As the tail slowly swung back and forth, occasionally jabbing forward slightly, Li had slowly been able to make out the outline of the rest of the creature’s body in the sand. Noticing it would have been near impossible without the tail to give it away, nothing but a slight rise in the sand above each limb. Apparently, Li had been a little too large to count as prey himself. The thing had ignored him after he slowly took a few shuffling steps backward, it’s fat tail slowly sinking back into the sand.

With some experimentation he had discovered that the creature’s territory covered most of the middle of the hallway, but the very edges of the hallway were safe to pass through. Unfortunately, the sides were also where traps were most abundant. Apparently, the thing had elected for a smaller territory simply to avoid dealing with the insane number of spike traps dotting the side. Briefly he had debated just fighting the scorpion, but it would have been near impossible in his estimation. The quicksand just made dodging too difficult. He might be able to kill the thing, but he highly doubted his ability to do so without being stung at least once.

That would pretty much have ensured his death. The thing was huge and the sheer amount of poison it could put out would probably have killed him. Plus, fat tailed scorpions generally had significantly more potent venom than most other genuses. At least that had been the case on earth. It just hadn’t been worth the risk.

So, he had elected to deal with the traps instead, slowly mapping out safe passage between them. More than once he had had to shuffle sideways along a slim path of safety, but nothing had been too bad. Until he made it to the last five feet of hallway. It was a solid line of traps all the way to the edge of the scorpion’s territory.

In the next few minutes, he had come up with a few different plans to deal with this new set back. He could have tried to jump over the traps. Using his Reinforcement Armor, he could probably have managed it. It would have cost a large portion of his mana pool, and he even now didn’t know for sure that the traps were pressure activated. At the time he had worried that it might have been controlled by some kind of detection spell. Something like his own Motion Sense that would set off the trap when it detected movement above itself. His second and third options both involved entering the scorpion’s territory.

He could have elected to fight it, but he quickly eliminated that option for the same reasons as he had earlier. He had therefore selected the third option, trying to ease through the edge of the scorpion’s territory. He had theorized that the spike traps couldn’t extend too far into the scorpion’s territory based on his earlier observations, and had hoped to get in and out of the territory quickly.

That, unfortunately, hadn’t been the case. The spikes had extended significantly further into the territory then he had expected. The unbroken wall of traps had continued for maybe another ten feet past the edge of the territory and had brought him far too close to the grouchy monster for either of them to be happy. His approach had been very slow, meant to reassure the creature that he wasn’t going to attack, and that had seemed to help.

The creature had seemed hesitant to attack as long as Li didn’t do anything overtly threatening, content to slowly wave its tail in some kind of mesmerizing dance. Li had actually been rather thankful for that, it meant he could track the tail with his motion sense while keeping his eyes on the scorpion’s body. Thanks to that he had noticed the moment the thing had finally decided it had had enough and started to turn to more fully face Li.

The creature that rose from the sand really had looked just like an ordinary scorpion, scaled up a few hundred times. It had thick carapace that started a rich walnut color toward its head and darkened along its body until it became the inky black of the tail. All of it had glinted threatening in the sun light. Long, thin claws covered in bumps had snipped threateningly at him, the inside of each claw covered in grooves meant to give the creature a solid grip. Its mouth had been an absolute horror show. A pair of smaller claws that grasped and clacked at him, eager to rip and tear apart flesh before dragging it into the thing’s gullet.

The monster’s two large central eyes had locked on him, while 4 pairs of smaller eyes located on what Li roughly equated to the cheek of the creature gave the monster a wide field of vision. Underneath the things belly, large panels of carapace opened and closed hidden vents in its armor as it breathed. The eight long legs gave the thing incredible balance, the carapace making them seem far too solid to break even if they were spindly when compared with the rest of the creatures rather squat form.

As the thing slowly began raising itself on its eight legs, Li had begun to quickly shuffle along the edge of the traps. The time for slow, careful movements had passed and he needed to hurry to get out of the scorpion’s territory. Thinking quickly, he had also thrown up a force wall between himself and the creature. And not a moment too soon, as shortly after the scorpion had attempted to sting him only to be very confused when its tail hit the near invisible wall interposed halfway between itself and its target.

Still, that single blocked strike had been enough to leave Li stunned for a moment by the sheer amount of Mana that had been ripped from his body. He had experimented with the wall earlier and had found it to be surprisingly cheap. At that moment he had discovered why. The cost to build the construct and the cost to enforce it when it was struck were apparently separated. Additionally, the reinforcement was not cheap. If he had had to guess, he would have bet that stopping that single hit had cost him a tenth of his mana.

Thankfully, the monster had not immediately begun smashing the wall at full strength. Instead, it had scuttled closer and started giving probing pushes with its claws. That had turned out to be significantly less expensive to block, as the cost to reinforce was apparently directly proportional to the strength of the strike. Which had probably meant this thing had a terrifying amount of striking power in its tail.

As the scorpion had been exploring this new addition to its territory, Li had managed to find the end of the row of traps. He had proceeded to rapidly shuffle backwards, keeping his eye on the scorpion even as he hit the end of the hallway and pulled himself out of the quicksand. By then the giant arachnid had become clearly frustrated, as it had pulled its tail back and prepared to strike again. A strike which would hit nothing but air, as at that point Li had dropped the wall and beat a hasty retreat further along the path.