Keneric jumped sideways as both spiders closed in on him. He didn't know it yet, but one was a male spider and the other female.
After the earth changed, the pair had developed some intelligence and usually used the female as bait because she was twice the size of the male while the smaller one lurked behind the prey and struck at the best opportunity.
The spider couple had used this tactic to hunt down many prey over the past three days, managing to trap animals, ravagers, and even humans passing through the area. But Keneric was fortunate to notice them ahead of time thanks to his sharpened instincts.
He rolled again in time—otherwise, he would've been their dinner for the night. Truly, the world had become too dangerous for ordinary people. It was a good thing Keneric was no longer ordinary.
The larger, female spider clicked its mandibles and lunged straight at Keneric, while the male vanished from sight, hiding and waiting for an opening. But the spiders didn't know Keneric wasn't helpless. The female immediately regretted its frontal charge when a flesh axe materialized in his hand and he slashed, slicing off one of its legs.
The male (about half the size of a human) finally revealed itself, appearing behind Keneric and launching a web-like strand straight at him. Keneric blocked it with the axe, and the web clung to the weapon's pointed end, pulling on it. There wasn't enough force to yank Keneric away, but it was enough to distract him so the female could regain its footing.
Keneric sighed at his luck, but then his eyes flashed green. "You want my axe? Here, take it," he said, and hurled the weapon straight at the smaller spider. And it hit dead center, smashing into its head. The male collapsed on the ground then and there, though its body twitched like it still had some life left—just not enough to stand up again.
With a thought, the axe embedded in the spider's head vanished and began to reappear in Keneric's hand. But it was a second too late. The female spider shrieked and one of its razor mandibles clamped onto Keneric's waist. Before he could react, it stabbed deep. Pain exploded from his lower abdomen but he forcefully turned around and hacked at the mandible with his axe, freeing himself, and staggered back.
The female also shrieked in pain and retreated, abandoning both the fight and its spider partner, fleeing into a half-collapsed building. Keneric ripped the foreign object from his side and tossed it aside, then checked the damage. Greenish-red blood gushed from the wound, stinging like hell under the late afternoon sun.
"Just great," Keneric muttered, but he didn't back down. He followed the spider, gripping his axe in one hand and pressing the wound with the other to stop the bleeding.
He soon entered the building and scanned the rubble on the first floor, but saw no sign of the giant spider. Instead, he found torn clothes scattered around and used one to bandage his side, freeing his hand to fight at full capacity.
Keneric didn't want to give up on the female spider—his instincts told him that defeating it would reward him somehow. So, he went deeper into the crumbling structure. And as he passed through the debris, he started seeing more and more steel-like spider silk on the floor, walls, and ceiling. It was the same kind the male spider had fired earlier and the fleshy axe had blocked it.
Deeper still, the building fell into complete darkness, but Keneric's eyes glowed green, helping him see clearly. He heard rubble shift and carefully followed the sound until he found the female spider, half-collapsed, likely from blood loss after losing a limb to his axe.
It was still moving—heading somewhere. When Keneric caught up, he saw where. A spider nest loomed nearby, filled with dried-up carcasses of various creatures wrapped in that tough, white silk. Thankfully, it wasn't sticky, and Keneric could move across it with some effort.
He checked the bodies and found that all were dead. Then he turned back to the massive spider and threw his green axe again, hitting it square in the head. The spider's black eyes dimmed for good, and Keneric knelt to absorb its green essence—only to be interrupted by a spasm.
Keneric backed away, thinking it still had some life left. But a moment later, its conch-shell-like back burst open, and dozens of tiny spiders scattered across the ruined floor.
A chill ran down Keneric's spine. What if these hundreds of little things grew to human size and attacked the student's stronghold or his team?
So he spent the next four hours killing every last critter he could find. By the time night fell, he absorbed the lingering essence in the area. He finally felt full, reenergized. His abdominal wound had completely stopped bleeding and was healing faster and faster, though it would take a night or two to fully close.
Remembering the male spider outside, Keneric made his way back to the place of the ambush. The male's corpse still lay there, unmoving under the moonlight. He knelt and absorbed its essence too, feeling his wound knit together even faster.
"Now that's a handy trick," he muttered. But just as he was about to rise, he felt something shift inside him. Like he'd gained something new today.
Trusting his instincts, he tried to grasp at that feeling. He closed his eyes for a few minutes. The cold wind blew around his ears and through the swamp where distant insect sounds drifted back into focus.
When Keneric opened his eyes, his fingers had transformed into something like the female spider's razor fangs—the very one that had stabbed him before.
He sighed and looked up at the moon, feeling less and less like a human with each passing day.