Stomp! Stomp!! STOMP!
Cane could hear the creature with every step. Well, if he couldn't hear it, he must be deaf. And as he saw the figure emerging from the shadows, his face paled.
"Holy sh*t."
Saying it was huge was an understatement. The previous Painless Snakefish had been tens of metres long, and towered over the arena when it lengthened out. Cane's current foe? It was as wide and long as the Painless Snakefish, and more than ten metres tall.
Cane was face to face with the single largest tortoise he'd ever seen.
In his hands dropped a pure metal staff. Giving it a test blow, it felt extremely hard and durable.
Not that it'd be of much use against this behemoth of a creature.
Tortoises have tough, bulky shells. Their hind legs and forelegs both had thick, rough skin which was almost as tough and durable as their shells. Their skulls were also insane, and a tortoise's beak is nothing to laugh at.
Simply put, when a tortoise hides inside its shell, unless you were immensely strong, you really can't do anything about it.
All of that applies, however, to normal tortoises. For one as large as this...
Cane's eyes narrowed, and he lunged forward. Even though it'd most likely be useless attack and deal no damage, Cane wanted to intimidate the tortoise into hiding within its shell.
As long as the giant found Cane to be a big enough threat, it hopefully wouldn't go on the offence and instead choose to passively defend, allowing Cane to gain an advantage of initiative over the fight.
As Cane sped toward the the gigantic tortoise, he punctured a nearby boulder and spun the staff, sending the huge rock flying toward the tortoise as well. It landed, but barely moved the creature back by a few centimetres.
Then, Cane made it there, holding the tip of the staff outstretched.
Crash!
Surprisingly, the staff was so incredibly hard and tough that it created a small crater in the side of the shell. The force generated knocked the tortoise back by a metre, and Cane found himself flying backwards from the recoil too.
The moment he landed, he looked up to see if his plan had worked. The tortoise's legs and head were now nowhere to be seen, hidden within the crevices of its shell.
YES! But now... what can I do to get through that armour?
Cane sat down and stared at the mountain of a monster, pondering his dilemma.
I have a desperate need for penetration...
...
"Well. Now we're in an awkward situation, as Cane faces off against a Jawbreaker."
The event host/commentator cleared his throat sheepishly. "Although we do attempt to entertain the audience while these contestants go through the Monster Gauntlet, at the end of the day, it's not about the entertainment, is it?"
"No! It's about testing each individual's capabilities and readying them for their fights in the Empty Districts, cleaning the streets and defending our City!!" The Chief butted in. "It's not our duty to entertain the citizens, it's our duty to protect! To protect our City, for one night, one day, one year, one lifetime if we must!!!"
"Cough, well yes. So, dear audience, it'd be lovely if you all continue to watch, no matter how boring it may be. This is what our soldiers go through every time they enter the Empty Districts in order to keep you all safe." The event host finished, quite satisfied with the speech which the Chief Cleanser had given.
What a lovely speech. Hopefully, more people will be convinced to join as Cleansers, or at least help out in other ways after hearing it.
Ugh. But now we have to sit and watch as this kid tries a bunch of different methods to attack, and fail each time of course.
I need a raise.
...
Cane got up, heading toward the turtled-up tortoise. As he got close, the audience all hushed up. Of course, Cane had no idea. He couldn't even see the audience, after all.
He reached the front of the tortoise, where the head had hidden behind the forelegs, which hid in the large main hole at the front. Cane first designated the tortoise as a target under Hidden Strength, which let him reach full rank Warrior once again. Of course, the tortoise's level of defence was at least double of a normal rank 3, so the strength wasn't for head-on attacks.
Cane then, as hard as he could, lodged the powerful staff into a crevice in the shell, a narrow ravine between the bottom of the shell and the tortoise's foreleg. He put his knee below the staff, as close as he could get to the crevice.
"There's a certain way that eagles hunt turtles and tortoises with. Their beaks are naturally not sharp enough to penetrate the shell, so they carry their prey into the sky and let gravity do the work. By dropping the turtle." Cane smiled. "Since you're so much larger and heavier, I don't think I need to drop you from a tall height."
