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Energy Eater - Chapter 50 - Aranean
🕑 Added 2024-10-19 06:33:59 +0000 UTC“WARM!”
The monster lunged at me, the hulking figure’s front legs aiming for my face. I ducked under, spinning my staff and slamming it against the creature’s head. Even if it wasn’t at the top of its body, it was still a full head above mine. There was a sickening crunch as the skull twisted to the side, now staying at a 90-degree angle. Yet, that changed nothing.
The spider creature continued, swiping at me like a bear. Its right leg jabbed forward, trying to impale me. Spinning to the side, I triggered {Burst of Strength} while dodging the attack. Using the momentum, I slammed my staff against the creature’s head again, making it spin one more time, now staying upside down.
The mandibles kept snapping as the eyes followed my movements. It was clear it could see what I was doing, but its body wasn’t able to move fast enough to keep up.
Or so I thought.
As I went for another strike, the monster jumped, vanishing completely from my view. {Predatory Sense} sent sirens ringing in my mind. I dove forward, tumbling on the floor just as the spider creature landed where I was standing a second ago. Its four free legs shattered the frozen rock beneath us.
The pale spotlight, which was still moving back and forth, hit the bulbous underside of its thorax, revealing a red mark at its center.
Doesn’t that mean it has parts of a black widow? Fucking great.
I tried to get up, but the cracks in the floor weren’t just cracks. They were spider webs. Webs that now covered the right side of my body. I tried getting up, but was stopped halfway by those white strands. They refused to budge, no matter how much I struggled.
The creature swung its lower body in my direction, webbing shooting out of its abdomen. Triggering {Compression}, I tried to shrink the web around me, hoping it would snap and free me. Instead, it slammed me back onto the ground, but at least that saved me from the web spray sent by the monster. The webs passed over my head, covering a large area of the wall behind me.
Going in the opposite direction, {Compression} this time made the webs bigger, giving me enough room to get up, even though I was still attached to the damn thing.
The creature lunged at me, spinning in the air and bending so its head was now in the right orientation, even though the rest of its body was upside down.
Jumping to the left, I narrowly escaped the attack, the hairs on its leg brushing against my arm. Still, the creature landed in the middle of the now bigger web that was still attached to me. I yanked at the strands as hard as I could. A loud crack echoed through the cave as the monster lost its balance and slammed into the ground.
Taking advantage of the situation, I grabbed my staff and slammed it into the creature’s midsection. Four of its limbs were dedicated to protecting it, so there had to be a reason for that.
But the webs were still in the way, preventing me from delivering a blow with full force. I tried breaking free, but one of the creature’s legs—or maybe its arms, I had lost track by now—shot out towards me.
I tried pulling back, but the webs had reached their limit. Instead, the pointy tip of the monstrous limb slammed against my shin guard. I heard a loud crack, and could only hope it was the wooden armor, not my bones. There was no pain in my leg, or at least, not enough to justify a use of {Body Regeneration}.
The creature did a half jump with only one side of its body, spinning so its face was once more upright. At the same time, it tried to body slam me with the full weight of its mass behind the movement.
I narrowly escaped the attack, pulling the web taut as I yanked it away from the creature, ending up between the two limbs writhing in front of its midsection. To my surprise, one of the limbs that had been holding its body together shot in my direction. There wasn’t much I could do from my position, but there was just enough time for me to shift my staff to block the incoming leg. The deflection worked, just barely enough to push my head out of the way, but now my staff had a large gash on its side. It was clear that everything we had been through was too much for the metal.
But now, a part of its midsection was exposed, allowing me to see the strange connection between its upper and lower body. It was clearly unnatural, like someone had fused two different animals together. Although “fused” wasn’t quite the right word. It looked more like they had melted into each other, a single grotesque seam connecting the two body parts.
Not wasting any time, I attacked that exposed area, thrusting the staff with the help of not just the webs pulling me closer to the creature but also {Burst of Strength}. The spider creature wasn’t expecting such a quick follow-up or, if it was, it wasn’t able to move fast enough to respond. The metal pole in my hand embedded itself into the monster’s torso, right where the two parts of its body connected.
I yanked my staff back, trying to free it from its chitinous prison. But the creature had the same plan. It pulled back, trying to get away from me. The opposing motion put too much strain on the already damaged staff, making it snap in half.
Cursing under my breath, I jumped forward again. The situation reminded me of a very similar one when I faced an Eater. As soon as I touched the metal rod still embedded in the creature’s body, {Compression} triggered, increasing the size of the weapon. A strange, wet sound followed by a pained shriek erupted from the creature, but it wasn’t enough. My broken staff managed to push the upper and lower halves of the spider’s body apart, but not enough to completely separate them.
The creature’s four limbs, which had once held its body together, now grasped at the metal rod embedded in its flesh. It was hard to tell if it was pushing or pulling, but I wasn’t about to wait and find out.
