Peacock Mantis Shrimp

After heading out, Xiao Hao looked around.

[Three o'clock! Catch the Peacock Mantis Shrimp! Go, go, go!]

[Can you stop clowning around? The streamer can't even see our comments.]

[I'm Keyboard King, and I'll give orders if I want. What's it to you?]

A smile crept into Xiao Hao's eyes.

Yep, absolutely.

He couldn't see them.

Thanks, Keyboard King.

Xiao Hao headed toward three o'clock, seemingly by chance.

[Ha! See? I'm calling the shots here.]

[What fucking dumb luck.]

[That's over a kilometer away. Even if he's going the right way, he won't make it that far.]

[With me, Keyboard King, guiding him, he'll definitely make it!]

[Definitely, huh? Haha. I'll just sit here and watch you show off.]

Over a distance of more than a kilometer, anyone would stray off course without landmarks.

[Hahaha, see? See? I told you he wouldn't make it!]

[Streamer, a little to the right! To the right!]

[It's no use. And he thinks he can bond with a Peacock Mantis Shrimp?]

[I need to focus harder! Streamer, I'm sending you telepathic signals! A little to the right!]

Xiao Hao didn't immediately change course.

He didn't want these viewers from another world to know he could see their comments.

[Telepathy? Could you be any more of a delusional edgelord?]

[With how childish you are, Idiot-brand baby formula would suit you perfectly.]

The anonymous viewers were still mocking him when, just as Keyboard King was about to give up, Xiao Hao spotted a boulder ahead.

He couldn't just walk straight into it, could he?

So Xiao Hao naturally adjusted his course in the right direction.

[???]

[Hahaha! I told you I could guide him! See that?]

[Haha. Nope!]

[If you're not using your eyes, consider donating them.]

It took Xiao Hao half an hour to reach the spot the comments had mentioned, and he soon found the Peacock Mantis Shrimp.

To Xiao Hao's surprise, the Peacock Mantis Shrimp looked like the ultimate evolved version of an ordinary mantis shrimp.

It was about four meters long and two meters tall, with emerald shell armor. Its tail lived up to its peacock name, shifting from emerald to black and gold, edged in sapphire blue and accented with ruby-red stripes.

Its dozen or so pairs of jointed legs looked as though they had been assembled from red diamonds. Two soft, branching, scaled antennae grew from the front of its head, while beneath its head were two enormous emerald mantis appendages.

The sight of such a powerful, impressive-looking wild monster made Xiao Hao's heart stir.

The Peacock Mantis Shrimp took a step forward. Its sharp mantis appendages resembled the Grim Reaper's enormous scythes; merely moving forward, a light thrust sliced earth and stone into fragments.

It hadn't noticed Xiao Hao. After weighing everything up, he concluded that this monster could easily kill him in one hit.

With no other choice, Xiao Hao had to fight dirty. After giving the seahorses some instructions, he hurried off to find somewhere to hide.

The moment the ring of darkness enveloped the mantis shrimp, it noticed.

Its mantis appendages instantly began swinging like the blades of a master swordsman. The plants, earth, and stone couldn't even fall apart fast enough to keep up with the afterimages of its scythe-like limbs.

Xiao Hao soon sensed the seahorses' emotions. Their danger warnings blared like red alarm lights.

Within the Darkness Domain, Shadow Transformation not only made them completely intangible and invisible, but also boosted their movement speed. Even with Aurora Shadow's speed, the danger warnings were going wild!

This mantis shrimp was absurdly powerful! The slashes around it grew increasingly dense, leaving even Xiao Hao, eight or nine meters away, trembling with fear.

A warning appeared on the game panel floating in the air: the Shadow Seahorses were about to exhaust themselves!

Against a wild monster with such utterly unreasonable combat power, Xiao Hao wasn't about to throw his life away.

After carefully studying the mantis shrimp's attack range, Xiao Hao soon realized that its scythe-like appendages had trouble reaching the ground beneath its legs.

At his silent command, the seahorses immediately moved directly beneath it. The warning on the game panel finally disappeared, and Xiao Hao wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

After swinging for a while, the mantis shrimp realized that its attacks couldn't hit the little vermin hiding in the shadows. Apart from the ground beneath its feet, everything around it had been sliced to bits.

It paused, then raised its jointed legs. Their tips were like spearheads, and it drove them viciously into the ground.

Now the seahorses had no choice but to leave their "safe zone."

Countless spear-like points frantically pierced the ground beneath it while its mantis scythes swept through the surrounding area. The alarms on Xiao Hao's panel started up again.

Shadow Transformation turned them into weightless shadows.

Its attacks were certainly fierce, but surely it wouldn't attack itself?

Xiao Hao immediately ordered the seahorses to hide on the shell armor covering its back.

A few more minutes passed, and the mantis shrimp began to pant.

It couldn't sense where those little creatures were, but after living on this terrifying seabed for years, it still realized that they might be hiding on its back!

Its scarlet, scaled antennae suddenly lengthened, lashing viciously at its own back like Kaneki's Rinkaku in Tokyo Ghoul.

With the outrageous defense of its emerald shell armor, the lashes from its Rinkaku Tentacles barely tickled it. Xiao Hao, however, watched the game panel with his heart in his throat.

