#18 Third Evolution
#18 Third Evolution
Yu Ah-hyeon felt death closing in for real this time. Look at her—sure, out in the provinces people talked her up as C-Class, but in a top clan? C-Class hunters were a dime a dozen. Every time some nameless warrior died in her place, every time Ji-hoon, her own clanmate, fell for her sake, a cold ache spread through her chest.
Was I really worth all that?
'Hah.'
A laugh slipped out—a lament for how wretched it all was. Self-mockery? Disbelief? Her mana had bottomed out long ago. Sheer spite and stubbornness could only take you so far.
'Fuck.'
She'd always known her luck was rotten.
A blessing in disguise? Bullshit. Misfortune was just misfortune—never luck waiting in the wings. After winter came, only frozen earth remained, and now it was her turn. Aranea's blood-red eyes spun like the rotary dial on an old telephone from a museum. The middle-aged man had held the creature off with everything he had, but his shield was shattered now. He'd lost his weapon. Aranea's gaze flicked between her and him.
It was clearly deciding who to kill first.
'...Fuck.'
Even at the end, things couldn't just be simple.
The one thing she regretted was not being able to kill the thing herself. Fine. Then she'd at least die first. Grinding her teeth, Yu Ah-hyeon stepped forward. If someone saved her again, if she survived for just a few more seconds by cowering while someone else died ahead of her—she couldn't bear the thought of how pathetic that would be.
'This time, I'll...'
At the very, very end, she closed her eyes. A razor-sharp scythe should have bisected her any second—but Aranea never took her life.
'...?'
Why? Why isn't it killing me? Did someone save me again? The man? Rescued again? Miserable, Yu Ah-hyeon chewed her lip and lifted her eyelids. A scene she hadn't yet witnessed took shape in her imagination, tears filming her bloodshot eyes. But what they reflected was a reality wholly different from the one she'd pictured.
"Ah."
What stood there was not another person.
It was simply—a far more alien monster.
***
The evolution finished in an instant.
The two paths had always been there. I crossed the barrier that blocked the way and stepped onto a new road.
That indescribable something I glimpsed every time I evolved—I could now intuitively grasp a fragment of it.
'Karma.'
Though that alone couldn't be all of it. I had barely stolen a glance at an infinitesimally small portion of something beyond words, and I still didn't know what it was. Far too complex, far too far beyond anything my current self could comprehend.
[Path of the Demon Wolf: Evolves into a higher species of Warg.]
The System stated that choosing the Path of the Demon Wolf would make me a higher species of Warg. I'd secretly assumed that choosing it would make me a Monster Wolf—in other words, a High Warg. Since I didn't know of any other higher Warg species.
Which meant this was completely outside my expectations.
[Tyrant of the Mountain (Skull Wolf) Lv.1]
True to the name: a Wolf with black fur and an exposed white skull. I kicked off the earth. Unlike before, I now possessed a real body, flesh with blood running through it—not something amorphous. I'd had a sense of touch before, but the vivid, living sensation of legs felt alien.
'Did I get stronger?'
I'd discarded every trait of being an amorphous entity. I'd leaped to a new species, but doubts lingered.
Am I really stronger? Can I actually stand against Aranea?
'Go! Go and fight!'
I could almost hear the phantom voices of the hunters who had died. Right. Fight. There was no time to think.
Every muscle fiber in my body tensed. The creature still wasn't paying attention to me. A feint? Arrogance? Either way, it didn't matter. Bite. That was all I focused on.
The middle-aged hunter's shield shattered, the impact flinging him away. Immediately after, Aranea carved a line of death straight for the female hunter's throat.
Crrrack!
The instant those taut muscles released, every cell snapped with elastic force. My legs kicked off the ground and closed the distance. In a split second—just before the scythe-like foreleg could sever Yu Ah-hyeon's windpipe—I bit down into the joint of its front leg. Caught off guard by having its weakest point struck, the monster panicked. I'd bitten down with mana behind it, and the flesh was tough—but it was enough.
[Evil Devouring (D) Lv.4 proficiency at maximum. Evil Devouring (D) Lv.4 → Evil Devouring (D) Lv.5]
Over the past two days, devouring monsters had raised Evil Devouring's proficiency, and now its level rose again. At Level 5, it showed its prowess even more viciously.
"Ssssst!"
Aranea writhed in agony. Its scythe-sharp foreleg, now severed, dangled and dripped fluid.
'A Regeneration skill?'
It didn't have one. No sign of the leg regenerating.
"Grrrr?!"
My own low growl startled me. Completely different from before the evolution. I could feel my vocal cords vibrating, vividly alive. More than that—before, with no sense of taste, I'd never known, but after gaining a body that wasn't amorphous, a sense of taste had manifested. Even though my head was nothing but a skull.
'Damn it.'
The leg in my mouth was bitter. A nauseating taste. I spat it out with a ptuh. Aranea stared at its own severed leg rolling on the ground, then examined me with all eight eyes.
"S-Skull Wolf? Why is that thing here...?"
"Isn't it a C-Class monster?"
"That wasn't a Warg? It was a Skull Wolf?"
The hunters' voices buzzed. The middle-aged hunter couldn't hide his confusion. The appraisal skill he'd cultivated over a fairly long career told him, without a doubt, that the Wolf before him was a Skull Wolf. But that made no sense.
'A Skull Wolf?'
Did it evolve right here? Or had it been hiding its strength? Even if he conceded a hundred steps and accepted that much—a Skull Wolf? Was that monster before his eyes really a Skull Wolf?
"......"
