The insect screeches in anger for the loss of such an important limb. It tries but fails to reach him as he scutters about nimbly around its tail and torso to avoid its malicious pincers.
The insect flails about before it begins to violently trash about on soil in vengence. Tedior was not expecting the retaliation hence, unable to escape in time so more of his abdominal prolegs are sadly squished from the grounding impact.
He hastily detaches himself from it's back, rolling to a complete stop not too far away from that heaving, raging insect.
They have a momentary bout of showdown. Determined (and starved looking) ocelli eyes glaring up against a pair of burning hatred compound eyes.
Everything is in a standstill.
A cinematic gust of wind blows and a tumbleweed comes tumbling by. It is followed closely by a dung beetle. Or in this case, a tumbleetle.
The tumbleweed and tumbleetle pair cross casually between the standstill opponents. It seems to start fumbling as it finally notices the rude position its in, before quickly and apologetically lifting up its jointed leg and bowing slightly.
"Sorry sorry." It squeaks out, scrambling off hastily towards the tall grass.
Tedior takes the opportunity of the insect's momentary confusion to tuck and roll straight into the dense folliages. He would not be making the same silly mistake by facing the measly insect straight on. This time, he will attack it from a different angle.
He scurries about the stick insect, looking for an opening for the golden opportunity to strike. There was a momentary confusion from the stick insect as it glances about to look for him. But no matter, it readies its pincers, eyes peeled on its surroundings waiting patiently for him to pounce on it. He scoffs at its overconfidence, its arrogance will be its downfall.
By then he has already reaches the top of that nearby stone, his body contricting to build up more tension. Enough traction build, he readies his mandible once again and releases; Pushing mightily against the stone and travelling like a bullet straight at the insect.
The stick insect could not react in time and,
Slash, Munch!
He lands smoothly next to the stick insect and momentary after, its head topples off its body and lands on the ground with a soft thump. The leftover corpse of the insect does a short burst of post mortem movements before falling onto the ground, still twitching and wriggling about.
Nevertheless, the stick insect is finally defeated.
He immediately turns his gleaming, hungry eyes at the corpse. Without further ado, he hastily holds onto the head with his tharacic legs, instinctively sticking onto his meal and helps himself to it. As he takes his first bite, a burst of flavor embraces his taste buds. It is on a whole new level. Way tastier than that initial chicken bite. He savors the flesh in his mouth trying to pinpoint the flavor.
"Hmm, tastes very similar to chicken stew." He comments as he eagerly slurps the scrumptious brain matter. Peculiarly, it carries a hint of celery, tomatoes and onion. He briefly wonders if the insect marinates itself or if he is transported into a insect food show instead. Then again, it is his first kill. He needs more to confirm. His mouth starts to water at the prospect of a more delicious meal.
He takes his time savoring the head, good food have to be eaten slowly. Saving an eye for snack later. The other eye he has, which is almost the size of a tennis ball, was wondererful. That first bite, a burst of even more concentrated flavor. It is thick, goey and savory! Almost like a saucy chicken stew gravy.
"Yuuummm." He hums in bliss as he gently puts the single eye on a stray leave that he cuts to size. He then zealously helps himself to the main body.
To his immense dissapointment, it only taste like plain normal chicken. The vast difference between the head and the main body is infuriating.
"How can they both taste so different? Its the same insect." He complains in annoyance. It would be a shame to waste food so he continues eating it.
"I wonder if I cook it, will it taste any difference?" He muses curiously to himself as he munches on, finally moving onto the inards. He noisily slurps on the internal organs like they are noodles. It has quite the tender juiciness to it yet the subtlety of chewiness is intriguing. The only thing lacking to this is the extra flavoring and salt.
The last part of the body is the tail and unfortunately for him, it once again taste like plain old, extremely chewy chicken.
Omnomnom.
*sigh*
"So plain. Very chewy. Much boring... wait! The telson that I chewed off!" He realises as he nonchalantly yeets whats left of the tail and eagerly searches for the telson.
Blissful tears figuratively flows from his ocelli eyes. It taste almost as good as the head, of course except for its only flaw, that is the lack of salt: slow cooked braised chicken with aromatic scent of clove, staranise, bay leaves, oregan- ack!
"@#$%! My jaw" he cried as he vindictively spits out the offending item. It voiced a dull thud as it hits the ground in which turns out to be something really small and emitting a soft white glow to it.
Eyes squinting curiously at it, he gingerly places the remaining delicacies together on the carefully cut leave plate, giving them both an affectionate pats before promptly approaches the item. It looks to be a small white glowing ball.
As he picks it up to scrutinise it, a chime was sounded and these words appear in front of him.
Obtained an insect core
1 of 100 000 000 insect core collected
... what?