Using the remaining half of my staff, I triggered {Compression} one more time, turning it into a longer weapon. With a grunt, I swung it hard, slamming it against the rod sticking out of the creature’s body. The blow was aimed at the top of the broken metal, turning the entire thing into a lever and forcing the two halves of the creature apart. The spider was ripped in two. Strange veins split off as if they were knots being untied. Both halves of its body continued trembling and squirming helplessly as it bled out.
Not wanting to give it a chance to do any more damage, I stepped back and slammed what was left of my staff against the monster’s head, again and again, until it finally stopped moving.
I felt a large surge of SP rushing into me. Almost as much as when I killed the Hunter Eater.
“What the hell was that?” I groaned, trying to free myself from the webs. Even if the monster was dead, that didn’t mean everything it had done would vanish.
An upbeat music rang in my ears. [Congratulations, user Cassandra. You have reached level 5.]
‘Thanks. Hold on to everything. I don’t have time to check any skills or whatever I got right now. Do you have any idea what this thing was? Or why did it have two names? Cleggy and Aranean?’
[Being killed by user, also known as Cleggy, was in possession of a system. Cleggy was its designated name. Aranean is the designation for its species.]
As soon as the System told me that, I froze, my head slowly turning towards the monstrous corpse on the ground. ‘That thing is one of the species that have access to the System?’
[That is correct. System is able to confirm that information as the particles user just absorbed included a more complete database on this species. However system is unable to confirm which animal species originated the Aranean. Even if the likelihood of it being spiders is high.]
‘Can you tell me which number they are? Like, we know the 7th species got the System, so were they the 4th? The 6th?’
[System is unable to access said information. In order for System to know in which order this species gained access to the System, user would need to come into contact with the first generation of users from this species.]
‘Great. So, I’ll have to figure out where they are in that ranking myself.’
[System was able to acquire one more piece of information. This creature did not come into contact with the System naturally. It was given by another being. In addition, the creature possessed skills related to grafting. Skills that allowed it to survive more easily after said process.]
‘Grafting? Do you mean that thing where you connect different pieces of plants to make a new breed?’
[Correct.]
‘Fuck me. Are you telling me this is a lab experiment? Someone made a spider Frankenstein?’
[According to available information, Frankenstein is the name of the doctor, not the monster.]
I rolled my eyes so hard it almost gave me a headache. ‘Sys, that’s not the fucking point right now.’
[Previous statement is correct. The creature user just killed was created artificially, possessing grafting-based skills.]
‘As if Eaters weren’t bad enough,’ I sighed.
A muffled voice reached my ears. Turning back to the entrance of the cave, I saw the teenage girl still wrapped in spider webs. Her eyes were wide as she tried to shuffle away towards me, moving only her head.
“Okay, calm down. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Perfect. Then stop making noise. We don’t know what the hell else is in these tunnels. Do you think this spider laid eggs inside of you or something?”
The girl looked down, her eyes growing even wider, almost to the point of popping out of their sockets—but after a pause, she shook her head again.
“Marvelous. I know you’re scared, but shut up and wait.” I raised my hand, showing her the spider web still attached to my arm. “Even if I wanted, I can’t reach you right now. Let me get free, then I’ll help you out, okay?”
The girl stared at me for a moment before nodding, her eyes glued to the ground in front of her. Every now and then, they darted back to the dead spider, but she quickly forced herself to look away. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her. That thing was nasty. If I hadn’t fought against Eaters before, I’m not sure I would have been able to handle it so well. In comparison, this thing was almost cute.
One of the spider’s eyes, still attached to its head, popped out and rolled around until it got caught in a web. A long spiderweb like vein still connecting the two.
Okay, maybe cute wasn’t the right word.
Using the broken rod in my hand, I cut through the webs wrapped around me. It was a good thing {Compression} had increased their size enough to weaken their structure. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to break free. Once I was loose, I started working on the webs trapping the girl.
“I’m going to start from your mouth, okay? Don’t yell when you’re free. We don’t know if this was the only one.” I pointed to the corpse for emphasis.
The girl nodded and waited patiently as I carefully cut around her face and then the cocoon that had her trapped. She didn’t say anything, aside from a whispered “thank you,” and focused her gaze on the tunnel behind me, making sure nothing was going to jump out of the shadows and attack us.
When she was free, I helped her up. “Do you think you can walk?”
“Yeah. I think I can.”
“Okay. I’ll take the lead and you stay close behind me. Keep up, but don’t get ahead of me. Do you have any idea how we can get out of here?”
The girl paused, but then shook her head, her voice trembling. “I—I don’t know. Johnny was the one who knew how to navigate the tunnels. Are we going to die here?”
“If you want to die here, be my guest. I have no intention of doing that. Let’s move. Tell me if you see anything familiar.”
The girl nodded as we started heading back. I had found one of the teenagers. Two more to go. Plus Astrid. And I had to find all of them while walking around a tunnel filled with monsters and spiders that have access to a System? I was starting to think coming to this dungeon wasn’t a good idea.
