Chapter 21: Friends

'What is taking him so long?' Oliver wonders to himself as he can hear the sounds of legs skittering across the sand and claws snapping shut.

'Did he forget what the signal was?'

'Impossible, hell, he doesn't even have to say the words "Now!" he just say something like "Oliver!" or anything that would get my attention.'

I sit disgruntled as I can hear the sounds growing more distant and farther away as if they are sometimes approaching me and sometimes leaving.

Eventually I hear the sounds approaching me again but this time instead of getting softer after a few seconds they keep on growing louder.

"Oliver, NOW!" I hear a voice shout, as I spring my eyes open and look towards the sound.

I can see Shelton a little ways away with 3 crabs directly in front of him, grabbing and pinching at his shell.

Behind those crabs is another crab which is slightly slower than them, and finally the last 2 crabs are a little ways off to the left of my vision, but still facing Shelton, not having seen me yet.

Woosh!

I dash directly towards the two crabs in the back using my new and improve mutated siphons and aim for once, I am for their bulk bodies rather than one of their protruding limbs.

PLAT!

As I hit the one that's the slower of the two the crab pauses in skepticism before, it violently begins to shake and attempts to throw me off like a cattle at a rodeo.

I flex my arms out of instincts to hold on, but that also happens to reveal my new barbs!

Crack! SCREEE! While some of my barbs manage to actually penetrate the shell of the white ranked crab immediately, most of them don't, however this isn't important to me, what is important to me is this!

[You have activated Density manipulation!]

I feel two of my tentacles with the most barbs stuck in the shell of the crab suddenly get heavier and a little harder to move, but I still pull both of my arms in opposite directions as quick as I can.

CRACK!

The shell of the crab is ripped clean in two, as I deactivate my physical enhancement feeling a little light headed from the mana expenditure.

[You have gained the passive skill Shredding!]

[You have killed a level 8 Thick Pincer Crab!]

[You have gained experience!]

[You have leveled up to level 7!]

[You have gained 10 stat points!]

I ignore the new system notification as the now split crab shudders for only a few mere moments before its brain finally registered what happens and it collapses.

It's friend, after hearing the commotion from our fight turns around only to see it's trusted brother in slowness completely torn apart, whilst a grey octopus roughly the same size as it stares directly back at it.

The crab shudders as it looks into the rectangles as I decides whether it thinks it should stay and fight or run away.

Usually it would have immediately decided to fight, because not only does this octopus look to be around the same strength as it, but also because the octopus, isn't all that much bigger than it which typically signifies a dangerous predator to the wild crabs.

However, this crab is aware that its sibling was killed within mere seconds! It didn't even have time to look back at his friend, before his shell was already torn in two!

As the crab struggles to decide, Oliver picks for him, as he dashes towards the inept crab yet again.

The crab raises its claws to meet Oliver's tentacles however upon contact...

[You have activated Ink Cloud!]

Bleaugh!

A black darkness suddenly envelopes the crabs sight before it can react, causing the crab to look around in bewilderment.

In that same mist however, a pair of glowing rectangular eyes stare straight at the crab as they move behind it before they suddenly dash towards the hapless crab.

Plap! Crack!

The same scene repeats itself from a few seconds ago as the octopus comes into contact with the crab before revealing its deadly black barbs to dig into the shell.

This time however, the crab is not then ripped apart, as the octopus opts to rather go for its limbs strategy again whilst also tugging around its barbs on the back of the crab's shell.

Clack Clack!

The crab pinches it's claws in pain as one of its eye stalks are ripped out and the shell on its back gradually get's shredded revealing the tender meat underneath.

Unfortunately for the crab, it still can't move its two main pincers as they were being held down my 2 more powerful tentacles, preventing the crab from doing anything but simply standing there and taking the damage.

'As I thought' Oliver thought to himself, 'Octopi are still stronger than crabs'.

Truth be told, ever since Oliver met Shelton, a seed of doubt had been planted in his mind if they were going to actually be able to hunt crabs.

If all the ,quote on quote, "red ranked" crabs were just as powerful as Shelton was, then fighting group battles could be a big no no for Oliver.

Mercifully no, Shelton was simply such a strong crab not only because of his sentience but also because of his mutation.

When Shelton explained the process of mutation's to Oliver, frankly, he was confused out of his mind. Not from the explanation of the process of mutations, no he understood that. Rather it was because it seems like this process didn't apply to Oliver at all!

Creatures can only receive mutations when they evolve? Bullsh*t! I've only evolved once and I've got 4 mutations already! Plus these didn't even happen during my evolution, they occurred when I was just resting and updating my status!

While Oliver was confused about the process, he was without any clues.

