'Elder Hugo?' I think to myself incredulously, as I look over to the two creatures whose fight seems to have gotten even more intense despite the amount of blood coming off of each of them.
After only looking at their brawl for a moment however, I realize something that I hadn't quite noticed before.
'Elder Hugo is losing?' I grasp, as I can see the large snake slowly gaining the upper leg (hehe) on the large crab.
'Crap!' I think to myself as I can see that while both of the creatures are indeed getting slower, Elder Hugo speed is steadily decreasing in comparison to the snake leader's.
It's not having a massive effect at the current moment, because both creatures are focusing more on power over speed, and plus the snake leader was faster than Hugo originally anyways, but that doesn't change the fact that at this rate, elder Hugo may be killed.
Sucking in a breathe of fresh water, I dash for the battle between the beasts.
*BAM!*
Yet another loud noise is transmitte through the water as the snake leader manages to land a successful hit with its tail on the backside of elder Hugo's carapace while he was distracted by its head.
Elder Hugo strains his pincers in irritation as he can feel the new stinging sensation of a much larger wound than most of the others that he's taken in this fight.
Looking back at the snake leader's tail for only a moment, he redirects his single remaining eye stalk's vision back onto the head of the large yellow snake.
"You are going to die here, you know that?" The snake suddenly opened it's mouth and spoke towards Hugo, sending the first exchange of words between the two since the fight started.
Glaring at the haughty python in front of him Hugo, opened his mouth and responded, "We're not done yet."
"Oh but soon you will be..." The snake replies back before it lunges it's head at Hugo, but instead of this time aiming for his body, he aims for one of his main pincers!
'Now is my chance!' Shelton thinks to himself from one of the darker corners of the area they were in, in order to get closer to the battle between them without them noticing.
Upon seeing an all out attack from the python, Shelton dashes in and focuses both of his pincers on one section of snake's body upon arriving at it.
It's tail!
Or rather, more specifically, the part of the tail which connects the snakes scales to the ragged spike mutation.
This part of the snake had already been greatly damaged from before from fighting with Hugo, and at this point many of the scales around that section had been peeled off and crushed into bits revealing some of the soft, spongy red flesh underneath.
Upon arriving at his enemies soft spot, Shelton quickly determines that he is unable to wrap his pincers completely around this part of the enemy's body, so we opts to stick his pincer in instead!
"SSSSSSSsss!" The snake hisses in pain, not from the blows which it again had begun to exchange with Hugo, but rather from searing pain which it had felt from it's backside.
Confusion filled the large snake's mind at first, as it could easily see it's main opponent ahead of him, not at all near it's tail.
Turning around however, it spotted another, smaller crab which appeared to be jamming it's pincers inside of the nastiest wound the snake had on it's tail, clamping down and ripping out whatever it could from the large snakes body.
'How did a little crab manage to join the fight? Rather, it has the AUDACITY to join this fight?"
*WHOOSH!*
The snake leader moved it's tail away from the annoying smaller crab only to find out in even greater annoyance that the crab actually managed to hold itself onto the tail!
Getting more and more frustrated, both by the fact that it was unable to deal with a clearly weaker crab and that the crab in front of it wasn't dead yet. The snake leader decided to shift it's attention to get rid of the easier enemy first.
Suddenly, by bringing both it's head and it's tail towards one another, the snake leader opened it's maw wide in quick succession managing to get ahold of one of the smaller crab's main pincers before yanking them away.
'Either you get pulled off my tail, or you lose an arm!' The snake leader thought to itself. However to it's surprise, the crab actually remained seated on it's backside, currently missing one of it's main arms.
The snake leader froze in surprise for a moment as it didn't actually consider that the crab would manage to stay on. It figured that as soon as it got this little crab off of it, because of the speed advantage it had over the thing, it wouldn't be able to influence this fight anymore with it's lack of the element of surprise.
However it's thought's were quickly interrupted as it felt it's body shudder in shock.
*BAM!*
The snake felt it's head whip itself back as it felt a mighty blow land upon the side of it's face, causing it's vision to black out for a second and disorienting it.
However this was all the time that elder Hugo needed.
Elder Hugo had already been angry from the battle before, both because of the ambush he suffered early on causing him to lose one of his eyes, and because of their fighting which was quickly looking more and more like a loss.
However seeing one of the younger crabs step in, in order to help Hugo, only for it to lose one of it's limbs very quickly, caused his anger to spike yet again.
*BAM!*
Elder Hugo landed another heavy hit on the snake's head, this time causing it to come crashing down into the sand.
He really didn't want to waste this opportunity which Shelton had given him.
