Lloyd looked down at forest floor from the treetops, hidden by the cover of darkness. Down amongst the sea of ferns Lloyd could see something moving around and judging by how the foliage dispersed in its wake, it was big.

  Shrouded in the shadows of dusk it was hard to tell what was down there, but nothing this close to the edge of the swamp was very strong. Fighting at night was far from ideal, but the opportunity to get a kill without the risk of a third-party intervening was just too good to let go.

  From what Lloyd had observed during his time on the island the beasts that were native to the area were almost never nocturnal, more likely a rare show of mercy from the system than a natural occurrence. Most of the beasts that dwelled in the forest would normally have no problems going on hunts at night, but for some reason they hadn’t been doing so -with the profundi crocodiles being a noticeable outlier.

  Because of their habits of avoiding nocturnal hunting, the powerful monsters would be much less inclined to try and intervene at the last minute, giving him one less thing to worry about. Just the fact that this creature was still mulling around after dark was an oddity, but it wouldn’t be the first time a beast broke this standard.

  Lloyd cut these thoughts short as the nocturnal beast began lumbering towards him. The ferns parted around a rhino-sized, blackish, ebony shape, shimmering in the twilight. Even from just a few metres away, Lloyd could barely see what the beast was, but from what little he saw he could gather some basic information.

  The beast was bulky, clearly not fitting into the ambush hunting archetype that was so prevalent in this region of the forest. This was no problem for Lloyd of course, taking down big, bulky opponents was his specialty.

  Not giving the beast time to get away, Lloyd summoned Thunder bone from his spatial ring, leaping down from the branches. With the point of his blade facing straight down, Lloyd rocketed towards the beasts back, aiming to instantly cripple the monster.

  The earthshaking clash spread its impact straight up the shaft of Thunder bone and into Lloyds arms and body, instantly destabilising him. To Lloyds shock, his razor-sharp blade bounced directly off the beast’s carapace, barely leaving a mark.

  Suddenly aware of an imminent threat, the monster shrouded in ferns turned to face him, revealing its true form. Lloyd was confronted by a giant black horn pointing at his chest like a giant spear.

  This was a beast Lloyd recognised, only it was a few orders of magnitude larger than it should have been. Lloyd backed away, his halberd raised to his chest in a pitiful attempt to look confident in the eyes of the bug.

  Giant Hercules beetle -lvl 16

  Lloyd had made a mistake.

  The Hercules beetle was one of the strongest beetles in the world, able to life over sixty times its own weight, and that was while it was only seventeen centimetres long. How strong it was at four meters? Lloyd didn’t want to find out.

  Lloyd had made the foolish assumption that he would be able to instantly cripple his foe by impaling them in the spine, but that was a major blunder. He had found out the hard way that he couldn’t do that, you can’t win using brute force when facing a superior brute.

  In a doubtful ploy to find a weakness, Lloyd shot a barrage of mana bolts at the bugs head before leaping backwards, but he was too slow. The beetle swung its giant horn sideways, catching him in the chest and sending him flying.

  It felt like he had been punched in the chest by a truck, Lloyd rocketed backwards into a giant tree trunk, slamming into it like a wet tissue. Lloyd coughed up blood as he desperately tried to get away, as he started climbing Thunder bone retuned back to its perch in his spatial ring as it wouldn’t help him here.

  His hands dug into the grooves in the tree trunk, pulling himself up to try and make some distance with the monster below. Just one hit from the Hercules beetle’s horn was already strong enough to do serious damage to his body even through his armour.

  The worst part of this was, it wasn’t even a hard hit. It had just been a haphazard strike in a split-second confrontation. Should the beetle get the chance to land a serious hit, or worse, use an offensive skill, Lloyd wouldn’t just take serious physical damage, but his armour would take a hit as well.

  In theory, the Hercules beetle was at the very limits of Lloyds current armour, but when taking its incredibly lopsided strength into consideration, it clearly surpassed them. If he wanted to stand a chance in this fight Lloyd would have to use his brain and figure out a weakness, if he could ju—

  “Holy fuck!” Lloyd screamed as he realised his mistake.

  In his pathetic attempt at climbing away, Lloyd’s mind had been so stressed by the bugs power that he ignored the bug itself. A notable fact that he had forgotten to take into account was such a large bug’s climbing ability.

