Jackal was dancing around it, slashing it all over.
Not with precision, at least not the kind that killed. His blade moved like a ribbon of inevitability, cutting shallow, wide arcs through the spider's limbs. He didn't aim for the heart. He didn't need to.
The spider screeched, its body glowing and twitching like it was about to burst. That's when I saw it.
Purple ooze. Not dripping, but radiating. It wasn't blood. It wasn't venom.
It was fear.
And Jackal was drinking it in.
The longer the fight lasted, the stronger his movements became. Faster. Sharper. His form didn't change, but his presence did. Denser. Heavier.
He was feeding.
Not on the creature, but on its terror.
Is this how he sustained himself? No food, no water, no sleep—because he didn't need them. Fear was his sustenance. And here in the wild unknown, there would be plenty.
He spun once more, slicing the spider's leg at the joint. The beast staggered.
Jackal had it handled, or more accurately, he was enjoying himself.
The spider reared up again, its mandibles twitching erratically. Jackal stepped into its arc, letting the fangs whistle past his head. His blade arced up, not deep enough to kill, just enough to make it scream again.
Another pulse of that strange purple mist.
More fear. And more strength for him.
He spun away as the spider lunged, dragging his blade across its flank mid-turn. His footwork was loose and wild, but always just outside danger. Like a man dancing drunk on a rooftop and never slipping.
Then, something changed.
The spider let out a low, guttural screech. Its body began to twitch violently. Limbs locked. Abdomen pulsing like a heartbeat out of sync.
Jackal paused.
A cocoon formed. White threads spilled from its mouth and spinnerets, wrapping around its own body like it was trying to smother itself. The air turned thick. Foul. Something in the mana shifted.
Then, silence.
For a breath.
And then it burst.
The cocoon split down the middle with a wet snap, and the thing that came out wasn't the same spider.
It was bigger now. Twice the size. Its legs were thicker, claws at the tips. Its fangs glistened like obsidian, and its body shimmered with a faint armor-like sheen. The purple mist returned—stronger, denser.
Jackal's grin twitched.
"Oh," he muttered, cracking his neck. "Now we're talking."
The spider didn't wait.
It lunged.
Jackal ducked under the first strike, pivoted his hips, and used the momentum to drive his shoulder into the spider's side. It stumbled, but not far. A claw whipped out, fast.
He caught it with his forearm.
The sound was like steel scraping steel. His skin didn't tear. He pushed the limb aside and stepped in.
One elbow.
Then another. Short, brutal strikes to the creature's face, right between its twitching eyes.
It shrieked.
He didn't stop.
He dropped low and swept its leg out from under it in a clean circular motion. As the spider hit the dirt, Jackal leapt onto its back, blade reversed in his grip.
He drove it down, not into the head, but behind it—into a cluster of nerve-like tissue glowing faintly beneath the surface.
The spider thrashed, nearly tossing him.
But he stayed on top.
Punches now. Fists slammed into its back like hammers. Each one faster. Harder. He wasn't using form anymore. Just raw, rhythmic violence.
Finally, with a wet crack, its body collapsed in on itself.
The purple fog exploded outward one last time. Then faded.
Silence.
Jackal stood over the corpse, breathing steady. No exertion.
Then he looked back at me.
"Still watching?" he asked, voice low and amused.
I nodded once. "You done?"
He tilted his head while still standing on the twitching corpse.
The spider twitched.
Then it began again.
The same pulsing. The same threads. Silk spewed from its mouth, wrapping around it tighter this time. Another cocoon. Thicker. More layered. The mana around it warped like heat rising from metal.
Jackal sighed and stepped back from the corpse. "Persistent thing, isn't it?"
I stepped forward.
"Let me try something."
Jackal glanced at me, eyes curious. He didn't say anything. He just moved aside.
It was time to test my weapon.
I drew the Blade of Kaldrith.
It felt different here. In my grip. Like it wanted this.
I didn't focus on the spider. I focused on the idea of finality. Of silence. If it kept evolving, killing it would be pointless.
What was needed wasn't death.
It was erasure.
Let's see what this blade is truly capable of.
The Hellflame answered easier than before. It rose to the surface like oil catching fire. My evolved Crown made control smoother now. Not just manipulation. Obedience.
Pink fire curled along the blade's edge.
And I stepped forward.
The blade shimmered, fully coated in hellflame. Jackal looked intrigued.
The spider burst from its cocoon. Bigger than before. More disgusting. Its legs spread wider. The fangs hissed. It charged.
I moved.
"Ember Step."
I appeared above it, mid-air, and slashed it down the middle. The blade dug deep, but that wasn't enough.
Erasure wasn't an act.
It was a decision.
I landed, blade still buried in its hide, and sprinted across its back, dragging the weapon through flesh and shell alike. The Hellflame ignited with each step. Erasing.
The spider shrieked, except there was no sound. Only silence. Its head and central body unspooled in real time, burned out of existence by the slash.
By the time I hit the ground, all that remained behind me were twitching limbs and a hollowed-out shell, split clean where its core used to be.
I was the worst possible matchup for it. Something that evolved even after death, now left missing the parts that made it anything more than meat.
The air stilled.
No cocoon. No pulse. Just a twitch, then nothing.
Then a message flickered across my vision.
[Item Acquired – Arachnoid Husk]
Tier: Vestige
Description: (Adaptive) Residual armor-core formed through recursive evolution. Grows in response to near-death stimuli. Status: Dormant.
I blinked.
"Huh," I said. "Got an armor from that."
Jackal, still crouched beside the battlefield's edge, glanced at me with that ever-crooked grin.
"It left you a gift. How polite."
Jackal rose slowly, eyes scanning the treeline. "No slacking off, looks like it had kids."