Skill-Eater: Prison World Saga-Chapter 25: Hunter Hunted

The crew parked the wagon, then circled the grove from a distance while deciding where to launch their attack.

Now that they knew where the scorpion was hiding, Riller used his drone to observe it from the air and make sure that they hadn’t been spotted. Once they had picked their point of ambush—a place where they could peer through a patch of tall grass but were hard to see from the grove—the crew settled down to wait. All they needed was another animal to use as bait and their big game hunt would enter its final stage. With any luck, one would enter the region before long.

Even though he knew waiting was a key component of hunting, Edge was still getting used to remaining still for hours at a time while anticipating a life and death melee that could begin at any second.

Since he couldn’t pace, he sat on his hands and did his best not to fidget, to the amusement of the other crewmembers. He reviewed their plan in his mind as the sun slowly dipped toward the horizon, watching the shadows grow long with the end of day.

Just when it seemed that they would have to pull back and resume their hunt in the morning, it finally happened. Another herd of deer came walking up to the thicket to drink from the spring. It seemed that they wouldn’t need to use Riller’s drone again after all, since the animals were approaching the trees by themselves.

Everyone moved into position—ready to start firing weapons and casting spells the instant that the scorpion came out of hiding and committed to its attack. Edge forced himself to keep his breathing slow and steady, shutting out his racing pulse and the adrenaline singing in his veins.

His world narrowed—every scrap of concentration fixed on the unsuspecting animals that were walking into a trap. Just like before, the deer in front hit the webbing first, causing the rest to bolt. This creature wasn’t bound as tightly as the last. If the scorpion wanted to catch it, it had to move fast.

“Get ready,” Trapper whispered, so softly that he could barely hear the words. “This is perfect. When I give the signal, hit it with everything you have.”

By now, Edge’s heart was pounding like a kettle drum. He grabbed his short bow and put one of Violet’s paint arrows to the string, while the other hunters nocked their arrows and loaded their bolts.

For another breathless second, nothing happened. In that moment, it seemed like the deer would manage to break free before the predator struck. But then a massive purple body lowered itself from the canopy on a silken strand, positioning so that the animal was trapped between its location and the main web. The beast crept toward its prey, silent as a shadow as it closed the final few feet.

Its back is to us. We couldn’t hope for a better moment to strike. Wait for it. A little longer. Now!

The instant that the scorpion went in for the kill, Trapper’s crew made their move. Since they were fighting a heavily-armored target, they couldn’t count on their long-range attacks finishing it off. With any luck, their initial volley would disable the creature. Then everyone would draw close enough to land precision strikes on its weak points, while Edge and Jumo used Dash, Leap, and Shadow Step to engage the beast and keep it from retreating.

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The scorpion should either run or attack, rather than climb into its web, once it realized that its assailants were attacking from range. Although they had to be careful not to walk into any sticky threads while they maneuvered into position. All this passed through Edge’s mind as he took aim and drew back the string of his bow, waiting until the others were ready to fire.

Trapper, Jumo, and Riller ignited their cores, unleashing their heaviest attacks. Trapper’s Snipe was the fastest of the lot, and she was ready to go a heartbeat before the rest. Mana coalesced along the bolt that she’d loaded into her oversized magitech crossbow—one of the crackling lightning rounds that buzzed as it tore through the air.

It crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, striking the beast where its chitin was thinnest. When the bolt sank in, the electric-aspected aether discharged in a flash. The voltage went surging through the scorpion’s muscles, causing it to spasm as it lost control over its limbs. The deer turned to track the noise, screaming when it saw the massive predator looming just a few steps behind it.

By now, Jumo’s spell was in the air. An obsidian javelin went streaking toward its target, shattering a chitin plate and boring deep into the tissue below. Riller unleashed Wind Shot a bare second later, which he had begun charging the moment that the beast began its attack. Although his new skill took some time to prepare, the results were worth the wait.

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Accompanied by a powerful gust of wind, his arrow took flight. It was just an ordinary missile. But powered by Wind Shot and guided by Eagle Eye, it did almost as much damage as Jumo’s javelin and punched another huge hole in the beast’s side. The instant that the crew’s attacks were in the air, Edge fired. But he was still a novice with the weapon and his shot went wide. He got ready to try again while the others let loose.

Violet and Sasha had better luck with their paint arrows. Both women hit the scorpion’s head, causing bright green goo to go running down one side. The paint only covered half of its eyes, but the sticky substance reduced its field of vision and provided one hell of a distraction.

