Chapter 22: Passing Through
Gray found the Rock Carapace Crab near a rocky outcrop, its claws busy prying a small shellfish from the sand. Toxin Cloud enveloped it before it could react.
[ROCK CARAPACE CRAB DEFEATED — 25 EXP]
[TRAIT FRAGMENT ACQUIRED: "Minor Shell Plating" (3/3)]
[Trait Complete! Minor Shell Plating will be available as an evolution option at Level 10.]
A warm sensation rippled through his bell as the fragment settled into place. He pulled up his status, confirming the completion.
Trait Fragments:
· Minor Shell Plating (3/3) — COMPLETE
· Keen Senses (1/3)
· Minor Evasion (1/3)
· Electroreceptive Sensitivity (1/3)
’One fragment complete. Three more to grind.’
He pulsed eastward, leaving the sandy slope behind as the kelp thickened around him once more. The creatures that had given him Keen Senses fragments before were hunters — the Barefin Hunter, things that tracked prey through senses sharper than his own. That meant the dense central thicket, where the fronds grew so tightly they blocked out what little ambient light remained.
The first Spine-Fin Darter took longer to find than he expected. He drifted through the thicket for nearly twenty minutes, his tentacles sweeping the water, before he caught the familiar flicker of a sleek body darting between the kelp stalks. It sensed him coming, its lateral line was more sensitive than most but not fast enough. Toxin Cloud caught it mid-turn, and three ticks later it was drifting belly-up.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
The fragment didn’t drop.
Gray stared at the notification. Then at the dissolving corpse.
’...Seriously?’
He moved on.
The second Darter was hunting a school of glass minnows near a cluster of tube worms. Gray approached from above, using the minnows’ panicked scattering as cover. The Darter didn’t notice him until the Toxin Cloud was already around it.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
Nothing.
’This shouldn’t be this hard.’
The third Darter put up more of a fight. It sensed the venom a heartbeat before it struck and lunged at him instead, its spined fins flaring. Gray took a glancing hit and wrapped his tentacles around its body. Toxin Cloud finished it.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
Still nothing.
’What is this drop rate, five percent?!’
He checked his mental math. With zero luck and no drop-rate bonuses, trait fragments probably had a low base chance. Ten percent, maybe fifteen. He’d gotten lucky with the crabs but luck, by definition, didn’t last.
’Fine. We do this the hard way.’
The fourth Darter was deeper in the thicket, larger than the others, its spined fins gleaming with faint iridescence. Gray didn’t bother with stealth. He dropped Toxin Cloud directly on its position and watched the damage ticks with grim satisfaction.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
Another kill, another disappointment.
’You have got to be kidding me.’
The fifth Darter almost escaped. It bolted the moment it sensed his electrical field, weaving through the kelp with desperate speed. Gray pulsed after it, nineteen SPD matching its pace, and deployed Toxin Cloud ahead of its path. The Darter swam straight into the venom sphere.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
[TRAIT FRAGMENT ACQUIRED: "Keen Senses" (2/3)]
’FINALLY. Five kills for ONE fragment. At this rate, I’ll need to depopulate the entire thicket just to finish Keen Senses.’
He absorbed the corpse and kept moving. The thicket was growing quieter, the Darters were learning, or dying, or both. He had to range further out, closer to the Morrath territory, to find the next one.
The sixth Darter was a juvenile, smaller and faster than the adults. It sensed him too late. Toxin Cloud, three ticks, dead.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 18 EXP]
He didn’t bother waiting for the notification.
The seventh Darter was an old one, its scales dulled with age, one of its spined fins ragged and torn from some old battle. It didn’t run. It turned to face him, fins flared, and charged. Gray respected the courage, but courage didn’t stop venom. He wrapped his tentacles around its body and held it in the Toxin Cloud until the last tick finished.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
Another corpse, another empty drop.
’Seven kills. One fragment. This is officially a grind.’
The eighth Darter nearly got him. He’d pushed too far into Morrath territory, chasing a flicker of movement between the fronds, and a Morrath exploded from the kelp behind him. He pulsed sideways, felt the jaws graze his bell, and deployed Toxin Cloud in a wide spray. The Morrath retreated, unwilling to push through the venom, and Gray took the opportunity to flee. The Darter he’d been chasing was long gone.