'If that's the normal mutation process, then I should be different because of my system...' Oliver had eventually concluded about the matter as he saw no other explanation for the phenomenon.

The other evidence for this was that it would appear that Shelton didn't have nor even seem to know about the existence of the origin system!

This either meant that, Shelton didn't know about it, and it was reserved only for the upper echelons of marine society, or even that no one else in the world knows or has it!

The second option would be much better for Oliver, however he was optimistic enough to believe that with no real supporting evidence.

As Oliver thought about all these problems, the crab underneath him eventually caved into its horrendous back wounds, and missing limbs as it stopped moving beneath him.

[You have killed a level 9 Thick Pincer Crab!]

[You have gained experience!]

'Oh?' Oliver looked down in surprise. While he didn't think that this crab really had a chance against him he didn't think that it would die that quickly with his new focus on tearing up the crab's back as opposed to ripping off it's limbs.

That coupled with the fact the he also didn't want to use his density manipulation on these white crabs due to his low mana reserves, made him falsely assume that the crab would last longer.

[Shredding has leveled up to level 2!]

'It looks like my shredding strategy works pretty well' Oliver grinned to himself as he detached his suckers from the back of the now dead crab, and once again dashed towards Shelton and the remaining crabs with his siphons.

Screeeeeeeeee!

Looking at the situation ahead of him it looks like Shelton certainly was struggling.

While he wasn't necessarily losing the 1 v 4 fight, he couldn't actually do all that much to attack them, without giving them a chance to hit him where it hurts as well.

Especially considering that two of these crabs were also red ranked ones.

The main reason he was able to actually hold off against them was because of his darkstone shell mutation which he was so proud of.

'I guess mutations are akin to major advantages in this world due to their unexpected elements' Oliver though to himself as instead of heading towards the back of the pack of crabs like before, this time he dashed towards the bigger crab fighting Shelton.

This red ranked crab also looked like it had received a mutation in it's legs however they weren't helping all that much for the current situation.

'While Shelton said that no mutations were bad, it certainly doesn't mean that all mutations are good' Oliver changed his notion of mutations yet again as he imagined what it would be like to be the pitiful crab who received such a lackluster change.

[You have activated Density manipulation!]

Upon arriving before the red ranked crab being held down my Shelton Oliver swung his tentacle at the crab. Right before contact was made however, he activated density manipulation with his final reserves of mana before...

Splat!

Both of the eyes and one of the pincers were crushed before the weight of the smaller tentacle as Shelton looked on in bafflement, not understanding how the tentacle had done such a thing.

However, not one to lose focus in the heat of battle unlike Oliver, Shelton immediately focused both of his pincers on the now blind and paraplegic crab's remaining pincer before managing to crack and remove the crab's last remaining useful limb.

Screee!

Both the dying red ranked crab and remaining red ranked crab as well as two white ranked crabs, both gave out their cries although for different reasons.

[You have killed a level 11 Jagged Pincer Crab!]

[You have gained experience!]

[You have leveled up to level 8!]

[You have gained 10 stat points!]

After snapping out of his dizziness, Oliver confirmed the eventual demise of their previous foe before dashing towards the remaining red crab.

Unlike all other crabs before however, Oliver focused all of his strength into restraining the crab as best as he could, while shredding down the shell all over it's body.

Clack!

[You have taken 14 damage!] Oliver looked at the tentacle floating in the now red colored water as he paused in shock for a second before becoming enraged.

"A**hole!" He shouted before tearing into the shell with renewed vigor.

Normally the red ranked crab would have fought back, but Oliver was doing an amazing job not only restraining the crustacean, but also in taking away its attention!

Snip!

SCREEEEE!

The crab screamed in pain as it saw both of its beloved pincers get bisected from the rest of his body by the bigger crab who had originally attacked them.

SCREE-

It began it's cry again, however it suddenly felt a searing pain from it's eyes before they were forcefully removed from its body.

Crunch!

The sound of the it's shell cracking was heard as Shelton snuffed out the life of the crab before worriedly looking over at Oliver.

[You have killed a level 12 Jagged Pincer Crab!]

[You have gained experience!]

[You have leveled up to level 9!]

[You have gained 10 stat points!]

"Are you all right?" He anxiously spoke as he looked at the still moving tentacle floating above Oliver.

Oliver gritted his beak as he replied, "Yeah, it'll grow back let's just finish these guys off."

Both the giant crab and golden eyed octopus looked at the two frozen white ranked crab, as they shrank under the pressure, especially from the bigger crab, almost as if suppressed by a force of natural superiority.

Both Oliver and Shelton collectively grinned and dashed towards them as they cried out in fear,

SCREEEEEE!

It looks like the octopus had certainly made a new friend.

[You have gained experience!]