the tree.
Having endured the attacks and feeling its body riddled with slash marks, the Beetle’s eyes flashed with an enraged light as it let out a distorted roar.
Already adapting to the loss of its leg, the Beetle warmed up its spider-like legs, which were taller than its body, and stomped them rapidly against the ground before charging in.
The sound of its charge thunderously roared out like a stampede of countless migrating monsters.
Sensing that the Beetle wasn’t going to back off, the Tree decided to devour the Beetle instead.
Lashing its roots again, it struck the Beetle, knocking it off course for a moment, but failed to stop its charge.
The Beetle roared thunderously, biting through the roots that charged towards it. Even when they wrapped around its body, it continued to move forward. Even when one of the roots slashed through its right eye, causing it to lose half of its vision, it continued to move forward through the storm of attacks.
And when it eventually reached the Tree’s body, a root wrapped around one of its legs, ripping it off. It was at this point that any other monster would turn tail and leave; a loss of several limbs could be considered a death sentence in such an environment, after all.
But the Beetle was no ordinary monster...
It was instead a monster that was given another chance after its death!
With a burning look in its eyes that was fueled by the unbearable and familiar pain of the loss of its legs, it thrusted its tall, black spire-like horn through the centre of the Tree’s trunk.
Wooden splinters bursted out from behind the Tree as the horn pierced through it.
Then, with a shake of its head, the Beetle ripped the Tree in half and threw it off its horn.
Thud...
With the tree now separated from its stump, which connected it to its roots, it lost control over them—and also over all forms of attacks.
Seeing as the Tree was now defenceless, the Beetle barred its teeth and began to devour the Tree before looking up towards the night sky and letting out a victorious and distorted roar.
[Carapace Hunter had slain a Dire Gnarl, Rooting Tree]
And as it did that... The Beetle felt something bubble deep inside its body right next to its heart. It was a warm feeling... A feeling that spread throughout its body like it had finally broken the dam that kept it sealed away.
Soon enough, the feeling that coursed through its veins bursted out of its body in the form of a supernatural energy.
**
{Carapace Hunter had accomplished its requirements for its Mana Core: Savage => Dire.}
The remains of the Tree that the Beetle had slain swept past them again like a wrecking ball, causing destruction through the surrounding trees, which seemed to irritate the Jungle Lord slightly, as evidenced by how the glowing orbs acting as its eyes flickered a bit.
He lowered Lillian and Viesta gently to the ground before stepping forward and catching the swinging tree with its hand, causing the Beetle to pause and turn to them.
Lillian, who was staring in shock, watched as the Beetle flashed its mana at her smugly before collapsing to the ground—falling asleep. She widened her eyes and let out a stuttering sigh as she scratched the back of her head.
It was only yesterday she had checked the Beetle’s requirements to be able to use mana; to think it would be completed in the matter of just a day...
’What’s with my luck...?’
A smile stretched across Lillian’s lips as she strolled over to the Beetle, which had its eyes closed now—now asleep. She chuckled a bit and patted its back, as she said:
"We all are working to get stronger... You did great, Beetle. Get some rest."
While she was sure the Jungle Lord would be willing to share a bit of its vitality with the Beetle to heal its injuries, she felt it was more appropriate if she allowed it to rest and heal within her Mana Realm instead.
After summoning the Beetle back into her Mana Realm, the three of them continued to go around and try to get Viesta another Shard before inevitably returning to camp.
And upon arriving, they found that everyone else had already returned from their hunting as well and had now gathered around the campfire, waiting for them.
"Ah, crewmates! Yar have finally returned! KAHAHAHA!"
The Captain loudly greeted them as he, Jon, and Emilio stood up to come meet them.
As Viesta showed off her new pair of wings to Jon and Emilio, Lillian strolled over to the Captain and asked:
"Have you guys have anything to eat yet?"
"Absolutely not!"
Lillian tilted her head at the tone of the Captain, which made it sound like she had said something completely preposterous. Was there really something with what she asked?
"Okay... How come?"
The Captain grinned down at her before spinning around and gesturing towards the log benches around the campfire.
"Take a seat, matey! Yar fellow captain shall tell yar the tale of the greatest pirate to ever roam the sea!" He paused and then said, "And of my discovery of what Epoch we currently are in!"