I Hate Systems

Scree!

The creature sported a hardened shell, spanning a metre in size. The reason it was scary was that it was a scorpion, one that had evolved to possess potent poison while sporting incredible agility.

Its toxin had developed to the extent that even its blood alone was dangerous, not to mention the toxin stored in its stinger. And, its most notable trait was a mildly glowing horn on its forehead.

Thankfully, its defence wasn't all that spectacular, being injured by the stalactite Compass Carburettor had thrown at it.

Upon seeing the success of his throw, Compass Carburettor leapt, landing a kick on another stalactite to break it into two, hurriedly throwing it towards Neena, "Here! Hold this to defend yourself!"

"…T-Thanks!" Neena was pleasantly surprised at his choice of action to help her even in such a life-threatening situation. Her heart began to accelerate, for a moment his face—expression—stitched deep in her eyes.

She immediately broke out of her reverie when the scorpion screeched once again, shrugging off the rock that he and Rhizen had thrown at it.

Without any words being exchanged between them, the two men quickly broke any and every stalactite along the way, turning around to throw the pieces at the scorpion. Even though the scorpion was fast, it wasn't able to evade on time.

After all, the two were expert throwers, throwing the rocks at it, aiming at its face all the time. Most of the throws were off the mark, since the distance was pretty great for the projectile to travel.

But, they made up for it with quantity, throwing one after another. This way, they caused the scorpion to focus on dodging the attacks instead.

It was an enemy whose blood itself was threateningly poisonous. Only an idiot would throw themselves at it to engage it with close combat.

Moreover, as the superior versions of monkeys, if they failed to do something as simple as throwing things at their foe, then they would have disappointed their ancestors.

"Nice aim!" Compass Carburettor praised Rhizen when the other party threw a piece of rock right into the scorpion's mouth when it screeched.

"Let's play cricket once we leave this place. It'll be fun to have a match with someone of your skill level." Rhizen laughed in response, watching the rocks thrown by Compass Carburettor make a whistling sound in the air before slamming into the hardened shell of the scorpion with a loud thud.

The two weren't standing close by but had distanced themselves, attacking the scorpion from different angles.

This way, it had to focus on two different directions, hence splitting its focus, allowing for more attacks to hit it. Moreover, even when it tried to use the stalactites to hide behind, they positioned themselves accordingly to ensure at least one was able to land attacks on it.

In this way, they played a game of tug of war.

"Here!" Neena shouted as she ran and dropped some pieces of a stalactite that she had broken before Compass Carburettor.

"Thank you!" Compass Carburettor laughed in response, picked up the extra pieces and hurled them at the scorpion.

"Bring me some too!" Rhizen shouted in a hurry when Neena sprinted towards his location, breaking some stalactites along the way.

Thankfully for them, there were a lot of thin stalactites that they could break easily. As for the rest, Neena used the thicker stalactite that Compass Carburettor had given her to smash them into pieces.

With her support, they were able to target the scorpion better. Moreover, from time to time, Neena confused the scorpion, causing it to slam into some stalactites on its own, getting injured in the process.

Since it was an old cave, there were plenty of stalactites in their reach. Even though they felt bad to destroy such a valuable location, their lives were important, and survival was their priority. So, without any hesitation, the stalactites were broken one after another.

"Huff…puff…hah!" Wheezing for a couple of seconds, Rhizen gritted his teeth and threw a rock with all his strength, grunting in response as he hurriedly massaged his right arm, feeling pain from the exertion.

He had been throwing them with all his strength that he was getting tired. He then looked around, noticing that Compass Carburettor was in a similar state, shouting, "It's been weakened. Let's focus more attacks on it."

"Watch out! Take cover!" Suddenly, alarm bells rang in his mind as Compass Carburettor shouted in response, watching the scorpion's horns glow in response.

As they were focusing on it, the two men didn't notice Neena's eyes too were glowing in response as she directed most of her power into the scorpion.

Right as the scorpion was about to unleash its trump card, its tail wriggled a bit before touching a nearby stalactite, suddenly causing its body to jerk in response as it hurriedly gazed at in the respective direction.

It was unknown as to what had happened. There was a flash of light before a resounding boom resounded through the place, causing a deafening ring to echo in their ears.

Followed by it was the scorpion's angry screech as it noticed that its trump card had been wasted. It then watched in alarm that its attack had landed on a large stalactite nearby, breaking it, also inciting a chain reaction as a couple more stalactites broke off from the ceiling.

And right at this time, just when it wished to dodge away to safety, it noticed to its alarm that it actually moved in the direction of the stalactite, watching the pointy end of the massive stalactite pierce through its body, crumbling into pieces upon the fall.

Coughing a couple of times, Compass Carburettor waved his hand to shoo away the dust, looking around to see the other two remaining safe. He then turned around, noticing blood leaking out of the scorpion's body, unable to move, buried by rocks.

"Are you alright, Compass?" Neena clutched her shoulder, wincing in pain as she approached him.

"Let's move away first," Compass Carburettor said, noticing the dust cloud approaching them. He also noticed that some of the stalactites in the cave were trembling. It seemed the force from the explosion had travelled through them all, alarming him as he spoke, "We'll back away for the time being and return once the dust settled."

"Alright," Neena said as the two of them quickly moved away. After arriving at a safe distance, she suddenly turned around in surprise, asking, "Where's Rhizen?"