Having neared the tree, Alzeth began to discuss his plans with Mei.

"Alright, so I'll throw kerosene at the tree and Emerr will set the tree on fire. Then we run. You stay behind this rock for now and collect the fruits when they're all chasing us, okay?"

"Umm..." Mei mumbled.

"Hmm?" said Alzeth.

"Won't the fruits get burnt?"

"Oh, that!" Alzeth nodded. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

Mei was left speechless.

At this very moment, they were discussing behind a giant boulder that Alzeth lugged along. It took a while to find one big enough but there weren't many hiding spots in a desolate wasteland so it had to be done. It was a good thing that the crawlers did not identify 'giant random moving rock' as a threat to their nest else they would have long since attacked.

"Well, if you have no more questions, we'll be off then!" Alzeth waved as he took out one of the bottles that Emerr bought from the item shop, apparently kerosene.

Alzeth then walked off, Emerr following close behind.

There was a moment of silence. Mei tensed in anticipation. It was only after a long minute when she heard the sound of glass bottles shattering and the sound of the angry of the crawlers shrieking like they did when they spotted her earlier.

Despite being told not to peek, Mei couldn't resist the temptation. She poked her head over her cover and saw Alzeth chucking the kerosene bottles with surprising accuracy at extremely fast speeds. Emerr was tossing fireballs at the tree, which lit up the surrounding very well, something that Mei appreciated

The base of the tree was swiftly engulfed in flames with the help of the kerosene. Dozens of crawlers hopped off in panic. Then Alzeth threw a bottle of kerosene at them followed by more fireballs from Emerr. Realising where the fire came from, they began to charge toward the aggressors.

"RUN RUN RUN!" shouted Alzeth as he waved his lantern so hard the fuel spilt, making the whole thing go up in flames.

He then threw the lantern as far away as he could. His shouts attracted the attention of the rest of the crawlers, effectively making the agro of all of the crawlers target Alzeth and Emerr.

As Mei watched the chaos ensue, more and more of the tree became engulfed in fire. She sighed. At this rate, she was starting to think none of the fruits would survive the fire.

So as Alzeth and Emerr ran further away, somehow managing to dodge the attacks of dozens of angry spinning pillbugs all the while, the shrieks of the crawlers started to die down from afar. There was only the sound of the wood crackling in the fire. There wasn't much she could do but sit and wait. Perhaps some of the fruit would fall off?

But after a while, Mei noticed something. The tree was starting to tilt slightly! As the base of the tree was taking the brunt of the burn, it would soon be unable to support the weight of the branches above. Mei smiled in delight. Looks like she would be able to get some of the fruits if she quickly started picking once the tree fell.

It was then when a rumbling noise in the distance came out of the blue. Mei perked up nervously. It seemed to be coming right toward her direction? As the sound continued to get louder, she saw a strange silhouette in the distance growing bigger and bigger. It was nearing her!

The creature then leapt high into the air and landed with enough momentum to dig a shallow trench behind it as it ground to a halt before the tree. It was a giant crawler that was twice as big as the normal ones. But this one wasn't grey like the others. Its exoskeleton was shiny and black, with edges of gold. It had four scythes instead of just two, the pair behind the first pair looking strangely blunt.

It was then when she heard a voice.

"System announcement to all players in Greylands! An Epic tier boss, King Crawler has just spawned! Please check your map for the location of the boss. Good hunting!"

An epic tier boss? Mei gasped. Those were very rare and extremely powerful! Too bad she was still too low levelled to face it... If only her dad had gotten her the gear as soon as the new full dive supporting model was out! Well, no use crying over spilt milk. Mei decided to use Scan on it.

King Crawler

LVL: 50

EXP upon kill: 81,000

Drops: ???

Skill is too low levelled to access more info.

That wasn't unexpected. Her Scan was still at Lv1 after all. Still, it made her feel disappointed. It seems like she would need to level it up by spamming the Scan function. What a pain!

As the king crawler began to look around in confusion, Mei felt rather nervous. She would lose the chance to get the fruits if it spotted her. The crawler settled down a little, then spat globs of saliva at the tree till the fire was put out. It then began to probe around for a little until it noticed the tracks of rolling crawlers in the moss. Seemingly realised that its minions were chasing something, it began to roll as quickly as it could along the tracks too.

Mei continued to hide behind the rock till she couldn't hear the rumbling any longer just to be safe. She then heaved a sigh of relief. As for the tree, it had collapsed anyway despite the crawler's effort to save it. Well, Mei didn't care about that. The fact that it fell meant that there were tons of fruits to collect!

Full of joy, Mei ran up to the fallen tree and started to pick the fruits like a kid in a candy store. Well, if the kid set the store on fire then proceeded to loot the candy.