Chapter 214: Mad Rolling, Severing the Hind Legs, and Shishou's Proposal

The two sides began to trade long-range attacks back and forth like this; the stones thrown and water jets sprayed by both parties even occasionally collided above the river, then fell away one after another.

In just two minutes, the location where the Water-Spraying Crocodile was situated was covered in scattered stones of all sizes, and its body was even more coated in crushed stone and rock dust; only when it dipped its head into the river water to replenish moisture could it wash the rock dust off its body.

Shishou was not having an easy time either; the ground was covered in riverbank mud loosened by the intense water flow, and because of the water sprayed over, this already moist mud became even wetter, resembling a quagmire.

Every step Shishou took on this soft riverbank caused his ankles to sink almost entirely into the mud; if not for his great strength, pulling his feet out of the mud would have been a very strenuous task.

"Jier, are you ready yet?"

Compared to the difficulty of walking on the ground, what made Shishou even more distressed was that there were almost no stones around for him to pick up and throw! This major problem forced him to speak up and ask about the status of Jier's armor.

"Just finished! Now watch me!" Jier finally put on his steel helmet, lowered the faceplate, and immediately responded while gripping his axe.

Then, he jumped with all his might from where he stood, leaping directly across the rushing river from this side of the bank, pouncing straight from the air at the crocodile monster that was still spraying water in a duel.

Because it was night, and the monster's field of vision did not cover the air above its head, Jier's strike was highly unexpected. Jier adjusted his posture in mid-air, calculated the distance, and swung his axe with all his might; the blade of the axe was aimed directly at the center of the crocodile monster's head.

Woo—Clang!

The immense force landing on its forehead slammed the monster, which was still spraying water in retaliation, flat onto the ground; its four thick legs could not support its body for a moment, and it crashed heavily and clumsily onto the ground.

But although the crocodile monster looked miserably beaten, Jier was actually quite dissatisfied with the actual result of the strike, his hands trembling from the force of the recoil.

Such an unexpected jumping heavy cleave had actually failed to split the center of the crocodile monster's forehead; the axe blade had only slightly cut into the thick cranial bone plate, no more than a centimeter or two deep, but who knew just how thick this monster's skull plate really was?

Unwilling to give up, Jier took advantage of the opportunity while the monster was pinned down to pull out the Hunting Sword he had stuck into its eye.

He intended to change his tactics.

Jier pulled the sword and retreated, swinging his arms while holding a weapon in each hand to alleviate the numbness caused by the recoil of the jumping heavy cleave just now.

"Jier, do you need support? I have plenty of stones here." Shishou, on the opposite bank, had moved to a position with firm ground and many stones, and shouted to ask Jier. The Dwarf possessed excellent vision, so even though there wasn't enough lighting around, he had seen Jier's heavy cleave return without success, hence the inquiry.

"No need, just watch."

Not wanting to be looked down upon or have the Dwarf interfere, Jier provocatively paced back and forth on the side of the monster's intact eye, successfully drawing the creature's attention and hatred. Although Jier was wearing metal armor, the weapons in his hands and the scent on his body had not changed; the Water-Spraying Crocodile immediately opened its mouth to bite, for to this creature, the small metal scales on a Human were nothing.

They were all thin, useless things that would be torn to shreds in a single bite!

Crack!

The monster missed its bite, which was to be expected. Although the Water-Spraying Crocodile's biting action was well-practiced, and its attack speed was extremely fast while its biting range was large and its power irresistible, Jier had been guarding against this move all along!

He reckoned this monster only had three tricks: pouncing, tail-whipping, and spraying water!

The tail-whip could not be unleashed because its thick tail had already been severed by Jier's axe earlier. As for the water-spraying ability, Jier had lured it away from the river, not giving the monster a chance to replenish its water; with no water in its mouth, there was, of course, nothing to spray.

Therefore, the enraged crocodile monster now only had the pouncing move left.

Under Jier's focused attention, when he and the monster were at a distance suitable for it to open its mouth and bite, Jier was already prepared to dodge in advance.

Just as Jier expected, every time an opportunity and distance suitable for pouncing appeared, the monster would immediately launch an attack; the entire pattern of its assault was within Jier's predictions.

After missing several pounces in a row, the monster grew anxious; it scrambled with its four limbs, charging straight at Jier, while starting with a pounce at the beginning of the impact. When that missed, it began to roll around wildly, intending to use its huge, heavy body to crush Jier, this tiny Human!

But Jier, conversely, curled his lips under his faceplate, actively retreating out of the range where the monster's wild rolling could cause damage. He threw his blue axe into the air to let it spin and hover, while gripping the Hunting Sword in his hand, ready to throw it at any moment.

