The water was still, not a ripple could be seen on the surface as the beasts were too busy hiding to be moving about. Careful not to make a disturbance, Lloyd began weaving an intricate net of mana strings and plasma charges, setting a deadly minefield atop the water.

  As Lloyd finished the final string, a sound came echoing over the canopy, the sound of birds screaming, it was close. Careful not to lose his composure, Lloyd pulled out a jar of thick crimson liquid, this jar contained a small sample of his first proper bonding agent, now several weeks old.

  The giant eel had been drawn in by blood, and bonding agent was like premium blood, as the mana content of the barrel grew so did the density of the blood. This meant that the small jar he held in the palm of his hand contained the blood value of an elephant. If anything was going to draw it in, this was it.

  For a moment Lloyd considered if the eels were even necessary, maybe the croc would just show up from the taste of blood alone. It didn’t really matter, as either way, he would be fighting this thing one way or another.

  A noxious cloud of iron filled red billowed out across the lake, covering the whole clearing with just one jar. Just as he had planned, the water started to churn as dark shapes writhed beneath the surface, but there were a lot more than he had expected, maybe the bonding agent worked a little too we—

  BOOM!

  Before he could think of a response, Lloyd was thrown to the floor as the lake exploded. In the epicentre of the chaos was just what he had expected, the monstrous crocodile covered in wounds but still very much alive.

  That however could not be said for some of the eels surrounding it, the water was filled with the macabre remains of over five titanic eels. The minefield he’d set had done its job perfectly, but despite the carnage it caused, there were still far more eels than he had anticipated.

  Undeterred by its mutilations, the crocodile refused to slow down in its assault, tearing into the swarm of giant eels. The eels however, were not going to let that go unnoticed, the crocodile was entangled in a writhing mass of giant eels entangling it like a gordian knot.

  The crocodile shook in anger, trying its best to escape from the slimy prison. To an outsider, it may have looked like the eels were just trying to restrain the crocodile, winding around it in an effort to escape the beast’s jaws. But Lloyd knew better.

  He had already had a run in with this species of eels, though much smaller than these ones it had shared the same characteristics. These were razor fin eels, what might look like a harmless struggle, was really a violent mobbing.

  Beneath the eel’s slimy bodies, the crocodile was being torn apart by their deadly fins. The beast was restrained, but not for long, it had given up on trying to escape the eels grip, instead opting for a simpler method, kill them all.

  The eels were clearly oblivious to what was going on, but the crocodile was slowly gathering mana, forming an aquamarine magic circle in the air above. The time where the eels were managing to restrain the croc was quickly coming to an end, and he had to act fast if he wanted to take advantage of it.

  A beam of lightning tore across the clearing, as Lloyd’s plasma bolts slammed into the side of the crocodile’s skull. When the beast felt its temple almost collapse from the impact something changed. It stopped writhing around and focused all of its attention into the skill it was charging up.

  The second bolt, right on the tail of the first, was mere moments away from the creature’s head when it burst into a fiery explosion. The explosion shook the trees around them, but did not manage to do any significant damage to the crocodile.

  The force had all been absorbed by the skill that had caused the explosion. The crocodile was encompassed in a set of giant translucent jaws, the result of charging the skill for so long was the jaws being almost impenetrable but unable to stay solid for long. Not that it needed them to.

  The jaws initial bite had been enough to deal with most of its problems, bisecting the eels surrounding it and blocking Lloyd’s strike. as an added bonus, the skill had also revealed where the strike had come from, leaving Lloyd much more exposed than he wanted to be in this situation.

  The crocodile’s eyes narrowed before it shot forward like a speeding bullet, Lloyd dodged to the side, jumping higher into the trees as the crocodile clamped its jaws around his previous position. This proved to be an unfortunate choice, for that was exactly what Lloyd had expected, and he hadn’t gone on the defensive just yet.

  Smoke and blood came gushing out of the beast’s mouth as the plasma mine Lloyd had deposited exploded in its throat. Ignoring the fact that it had just regurgitated part of its oesophagus, the crocodile shot toward Lloyd trying to pin him down.

  Lloyd’s evasive skill was making the beast visibly enraged, every strike it missed, and every plasma mine it had to dodge made it more determined to kill him. Within a minute the beasts face was riddled with bleeding wounds from mana bolts it had been too slow to dodge, while its torso was covered in deep cuts and burn marks.

  At this point the crocodile gave up the chase, instead opting for less conservative approach. Lloyd was stopped in his tracks as a solid wall of azure-blue mana shot up from the water locking him in an arena with crocodile.

  Even with Lloyd’s routes of escape cut off, the crocodile didn’t charge again. It was still busy channelling its mana, the crocodile was not messing around, it was already pulling out its third and final skill.

