Regardless of what one might think, it wasn’t easy to hold on to a giant mantis, it was quite challenging. The mantis had a partially developed soul too, apart from other things, so it put up quite a fight!

  The mantis stopped being observant, and tried to attaow. Despite Tim’s grip, it started walking forward slowly, and it arent on its stubborn stride that it wanted goblins for its lunch today!

  “Guss… what are you thinking about? He’s gonna bite you in half if he gets any closer!” Tim warned, and he couldn’t do anything else to attack the mantis, because both of his hands were tied, as he tried to push it away using the Soul Grabber ability.

  “Hmm…” Gustav stroked his , and for once, he didn’t seem as nervous. “If one species has a ot, shouldn’t every other seemingly iructible creature have one as well? Oh, this is going to go very much against protocol, but it’s worth a shot!”

  With a pn in mind, he allowed the mantis to get just a little bit closer, and when it swung its long arms as a form of its attack, that was when Gustav made a move. He spped the mantis’ hand away with the aid of a bunch of fireballs, and then ran forward!

  With such little effort, he was uhe beast’s belly afterwards, so he had a sort of a vantage point now. He didn’t pn to attack its belly directly, as he guessed that it would be a waste of mana. Instead, he first aimed at the arm socket’s of this beast, and dual shot about twenty fireballs from each of his palms, attag those sockets!

  The mantis finally made a sound now, which was a good sign. It made this sound as if it was chewing oal balls, and seds ter, its rge, dangerous arms snapped off ao the ground! Gustav’s pn was an absolute success!

  “You smart bastard,” Tim plimented, and was hoping that he could let go of the cricket now, because it was a costly task.

  “Don’t let go,” Gustav stared right into his eyes afterwards, his demand was firm.

  Afterwards, carrying out the rest of his packed its leg sockets. The mantis’ legs were thinner in parison to its huge arms, so it took less firepower to burn through each of them. Ihan five seds, he left the mantis immobile, and then bounced out of the way, so he wouldn't get crushed by the remainder of its body!

  Tim the go of the mantis’ soul, and heaved. “Jesus, you’re a good fighter! If you let me fight that thing I’d spend fifteen-thousand mana points on it, that’s for sure, so maybe you're better than you thought?”

  Tim was aware of his own shortfallings, so he could respe effit kill. In this case, he only had to spend a thousand mana points in order to avoid certaih. The cricket would’ve destroyed the two of them if they hadn’t worked together on this, and from the looks of it, there was a bit of a reward out of this exge as well.

  “It’s not dead yet, but it’s gonna die.” Gustav pointed out.

  That was when Tim saw a great opportunity, he got really excited. He may get a lot of points here if he killed the mantis himself!

  “I’ll put it out of its misery, it suffered enough today.” He said, as he preteo be noble.

  Afterwards, he walked over to the mantis’ side, and blew a thunder its head. The proximity to the mantis, and its current dition allowed for a quick death after Timothy attacked it. It died off, and successfully escaped that brutal state it was in.

  “That’s good of you,” The other said.

  Timothy couldn’t care about that mantis at all, but he did care about the points he won over. He delivered the final blow on it, so teically this was his kill, and the system then firmed half of his clusions.

  [Giant Mantis killed.] She beeped, [However, sihis is an assisted kill, you only get half of the reward, which is 3,000 system points. You’ve accumuted a total of 10,000 system points now.]

  “I live with that,” He thought, and he was happy, because he was quite riow in terms of system points, even though he had bought a couple of upgrades st night, which had been a bit costly together. He felt that he progressed just now.

  Anyway, after this, the two of them had to pick their course of a. The world around them was still crimson red, it was difficult to walk through it, and they couldn’t stand in this pce for long, because the smoke around them was being too much to haim set ooo many trees on fire earlier on.

  “Are you ready to go?” He asked.

  “Ready to go back, you mean?” Gustav argued, “There aren’t ales here, and we almost got killed by an rown cricket, it’s a miracle we survived. I don’t know what I was thinking, scratch the volunteers, it’s stupid to walk in this universe without aire ptoon!”

  “It wasn’t a miracle that we survived,” He refused, “I paralyzed the bastard, and you killed it. That’s as effit as it gets, we work well together.”

  Gustav was enthralled, because that was a very good point, it was difficult tue with it. A sed ter, just as he was about to agree to explore more, he noticed something weird on the mantis’ burnt head.

  “Why’s there a lump of coal in its head?” Gustav asked, and reached his hand in to grab it.

  Despite their first impression, this was not a lump of coal, it wasn’t on fire, despite how the mantis’ head was still sizzling hot. It was its brain from the looks of it, but they couldn’t uand why it was so solid, and also cold to the touch.

  “It has that for its brain?” Tim grunted, and thehought to himself. “No wonder I couldn’t kill it with the nerve splitter, this bastard doesn’t have a brain to split!”

  The two of them didn’t uand what they were seeing, but it wasn’t expected of them to know everythiher. Sihis rge, bck lump wasn’t dangerous, they just grabbed it, and put it in Gustav's bag. He could take it back to the city ter on, and have brighter people analyze what it was.

  “Looks like there’s more to this universe rather than just big is, so, how about we explore it a bit more?” Gustav pitched, and this was uncharacteristi his side, so it was quite iing. “But if we’re outnumbered, we run, okay? No shame ireating if we get to escape with our lives.”

  “Okie dokie,” Tim said, and also, he was quite happy to get that lump off of his hands.

  Regarding weird treasures, he and his friends still had that ring which rotected by this unbreakable g of sorts. For that matter alone, he wasn’t so enthusiastic about weird treasures that he couldn’t uand.

  “Why ’t I ever find a cool sword instead?” He muttered.