A rumbling sound like a herd of horses charging through the area—in reality, the noise and vibration caused by a single crocodile monster rolling wildly on the ground—resounded across the riverbank, startling the nocturnal animals in a large surrounding area into fleeing in terror, not daring to get involved in this battle between a Human and a Water-Spraying Crocodile.

When the Water-Spraying Crocodile's huge, heavy, and tough body was rolling wildly at high speed, it was difficult for Jier to find an opening to attack, but that didn't matter; this rolling clearly consumed a lot of stamina, and the monster couldn't just keep rolling like this until dawn, right?

In less than half a minute, seeing that it had failed to crush the Human enemy and had only completely pulverized the stones on this stretch of riverbank—it had even crushed and leveled the ground it rolled over to a depth of half a meter—it slowed down after its stamina was half-depleted and lay back down on the ground.

Jier was waiting for exactly this opportunity. The Hunting Sword in his right hand immediately emitted the Divine Power of Blinding toward the crocodile monster. After blinding the opponent in the first instance, and not waiting for the monster to sense something was wrong and start rolling again, he rushed forward several steps and thrust the sword in his right hand forward with all his might, hitting the other eye that the monster had closed when it was already blinded.

He pushed with his arm, driving the long blade directly from the opponent's eye socket up to the hilt.

Afterward, Jier stepped on the ground, jumped up, grabbed the head of the Water-Spraying Crocodile in mid-air, and used the force of the axe to vault more than ten meters away.

Sure enough, after its only eye was injured, the monster immediately began to spin wildly in place. Its entire huge, powerful body was like a crazed bulldozer or a mad steamroller, colliding with and crushing everything it touched nearby with the sturdy, protruding bone plates on its body during its frantic, forceful rolling.

This time, the creature went completely insane, ignoring the consumption of stamina and the blood squeezed out from its wounds during the strenuous movement. After several minutes of massive, noisy rolling, it "excavated" a pit six meters in diameter and over three meters deep where it was located.

Since this was a riverbank, a fair amount of water had accumulated beneath the soft mud, and the monster ended up rolling around in a mud pit as if it were a wallow.

However, even the craziest rolling actions must be supported by stamina. When the crocodile monster stopped rolling after its stamina was exhausted, it could only struggle and lie weakly half-drowned in the mud pit filled with mud, water, and its own blood, breathing with difficulty and trying to move its legs to crawl out of the mud pit and return to the nearby river water.

But Jier had been waiting for this; not just Jier, but Shishou had also jumped across the river and stood on a giant riverbank boulder several meters square, watching the monster's final end.

Jier did not attack immediately, but waited until the monster, with its stamina nearly depleted, actively crawled out of the filthy mud pit before rushing up quickly and swinging his axe to hack at the previously injured leg.

He took advantage of the wound he had hacked earlier, actively swinging his axe to enlarge it. After a few "kuchi-kuchi" chops, the monster's leg, a meter thick like a giant temple pillar, was hacked through by more than half, exposing the thick bone in the center of the leg.

Originally, Jier launching continuous attacks at such close range would have been a perfect opportunity for the Water-Spraying Crocodile to counterattack; not to mention turning its head to bite, just taking the chance to press its body against Jier and then rolling would have been enough to injure him.

But the frantic spinning of its body after both eyes were destroyed had truly exhausted all the strength in its entire body. Now, facing Jier's provocative hacking at its hind leg in place, this Water-Spraying Crocodile was powerless and could only let out a weak, pathetic whine.

It was a short, strange puffing sound, but because of the lack of stamina and strength, it sounded just like it was begging for mercy.

But Jier had already heard from the accompanying Merchant while traveling today that the monsters lurking in the nearby rivers had occasionally launched attacks on passing travelers over the years, resulting in many casualties of men and horses and the loss of goods.

Moreover, the Sweet Fruit Merchant Guild was not unaware of this; it was just that as long as Humans did not get too close to these monsters lurking in the rivers, the creatures rarely paid attention to Human Caravans. Even if there were occasional attacks, the Merchants could imitate the situation in the Western Province's Strange Wind Grassland and actively hand over one or two of the horses pulling the carts, escaping while the monster was eating the horses.

Jier was in high spirits now; how could he possibly let it go just because of the monster's begging for mercy?

The crocodile monster bumped over weakly, but Jier didn't even dodge, letting it push him back half a meter before continuing to charge up his strength. With a few more axe blows, he shattered the bone of the monster's hind leg and then hacked through the remaining skin and flesh of that leg.