  A ball of energy, that resembled a giant water droplet began to form in the centre of the dome pulling mana from the swamp as the crocodile turned to face him. It spread its legs wider than its shoulders, baring its teeth and trying to look as big as it could, -which was entirely unnecessary considering his head reached its elbows- clearly telling him not to go that way.

  Lloyd stood still, outwardly displaying a show of confidence despite his wavering hopes of success. What could he do here? If he ran, he would be chased down easily now that they were confined, and facing this thing head on was practically asking to be eaten.

  He was quickly running out of choices, and if the barrier didn’t start to decay, he was in trouble. While Lloyd didn’t notice any mana dissipating from the dome, he noticed that the initially calm ball of energy was beginning to ripple, mana condensing in certain areas and swirly erratically.

  This train of though was cut off as Lloyd’s arm was pierced by a beam of water too fast for him to react to. It had easily shot through his forearm and carved a two-centimetre-wide hole from the middle of his wrist outwards incapacitating his left arm.

  Before the crocodile could summon another water beam, Lloyd summoned the jaw plate of the deceased iguana titan and slammed it in front of him like a tower shield. He was pushed backward and his false leg dug into the dense roots of the mangrove as the beams of water slammed into the bone, yet failed to pierce it.

  Mana-filled water sprayed in all directions as it harmlessly bounced off the bone, unable to damage the high-quality material. For a moment, Lloyd felt he may have regained the upper hand, as the rebounding water was slowly tearing holes in the barrier. As he glanced up at the top of the dome, Lloyd’s vision blurred as he was slammed downward into the ground.

  Lloyd was pressed flat against the roots as the giant sheet of bone was pulled away by the vice like grip of the crocodile’s jaws. In the midst of its powerful skills, Lloyd had almost forgotten how powerful the beast was in terms of raw strength.

  Before the crocodile could throw the bone shield away from him, Lloyd infused in with mana shocking the croc into dropping it. Quickly stowing away the bone, Lloyd launched a plasma mine into the beast’s maw, before he leapt away across the branches and through a hole in the mana barrier.

  Lloyd caught his breath on a branch as he nervously watched the crocodile thrash against its own barrier, trying to break out. Its escape was inevitable, after the explosive water sphere, the barrier wouldn’t last much longer before it decayed.

  The crocodile would break out, but on his terms.

  A plasma mine bloomed out from the palm of Lloyd’s hand, but this time he didn’t throw it into place, he held onto it, channelling electrify as he watched it grow in power. Lloyd had already discovered that when infusing a plasma bolt with electrify, he could ‘supercharge’ it so to speak, increasing its speed and power at the cost of more mana. If he could do this with a plasma bolt, then why not a plasma mine?

  As opposed to the glowing blue spheres he was used to seeing from the skill, this time the charge was almost double the size, and contained quintuple the energy content. Even his strongest armour would be in for a bad time against this, so he was confident that the crocodile would be in for a rude awakening.

  Lloyd only managed to summon three of these charged plasma mines before the barrier got too weak to contain the crocodile. Its continued assault had quickly worn down the wall, and it was already beginning to show signs of fracture.

  The tiny hairline cracks spread outwards, engulfing the dome in a net of fault lines, until finally, it all came crashing down. The wall of mana shattered into a fine blue mist, as the crocodile came crashing through with a furious look in its eyes.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  It was so angry at Lloyd for trapping it in its own skill, that it failed to notice the electric bombs right beneath it nose. But that didn’t stop them exploding.

  A blinding light burst out from under the crocodile’s head, throwing Lloyd backwards through the mangroves. He slammed into the trunk of a tree, feeling his ribs crack as his body fell forward, but he got the better end of the deal by far.

  The crocodile, with scales harder than iron, had been completely unable to resist the power of the explosion. Its body laid amongst the mud and reeds beneath the roots of the mangroves, its head full of deep flesh wounds from the explosion, some even reaching into the brain cavity, likely the cause of its death.

  The supercharged plasma mines were no joke, he had been almost thirty metres from the epicentre of the explosion and still taken sever damage. This power did not come without a cost though, the charging time needed to create just one of them was almost thirty seconds, far more time than he could spare in a normal fight.

  Not to mention the fact that he expended a fifth of his mana for every mine, the reason he had been confident in doing it here, was because of the crocodile’s extreme disadvantage. If the beast hadn’t been enraged by the way Lloyd outsmarted it, there was a high possibility that would have avoided them entirely.

  It was a very fortunate series of events that had made that encounter successful, but if just one of those elements hadn’t gone to plan, things would be very different right now. Even now, after winning the fight using the supercharged mines, he was in an awful state.