The health bars of four seahorses had nearly been emptied!

The seahorses could only rely on Aurora Shadow's speed to dodge its attacks again.

The mantis shrimp sprouted even more Rinkaku-like tentacles, relentlessly whipping and stabbing everything, itself included.

This time, it truly attacked in every direction without a single blind spot. Nowhere was safe!

Leaving the ring of darkness and exposing their whereabouts would be even more suicidal.

Xiao Hao forced himself to calm down. If coming after the mantis shrimp meant certain death, the comments wouldn't have kept urging him to come.

Then what, exactly, was the way to win?

[You can do it, streamer! I believe in you!]

[There are no unbeatable monsters in the beginner village! Get it, streamer!]

[You guys don't even know how to deal with it yourselves, yet you kept yelling for him to bond with it.]

[Come on! He can't see the comments. How could we have told him to come?]

The corners of Xiao Hao's mouth twitched uncontrollably.

At a crucial moment like this, he still had to rely on himself.

Xiao Hao tried to ignore the red warnings on the game panel as his mind raced.

The mantis shrimp branched out more Rinkaku Tentacles, and the warnings on the panel came faster and faster, constantly urging Xiao Hao on.

Quick!

Think of something!

The seahorses couldn't hold on much longer!

As he watched the countless Rinkaku Tentacles blur into afterimages, cold sweat trickled down Xiao Hao's temples.

What could he do?!

Did the "shrimp" in this game really have to be so different from real shrimp?! With all those antennae, it was practically a tentacle monster! How was he supposed to beat it and bond with it?!

Just as Xiao Hao finished roaring inwardly, a faint spark of inspiration flashed through his mind.

Tentacles...

Bonding...

Xiao Hao's pupils widened. He seized that fleeting flash of inspiration!

Xiao Hao immediately closed his eyes and conveyed the complex movement patterns in his mind to the seahorses.

After bonding, players and their guardians gradually developed a degree of telepathy.

Commonly known as hearts in sync.

He had entrusted the seahorses with the way out of this predicament.

All that remained was to trust them-to trust his guardians.

The flailing mantis shrimp soon spotted a seahorse materializing and immediately sent a tentacle whipping toward it. After being struck, the seahorse turned back into a shadow.

Having a method didn't mean they could execute it skillfully.

The seahorse had made a mistake.

He couldn't leave the job of materializing to lure the tentacles to a critically injured seahorse.

Now five seahorses were critically injured. They had only three chances left.

Trying one at a time would only get them picked off individually. Xiao Hao directed the seahorses, ready to stake everything on one attempt!

Everything came down to this!

Three seahorses suddenly appeared around the mantis shrimp. Coming from different directions, they left it scrambling to react.

It controlled its Rinkaku Tentacles to stab at each of the three seahorses, but before the tentacles struck, the seahorses had already turned into dark shadows.

They had successfully disrupted its rhythm!

Xiao Hao pressed the advantage!

Before the mantis shrimp could react, the three seahorses appeared again!

The mantis shrimp had been suffering erosion for over ten minutes. Its health was running low, and it began to panic, immediately sending its Rinkaku Tentacles thrusting at them again.

Xiao Hao repeated the trick. Before long, the antennae began to slow, and the seahorses grew more familiar with the method. Even the critically injured ones occasionally materialized to distract the mantis shrimp.

With all eight seahorses working together, the mantis shrimp soon tied itself into a tangled ball.

Now even the creature itself was dumbfounded.

It had sprouted so many antennae that they had tangled together like a mess of threads, binding one another.

The mantis shrimp panicked. It tried to pull its antennae free, but no matter how hard it strained, they remained tightly entwined.

In the spirit of helping others, Xiao Hao had tied more than one dead knot for it.

The mantis shrimp gulped in seawater as though gasping for breath.

Its body trembled slightly, and its once-emerald shell armor gradually dulled.

It had been subjected to Darkness Erosion for too long.

True, its level was far higher than the seahorses', but even it couldn't withstand having its health drained for so long.

The mantis shrimp struggled to prop itself up. Then, steeling itself, it swung its emerald mantis blades and severed every one of its antennae!

The antennae broke apart section by section, and the blood that spurted out spread through the water like red ink. How much must that have hurt...

The mantis shrimp's determination to sever its antennae to survive sent a chill through Xiao Hao's heart.

Sorry.

Xiao Hao couldn't let it escape.

The mantis shrimp's attack and defense were both outrageous. Only its speed fell short of the seahorses'.

No matter which direction it struggled toward, the ring of darkness followed it like a shadow.

Finally, the mantis shrimp crashed to the ground. The last trace of luster on its body had been eroded away.

A bonding prompt appeared on the game panel. Only then did Xiao Hao realize he was drenched in sweat.

Suppressing his excitement, Xiao Hao immediately completed the bond!

With his first Battle General, he had entered an entirely new stage of the survival game. When facing the Deep-Sea Ghost, at least he would no longer be helpless prey!

Having acquired his first battle pet marked a whole new stage in the Survival Game. Facing the Deep-Sea Ghost, at least he was no longer at its mercy!