  Despite being in the neighbourhood of three tones, the tank of a beetle was able to climb the near vertical tree with ease. This uncanny climbing ability let it far outpace Lloyd’s top speed vertically, in fact, it already had.

  Before he even knew what hit him, Lloyd was caught in the vice grip of the beetle’s jaws, getting thrashed around like a sack of potatoes. Putting its -honestly excessive- strength to use, the beetle launched Lloyd through the air, flattening him against a tree trunk once again.

  Lloyd felt as if his lungs had shrivelled up within his body, and he was pretty sure that the crunch he heard came from his ribs, not his armour. As he tried to regain control of his body, Lloyd gawked in horror as the bug did something he would never have expected.

  The beetle -that was more comparable to a car than any insect that had ever been on earth- leapt into the air and started flying. Its hulking form lifted from the tree by a pair of wings flapping like a hummingbird as it soared towards him.

  The sinking feeling in Lloyds stomach only grew stronger, how could something like this possibly be a level sixteen? From the strength it exhibited it would have been able to throw the miscus chieftain like a child -even in its boosted form.

  It wasn’t like the bug had any clear weaknesses either, it had ungodly strength, a nigh impenetrable shell, and deceptively high agility. Sure, it might not be all there mentally, but what does intelligence matter when you can throw a bus at your enemy.

  It was only in the midst of terror-stricken panic that Lloyd’s brain found something that could give him a chance. While the beetle’s carapace may have been as tough as iron, Lloyd felt that the bug’s underbelly wouldn’t be as strong.

  In the split second before Lloyd was beset by the beetle again, he sprayed the bug’s stomach with mana bolts. Thankfully, Lloyd’s attack worked, the bugs stomach spurting hemolymph all over his face.

  Spitting the vile fluid out of his mouth, Lloyd pushed mana into his legs as he jumped across to a nearby tree. The bug, clearly startled by suddenly taking damage, reacted with offense.

  Lloyd jumped between branches, throwing mana bolts at the beetle’s stomach as he ran away from the rampaging beast. Behind him, the Hercules beetle was tearing across the branches, ripping them from the trunks.

  As the chase continued, something becoming glaringly obvious, he was slower. Despite the incredibly high stat pools the beetle had for strength and toughness the beetle clearly had a lot of agility.

  For something as bulky as this, its speed was simply ridiculous, you would think that something of its size would fly around very awkwardly, but it was quite the opposite. The beetle expertly utilized its bulk to generate explosive momentum, flying through the trees like a wrecking ball.

  Because of the beetle’s immense speed, Lloyd was quickly losing ground to the monstrous bug, and it wouldn’t be much longer until he was caught entirely. Seeing no way for him to succeed in his treetop escape, Lloyd went for the only option he thought could work.

  In a split-second decision, Lloyd kicked down from a branch hurling him towards the ground, but he had made a mistake. When trying to figure out a way to escape, Lloyd had been relying on reaching the ground first and hiding in the underbrush.

  This plan had one major flaw that made it completely obsolete, he didn’t reach the ground first. He had entirely forgotten about the beetle’s bulk when manufacturing this plan, and the beasts incredible use of momentum brought his escape to an immediate halt.

  Halfway to the ground, Lloyd felt the air pushed from his lungs with aggressive force, as the titanic bug slammed into his back like a moving train. Lloyd had been prepared to take the force of the fall point blank but tanking that same fall with a small boulder on his back was a considerably less hopeful scenario.

  Thinking fast, Lloyd activated supercharge, utilising one of the skills underappreciated features. A blast of pure lightning shot out from his hand, tearing through the air in search of a target, but finding nothing.

  Lloyd hadn’t planned to use this on the beetle, even if it managed to kill the beast he would still be crushed. Releasing such a powerful blast naturally came with the caveat of equally powerful recoil, and thankfully this recoil was enough to do the job.

  Ensnared in the beetle’s vice like grip, Lloyd would be turned into a fine red paste should they have landed on the ground. Flipping himself over put the beetle below him, its soft underbelly there to cushion his fall.

  Now, Lloyd had no delusions that this would do any real damage to the monstrous insect, but it would at least give him a fighting chance. Just moments after flipping the beetle over, Lloyds felts his teeth crack as his head slammed downwards dazing him from the impact.

