Chapter 28: Rocks, Rocks Everywhere

Whizz Whizz~

Five fist-sized mosquitoes flew around in circles trying to locate the scent of prey that wafted to them, they flew around everywhere but they couldn't find the origin of that scent, after wasting another minute they ignored it and started the search for another meal

Once they were out of sight the bushes shook and Ellis walked out alongside Anput

'Just how big is the nest we are heading to'

This was the seventh group she had met so far and none of them had less than four members

'As long as they are this week though I should be able to take care of them easily'

Of the seven groups she had fought five, the mosquitoes had great speed and bodies smaller than bats, plus they were better at manoeuvring thus they were able to attack her from all angles making it almost impossible to guard against them

While that should have made them hard opponents they were still mere bugs to Ellis, the reason being their glaring weakness in strength, they couldn't even scratch her aura with their attacks and their body slams didn't have enough weight behind them to do anything, thus even if they attacked her body directly they didn't do any sort of damage

"That t-shirt was short lived"

She sighed looking down at her bare self, this time though she wasn't that bothered since YuJu wasn't around

Done wallowing in thought she turned to Anput and nodded at her, then went left, Anput on the other hand went straight ahead without changing their earlier direction

Like this the three had spilt up, YuJu was on his way to the west were the large forest was, Ellis was now heading toward the top of the hills that housed the nest of these mosquitos, while Anput was leisurely making her way into the territory of the Sand Stone Beetles, her trip was the safest as they never left their cave but she would have the hardest job when it came to infiltrating the nest

Anput continued onward without pause, when she saw a few flying mosquitoes roaming aimlessly about she would hide, if they found her she would fight back

The fight was quite easy really, she was a level twenty-five, and while most of her stat were distributed into insight her master made sure to give her ample agility for this mission, for he had it planned all along

The walk was dull to her as she found her self feeling rather lonely without her master, her mind started to wander about as she thought how he and her comrade were doing, her master probably stole whatever he needed right under the noses of the enemy while that exhibitionist most definitely barged into the nest like a lunatic while waving her sword madly

The sound of clicking brought her back to her sense

She found herself walking steadily out the green hills, the ground was getting rockier and there was a distinct lack of plants, she was nearing the cave where the objective lay

She ceased her casual attitude and put her focus solely on the task at hand, her body crouched to the ground and her ears sprang up in alert

Step by step she sneaked into the territory of the beetles, clicking sounds got louder and merrier the closer she was

Once the entrance of the cave was within view the source of the clicking was finally identified

Hundreds of square-like sandy rocks covered the mouth of the cave, those rocks moved eerily into the cave and back out, when one concentrated onto a single rock he could see a faint outline of a jagged mouth but that was the only clue that allowed one to tell them apart from normal rocks

Those weird looking rocks who Anput identified as the beetles were taking out a few small rocks they had probably dugout, they gave them to other beetles outside who dropped these extra rocks away from the cave

She continued to look on but noticed they merely did this dull routine over and over without pause

Since she had to kill a bunch beetles to start her plan she followed one of the beetle groups that were dumping the rocks

Those little critters didn't notice her at all, to begin with, they had narrow vision and their senses were dull, only when they locked onto to something would they be able to hunt it down, otherwise they were worse than blind rats

Anput didn't get cocky though and followed them cautiously until they reached a very large pit, there the beetles started to roll the rocks into the pit and then turned to head back

The moment they started t run around Anput lunged at them agility, her claws swiped under the closest beetles, flipping two over and revealing its squirming tiny legs and its yellow smooth stomach

She didn't finish off those beetles though and tried to flip as many beetles as possible before they turned around, these beetles weren't week but they had a fatal flaw in that they couldn't flip themselves over as their shell was just too heavy

Sadly she could only flip one more beetle before the remaining four turned to her

Their small mouths clicked menacingly before they scurried toward her attempting to bite her to death

She didn't meet them head-on nor did she run back toward the forest, instead she waited for the four of them to get closer and once they were at an appropriate distance she jumped over them avoiding their charge all together

Once she landed she didn't waste time and ran toward them, she took the opportunity when they had just stopped and wanted to turn around to flip two more before she dashed back to make some distance

The last two didn't seem to have learned from this lesson and charged straight at her again allowing Anput to use the same tactic she used before

The first beetle passed right under her but the second one slowed down slightly, it was just a slight decrease in speed but that put it in her landing position

This was unexpected, these beetles had no intelligence whatsoever so it shouldn't have learned anything yet it actually responded with such a tactic so soon after it was tricked, there must be a reason behind this show of intelligence

Sadly she didn't have the time to think about any of that with the open mandibles of the beetle pointing at her

"Rargh!"