*BAM!* Hugo quickly threw another, not as powerful blow at the snakes head, just to help daze it for a moment longer before he rushed towards the end of the grounded snake aiming for it's tail.
Shelton, upon seeing the quick approach of elder Hugo and deducing what he was thinking, also decided to aim for the opposite side of the body.
With both of them swapping places in only a few moments, they aimed their pincers at their respective target's before attacking.
*SPURT!*
Shelton, with his one remaining pincer, decided to aim for one of the softer parts of the snakes body which he had confidence in being able to put some damage into. One of the snakes eyes!
Stabbing his pincer through the left eye of the snake, it went through cleanly, causing a gush of blood to puff out from the serious head wound and finally waking the snake up from it's stupor.
"ARRRRRGHHHH!" The snake bellowed in pain, however before it could react, it felt yet another throbbing wound appear, yet this one felt much more painful than the others.
*SNIP!*
Hearing the crushing of some of it's scales yet again, the snake looked down to see the smug face of elder Hugo as one of it's prides in it's life, it's tail mutation, floating alongside the crab now detached from the snakes body.
"YOU!" The snake roared both in pain and humiliation as it quickly realized that at this rate it would die.
From it's peripherals as well, it could also see that while the snakes had definitely killed some crabs, ultimately it looked like they weren't making enough of an impact to deal with these two crabs afterwards.
Also, it noticed that the other elder crab of the group had killed yet another one of it's distractions, and was on the verge of ending the final snake who had been sent to stall him.
"RETREAT!" The snake screamed in both hurry and shame, as the outcome of this battle clearly wasn't on their side.
While they certainly had a bigger quantity, ultimately they had a lesser quality than the other side and didn't have the numbers to make up for it.
Before fleeing for itself however, the snake leader made one last quick lunge for Shelton.
*CRACK!*
Narrowly dodging the snakes large maw with his body, Shelton felt a few of his legs sear for a moment before they went numb.
With the current condition of the snake leader it was entirely possible that he would die of blood loss alone, causing elder Hugo to make one last attack opening up a fresh gash along the leader's side.
The snake immediately dashed away afterwards, showcasing it's current injured full speed to the best of it's ability quickly leaving behind the crabs.
'Dammit!' Shelton thought to himself as he saw the snake escape, but he knew ultimately that with the speed disparity, there was nothing he could do.
The remaining snakes also tried to do the same, however with most of them being injured in some way shape or form, the were quickly caught and killed by the remaining members of the Carak tribe, resulting in only half of the remaining snakes to manage to escape.
Upon seeing the last of the snakes escape and be killed, Shelton breathed out a sigh of relief, before closing his eyes for a few moments.
He felt as if he had been swimming for hours on end and desperately wanted to get some rest and relaxation.
Opening his eyes and looking down at his battered body, he quickly scoped out the extent of his injuries.
Gashes all along his carapace, one missing right pincer, 2 missing legs from the right side of his body, and a serious amount of blood loss.
Despite his condition however, Shelton quickly thanked the depths as he looked at the remains of the Carak tribe's hunting party.
While they had indeed won this fight, it wasn't without heavy losses.
Most of the weaker crabs of the group had been killed during the fight, leaving only 2 orange ranked crabs other than Shelton himself.
This combined with the three surviving yellow creatures meant that they had lost over half of their group this fight.
While Shelton grouped up with the rest of the survivors, he could feel the somber mood of them.
While death was indeed an extremely common occurrence, it still never felt good losing those you know.
However Shelton's mood quickly changed as he felt something amazing happening to him.
'Is this... my state of existence?' He thought as he felt the gushing power course through his body.
Shelton had no idea why this was happening at the current moment. He had felt his state of existence increase earlier in battle when he had fought and killed his enemy before going to help elder Hugo, but this was clearly after the battle, and not only that, but he also hadn't killed anything else.
"Did you feel that Shelton!?" Elder Hugo said excitedly next to him as the large crab seemed to be much more jolly despite losing an eye.
"You felt it as well elder?" Shelton said in doubt as the situation made no sense to him.
"That python must've died!" Elder Hugo said jubilantly as he explained the situation to Shelton.
'It died? Just like that?' Shelton thought. It's not that he thought that this wasn't a valid theory of what happened, but he found it doubtful that the dangerous predator that had fought the both of them, had managed to get away only to die of blood loss.
However upon feeling his state of existence increase yet again, Shelton figured he no longer cared.
Instead, excitement welled up inside of him as he pondered over his rewards from this battle.
He could vividly feel himself closer to the yellow rank and he only had one thought in mind as he could feel the increased power.
'Just you wait Oliver!'