  Lloyd felt unbalanced and delirious, but he knew he couldn’t afford to waste even a second. Barely managing to stay upright, Lloyd pushed himself out of the bugs clasp as the fall had dazed it too.

  He felt the bug squirming beneath his feet, trying to regain its bearings, but Lloyd didn’t give it the chance. Lloyd stood with raised arms over the bugs stomach, hastily summoning Thunder bone as he activated lightning slice.

  Thunder bone’s unique skill immediately burst into action, the blue glow shot up the shaft spreading across the halberds blade in a cerulean explosion. Crackling lightning spread across its surface, mana flowing in great blooming swathes behind the blade as it tore downwards through the air.

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  The blade of Thunder bone effortlessly cleft through the flesh of the beetle’s stomach spreading its viscera across the forest. But it wasn’t enough.

  An ear-piercing shriek infiltrated his ears with all the gentleness of a sledgehammer, bursting his eardrums as he was thrown from the beast’s stomach. With gory entrails still hanging from the severely burnt would on its stomach, the bug jumped to its feet in a frenzied rage.

  While Lloyd was still unwieldy from the impacts shock, the magic of adrenaline seemed to have reawakened the beast’s rage. Unable to run -because of his sudden vertigo- Lloyd did the only thing he could and launched a supercharged plasma bolt directly into the beast’s face.

  It was undoubtedly one of the strongest attacks in his arsenal, and Lloyd was confident it would be able to do some damage. Unfortunately, this confidence was unfounded, something the beetle gladly demonstrated by taking the hit without flinching.

  All that his attack managed to do was leave a small chip in the beetles monstrously durable armour, being more effective as a flashbang than an attack. As the beetle continued its charge undeterred, Lloyd made a pathetic attempt at dodging, leaping sideways directly into the beast’s incoming attack.

  Lloyd knew he was out of luck as the beast’s giant horns slammed into his chest, shattering several bones in the process. As he flew backwards, Lloyd knew he didn’t have long to turn the tables in his favour and launched a mana bolt in a desperate last hope.

  The supercharged projectile ripped through the air, digging into the beast’s chest from below. Finally, Lloyd managed to do enough damage to incapacitate it, the sever blood loss combined with the hole through its lungs had finally stopped its rampage.

  Lloyd’s opponent lay splayed out on the ground, desperately holding on to its last vestiges of life. Thing was, Lloyd wasn’t doing much better, blood leaked from a deep wound torn into his stomach like water from a sponge.

  His earlier assessment of the Hercules beetle being at the limits of his armour was indeed accurate, -if not an understatement- as the beast’s final swing had torn right through his chestplate, leaving leathery shrapnel in his open wound.

  Blood was flowing from his stomach like rain from the sky, but he would be okay as long as he kept channelling mana. At times like this, Lloyd really started to regret using his last health potion to attach his false leg.

  Luckily, thanks to the forest’s residents being afraid of the dark, Lloyd didn’t have to worry about being attacked by the nyctophobic monsters undoubtedly all around him. While he certainly didn’t feel it, Lloyd was actually reasonably safe, so he focused on recovery, ignoring the eerie sounds of the forest.

  Lloyd sat in a focused trance, feeling the mana flow through his body, following the intricate nature of his anatomy. He remained in this state for hours, slowly closing the gaping wound in his stomach and forcing out the shrapnel.

  It was almost midnight when Lloyd was removed from his tranquillity, interrupted by a notification.

  You have slain a Giant Hercules beetle -lvl 16

  Experience gained, + 120 credits

  Lloyd had completely forgotten that it was still alive, silently suffering for hours. Realising that he hadn’t put it out of its misery left a bit of a stain on Lloyd’s conscience but at the same time he couldn’t have killed it if he wanted to.

  After taking that hit to the stomach, Lloyd was suffering from extreme blood loss, barely holding on. In that state, trying to finish off the beast may just have done the opposite, with the effort giving him an express pass six feet under.

  Regardless of his perceived cruelty towards the Hercules beetle, Lloyd couldn’t help but be excited by the level gain he got as a reward.

  Level up available

  You have reached level 18 in your class

  While it was only a single level, that could be considered quite a lot for something so similar in level to him. Lloyd guessed that he must have been close to a level up before so it was unlikely that he would level up again with his next kill.

