After a brief pause, the apes quickly regrouped and launched a second wave of attacks. They had no retreat, only a fight to the death! Nearly a thousand apes surged towards Elliot like a tidal wave. No fear, no strategy, just obeying their primal urge to attack, wave after wave.
"350 HP, 180 Attack." Using Appraisal, Elliot saw the average stats of these apes. With such low attack power, they couldn't possibly beat him, no matter how many there were.
Only monsters on the level of Earth Dragon Araba or the Spider Queen could truly threaten him. If numbers alone guaranteed victory, the Elroe Labyrinth would have been ruled by these apes long ago. But in reality, individual strength was what truly mattered.
They were too weak. Forget a thousand; even ten thousand of them would barely tickle monsters like Araba or the Queen.
So, this battle was completely one-sided. No suspense whatsoever.
With a roar, Elliot leaped directly into the midst of the monkey horde. He jumped straight down from the hundred-meter-high platform, landing solidly amidst them.
Seeing Elliot land among them, the Giant-Mouthed Apes below were startled for a moment, then immediately attacked. That was their style: fierce beasts, few words.
Countless attacks rained down on Elliot, but they impacted his rocky hide like pebbles hitting steel, leaving no mark.
Elliot looked down calmly at a particularly large Crocodile-Mouthed Ape nearby and casually slapped it.
-1004!
Not even a critical hit! The Crocodile-Mouthed Ape's health bar vanished instantly. Dead on the spot.
Elliot struck again and again. Within just a few breaths, dozens of apes had died. But their numbers were huge; killing them all with basic attacks would take too long.
So, he activated a skill.
[True Man's Slash]
This skill drastically lowered his defense but doubled his attack power, simultaneously hitting every enemy within his wide range.
While not as insane as the [Wrath] skill, the boost brought Elliot's attack power to a staggering 2174!
Even against someone like Earth Dragon Araba, he could now deal real damage, not just scratch the surface.
Combined with his [Sovereign] trait, any ape caught in the attack radius would be killed instantly.
In the original story, Kumoko eventually defeated all these apes by herself, which showed that this species wasn't actually that strong individually; they purely relied on numbers.
The downside of this strategy was obvious: each individual ape was weak. So weak, in fact, they couldn't survive even a single slash from Elliot now.
Before the apes could even reach him, waves of sharp energy swept outwards. The front lines of apes were instantly shredded, turned into meat paste. The apes behind them continued charging forward recklessly, one after another, throwing their lives away.
For the full 30 seconds of [True Man's Slash], every swing killed large numbers of apes, converting them into EXP for him.
"Experience threshold reached. Individual - Rex Lapis Dragon Emperor has Leveled Up..."
The system's level-up notifications kept chiming in his ears. The vast number of apes became fuel for his ascent!
After thirty seconds, 99% of the apes were dead. He had successfully reached Level 9, gaining a significant power boost. Killing over nine hundred apes only got him to Level 9... it showed just how enormous his EXP requirements were now.
Only a few Giant-Mouthed Apes remained alive on the battlefield. Elliot had intentionally left them alive as EXP fodder for Kumoko to level up. Kumoko was in terrible shape right now and desperately needed the full heal from the n%I=W skill.
…
"These last few low-health apes are for you to finish off."
After beating the remaining apes to near death, Elliot dragged them over and dropped them beside Kumoko. She was extremely weak; if she didn't level up soon, she might actually die.
"Earth Dragon..." Seeing Elliot standing amidst the carnage, having wiped out all the apes, Kumoko didn't feel scared. Instead, she felt a sense of security.
Did... did the Earth Dragon get angry because of me? she wondered. Sniffle... I can't believe it. After coming to this other world, someone finally cares about me.
I'm so moved.
Earth Dragon, you're my best friend forever...
Tears of genuine emotion welled up in Kumoko's eyes. Her past life had been so miserable, utterly friendless.
Reborn as a spider, she thought she was doomed to be a lone wolf again, unnoticed and uncared for.
But now, someone actually worried about whether she lived or died. She might act tough, but deep down, she was still just a sixteen-year-old girl, and she was scared of dying!
Waaaaah— Kumoko started crying for real.
"...You have exactly three HP left," Elliot stated flatly, interrupting her emotional moment. Running out of health wasn't a joke. Kumoko didn't have the [Sloth] skill yet to prevent death at zero HP.
"Oh..."
"Nom nom~"
She quickly composed herself and started tearing into the near-dead Giant-Mouthed Apes. Soon, she gained enough EXP and finally leveled up.
Not only did the missing half of her body regenerate instantly, but she also gained several new skills like [Pain Resistance] and [Physical Strength Enhancement].
Reincarnators having the n%I=W skill made the early game much smoother. Normally, there were few ways to heal early on besides slow natural regeneration (like one HP every ten seconds).
If you got low on health, you just had to hide and wait. But reincarnators could keep fighting, using the level-up heals to sustain themselves in battle.
"Earth Dragon... If it weren't for you, I would have died back there," Kumoko said, still shaken from the near-death experience. Anyone would be scared of dying. Having walked right up to death's door left her deeply frightened.
Seeing the little spider back to normal, Elliot nodded. "Good. Now that I've evolved too, let's head to the next Stratum. Maybe there'll be some tastier monsters down there."
"Hisss—" Hearing that, Kumoko practically drooled. These past few days, she'd eaten all sorts of disgusting things Elliotcockroaches, corpse eels, skunks... While she wasn't picky, she really craved some decent food.
"Yay! Let's go to the next Stratum right away!" Kumoko's eyes shone with anticipation.
…
Elroe Labyrinth - Middle Stratum:-
After searching for a long time and killing numerous monsters blocking their path, the two finally reached the next level down.
The Middle Stratum was vast, but the environment was even harsher than the Upper Stratum. The center was dominated by a massive sea of lava, covering about 80% of the area, leaving only narrow paths of solid ground. The heat was intense.
As soon as Kumoko arrived, she noticed her already pitiful HP starting to constantly tick down.
The extreme heat here was actually causing her continuous damage! Luckily, the damage wasn't too high; her natural regeneration could counteract it for a while.
Elliot, on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected. It wasn't that the heat didn't damage him, but the damage was so low compared to his massive HP pool and high regeneration rate that it was negligible. His base health regen easily offset the fixed environmental damage.
As for Kumoko, she would eventually awaken the [Heat Resistance] skill, which would negate this damage. And if her health got dangerously low before then, Elliot could always just shield her.
Soon, they encountered their first monster in the Middle Stratum. Appraisal identified it as a creature called a Fire Lizard.
[Fire Lizard] (Evolution 2)
Level: 12
HP: 1300/1300
Info: A lizard living in lava. Spits liquid that is both magma and poison.
Elliot's Appraisal skill was already maxed at Level 10, allowing him to instantly see detailed information. This Fire Lizard had already evolved twice and had a respectable 1300 HP. And this was just a normal monster, not an Elite.
"Monsters in the Middle Stratum already have this much health?" Elliot mused aloud, then immediately activated [True Man's Slash] and [Tendo Bansho].
….
:- Well we all know jjk fandom and there 4 idiots. Yes, I'm talking about yuji, Megumi, Nobara and Gojo. Well Megumi is the serious type, but isn't there a saying that if you flock or stay with idiots you will be considered an Idiot too.
Well I have written just the match, "Four Idiots Against The Waves" it is (jjk x Shield hero) Those Four Idiots are summoned in shield hero world and Megumi as Shield Hero. I wont spoil much but if you wanna give it a try you can check it on my discord or on my ff.net acc: UchihaMadara0186
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