  He had deep flesh wounds all across his body, his left hand was barely attached anymore, and he had had broken bones he didn’t even know he had. If he had been much closer, he might have lost another limb. Losing an arm would condemn him to dying on this island, as he would be unable to make armour for his profession, and it would bar him from melee combat for his class.

  Luckily, most of his wounds could be easily healed by circulating mana, while the more sever ones would recover with time. Using his good arm, Lloyd slowly dragged himself back into the branches of the trees, hiding himself as best he could while he ran mana through his veins.

  Soon enough, Lloyds wounds were all but gone, with only the deepest ones still visible. The worst of these wounds was the one left by the water beam in his left wrist, no longer a hole straight through, but it did still reach down to the bone.

  Lloyd could still use the hand perfectly fine, but he couldn’t exhibit nearly as much power as he could previously. It had taken almost two hours for him to recover to this state, but he finally felt he could keep moving.

  Looking down to the corpse of the crocodile, Lloyd could only shake his head in disappointment. In the time it had taken him to heal, the corpse had been devoured by swamp creatures, the hide littered with holes and tears, while the inside was now a gruesome mush.

  Since the body was unsalvageable, Lloyd saw no reason to contest the creatures for it and started moving away from the scene of the crime. As he crossed the treetops, Lloyd wracked his brain trying to figure out the puzzle that had been plaguing him since he first killed the crocodile.

  How did its level get lower?

  You have slain a Profundi crocodile -lvl 17

  Experience gained, + 120 credits

  He could have sworn that the crocodile was level nineteen, but either something had changed since that encounter, but he couldn’t figure out what.

  Maybe in its effort to trap and kill him it had used a skill that sacrificed levels, after all, if you could gain something why couldn’t you lose it? More likely, was that Lloyd just had a bad memory and was getting his facts mixed up.

  He had probably just gotten caught in the heat of the moment, misreading what its level was. Either way, the beast was dead now, and the swamp would rest well because of it. Hopefully the nighttime would be just as bustling as the daylight hours now that the reptilian menace was dead.

  But this didn’t seem to be the case, it was now getting dark, and the animals were still hiding, even though the news that the crocodile was dead should have spread quickly. Hopefully they would learn that it was safe once the night passed without any more attacks.

  The area he was passing through had already seen the beast tonight, so really it wasn’t that weird that they were still nervous. The night quickly consumed the swamp, staining everything a deep blue light.

  Around fifteen kilometres from the fight, Lloyd found a large clearing, with the trees all damaged or fallen to the ground. This must have been the last place the crocodile had struck, even now, no animals dared venture near, making it an ideal spot to stay for the night.

  After the fight he was famished, and nothing would be better than a nice meal after such a close call. Lloyd decided to try his hand at poaching an egg, and to do so he would need water. While it was probably his last choice to take water from, Lloyd didn’t have any other options and ventured down to the water hoping it wouldn’t ruin the taste of the egg.

  All that was left after the crocodile’s rampage were fallen logs and shredded animal bodies, but there was a plus. There was actually an animal out after nightfall, two fireflies, it wasn’t much but it did show that the message had spread. Hopefully more would follow in their footsteps.

  Lloyd scooped a bucket of water out of the swamp, scrunching his nose at the murky liquid. He threw the water back over the lake changing his mind about poached eggs, but if he was coming down here, he wasn’t leaving empty handed.

  The fireflies were on a log well within his reach, and he would be a fool not to take them. Just before he grabbed them, Lloyd’s arm froze in place, his tendons stiff and unable to move. Sweat started dripping down his forehead and the hair on his arms stood up, he felt a palpable sense of danger from the water.

  Lloyd backed away, his heart pounding as he stared at the unassuming fireflies, what could they have done to make his body react like that? He got an answer much faster than he would have liked.

  Without warning the fireflies moved, their head rolled down into their centres and they… blinked?

  “HOLY FUCK”

  Lloyd leapt backward, clambering back into the branches as he tried to get as far away as he could. The eyes focused up at Lloyd, who was now directly above them, he had made a very dumb mistake.

  Why would there only be one crocodile?

  While they were solitary hunters, crocodiles almost always lived in groups with other crocs, the swamp only being home to one croc was a ridiculous idea. Where he had got it from it was hard to say, with the knowledge he had on the creatures he really had no excuse for thinking that.

  He was almost fifty feet above the water by now, but he felt far from safe. The crocodiles eyes were focused directly on him, and its level was even less comforting.

  Profundi crocodile -lvl 20

  This guy had a fourth skill.

  As quickly as the crocodile had noticed him it disappeared, its head sinking below the water with its beady eyes watching him. While the disappearance of the beast probably should have been comforting, somehow its absence was more horrifying than its presence.

