Chapter 233: Running Out Of Cover

She looked down.

A small splatter of acid was on her skin, and it was already eating into it. The pain was immediate and vicious, like someone had pressed a lit match against her arm and held it there.

’Fuck! How—’

[Wipe it now! The corrosion will—]

Before Tera could do anything, more blobs of acid sailed through the air towards her, and she darted between the stalks, moving further out of reach using the portal. When Tera stumbled out the exit, her heart sank.

Each arm dragged across its own body, scraping up handfuls of the clear, acidic secretion that coated its skin. It then flung the globs outward in wide, sweeping arcs.

It was throwing its own acid like ammunition.

’YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!’

She dove behind the nearest bamboo cluster and pressed herself flat against the stakes. Globs of acid sailed overhead, splattering against the ground and the stakes around her. Where the acid hit the stakes, the bamboo began to hiss and smoke, the surface bubbling and warping as the corrosion ate into the dense fibres.

Tera ran around, moving from one point to the other using the portals, and the only brief stop she had been able to make was to retrieve a waterskin from the storage to wash her festering wound that had started slowing her down.

The beast was still throwing.

Glob after glob of acid arced through the air, no longer aimed at her. It was saturating the area. The bamboo stakes—the ones she had spent tiring minutes setting up, sharpening, and driving into precise positions—were being destroyed.

’No...’

More acid. More stakes dissolving. The careful grid she had laid out was being dismantled by a creature that had figured out her fortifications in under a minute and decided to simply melt them.

Some stakes held. The ones furthest from the beast, the ones the acid hadn’t reached yet, were still standing. But the kill zone she had built around the pits was being eaten alive.

Then the beast moved again.

It hopped, and its arms lashed out to sweep aside a cluster of stakes like they were made of paper, and its eyes tracked across the ground.

It was avoiding the pits.

Tera’s mind raced. Whenever she thought she had a chance to use the portal against it, those nasty arms constantly reached for her, and the monster kept jumping to wherever she was to further that reach.

This barely gave her any time to do what she wanted to do.

’Think. Think, think, think—’

The beast flung another volley of acid. Tera rolled sideways and opened a portal, transporting herself to the far edge of the clearing. She appeared behind a still-intact row of stakes and pressed her back against them, breathing hard.

The bamboo behind her was already hissing. A glob had hit the top of the stake she was leaning against right when she had moved through the portal.

Those bits of acid always passed through the portals whenever she moved, and she’d had to dodge them too.

Those enormous yellow eyes swivelled in their sockets, and the arms that had been sweeping the middle of the clearing suddenly retracted and re-extended in her direction, trying to grab her while it sent more volleys of its slime.

Tera pushed herself out of the way, and with a growing dread, she realised it was learning her movement pattern.

Every time she portalled, she always made sure to appear near a cluster of stakes. Because that was where she felt safest, and the clustered bamboo still acted as a shield no matter how small it might be.

But now that the beast had noticed, it was already moving relentlessly, trying to catch her while also destroying the surrounding poles.

She was running out of cover, and her lungs, legs, and every other part of her body was burning.

It felt so infuriating, and the more Tera dodged, the madder she became.

This could have been easy. The monster was stationary a lot of the time, but those limbs and its acid were not giving her any breathing room. The portal was barely used for her to narrowly escape.

Or would she have to sacrifice herself in a specific moment just so she could use the portal on the beast instead?

’No... that would kill me.’

[(ó﹏ò?)]

Tera needed to stop appearing near the bamboo clusters for now. She was making it too easy for it.

She opened a portal and transported herself to an open patch of ground. There was no cover, but it was also no target for the acid. However, the beast’s eyes found her immediately, and five arms whipped toward her.

She portalled again. Appeared behind the beast this time.

She was running out of passes. She needed to do this quickly!

The arms on its back shot out at Tera before she could do anything.

’STAY STILL FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND ALREADY!!’

The limbs moved like whips, and Tera dodged, ducked and portalled again.

The beast let out a sound that wasn’t what one was supposed to hear from a frog, mutated or not.

It bellowed with a deep, resonating screech that made its stomach swell and engorge, and even while that was happening, those limbs still tried to attack her.

But from the sound, Tera had the strange feeling that the beast was getting frustrated with her.

That was not a good sign.

The beast hopped with an explosive bound and landed with a thunderous crash that knocked Tera off her feet.

It was closer to her now.

’No. No. No. No!’

Its arms stretched out ahead of it like grasping fingers.

Tera portalled again and again. Each time she appeared, the arms were already reaching for her, the acid already flying. She was being hunted by something that was adapting to her tactics faster than she could change them.

[Portal Passes: 7]

’NO!’

[Host—]

’Give me more passes!’

[Host?!]

’Deduct it from next week! DO IT!’

[(’’ ° ? ° )]

[YES!]

[Portal Passes: 107]

There was no sound anymore, and Tera paused, breathing heavily as she looked at the beast, confused.

Why did it stop?

Those disgusting eyes shifted away from Tera and pointed towards the tree line.

Toward the beasts in the trees.

Tera felt every drop of blood in her body go cold.

She and the frog had been engrossed in a complicated dance, and that dance had taken them closer to the direction of where the beasts were hiding.

It had sensed them now.

The monster’s legs tensed. Its body lowered into a crouch—the same crouch it had used before every major leap.

It was going to jump toward them.

And it would reach them from this distance.