Galaxy's First Ruler

The ethereal mountain crashed down and resulted in a completely realistic outcome. And the only thing that it left behind was an impression of a pit of 1-meter depth and around 5 meters in diameter. Neither the mountain nor Aldrich were in the Crawler's sight after the dust had settled.

Aldrich had made a last moment escape from being turned into a bloody pulp. One could see two empty vials in his hands. He eyed the monster and could see a red aura had enveloped the Bigfoot from head to toe. The monster's right foot was ankle-deep in the ground. The Crawler pulled out its leg with a jerk and looked towards him. Again, a sudden nauseated feeling overcame Aldrich.

"This…? I should have checked out those Skills too. This must be the Passive Skill 'Target Lock'."

Aldrich couldn't wonder about the Skill's effects for long. He saw the faded red aura had been gaining its color back, and the Bigfoot had crouched down a little. A red line streaked towards him and in the next moment, he saw the big ape-like hand of the Crawler. He immediately got to know how the monster had sent him flying. But this time Aldrich was prepared and had replenished his Health and Stamina. The moment that hand was about to touch his head, he ducked. And with all his strength, punched its right knee.

The punch worked as a pivot for Bigfoot and it went rolling in the distance, smashing everything that came in front of it. But Aldrich had a big frown on his face. He had hoped to take out that knee, but the only thing he had done was to make the monkey roll around. The monster stood up, shaking its head and roaring in anger. Aldrich saw the monster baring its teeth towards him and beating its chest from time to time. With every beat, the red aura became even redder.

"Shit!"

The Bigfoot charged towards him with even more speed. Aldrich couldn't even distinguish the different parts of its body. He suddenly jumped and two enormous fists took his place. Missing their target, the fists smashed down in the ground. In mid-air, Aldrich put a hand over the Crawler's head and crossed over him. The moment he landed back, he ran toward his bag, which he had thrown just before when the first attack had sent him flying.

As soon as he picked it up, he saw the monster lifting its right leg. Aldrich's eyes narrowed, and the earth cracked the moment it smashed the foot down. A gigantic shadow had covered him, but there was no trace of panic on his face. The reddish-black ethereal mountain again stamped itself on the ground and left a big globule of dust and broken trees. The monster rushed towards the impact area to celebrate the sight of the gore of its prey. But it didn't smell the bloodiness in the air it had been hoping for.

Left, right, up, and down, the monster thrashed branches, trees, and even left deep holes in the earth but it couldn't find the puny prey. From nowhere, a rock came flying towards it, but what could have a rock done to it. But it was gravely mistaken about the rock. The rock had a glossed blue surface and a red button over it seemed to be pressed deep. The moment it tried to flick away the rock using the back of its hand, the rock exploded.

'Aaaghhhhh!!!'

A low whimpering sound came out of the monster's mouth, and the monster had seemed to lose a few fingers. Aldrich had been waiting for this chance. The moment the overwhelming pain distracted it, Aldrich dropped on the monster from the top of a distant tree. Before the Crawler realized what had happened, Aldrich had already put the backpack's strap around its neck. The monster grabbed the bag, thinking of the head of its prey, and tried to crush it in one clinch. But the head seemed too hard, so it tried to pull off the 'head' along with the wrapped 'arm' around its neck. Aldrich threw another 'rock' aiming at the backpack.

"Gotta catch 'em all."

BOOOOOOM!!!

The sound of a tremendous explosion scared the breath out of every Crawler in the radius of 1 km. As nature regained its silence and only low painful groans could have remained at the epicenter of the explosion. Aldrich observed what was left of the monster. The Bigfoot had lost its lower jaw, and also the left hand by which it had grabbed the backpack. And a deep wound could be seen reaching to its chest from the left shoulder.

With a thump, Bigfoot's knees struck the ground, which almost looked like it had kneeled in defeat. But even then, it was a full head taller than Aldrich. Both the Dreamer and the Crawler looked into each other's eyes. And Aldrich could feel the deep malice hidden behind the single red eye. He took out a grenade and slowly approached the dying monster. With a smooth thrust, he pressed the grenade into the monster's wounded chest and moved back.

POOF!!!

The grenade exploded within the Crawler and sent the mangled head and pieces of flesh all around.

[…

You have killed 1 Common Bigfoot

ExPs obtained: 900

You have leveled up

You have obtained 6 Attribute Points

You have obtained 1 Skill Point

…]

Aldrich could see many things appearing in the place of the crumbling monster. The first thing he had noticed, which was also the most eye-catching among others, was a jet black spheroidal object. Black shiny rays were shining out of the black ball, hovering in the mid-air. It felt like a weird combination of ugliness and beauty. He had also recognized the other things. One was a slightly bigger blue Mana core, and the other was a shiny green fist-size crystal.

He put away the Mana core and touched the dark shiny ball.

[…

Skill: Target Lock

Nature: Active, Not-upgradable

Cooldown: 00:03:00 hrs

Minimum Usage Condition: Perception 20, Correspondence 15

Consumption: 100 MP

Rank: Common

Description: Dreamer can 'Mark' a target within the range of Perception or any visible object. Dreamer would gain a 30% increment in Agility while dashing in the 'Marked' target's direction

Warning: The use of Skill would be noticed if the gap between Dreamer and the 'Marked' target is less than 5 levels or if the target's Rank is higher than that of Dreamer's

Warning: The skill would automatically get canceled once the 'Marked' target goes out of the range of Perception or out of the visible range

Warning: Only one target can be 'Marked' at a time

Do you want to equip the Skill?

…]

This was the first time Aldrich had seen a Skill dropping out from a Crawler.

"Hmm, the system changed the nature of the Skill. It's also not upgradable, unlike my Class-specific Skill. But the cooldown time of 3 minutes sounds tempting," he gave it a very good thought. But the most irresistible was the increment in Agility. It wasn't just an ordinary buff, but a percentage increment.

"Yes."

[…

Target Lock Skill has been equipped

…]

The hovering dark shiny ball crumbled into dust particles in an instant. And then he picked up the remaining green shiny crystal.

[…

You have obtained the Return-Stone

Quest 1 has been completed

Rewards:

1. Crush the Return-Stone to go out of the Dungeon

2. Map of the location of Elite Crawler

…]

A 3-D map materialized in front of Aldrich. And there were two dots, one blue and the other red, on it. The way the blue dot had been blinking and from its proximity to the river, he guessed the red dot must have belonged to the Crawler. The general direction seemed to be the same as the hill and along the river. He went back to pick up his hidden food supplies and the Mana core that had been left by the last Agropelter.

Aldrich took care of another pack of Axehandle Hounds on his way to the destination. And in a couple of hours reached a steep gorge where the river had been falling to almost 600-700 meters. He had done little climbing, but after the boost in Strength and Agility, it mattered little. He made his way down to the valley, keeping his distance from the waterfall. As soon as he caught his breath after climbing down, he saw a Grotto at the undercut just behind the plunge pool of the waterfall. But other than the beauty of the scenery, two other things had caught his attention.

The area around the waterfall was littered with Mana cores, both huge and small. By their structure, Aldrich got to know that most of them belonged to Bigfoot, the Crawler that had almost killed him. And the other thing was the deep red and orange flashes at the entrance of the Grotto. From time to time, he could hear low but deep growls accompanying sparks of fire. He used his Divine Sense to see the Elite Crawler.

And what he saw had almost made him take out the Return-Stone.