Ronan entered a fresh nightmare tutorial attempt with eagerness. He had crossed his fingers while requesting the difficulty change, hoping that the system would grant him his wish of a more simple challenge. An impossible-to-beat giant or some kind of terrifying apex predator, rather than more shapeshifters and complex social scenarios to solve.

Once again, he found himself in a familiar environment. London greeted him with a warm smile, the sun shining in a clear blue sky. Much warmer than usual for the city, but anything could happen in a tutorial. After experiencing 55 of them, Ronan knew that better than most.

He heard a siren blaring in the distance. It was a low yet piercing whine that lasted for around ten seconds before shutting off. After a three second silence it would repeat. An air raid siren by the sounds of things.

A rumbling noise cut through the sirens. Looking into the sky, Ronan saw two fighter jets tearing through the air towards his location, their engines the source of the deafening sound.

Turning to track the two jets, Ronan was curious about this new scenario. Clearly Earth's technology hadn't fallen apart in this version of the integration, the way it had for his own world. Perhaps the terraforming played a bigger part than he had realised in that destruction.

All of a sudden a colossal orange claw shot into the sky and grabbed one of the jets, crushing the flimsy metal as though it were an empty can. Two sheared halves of the plane fell to the ground on either side of the claw, which looked crustacean in nature. Some sort of giant crab or lobster monster?

An excited smile appeared on Ronan's face and he rubbed his palms together. Most people might be terrified at the prospect of colossal crustaceans invading the surface, but he was ecstatic to face them. This was exactly the sort of challenge he'd had in mind when hoping for a better type of tutorial.

Without wasting another second, Ronan started sprinting in the direction that the huge claw had appeared from. He said a silent prayer for the pilots of the two jets as the second one was punched out of the sky by a giant claw that moved like lightning. Big mantis shrimp? This is getting better by the second! Ronan was giddy with excitement, like a toddler that had just received a new toy.

He sped up, hoping to reach the big fuckers before they could kill any more humans. Ronan might not have been on his version of Earth, but he would be damned if he let his people die for nothing.

It took him a few minutes to reach the rough area where he'd seen the oversized monsters. There were just two of them, but everything around the crustaceans was destroyed, turned to rubble. A man lay on the ground in front of the crab, missing most of his legs. He cried out and reached into the air, right as the crab stomped on his torso with a spindly leg, piercing it and ending his misery.

As he'd expected, the two monsters were a colossal crab and a megalithic mantis shrimp. They were the size of two jumbo jets, with the crab standing a little taller than the shrimp due to its longer legs. Both monsters had proven themselves capable of obliterating a fighter jet flying at full speed, which meant they were well beyond human capabilities.

But so was Ronan.

[Mutated Coconut Crab Lv.25]

[Mutated Mantis Shrimp Lv.25]

The system didn't give them fancy names. It simply noted that they were mutated. Ronan wasn't sure what exactly had mutated them, but frankly he didn't care. All he wanted to do was engage them in a thrilling battle.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Before drawing their attention, Ronan observed the two crustaceans, seeking weaknesses. Both had sturdy shells, evidenced by the fact the earlier barrage of bullets from the fighter jets had failed to even pierce their hard exterior. For the crab, Ronan noticed that the joints where its legs passed through the shell seemed less armoured than the rest of its body. Its eye-stalks were also an obvious place he could deal lethal damage. The shrimp, on the other hand, had a soft underbelly. However, it never exposed it except for during its lightning-fast punches. Unfortunately the speed of those punches was so overwhelming that most opponents would be utterly unable to take advantage of that momentary weakness.

Ronan had five marks. He had never tried to place them on a specific location before, but there was no better moment to attempt it than before taking on these two colossal foes. He tried to place the first on one of the leg joints he'd identified. It worked, flashing briefly before disappearing. Only he knew it was there. Seeing the success of the first mark, he repeated it on the shrimp, waiting for it to rear up and obliterate a nearby building with a punch, then placing the mark on its underbelly while it was distracted.

Unfortunately when he attempted to place a second mark on the crab, it failed. The skill had a limit of one mark per target, which was an annoying drawback, but one that made sense. Two might interfere with the targeting.

The monsters still hadn't noticed him. Clearly they had some sensory issues. Which was weird, given that they were able to strike a speeding jet from the sky with near-pinpoint accuracy. Maybe sudden or fast movement gets their attention more than gradual and slow progress? I can use that to my advantage to get a first strike ambush. Time to use light manipulation once more. Ronan reached out, feeling for the light around him and guiding it around him in such a way that it masked his presence. Almost immediately he noticed a problem.

While he could still manipulate the light using the knowledge he'd acquired from the original skill, his control was far shakier than it had been the last time he used light manipulation. Ronan knew exactly why. His new class evolution was clearly interfering with his ability to control light, because it wasn't pure. He groaned in annoyance, still mad the system had forced him into taking a suboptimal evolution.

Then again, I'm glad I can still manipulate the light, even if it is poorly. I guess that's because not all of the light contains attuned mana? He was forced to delay his attack a little longer while he experimented. A few more buildings paid the ultimate price, being demolished by the two crustaceans as they continued their path of destruction through the city.

Ronan had some experience with attuned mana thanks to the last death he'd suffered. After a while he was able to sense the particles of attuned light within the waves. There were far more than the blizzard had, which was interesting. The sunlight wasn't lethal except in high doses, yet it contained more mana than a blizzard in a nuclear winter. An odd discrepancy that he couldn't spend more time exploring because he heard a woman scream. Time to engage.

He felt that his light manipulation, while still worse than it had been before, was currently enough to fool the two colossal crustaceans. Ronan started to move towards them. His physical stats weren't absurdly high given that he was level 0, but they were enough to let him leap up to the level of the crab's body.

Ronan wondered what the best kind of weapon for the job was. He would use throwing knives and mana bolts to target the marks, but for his opening strike he needed to make an impact. He wanted to destroy at least one of the crab's eye stalks. Well, if I consider my masteries, a blunt weapon will definitely do the most damage. The stalks are squishy, so it suits the job. Let's go with a hammer. He knew that conjuring the weapon might draw attention, so he waited until the last moment.

The crab was approaching the woman, who was trapped under a fallen block of concrete. Her screams rang in Ronan's ears, but the best way to save her was to take out the monsters without losing his advantage of surprise. He was in between the two crustaceans at that point, standing right next to one of the long legs of the crab. He looked upwards and judged the distance of the jump. He would just about make it, which meant he needed to time the swing perfectly.

Ronan waited for the crab to be in the middle of a sideways step. The moment its leg reached the pinnacle of its movement, he leapt from the ground and conjured a hammer at the same moment. As soon as the weapon took form in his hand, the crab and the shrimp's eyes both shot towards him.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.