Afterward, he flew up and kicked the severed leg far away, then jumped to the position of the hind leg on the other side of the monster's body and severed the monster's other hind leg with all his might.

This monster's body scales were sturdy, its leg muscles were thick and solid, and its bones were hard as hell; Jier estimated that this creature was even sturdier than the legs of the Arachnid Magic Beasts he had dealt with before.

It was just that the crocodile monster's size and abilities, including the most important intelligence, seemed to be inferior to the Arachnid Magic Beast, which was why Jier had dealt with it so easily this time.

"Not smart enough, crazily bloodthirsty, irritable. In short, this guy is still easy to deal with."

Jier looked at the crocodile monster, which had lost its tail and had both hind legs severed by the axe, leaving only its torso and two front legs that could barely crawl, and began to evaluate this monster—which was still considered tricky—to Shishou.

Shishou stroked his beard with his hand, thought for a moment, and said: "This monster's personality indicates that they have no opponents in this area, so they have no need for alertness or cunning; they only need to use brute force to live easily."

"So, Jier, how are you going to deal with it next?"

Shishou saw that Jier intended to stop, but the monster had clearly not been finished off. If left alone like this, the creature might be able to crawl back into the water using its two front claws after recovering some stamina, and then it would become difficult to handle again.

Jier shrugged: "It doesn't seem to have any fatal weaknesses all over its body, as you've seen. Its head is hard as hell; even my axe couldn't split the hard bone plate on its forehead. As for its eyes, I thrust the entire blade of my long sword in, and it didn't bring it fatal damage. Plus, its front claws are too close to that dangerous, sharp-toothed giant mouth; I'm worried it will suddenly turn around and bite me when I try to disable its front legs. It's not easy to handle."

Shishou took a look; it was indeed as Jier said. The monster's two front legs were equally thick, and to sever them, one would have to stand in place and hack for at least a dozen axe blows. But that position was too close to the monster's mouth, and even now that the monster's stamina was exhausted, one still had to guard against its ability to suddenly turn its head and bite.

At the very least, one had to restrict its ability to open its mouth and bite people.

Shishou looked at the riverbank Stone he was standing on, crouched down and patted it, making a sound, and said to Jier: "How about this, let me use this Stone that weighs at least a dozen tons to just smash it to death? Although this guy doesn't seem to have any weak points on its body, no matter what kind of Monster it is, there isn't one that won't die after being smashed a few times by a dozen tons of Stone. How about it?"

Jier immediately raised his hand to stop Shishou's plan: "Forget it! Not to mention that this is my Hunting prey, look at the hard skin and bone plates on this Monster's body; they are all excellent Monster materials, and it would be a great pity if you smashed them to pieces. Besides, I need to taste this Monster's meat; it is useful to me."

"Monster meat cannot be eaten! At least I have heard that Monster flesh and blood cannot be consumed without processing," Shishou reminded him, but seeing Jier wave his hand, he knew that regarding such matters, Jier knew, but had his own personal reasons.

Shishou guessed it had to do with Human Knight Training, but the power systems of Dwarves and Humans were very different, so he didn't find it easy to say much about it. At least he had never heard of any Dwarf strengthening path that involved consuming Monster flesh and blood.

"How about I help you hold the Monster's mouth shut? I've heard that the jaws of a crocodile-like thing have great closing force, but its strength when opening its mouth is weak. Of course, with my strength, if you, Jier, hadn't stopped me from helping, this Monster would have long been smashed to death by me with a Stone."

When Shishou suggested this, he lowered his head again, feeling regret that his own handy two-handed greatsword had been left in the Dwarf Secret Vault under Suishi Cheng, leaving him without a handy weapon in his hands now; borrowing weapons from other companions who also used Heavy Weapon was not impossible, but he felt embarrassed to ask to borrow them.

When he was young, he once owed a creditor a large sum of money; if it hadn't been for Lao Tiequan helping him settle the debt, he would have been arrested long ago for not having the money to pay it back, and how could he be a free man like he was now?

So ever since then, he had never let himself owe anyone anything, or borrowed anything from others.

It was not that he couldn't, but that he was unwilling.

Jier considered Shishou's suggestion and felt that letting this Dwarf Warrior help control the crocodile Monster's mouth barely counted as interfering too much with his Hunting. He then nodded and said: "Then let's do this: I'll give its head an axe blow first to make it dizzy, then you go up and approach carefully, whether you hold it with your hands or pin it to the ground, just control that huge mouth full of sharp teeth. Be careful, Shishou, let alone me, that Monster's mouth could swallow two of you without a problem."

Shishou rolled his eyes and didn't fuss over Jier's words.

?? There is another chapter tonight.