  This last level managed to push him over the edge, increasing his race level alongside that of his class. With this achievement, Lloyd let his mind wander as he looked over his status page.

  status

  Name: Lloyd Tethys

  Race: Human (F) – lvl 17

  Class: lightning mage – lvl 18

  Profession: bestial craftsman – lvl 16

  Health points (HP) 166/450

  Mana points (MP) 278/497

  Stamina points (SP) 124/340

  Stats

  Strength – 198

  Agility – 107

  Endurance – 136

  Toughness – 123

  Vitality – 180

  Perception – 143

  Intelligence – 199

  Wisdom – 166

  Willpower – 115

  Free points – 0

  While not as extreme as some of his other level gains, Lloyd had still seen significant growth, with strength and intelligence at the precipice of two hundred points each. Ultimately the stat gain wouldn’t be too noticeable as the increase was only by around ten percent, but it was still a nice bonus to acquiring his newest armour material.

  By now, Lloyd’s stomach wound had closed up enough for him to move around -although it was quite painful. He was now happy to start stripping the beetle corpse for parts, as he didn’t want the hassle of dealing with curious beasts smelling carrion during the day.

  A cleaver-like mana blade appeared in Lloyd’s hand, the perfect tool for dismantling such a robust corpse. Lloyd started by removing the mostly useless legs, as they had no practical use Casses for making armour.

  Next, Lloyd lifted the beetles back plates and used the cleaver to pry them off, gradually tearing through the tendons holding them to the body. For something not covered by the exoskeleton, Lloyd was very surprised by their durability, as it took a fair bit of effort to sever the tendons.

  Beneath the hard shell of the elytra Lloyd found the beetles delicate hindwings which it used to take flight. For how imposing the beetle was when in flight, Lloyd was honestly shocked by just how fragile the wings were.

  It was hard to think of a proper use for the wings, but at the same time they felt like a good thing to keep around. The elytra on the other hand was amazing, its raw defensive power was simply insane, as even the iguana titan had been cut by Thunder bone.

  When considering the sheer level difference between the two creatures, the Hercules beetle had no right to be that durable. Without its shell in the equation, the bug only had one more valuable material to offer.

  The bugs giant horn was easily its most noticeable feature, and more often than not, a vessel for its monstrous strength. Thanks to its ability to absorb impacts so well, Lloyd could see many uses for it involving tool heads or possibly shields.

  Things like cutting might not work as well, since the carapace was not designed for that kind of use, as it was first and foremost a defensive tool. Because of its defensive origins, Lloyd could very easily fashion it into a shield or something similar, but it wouldn’t do well offensively.

  Lloyd struck deep below the back of the bugs head, severing the last remaining link of flesh, cutting the skull free. Stowing away the head, Lloyd looked at the corpse of the once imposing monster, reduced to a mutilated carcass sacrificed to make his armour.

  A frown spread across Lloyd’s face as he looked down at the body, not out of grief or shame, but discomfort. Even in its mutilated, dishevelled state, it scared him.

  It had been a while since a foe that he willingly attacked had posed a real threat to his life, and the beetle had done this with ease. The beetle had torn a hole in his abdomen without even activating a skill, and had it landed just one more it might have finished the job.

  Aside from the materials he’d harvested from the carcass, the beetle had given Lloyd one thing, knowledge. If a creature was bold enough to break the norms, it probably had a good reason to do so, and that reason would not end well for Lloyd if he wasn’t prepared.

  Overwhelming strength was a key factor in all the monsters Lloyd had encountered travelling at night. The crocodiles ruled uncontested in a region with few predators that could even hope to match them, and the Hercules beetles seemed to fall into a similar situation.

  Lloyd highly doubted that there were any other monsters as strong as the Hercules beetle in this part of the forest, they were likely much farther in. Knowledge of the power of creatures in this area was reassuring, but not enough so for him to stay here, as the giant parrots had proved on multiple occasions that they were more than happy to travel for a snack.

  Making a tactical decision, Lloyd made sure he had everything he needed and got ready to leave. With the cover of night shrouding his advance, Lloyd slowly walked across the forest floor in search of somewhere safe to stay the night.