With that, Cane began to press down on the other end of the staff with full force. Indeed, Cane had created a lever - the axis was his knee, and with the staff lodged so firmly into the gap of the tortoise's shell, as long as Cane pressed on the other end with enough strength, he could theoretically flip the behemoth over.
And during that process... who knew whether the creature could get hurt from the fall? The thing was massive and insanely heavy, after all.
"Hnngh! Arghh!" Cane grunted with the exertion of all his muscles, working together to push down on the other end of the staff. His knee began to feel an immense pressure, which he ignored despite the pain. As long as it didn't suffer any damage, his knee would still be okay.
Cane's strength - 82 times stronger than the average man - pushed down on the staff with such sheer power that it began to bend. However, slowly, miraculously, the tortoise began to be lifted off of the ground.
His plan was working...
"RRRAAAAGHH!" Cane roared in pain, sending the tortoise hurtling and creating several cracks in its shell once the creature landed down. Unfortunately, none of the cracks were deep or wide enough to expose the tortoise's soft inner body. Luckily, it was on its back now, a heavy disadvantage for any tortoise - let alone one as large as the Jawbreaker.
Following that, Cane barreled toward the closest crack with the staff still in his hands. He shoved it into the crack, put it against his other knee, and began the process all over again.
After another few minutes of exhausting work, he flipped the tortoise the right way up once more. It attempted to catch its fall using its legs, but to no avail. The reason why the Jawbreaker had moved so slowly to begin with was because its legs weren't powerful enough for its body.
With a sickening crunch, the bones inside of the Jawbreaker's legs shattered.
MOOO!!
A bellow of pain, and the legs quickly retracted. The Jawbreaker who'd previously thought its armour powerful enough to live comfortably was now in a world of pain. And Cane wasn't letting it take any breaks yet.
Cane once more dashed toward the nearest crack he could reach, penetrated the crack with his staff and prepared to flip again.
...
"What a stunning performance! Say, I've never seen any contestant do this before! Who could've thought to break the Jawbreaker's armour using gravity?" The event host began to commentate loudly once more.
Despite his earlier worries that Cane would put on a boring performance, he was pleasantly surprised. Watching the kid go back and forth, creating a lever, straining his muscles to lift the Jawbreaker and crush it with gravity was oddly satisfying.
The old Chief was, of course, even more convinced as he watched Cane's performance.
This is an entirely new style developed by Cane himself, which the world has never seen before. With this penetration technique, I do believe we won't need to worry about turtles or tortoises ever again.
I was right in choosing you, Cane. The only thing left now is...
The 10th round.
...
CRAASH!
CRAACK!
The shell of the Jawbreaker had finally hit the last straw, and it almost exploded under the crazy amount of gravitational force running through it. Below, a soft, pale-brown body could be seen, and it was already bleeding from being impaled by fragments of shell and the rocky, uneven ground.
Cane smiled in a sense of relief at the sight of the tortoise's unguarded body. Cane's own body was tired - dead tired - his muscles ached from the constant use, his legs and knees felt numb because of the continuous pressure and weight they'd born under Cane's lever strategy.
He stumbled his way toward the giant tortoise, feeling his Warrior rank strength halve as the creature gazed upon him in fear. He moved even slower as the power left his body.
But finally, he made his way toward the creature, who was still outstretched and on its back. Cane didn't even bother to use the staff, since it was about as sharp as a marble. Instead, he began to bite into the soft body, and after creating that small wound at the tortoise's neck, he shoved his hands into it.
"RRAAAGHH!"
With one final roar of effort, Cane ripped the wound open into such a large tear it almost decapitated the behemoth.
The Jawbreaker was well and truly dead.
Well, truth be told, Cane didn't even know the name of the tortoise he'd just killed. After all, every turtle and tortoise species would evolve into larger forms, so the description of "huge tortoise" didn't really narrow things down anywhere.
Cane sat down, resting his back against the tortoise and eating as much of the soft flesh as he could. He needed all the help he could get for the final round.
The 10th round.