-Vol 5: A New Life-

-The Giant Squid Vs. Isabella: Round 1-

When the giant squid completely revealed its body, Kenshin and Isabella both surprised at the sheer size of it. When its huge body completely emerged from the water, even comparing it to a small mountain won't be any problem. It's that huge. Its tentacles, although short for a squid of its size, but still long enough to cover at least 20 to 40 meters distance. Excluding the tentacles, only the body was probably 15 to twenty meters long and two meters wide.

It probably sensed Kenshin and Isabella’s presence. Hence it came out of the deep waters where it was swimming at a very high velocity. Its two red eyes like things glared at them as its tentacles moved around erratically. Taking this chance, Kenshin activated his system and scanned the squid

[DeepWater Squid]

[Lv 77]

[HP: 8450][MP:100]

[ATK: 900; DEF: 780; AGI: 645; PHY: 845; INT: 50]

[Skills]

Deepwater Dive Lv 9[passive][+100 AGI while in deep waters] Corrosive Spit Lv 9[400 ATK and 200 ATK/sec for 50 seconds] Water Heal Lv 8[+50 PHY/Sec when connected to a water body] Cannibal Lv 10(Maxed)(Passive)[gain stats and become powerful by devouring other animals of same species.]

‘This!’ Kenshin couldn’t believe his eyes. He heard sea monsters being powerful compared to land and dungeon monsters, but these stats were just purely ridiculous. It's way more than what a monster of its level should have. Its only 77 monsters, going by average calculation, it should have only 416 total stat points. But here, even its lowest, AGI had more stat than that, how can that be possible?

Kenshin instantly got his answer by seeing its last skill [Cannibal] which was maxed. From the description, he realized that this monster might have killed and eaten many of its own species to become as powerful as it was now. If by devouring its own species could grant it unlimited power, then why must it kill and level up? More importantly, did it even need to level up? Kenshin didn’t have the answers to those question, but his gut told him that this battle would be messy. Good thing they had decided to face this thing so far from the boat or else many people would have died by its hands or tentacles.

“This one looks troublesome!” Isabella muttered as she pulled out her green and red short swords from her back. Holding then in reverse grip, she took an aggressive stance with her left leg outstretched and right leg bend slightly. Inclining her body forward, she took a deep breath and looked at Kenshin “I am going ahead. Try to keep up!” and vanished from her spot. Kenshin didn’t say anything and silently observed her from his spot.

Isabella appeared just below the squid’s one of many tentacles and used it to climb up to its face. The squid noticed her and tried to shake her off with its tentacles, but she somehow remained glued to it. Scaling the ten meters of tentacles in just a few seconds, she arrived near one of its eyes and jumped off its tentacle towards it. When she was within attacking range, she held her both swords in a fan-blade like position and started to rotate high speeds. The blades turned deadly as they slashed the squid’s vulnerable eye many times in a second.

After finishing one more rotation, when her momentum ended, she kicked the badly mutilated eye and propelled herself back towards where Kenshin was standing and watching everything like a bystander. Everything happened within a second. Just a moment after she landed near Kenshin, the squid finally felt the pain and roared loudly, sending ripples across both air and water.

*ROAR!!*

[-1000]

A huge amount of damage value floated above the squid’s head as it thrashed around in pain. Kenshin could only gape in shock at this. This girl, Isabella, she was really a fearsome warrior. Without using her skills, only using her equipment and her own physical ability, she managed to shave off so much health within a second.

‘I have to reevaluate her. She is no mere level 100+ hunter. She is experienced!’ the way she fought, the way she instantly found where to strike to give it huge damage, its something no mere person can capable of. There were actually two types of hunters, one who work hard themselves and climb the strength ladder by themselves, each step at a time. Another, who use extensive help of their wealth to kill monsters stronger than them by using powerful armors or using other hunter’s help.

If they both have to fight each other, although the later hunter had an overwhelming advantage in the form of equipment, the former would always win. The hunter who climbed the steps of strength one by one would surely know how to deal with various situations. More importantly, they would learn how to skillfully use what is available to them. But that didn’t mean it could bridge the gap if the equipment was just too powerful or have some unique property like giving total invisibility against a physical strike or something.

From the looks of it, this girl, Isabella was the former type hunter. The one who climbed step by step to the top of the strength ladder. His respect for her increased so did his wary. Although he was confident of winning against her if ever they need to fight, he still didn’t want to take useless risks.

“How was that?” Isabella smugly looked ta Kenshin while pointing at the writhing squid. Kenshin nodded his head as he clapped his hand to show his appreciation to her. Then looking at her he spoke “Nice! Brilliant maneuver and attacks…but that squid seemed to have gotten angry. Can you handle it?” as he said so, he pointed his index finger at the red glowing squid.

“Huh! What do you mean by ‘can you handle it?’ what about you?” Isabella glared at Kenshin who seemed to have an unconcerned face.

“Hah! Well, I am not the one that injured its eye, you know!” after saying so, Kenshin jumped high and using his recently acquired passive skill [Air Step] he kicked the air and threw himself back, further away from Isabella.

“Hey! What are you-” before she could finish her shout, a huge meaty tentacle came out of the water and surrounded her in an instant. Before she could even think of evading, the tentacles circled around her so fast that even she couldn't keep track of it. The tentacle closed on her, bounding her within them. The squid then lifted that tentacle and threw it at a rocky island not far from it. Isabella barrel like a bullet from the muzzle and landed heavily on the small rocky island, before passing through it while forming a huge trench in the process. The island sunk slowly.

She came to a halt, not before sliding another twenty meters. Doing an acrobatic move, she did a backflip and stabilized herself. The red armor around her glowed red as it protected her from all the impacts. But still, she received some form of damage as a trail of blood flowed from her lower lips. Wiping it with her left hand, she threw an angry stare at the squid that was making its way towards her.

“Tch! Pretending to be weak is really troublesome! Ugh! If only I can recognize that man earlier!”

“Oii! Are you alright? That’s a nice throw from that squid, don’t you think so too?” Kenshin’s voice came from her left. Turning around she saw him standing calmly not too from her, holding a sheathed sword in his hand. His coat was fluttering in the wind, as he looked at her with some form of concern.

“Do I look like I am alright? Take care of that stupid squid while I recuperate.” Pushing the burden to him, she activated her shoes and ran back further away from the squid’s field of vision.

“That girl! Why is she acting so much?” Kenshin muttered to himself as he saw her vanish from his sight. He could tell, although the throw looked like it did a large amount of damage to her, in reality, all she received was a measly 100 damage. That blood from her mouth, it was probably due to her biting her tongue or something.