Scorpion avoiding step

William opened his eyes as if nothing had happened, it was as if his death had never occurred. Before he could recollect himself and think about what happened and what to do, his chest was pierced again. He woke up at the same spot again, with the same Scorpion as before. Yet again, his chest was pierced, and he died.

This process happened again and again, he woke up just to get killed by the scorpion. The scorpion was much faster and stronger than he was, he couldn't find any way to fight back at all. One time, he managed to get just his shoulder pierced and ran away, only to die from the poison minutes later.

It was truly terrifiying; in less than 2 hours, he experienced hundreds of deaths. Even the entirety of the time he had spent working as a slave combined wasn't as bad as this experience. After another few hours, something began to change, he wasn't sure if that was good or not, but he got used to dying. He finally began thinking calmly, even in this absurd situation.

He needed to escape from this scorpion no matter what, he didn't plan to life a life where he would die every second. But William was not sure what to do, The scorpion's body being far stronger than his, combined with the deadly poison, didn't give him much room to survive.

Even if he ended up escaping slightly wounded it wouldn't work, the poison would kill him in the end. Sadly, he was completely unprepared; he had no weapons or anything to defend himself with. The scorpion was also too close for him to try any strategies, since he would die before getting the chance to make any big movements.

William knew he had only one option: to completly dodge the scorpion's tail. Of course, this plan sounded a lot easier to do than it was. For someone like William, who doesn't even have basic martial arts experience, it was a near impossible task. He wouldn't be able to avoid the punches of an average adult, much less a giant scorpion.

Just like that, William's training to dodge the scorpion started, he died again and again while making little progress. With every death his hatred for the devil grew deeper. William had to die thousands of times just because the devil was bored. He gave up the thought that this was a dream long ago; after the first hundred deaths he still thought that this could be a dream. But the more often he died, the clearer it became to him that this is reality.

But William didn't give up, he kept trying to dodge, though unfortunately without much success. "All I wanted was a good and normal life, I was even willing to forgive the murderer of my parents. But now this is simply ridiculous. I've died countless times by now, is this the fate of those who are weak? Even if I really died here there would be no one to shed a tear for me. In this world I live in, everyone gladly forgets thoughts of sadness and hatred for a piece of bread.

My parents died because they wanted to fight back against this society. Saying things like commoners have rights too, and that they shouldn't be slaves. They were able to save some people with the illegal martial arts they obtained in their younger days, but they died before they even had the chance to achieve anything.

I don't plan to die like this, I will live a good and happy life, even if I have to force everyone else to accept it. My foolish years, where I accepted everything and tried to sweet talk everyone, are now over. And since only the strong can survive, I will use these worlds to become the strongest. I will become strong enough to turn even that hellish place into paradise, I won't allow anyone to stop me from now on."

With these thoughts in mind, William kept trying to dodge the scorpion tail. The original William died long ago, and all those deaths formed a new William. This new William didn't know what it meant to give up.

Months or even years passed like this, William wasn't sure—he had lost track of time long ago. It didn't help that time turned back if he died, so even though he experienced months or years of deaths, not a single day had passed in reality.

The fated day finally came, and William managed to dodge the scorpion tail. He wished for nothing more than to just turn around and beat the shit out of the scorpion, but he wasn't dumb enough to try that. He ran away as fast as he could, and after running for multiple kilometers he finally stopped and rested. He was out of strength, and he had no food or water.

Now, having survived the scorpion fiasco, he could finally deal with normal problems, like finding something to eat or to drink. "This devil is truly crazy, I get it that he wants me to be stronger but couldn't he have atleast spawn me in a normal location so that I don't immediately die?" William wasn't sure what to think of this devil, all he knew was that everything he had experienced until now was the devil's way of helping him, so he definitely never wanted to be on the devil's bad side.

At that very moment, he heard a voice in his head "Congrats on forming your own martial art: 'Scorpion Avoiding Step'. To leave this world, you have to steal the martial arts of 2 monster races and master them. After that, you will be transported back to exact time that you left your original world. After a month in your original world, you will automatically re-enter this world again. Once you have mastered all martial arts of this world, you can freely enter and exit this world and progress to the second world."

William was perplexed, not only did he have to steal the martial arts, but he also had to master them. And apparently, he had also invented his own martial arts, but I guess that was to be expected. If he died millions of times without getting anything out if it, he would truly cry.

"I guess that I have to steal the martial arts from a monster race here, I just hope not every race here is as ridiculous as that scorpion. But first I need to find food and water, surviving is priority number one after all. I don't want to have to experience the scorpion fiasco again."

It was already getting dark at that time, and William hadn't found a good place to rest yet. So he started wandering after resting for a bit. Wandering at night in the desert wasn't smart but neither was openly lying around while asleep in the desert.

All of a sudden, he began hearing strange noises, and a small arrow hit his shoulder. William was immediately alarmed. He looked around, but he couldn't see very well in the dark. He kept moving to make it harder for others to aim at him with arrows. All the while, he checked to see where the best hiding spot was, but he found nothing.

This scared William, he was basically being attacked by invisible archers. Nobody would have liked that, no matter how strong they were. But at this moment William noticed something, there were footsteps in the sand. Those creatures seemed to have some ability to make themselves invisible.