“Charge,” Jumo cried. Edge didn’t need to be told twice and took off in a flash. He had Jumo on one side and Blue on the other, with Sasha riding the battle-trained triceratops bareback. Violet cast Enhance Beast, transforming the azure dino into a mobile engine of carnage.

While Riller, Violet, and Trapper pressed the attack from range, the other hunters closed the distance. Jumo and Edge were careful to stay behind Blue, since they needed Sasha to clear the area of webbing before they entered the tree line.

Everyone slowed down when she held up one hand and ignited her core. Mana went flowing out of her reactor and gathered in the hollow of her throat. Meanwhile, a ball of fire materialized in front of her face. When Sasha parted her lips and blew, the flames transformed into a searing cone that shot out a good twenty feet from her position.

She panned it across the area as Blue advanced, then deactivated Fire Breathing a few seconds later. It should have been sufficient to remove any sticky webbing from the region, and she didn’t want to catch the trees on fire.

The instant that her breath died out, Sasha hopped off Blue’s back and the crew resumed their assault, heading straight for the stricken beast with their weapons leading the way. It had begun to regain control of its body, but Trapper hit it with a second lightning round, followed by a pair of frost bolts. Riller got off another Wind Shot that shattered one of its legs before the others drew close enough that he had to reposition to where he didn’t have to worry about friendly fire.

Blue Charged as she closed the final few feet, converting her powerful body into a liquid cerulean blur. With an impact that Edge could feel in his bones, she hit the chitin-covered creature broadside. Her horns shattered the armored exoskeleton that the ranged attacks had cracked, biting into the soft flesh below in a spray of yellow ichor.

Before the scorpion could pull away, Blue Gored. Mana danced along her horns as the offensive skill sharpened their surfaces into cutting blades, then she raised her head and stepped back. The well-timed skill widened the wounds, carving a canyon into the creature’s torso. The crew’s alpha strike would lower the value of the remains, but it was far better than engaging a creature with unknown skills on even footing.

That just left Edge and Jumo. Now that the beast had a weak point, everyone aimed for the break in its armor, unleashing their most powerful skills in rapid succession.

Jumo lined up his weapon and Lunged—his new padamas-spike spear plunging deep into the beast’s side. Edge brought his polearm down in a wicked chop, Double Slashing along the way to multiply the damage he inflicted. Both heavy weapons bit deep, shearing arteries and severing nerves before pulverizing the organs below.

Edge Leapt back and prepared to press the attack, waiting for an opening to steal some skills. When he landed and took a closer look, he was shocked to see just how much damage the crew had inflicted with their surprise attack. The hunters had hit the creature so hard that it was already dying. Critically wounded before it even knew they were there.

He reached out and willed the black chains to appear, but it was already too late.

The beast spasmed and then went still. His eyes went wide with astonishment, absorbing the fact that it was dead. It was the easiest hunt that Edge had ever been on, especially considering that their quarry was late stage two. Their plan had gone off without a hitch, and the hunters’ ambush had been even more effective than they’d anticipated.

It was a bit anticlimactic, but he knew that was just the adrenaline talking. A good fight was one that you walked away from without casualties, not an epic contest of strength and skills against a creature multiple times your size.

“Shit.” Trapper walked over and turned to face him. “Sorry, Edge. I was hoping to keep it alive long enough for you to steal its skills.”

“No problem. I’m just glad that no one got hurt. There’s always the next hunt and we still got experience from the kill, the resources from its remains, and the Credits for completing the mission.”

“You know...” Jumo took a few steps closer and prodded the dead arthropod with his spear. “Now that it’s not moving, it seems smaller than I thought it would be. I would have pegged it as early stage two, not late.”

When everyone took a closer look, they decided that Jumo was right. “The reports must have been exaggerated,” Riller said. “This beast would have seemed gigantic after it killed your friends and was chasing you across the plains. You can’t blame people’s imaginations for running wild in that situation.”

While this was a reasonable conclusion to draw under the circumstances, it turned out not to be correct. There was another explanation for the discrepancy, which Trapper’s crew would come to understand eleven seconds later, when a shrill scream of rage broke over the grasslands.

Everyone grabbed their weapons and spun to face the sound… just as a second giant scorpion, far larger than the first, came charging for them with murder clear in every crook of its features. A little one followed in its wake, coordinating its movements with the dominant beast.

“Shit.” Violet cast another round of Enhance Beast on Blue. “There’s more than one. It must be a mated pair and their offspring.” That was all the time for reflection the crew had before the beasts were on top of them, marking the beginning of a brutal brawl.