44 The Exterminator

As Raas slithered into the woods to search for Sahra the little bee looked out of the window while the figure patted its head.

"Don´t be sad, sweety. You will see him again, that I can promise you, so don´t make such a sad face."

"bzz.."

"No, you are still too weak. You can´t even survive outside the zone, so how do you think will you do when you go deeper with him. You will only be a burden to him."

"Bzz bzz bzz!"

"Don´t talk to your mother like that."

"bzzz..."

*Sigh* "Come here..." said the figure and hugged the little bee in her arms.

"He has to leave the dungeon eventually, and when that time comes, I will let you travel with him."

"Bzzz!"

"But only if you behave and get stronger, understand?"

"Bzz bzz!"

"Good girl, now go and wake up your siblings."

"Bzzz!" with a small salute she flew away.

Seeing her daughter flying away she just shook her head, "Just what should I do with you?"

...

Raas silently slithered through the forest while pushing his senses to the limits. Now that he was alone, he had no one that covered his back.

*flick* *flick*

'What is this smell?' thought Raas as he smelled something unfamiliar. Pondering if he should follow the scent or just ignore it, he decides that it was safer to just avoid it and continued his path.

While he was slithering through the woods, he heard some monsters fighting and could even see movements in the distance.

Focusing his eyes, he saw a group of hornet-like monsters fighting against a giant metallic scorpion who was being swarmed by them. The monster was easily 10 meters long and 4 meters high with 6 giant long metallic legs and two red glowing eyes on top of its head and three smaller eyes on the side.

Taking a closer look, Raas saw that the overgrown scorpion wasn´t being swarmed, instead, it decimated them. It didn´t look like a fight and more like a one-sided slaughter. From the sight of it, the battle already went for a long time as there are hundreds of corpses littering around, leaving a path of blood and corpses. With every step, the beast spilled more blood while being surrounded by mountains of corpses.

With its two huge pincers that constantly morphed and changed shape, it just crushed and bisected the hornets left and right while using its 15-meter-long metallic blade on its tail to slice everything that came close to its back and side. The tail plus blade of the monster could enlarge and shrink in size and even shot out small metal spikes that killed dozens of the hornets at once.

The hornets on the other hand did manage to get a few stings here and there, but their stinger just couldn´t penetrate the hard metal and some even broke off. Even if they targeted the eyes and weak spots, they couldn´t leave a single injury on the walking metal tank.

There are many different types of them with different appearances and skills, some hornets could shot their stingers, or have huge stingers as legs, some could turn invisible for a few seconds, some are bulky and had a tough carapace, some could spit out a greyish liquid that hardens, there are even some that exploded when they stung and many more, but all was useless against the metal hunk.

However, no matter how many the metal scorpion killed they just didn´t stop attacking, throwing everything they got at it and even trying to push it back. One after the other they rushed the scorpion without any fear or hesitation.

Raas looked at the killing machine with amazement and fright, 'Holy Jesus, that monster looks badass, it´s just mowing them down like weed. But why are they fighting against that thing? They are just throwing their lives away...'

Slithering a little bit closer Raas could see why the monster wasps so desperately trying to kill the giant approaching monster.

Behind the trees, there is a giant hornet nest made out of greyish paper with dozens of swirling hornets around it. Well, the hornet nest looked more like a giant fortress with many towers and spikes protruding outward.

'I can´t let this chance slip away like this,' thought Raas as he tried to sneakily slither towards a dead hornet but getting near the corpse, he suddenly felt a wave of pressure wash over him. It was so intense that he couldn´t breathe anymore and froze up.

With pure willpower and determination, Raas somehow managed to turn his head ever so slightly towards the scorpion who seemingly ignored him. 'Is this monster emitting such pressure just with his presence alone?' thought Raas as he now looked at the hornets in a new light as they could move effortlessly in its presence.

While rooted in fear he suddenly felt his heart beat like a drum, as the giant scorpion gazed at him with one of its many eyes.

'Shit shit shit, I fucked up big time now!', thought Raas in a panic as he struggled to breathe.

While starring at the metal killing machine, he could see its red eyes glow slightly as its metal tail whipped towards Raas.

'Oh, mother fu-'

*Crash*

Raas couldn´t finish his thought as the tail extended and swiped Raas away. The tail slammed into Raas's small body like a sledgehammer and flung him against a tree.

Crashing into the tree pain spread through his body, as he fell to the ground. He was almost knocked out, while his whole body hurt. Looking at his stats he could see that he just had 20 Hp remaining.

'This monster almost one-shot me...' lamented Raas in pain, but he was sure that it could easily kill him if it wanted to. 'Guess I am not worthy of being killed or something...'

*Ding*

[You teased death gaining 2 intelligence!]

'I don´t know if I should laugh or cry right now...'

Laying on the ground he continued to watch the fight as he couldn´t move a single muscle and he was sure that no monster would approach him when there is this behemoth of a scorpion there making havoc.

As the monster got close enough towards the hornet nest it opened its mouth as a metal ball appeared between its mouthparts. The ball of metal slowly increased in size before shrinking, then expanded and shrunk again. This cycle repeated over and over again, all the while it continued to cut down the pesky hornets buzzing around it.

After a minute, the ball finally stopped and got propelled forward. It slowly floated towards the paper structure as if it defied gravity. The hornets panicked and desperately tried to push the ball away, but it continued forward without any change.

As it reached the paper fortress it slowly pushed against it, bending the walls till the wall snaped and disappeared inside the structure. At this point, Raas could see a stream of hornets rushing out of the nest with the brood between their legs and mouths. Even the queen fleed with her 20 royal guards that buzzed around her. She was much bigger than the rest with a large abdomen while the royal guards are slightly smaller with two menacing knives as hands and looked highly evolved.

The whole colony panicked and tried to flee when suddenly a loud explosion sounded inside the nest sending chunks of the nest and metal scraps everywhere. Everything in a 30-meter radius died instantly and those who survived got hit by the shower of debris. The unlucky monsters that got hit died instantly.

As the dust settled, there are only a handful of hornets that survived, including one guard and the queen, but she was in a horrible state with its wings torn and two missing legs.

The scorpion silently watched everything happen before just turning around and walking away as if nothing happened.

Raas who saw the destruction was gobsmacked as it was his first time witnessing such a big attack.

'Damnnnnnnnn! It completely annihilated that hornet nest with only one attack! That skill of his is so broken... I wonder which level the monster is to achieve such a feat and how long it took to reach it.'

Waiting a few more minutes till the metal scorpion is gone, he decided to try to loot the corpses once again.

Dragging his injured body close to one of the torn hornets, he could see that it was still twitching. The blueish-green-colored insect blood dripped down his mouth as he swallowed a piece of the abdomen that got cut off.

Licking his lips he could feel his body slowly healing. 'Wow, I didn´t know that hornet meat was that delicious.' thought Raas as he swallowed another piece.

After eating his fill he sighed in delight.

*Sigh*

'Now for the desert' thought Raas as he raised his body up. Ramming his head into the corpse he fished out the small monster core and devoured it. Gulping down the small crystal he tasted something new. This time it was the taste of 'morning sunlight'. Tasting something new and unique, he took a closer look at the monster. Seeing the hornet being thinner than the others, but with no other visible changes, he tilted his head.

'Hmm, I wonder what affinity this hornet had. Well, I didn´t get any buffs or something like that, so it is useless for me other than the taste. I have to get going now...' thought Raas as he continued to search for Sahra.

_______

An:

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