’Tunnel vision. Rookie mistake.’
He circled back toward safer water and found another Darter near the edge of the thicket. It was feeding on something small and gelatinous, too distracted to notice the translucent death drifting toward it. Toxin Cloud. Three ticks. Dead.
[SPINE-FIN DARTER DEFEATED — 22 EXP]
[TRAIT FRAGMENT ACQUIRED: "Keen Senses" (3/3)]
[Trait Complete! Keen Senses will be available as an evolution option at Level 10.]
’Nine kills. That drop rate is absolutely brutal.’
He absorbed the corpse and checked his status.
EXP to Next Level: 68%
’Two traits complete. Shell Plating and Keen Senses. Still need Evasion and Electroreceptive Sensitivity. And my EXP crept up nicely from all those Darters.’
He turned toward the eastern edge of the kelp forest, where the fronds grew shorter and the water grew warmer. The creatures there were faster, more skittish — Silver-Fin Runners, mostly. Their whole survival strategy was speed. Kill enough of them, and their trait fragments would be his.
But he never made it.
Something was moving through the kelp ahead. The rhythm was slow and methodical, each step a grinding crunch that Gray felt in his bell before his tentacles even registered it.
He stopped pulsing. His Bioluminescent Pulse dimmed to a whisper.
The kelp parted.
It was a crab.
This thing was massive. Its body alone was nearly four feet across, a domed shell of dark, moss-covered chitin that looked thick enough to shrug off a torpedo. Its legs were thick as tree branches, each one ending in a pointed tip that punched into the sediment with every step. Its claws and there were four of them, hung at its front like the arms of a construction crane, each one large enough to snap Gray’s entire body in half with a single snip.
Its eyes rose on thick stalks above the shell, black and gleaming, and they were looking directly at him.
[COLOSSAL CARAPACE CRAB — Level 14]
HP: 600 / 600
Threat Level: EXTREME
« Analysis »
A fully mature specimen of the Carapace Crab lineage. Decades of growth have produced an exoskeleton thick enough to deflect most physical attacks. Possesses four hydraulic claws capable of crushing bone and stone with equal ease. Omnivorous. Highly territorial. Will attack anything that enters its perceived domain without hesitation.
Weakness: Slow movement speed. Limited turning radius. Relies on vibration and scent rather than sight. Avoid prolonged engagement — this creature is not designed to be defeated by a single predator of your current level.
’(Not designed to be defeated by a single predator of my current level) That’s the system’s polite way of saying "run."’
The Colossal Carapace Crab took a step forward. Its claw snapped once — a single, deliberate click that sent a shockwave through the water.
’I’m in its territory.’
Gray pulsed backward slowly, keeping his movements smooth and calm. His Bioluminescent Pulse dimmed until he was barely a smudge of pink in the darkness.
The crab’s eyestalks tracked him. Its claws twitched. But it didn’t charge. Slow to anger, or maybe just confident that nothing in its domain was worth hurrying for.
’I’m just a jellyfish. Floating away. Nothing to see here.’
He retreated one pulse at a time, threading himself backward through the kelp fronds. The crab watched him go, its massive silhouette growing smaller and smaller until the kelp swallowed it entirely. Its vibration lingered longer — that slow, grinding crunch of chitin on stone, gradually fading into the distance.
Gray didn’t stop until he was well clear of the eastern edge, back in the familiar maze of the central thicket.
’Nope. Not today. I’ll find my Evasion fragments somewhere else.’
He reviewed his mental map. The southern slope was cleared crabs only, and he’d completed Shell Plating. The central thicket had more Darters and the occasional Morrath, but he’d finished Keen Senses.
That left the western edge, where the kelp thinned into open water and the current ran faster.
’West it is. Evasion fragments from Runners.’
He pulsed westward through the thicket, leaving the Colossal Crab’s domain far behind. The kelp began to thin around him, the dense fronds giving way to scattered stalks and eventually to open water. The current here was stronger, a steady push from the depths that carried the taste of colder, deeper water.
And in the distance, silver shapes darted through the blue.
Silver-Fin Runners. Fast, skittish, and exactly what he needed.
’Time to see how many of you I have to kill for one lousy fragment.’