  Now he didn’t know where it was, or where it would strike from, for all he knew it was half a kilometre away already, but it could just as well be directly beneath him.

  Unfortunately, the second option was proved more accurate as a supercharged beam of water shot through the air next to him. Lloyd almost fell from the branch in surprise, leaping into action as he sprinted away as fast as he could.

  Lloyd was almost out of the clearing when he slammed face first into the branch he was running on. his false leg had gotten jammed inside a hole in the tree, he was trying as hard as he could to get out, but couldn’t get the right angle.

  Even though the crocodile hadn’t shown any signs of continuing its assault, Lloyd knew it wouldn’t give up so easily. Finally, Lloyd gave up and used some more of his dwindling mana supplies, imbuing power into his leg to break through his wooden bindings.

  Lloyd shot forward, launching himself further from the water.

  And just in time.

  A pair of titanic jaws closed around the branch he had just been stuck on, tearing it straight off the branch. A little know fact about crocodiles is that they could jump very high when they wanted, the explosive power in their tails could launch nearly their bodies out of the water when they were motivated.

  Already having that kind of power, with mana in the mix as well? It was really no surprise a twenty-meter croc could reach a twenty-five-meter branch. Lloyd’s shock was far outweighed by the fear that coursed through his veins, driving him further from the clearing and higher into the canopy.

  The branches flew past as Lloyd ran across the branches like his life depended on it, because in a way... it did. In the distance he heard the crocodile roar in indignation, while other roars crossed the swamp in response.

  The crocodiles were communicating with each other, and now they all knew he was here. The mere fact that multiple crocodile could hear the first was a cause for concern, where he had stayed on the first night, he could only hear the one crocodile, but here he could hear at least five.

  The number of beasts in the area was growing exponentially, and they also seemed to be getting stronger, pretty soon all of them would pass level twenty. Even the level seventeen was a life or death fight, Lloyd only surviving because of the beast’s bad judgement.

  If put against a level twenty or higher in an even fight, Lloyd wouldn’t stand a chance. His only hope of surviving lay in making it across the swamp before the crocs could pin him down.

  At this point, sleep wasn’t as important as before, and Lloyd could go up to four days before he got tired. He would need to take full advantage of this as he couldn’t afford to stop moving for fear of the crocodiles finding where he was and just waiting for him to come out.

  Lloyd jumped across the branches, swinging from vines and doing everything in his power to keep ahead, but at every turn he always seemed to see eyes in the water, waiting for him. At this point, Lloyd was starting to worry, were they already there? Would he be able to escape the swamp? Was this where his story ends?

  NO!

  He couldn’t let it end like this, he had to push on, he wouldn’t let himself die like this. He wouldn’t let himself be killed all alone, secluded from the world, his family never knowing what happened to him.

  He had to keep going. Lloyd ran faster than he thought possible, as if his body were energised by his determination. His footsteps felt heavy, but that only made him push harder, his desire to succeed keeping him going.

  Over the treetops of the mangroves Lloyd could see the end, the giant eucalypts of the forest stretching into the sky, he was almost there. Just a few more kilometres, he just had to make it a few more kilometres and he was home free, he could do it.

  His heart was beating so hard he could feel each motion in his chest, his breath was ragged and he was drenched head to toe in sweat, but he had made it. Standing at the edge of the swamp Lloyd looked across to the forest not with happiness, but with grief.

  He was too late. The shallows were over a hundred metres across, one hundred meters full to the brim with giant blood thirsty crocodiles. They weren’t even fully grown, they were children, the adult crocs were using his life as a lesson for their young.

  Was this how he went out? Like a frog being dissected by highschoolers?

  What could he do? There was no way he could kill enough to ensure escape before reinforcements arrived, kill as many young as he could out of spite? That would just make him as bad as them.

  He was really stuck in a corner here, all options seemed to end in death, wait until he starved, go out like a dickhead trying to face fifty giant crocodiles, or just let them kill him.

  That couldn’t happen, what would he be letting himself go out like that? Given a decade to conquer this island and falling within two months? Pathetic.

  He was better than that. He could, no. he WOULD, survive this, he had to, to conquer this hurdle like all the ones before it.

  His heart burning with determination, Lloyd got to his feet, the ground shaking with his every step. He backed up, and he ran.

  Lightning roared across his body, pure, unadulterated energy arced up his arms and down his legs, his body scorched by the heat as his body surged with power.

  Lloyd shot forward faster than ever before, leaping across the sky like a god of thunder as he flew above the horde below. Their full attention was on the mesmerising display of power above, but he paid them none, his was already taken.

  Skill upgrade

  Electrify (Inferior) -- > Supercharge (Uncommon)