"Huh?!"
"Why, you applying?" Effie teased.
"No, just asking. Do you, or do you not?"
"Well, if you must know—last I checked, I had many admirers chasing after my stunning beauty. But no, I haven't got a partner."
"That's a relief—I mean, whoever poor bastard ends up tied to you, I hope they find peace. In heaven."
"You stupid rock," she muttered, and kicked me.
But I'm a rock. What's a normal girl—no matter how strong—gonna do with a kick?
Wait. Why am I flying?
Before I knew it, I was ricocheting around the room like a stone in a tin can. Sunny didn't even glance my way. He continued sparring with Saint, her grounded style slowly being absorbed into his own movements like a language he was just starting to speak.
"I am headed out for a quick stroll!" sunny had not reacted, only gibinga shallow nod of the head effie gave a wink still trying to play around and tease me for my earlier hiccup .
I rolled out the room. It was time to hunt. What would I be hunting?
Humans, obviously.
Nightmare creatures gave decent blood moss. But Dreamers? Dreamers gave so much more. Just look at my enchantment list—half that stuff came from chewing on human blood.
Skuuter. Skuuter.
The sound of my limbs dragging across rooftops echoed softly as I ran through the dark city, using [Bloody Will] to stretch long limbs of blood from my cracked grey mass. They gripped ledges, pipes, broken balconies—anything to swing by.
I'd become a spider. A spider-rock!
After a few swings, I spotted my prey—a group of men. Most likely Gunlaug's. I tailed them, watching as they weaved through alleyways and sidestepped the lurking nightmares. Like rats.
Not that I'm much different.
They only took action when they stumbled into a brawl between two nightmare beasts: a pack of long, wendigo-like wolf-humanoids and a massive spider with an iron-hard exoskeleton.
Claws versus armor. The spider had the edge.
But the sheer number of those wolf-creatures changed the game. They swarmed it—biting, clawing, sacrificing themselves. The spider's armored body cracked, split, and tore. The cost? Dozens of the wolves. Their corpses littered the street, gnawed down, torn apart—chunks of flesh just… missing.
The largest wendigo—probably a Demon-class, leading its Monster-ranked pack—clashed with the spider. They mauled each other like wild titans. The rest of the pack rejoined, but the spider picked them off one by one, using its blade-like limbs.
Eventually, it stood victorious. Barely.
The human hunters sprang into action—cowards turned opportunists. One hurled glowing throwing knives. They exploded on impact, blowing chunks off the spider's weakened armor. The rest rushed in, slashing and stabbing.
The spider fought back. Even dying, it was a terror.
Its legs cleaved men in two. The hunters tried to keep a rhythm—strike, retreat, circle. Some failed. Some died.
The group of ten whittled down to three.
One managed to land the killing blow—or so they thought.
The spider twitched. Then lurched.
It skewered all three like kebabs before finally collapsing.
I waited.
No movement. No other threats.
Creeping closer, I began my feast. I consumed the blood of everything—the spider, the humans, the wendigos. Their corpses turned brittle and hollow. My copper-red moss pulsed, growing taller, wilder, stretching toward the sky like hungry vines.
It spread around me like a crimson bloom, then slowly began to retract—inch by inch—until it returned to me, absorbed completely.
The morning sun peeked over the broken skyline.
I turned and slunk away, back to whatever shadow I'd crawled out of.