Lei Shi flew till the sun began to set.
He had yet to find anything again after the Desert Worms, and he was getting hungry.
It wasn't that he didn't think of roasting the Desert Worm and using it as food, it was that he couldn't.
Other than the Desert Worm's dark-red blood looking uninviting, its blood smelled bad, not to the point of being nauseating, but bad enough.
The other thing that made him not to eat it was his Vision of Appraisal.
After scanning the body using it, it told him that it was unsafe and likely to cause stooling to the point that one would feel like his eyes would pop, however, it won't cause death.
He didn't know whether roasting it would cancel its effect, but after giving it some thought, he decided against it, he didn't want to take any of such risks while he was still new to that world.
Suddenly, in the distance, he saw a rock.
He immediately flew to it and checked it out.
It was ten-meters tall and wide and had a hole in it.
The cave had a dark interior.
"Well, man has to at least find somewhere to sleep" Lei Shi said out loud as he stood at the mouth of the cave.
"Here goes nothing" Lei Shi shrugged and walked into the dark cave.
…
Lei Shi walked for more than ten minutes without reaching its end, it seemed to stretch underground.
After a few more minutes of walking, he finally reached its end. But as he turned around, what he saw shocked him to his core.
Before him was a giant Black Scorpion.
It was twenty-meters long and had two mighty pincers with a deadly-looking giant sting above its head which hung from the end of its tail.
Its black color enabled it to meld with the darkness so perfectly that they seemed to become one, the only reason he was able to notice it in the pitch-black darkness was because of the night-vision of his HTB suit.
*Kreee*
The Black Scorpion released a weird sound as its pincer shot at him with lightening speed.
"Crap" without thinking about it, Lei Shi immediately jumped out of the way.
*Bamm* a rock which was at the spot the where Lei Shi just left, exploded after being struck by the Black Scorpion's stinger.
"You gotta be..."
*Swoosh*
SLAM
Lei Shi was cut off in the middle of his words by the Black Scorpion as it swung one of its pincers and slammed it at Lei Shi.
Lei Shi, who narrowly dodged its pincer, rolled on the floor before abruptly stopping and, with a swing of his hand, dispersed about a dozen balls which exploded into flames that kept burning after they fell to the ground; lighting up the cave.
*Bamm*
BANG
The Black Scorpion stabbed its pincer at Lei Shi, and as soon as he jumped backwards to evade it, it struck at him with its sting while he was still airborne, cornering him.
He ended up having to use his thrusters to push him to the side and dodge its attack.
The ground that ended up getting struck exploded once more. It wasn't that the sting had gunpowder stored in it, which caused the explosion; rather, it was the sheer brute force behind the thrust of its sting that shattered the ground and rocks.
"Fuck, this thing is too smart" Lei Shi, having dodged its previous attacks, cursed as his back bumped into the wall of the cave.
"You little shit. I had enough of you!" Lei Shi stepped on the cave wall and sprung at the Black Scorpion with his saber in hand, already crackling with electricity.
*Brrrr*
BANG
Lei Shi's jump closed the distance between him and the Black Scorpion in an instant, but right as he got close to it, he abruptly stopped himself by firing his thrusters in the opposite direction, causing him to literally float for a second.
The result of doing that was the Black Scorpion striking the ground right in front him, this meant that if he had continued at that speed, without stopping, he would have been struck without doubt.
This showed how fast the reaction speed of the Black Scorpion was. It was fast to the point that it was able to respond to his abrupt and instantaneous jump, and even use it against him that his so-called clever attack ended up being him falling into one of its traps. That was terrifying.
BANG
Without delaying for a second, as soon as its sting landed on the ground, Lei Shi hacked at its armored head with all his might.
*Rumble* the cave trembled from his attack.
Unfortunately, there was not a single dent on the armored head of the Black Scorpion, only a long scratch.
*Swish*
Lei Shi immediately dashed to the side after landing his attack, narrowly dodging its pincer which wanted to clip him in two.
"So Hard" Lei Shi rushed towards it again.
At the critical moment, he side-stepped and dodged its sting and hacked at its head once more using his saber, but it blocked using its pincer.
*Swoosh*
He performed a back-flip and dodged another attack from its sting.
BANG
Suddenly, it once again attacked him with its sting as soon as he had landed on the ground; the attack was so abrupt that he had to block using his saber, which was his only option at that time.
*Whoosh*
*Brrrr*
Lei Shi was shot back by the attack that he crashed into the ground and rolled.
While still on all fours, Lei Shi, infuriated, cursed "Why you..." but right as he was about to lunge at the Black Scorpion, he felt he stepped on something.
*Clink*
The sound from doing so slightly startled him, but as looked towards his foot, what he saw surprised him.
Upon inspection, Lei Shi found out what he was stepping on to be an Axe. A two and a half-meter long Giant-Axe.
It had a long red handle with a spearhead at its top, and a correspondingly wide blade that looked heavy and sharp attached to it.
The Giant-Axe had some weird symbols on its handle and the blade, making it look gallant, like the weapon of a Warrior.
As if the Giant-Axe wasn't shocking enough, beside the Giant-Axe was the skeleton of a human, yes, and this human skeleton had a burly build and was shockingly two meters tall.
What was even more shocking was that the skeleton, as dead as it was, still, with its right hand, held on to the Giant-Axe.
Seeing this baffled Lei Shi to the point that he asked himself how much the man, whose skeleton lay there, valued his weapon so much that even in death, he refused to let go of it, just like an undying warrior.
"Impressive" was the only word that escaped Lei Shi's mouth. He then looked around, hoping to find anything else, and surprisingly, he did.
In the distant corner was another corpse, one that still had clothes on it.
A spear lay on the floor next to it. Lei Shi couldn't make out the full details of the spear due to the distance and poor lighting, but at least, he knew it was there.
"When did..." in that short while where Lei Shi stopped to look at the Giant-Axe and spear, the Black Scorpion, like a phantom closed the distance between them and struck at him again using its sting.
*Clank*
Lei Shi picked up the Giant-Axe and blocked the sting using the side of its blade.
The shockwaves of the clash dispersed the bones of the skeleton and sent them flying in every direction while the force of the attack threw Lei Shi backwards, but this time, he didn't travel as much of a distance as when he blocked using his saber, because the Giant-Axe was shockingly heavy.
*Crash*
*Brrrr*
Lei Shi landed on his feet but the residual force still pushed him, causing his feet to drag on the floor, creating two long ditches.
Lei Shi only stopped after striking the floor with the Giant-Axe.
"Goddammit. How can a guy actually wield this" Lei Shi cursed. The weight of the Giant-Axe was almost unbearable.
"But since you want to play like this, then I won't be polite" Lei Shi said "Titania! Change the configurations of my HTB suit from being a speed-type to a power type. Don't make it to be so much that I'd be as slow as a snail, but enough that wielding this Giant-Axe wouldn't be so taxing" Lei Shi hoped she could do it fast because from his experience, HTB suits from Rank 4 lower, couldn't change its configurations without first being unequipped.
He didn't know about Rank 5 HTB suits, but that was how it was even with the Rank 4 HTB suit that he used.
The only thing that made him to even consider asking Titania to change it was how fast she was able to copy the configurations of his previous suit.
"That would take ten seconds. Should I proceed?" Titania replied.
"Start immediately" Lei Shi said. He didn't even worry about the time frame; he was delighted at the fact that she didn't say it was impossible.