She barked fiercely at the beetle but decided against meeting it in a head-on collision, she knew that that jagged mouth could tear through rocks like butter, her fickle body wouldn't stand a chance

Thus before the mandibles bit into her neck she used her front paws to push off the beetle, throwing herself backwards

Thankfully she escaped the clamp of its mouth by a hair, sadly her jump throw her right into the pit of rocks

"!! Woo.."

Her yelp echoed through the pit as her body fell, soon fading from the beetle's narrow vision

Click! Click!

The beetle scurried around the hole for a while searching for any sign of her climbing up, but after a minute it lost interest and fliped its comrades back, then they all went back to the cave to get more rocks as if nothing had happened

Inside the pit Anput was laying on her back with her eyes closed, blood stained her fur turning it red and innards dotted her surroundings

"Awuu"

She whimpered in pain, life was slipping away from her as her vision went dark...

"Awwo?"

At least that's what she thought until she opened her eyes and saw the clear light of day coming from the hole

She was puzzled and rolled to the side to sit up, then surveyed the surroundings

There was blood and innards just as she had imagined but somehow it wasn't hers, instead, the squishy body that this blood belonged to had softened her fall

She gazed at this body and found yellow pieces of rocks stuck to its flesh, this must be the body of the beetle that charged under her, the poor thing didn't slow down in time and ran straight over the edge

"Awooo!"

She howled loudly in happiness at her survival, it was good to be alive, her mood was great until a rancid smell invaded her nostrils

"Huugh"

She gaged fiercely and tried to cover her nose with her paws as she looked around the dim pit for the source of this smell

All she could see was rocks though, rocks upon rocks that filled the pit

She walked around in search of it but still found nothing but rocks, in the end she had to sniff the smell out, much to her displeasure

Sniff Sniff, Sniff

Two minutes later she found the smell to be very concentrated under a few of the rocks, thus she moved those rocks aside

What was revealed before her was a rock!

"....."

She stared dumbfounded at it for a few seconds, she was close to losing her mind with all these rocks, that is until she noticed bite marks all over the sides of the rock

Suspesoise she decided to pull it out, finding it much heavier than she had thought, but was able to roll it out nonetheless

"Wu!"

Small pointy legs filler her vision along with a long ugly mandible scaring her out her wits so much that she ran away with her tail tucked between her legs

She hid behind some rocks as she tried to calm down her beating heart, it took her a whole minute to gather enough courage to peek her head out toward the scary thing

Sure enough, whatever she saw wasn't out of her imagination for there lay a large beetle, half a size larger than the ones she just fought which almost put it on the same size as herself, right there among the rocks, its beady eyes stared straight ahead while its flipped body remained motionless

It was clearly dead, she figured out that much after her small fright, still, she moved very cautiously toward it and didn't dare get near those mandibles, preferring to remain at its side instead

She raised her paw and touched those pointy legs

Rumble, Rumble...

The sound of falling rocks scared her again as her heart almost leapt out of her chest, she retreated away from the beetle only to find it unmoving, that's when she realized the sound of rocks came from above, looking up at the place where she fell she saw more rocks pouring in

It was probably the beetles back at their job, and those rocks came nowhere near her thus they weren't dangerous at all, it was only their opportune moment that made her frightened

Thus once again she gathered her courage and touched those pointy feet only for them to crunch at her touch, soon falling apart

"Awu wu wu"

She berated herself out of shame, such a brave hound liker herself who served under that glorious master was actually scared of some dead body, shame on her

With newfound confidence she started to inspect the body thoroughly

This beetle was vastly different from the ones she had seen at the cave, its shell wasn't yellow but blackish-red instead, its mouth was much longer and its body was larger, furthermore it had obvious beady eyes unlike those yellow one's whos eyes blended in with their shall making them very hard to spot

"Awu?"

What caught Anput's attention though was the smell, this smell that made her gauge indeed came from this beetle yet even though she moved it out she could still smell it around her, making her mind spin in dangerous thoughts