  First of all, Lloyd wanted to make some distance from the beetle corpse, as he didn’t know if there would be a reaction to such a powerful monster falling. If he had to guess, there would be -at the very least- a few smaller creatures coming to investigate the body for food if nothing else.

  What Lloyd was more worried about was if some powerful beast came to investigate in earnest, curious of what happened to the beetle. If that happened, and Lloyd was found out, he would be doomed. In his current state he would either be killed, or expend so much energy escaping it would likely just kill him anyway.

  He had already experienced the price for overusing his mana several times already, and so far, it had gotten worse each time. It was in his best interest to avoid going through that miserable process again, so he found a secluded tree hollow and set up shop within.

  Lloyd blocked off the entrance with ferns and sticks, hiding any trace of the hollow to avoid being disturbed. Outside the sun must be rising as he could hear the chirps and screeches of beasts throughout the forest, awakened by the light of dawn.

  It wasn’t that surprising really, he had been expecting it after all, so it was only natural when the morning chorus was interrupted by a deafening roar. As he had guessed, it came from the site of Lloyds fight with the beetle, something must have found it, and judging by the way the ground shook, something strong.

  He could feel the footfall of small creatures outside, running from the epicentre of the roar. Inside his hidden sanctum, Lloyd laid on the ground, glad to have escaped the carnage being wrought on the small creatures outside.

  Lloyd sat still, slowly circulating mana throughout his body, his wounds slowly closed up, but a lot more of the damage was internal than he first thought. This made it all the more concerning how close to death he had truly come, the shockwaves alone were enough to severely damage his internals.

  This wasn’t a problem Lloyd had encountered or considered before, as the beetle was the first creature that had used pure impact damage as a weapon -asides from the cavern spider. Lloyd thought about it for a while and contemplated the implications, no matter how strong his armour was, he could still be beaten to a pulp by the impacts.

  He was certain there was a counter to this, shock absorption was one of the key components in modern day armour after all. It was hard to be certain, but Lloyd was sure he could find a way to utilize mana in the process, and as usual, he started his hunt for knowledge in his portable library.

  The ground vibrated with shock as small mountains of books popped out of Lloyds spatial ring. It truly was a blessing for the guildhall to let him take all these books with him, because without them he would have a lot more trouble when experimenting with armour.

  If he hadn’t been able to take them with him, Lloyd would have had to read them before leaving -which was probably doable on a longer timeframe. The problem posed by that idea was the sheer quantity of information he would have had to memorise.

  That was something he would not be doing under any circumstances, as there was no way he was going to read what could very well be several million pages. Even more so because of the fact that some of them detailed things as useless as what kinds of rocks worked best in talismans. Because who gives a shit if lindovian belterspar creates mana zero point three percent more energy efficient than balderan dergomite?

  Honestly, he was pretty sure that half of the shit on there weren’t even real rocks. Anyway, that was beside the point, Lloyd wasn’t going to memorise the books, but he would read through the majority of them eventually.

  Time ticked by endlessly and without halt, the mountains of books being absorbed into the back of his mind and banished to his spatial ring. As the hours passed on, the towering pillars of books began to sink towards the ground until finally, Lloyd found something promising.

  In a book titled ‘The Art of Armoury’ Lloyd stumbled upon a passage that briefly mentioned a method called ‘synthetic amalgamation’. From what he understood, the basic idea was to combine layers of different materials to better absorb shock impact.

  Synthetic amalgamation wasn’t that simple though, the idea of layering different materials was something that was already incorporated into modern armour, there was more to it than that. You had to make a special bonding agent made from a chimeral mixture of the blood and bones of each different creature in the armour piece.

  It was certainly a lot more work, and Lloyd wasn’t going to make use of this in all of his armour, but for something like his chestplate, it was a necessary evil. As long as he followed the instructions, -or at least what little he could decipher from the few sentences detailing the method-, he should be able to get it done.

  With an idea in mind, Lloyd began to reimagine his chestplate using his new skill. A muted grey replica of his body appeared in the hollow next to him, its features identical yet less, a perfect testing ground.

  Mana strings wrapped around the model’s chest only to dissipate into air when Lloyd decided them incorrect. An intricate web of mana encased the body, like it was wrapped in spider silk, but it wasn’t enough, that was just the first layer.

  From what he had seen so far, he could tell one thing for sure, this was going to be a long process, but one that was entirely worth it.