Its size was small. At first he'd thought it was a sub-adult, but looking back at its performance so far, that was impossible. An immature Skull Wolf biting off Aranea's foreleg?
Impossible. But since it had actually happened, he couldn't deny it. And what was this oppressive presence dominating the chamber? In total power, Aranea was surely superior, but this Skull Wolf, exuding a chilling aura, possessed something that transcended mere strength. He didn't know what it was, but...
'...This is a good turn!'
At the very least, they were fighting on the same side right now. How far a monster could be trusted was another question—but an enemy's enemy being strong was a good thing. While the middle-aged hunter quietly rejoiced that they might actually survive this, the female hunter spat out curses.
She had only four arrows left. But her life had been saved three times now. She couldn't just give up and throw it away like she had moments ago. It felt like fate's cruel joke now. Yu Ah-hyeon swallowed the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. The odds were truly tiny, but she had to cling to them. Her trembling hands gripped the bow. Starting with those two, a signal fire of counterattack spread among the hunters.
I stood with them at my back and bared my fangs at Aranea.
***
The spider could not comprehend it.
The Wolf whose presence had been so faint that its own eyes had nearly missed it—such a being was novel enough to be interesting, and a nuisance that had damaged its web, but only up to that point. The judgment the spider had rendered on the Wolf was simply: a dull and fragile beast lying in wait for an opportunity. And by nature, beasts don't challenge creatures stronger than themselves. Even if the Wolf it had swatted aside hadn't died, the spider assumed it wouldn't dare attack again.
So it had looked away and dismissed it.
—That had been its mistake.
The price of that assumption was steep.
"Grrrrrruk!"
The fragile Wolf had donned a new skin and bitten off the foreleg the spider had been so proud of. The spider couldn't fathom the Wolf's reasoning at all. Why? Why attack? Why not retreat? Why not stop? And above all—why can't I kill this Wolf?
A tiresome arrow flew in, and the spider defended with what webbing remained. In that gap the Wolf pressed in, and whenever the spider tried to shake it off, the humans supported it. A completely different dynamic from before. The Wolf blocked its path again and again, and whenever the spider tried to ignore it, it lunged with vicious tenacity. Yes. That alone was all it was.
"Kieeeek!"
The insolent female human rolled across the floor. Webbing narrowly grazed the air just above her. Unable to hide its disappointment, Aranea took an arrow straight to its spinneret. A pitiful wisp of mana. The spider felt pain and made no effort to conceal its fury.
—I'll kill them all.
The spider sensed it would need to push itself somewhat to end this fight.
***
Even at the most generous estimate, my speed was half of Aranea's.
My actual status probably didn't even reach half. But skill corrections and the hunters' support barely made it possible to stand against it.
"Scatter! Reload!"
The warriors gathered the archers' spent arrows. If they hadn't, they'd have run out long ago. Shattered potion bottles littered the floor, shards of glass glinting.
"Kieeeek!"
I sensed webbing coming in from a blind spot and dropped low. The 438 Agility was the creature's bodily speed, not the speed of its webbing. Enraged, Aranea raised its foreleg. Light glinted off its one remaining scythe. It looked especially keen.
'...If it's only one!'
No matter how monstrous an Agility of 438 was, if it had only one limb, I could read the strikes beforehand with Intuition and Perception and dodge. I boldly pushed inside and slid beneath its body. Aranea thrashed, trying to shake me off from under its belly, and I bit down.
Crunch!
I tore out a mouthful of flesh. It lifted its body by bracing with its hind legs.
"Shaaaak!"
With a menacing hiss, it tried to impale me with its second pair of legs, sharp as awls. But looked at another way, that made it a target for the hunters.
"Now! Fire!"
The archers' arrowheads ignited. They hadn't been able to use fire recklessly because the chamber was filled with webbing everywhere, but now that the webs had settled to the ground—wasn't that a perfectly clear target exposed above them? Even with 438 Agility, the spider's anatomy meant it couldn't dodge while its hind legs were lifted. Flaming arrows exploded against its exposed belly.
"Kieeeeeeek!"
The spider loosed the highest-pitched shriek yet. Fire licked through its torn wounds, beneath the bitten hide, blazing through it. Bodily fluids and blood ignited before they could even drip, and its flesh cooked with a charred stench.
"Reload!"
They didn't stop. The spider wove webbing to shield itself from the sustained volley. —The fourth leg. I bit down on the leg that controlled the threads. The webbing that had surrounded it like a natural curtain sagged down. I should have retreated then, but at some point the webbing tangled around its fourth leg had wrapped around my own leg.
A trap from the beginning. Even while taking concentrated fire, it had been determined to kill me. Its 438 Agility and over 300 Strength hoisted me up easily. I locked eyes with its eight pupils, but immediately drew up mana and shattered the Evil Eye. A very brief paralysis—and even through that, the hunters' attacks kept coming—but the spider endured it all.
Yet all that effort only loosened the webbing around its own body slightly. Even in this moment I activated Evil Devouring, but it wouldn't stop. Sharper than any blade, my fangs pierced its hide like a dagger thrust.
"Kieeek!"
I slipped out through the gap that had loosened just enough. But—
[Faint Poison Resistance (F)...]
Faint Poison Resistance's proficiency shot up like mad. How many level-up messages had I seen? It was a lethal venom that couldn't even be compared to the Rat Man's concoctions. Until now, I'd simply killed everything before the poison could even touch me; perhaps the creature's true worth lay not in its webbing or agility, but in its venom.
The leg where its fangs had sunk in swelled up.
'Damn it.'
No other choice. I bit off my own leg.
Rip, tear—crunch, craaack! Shrrrip!
[Pain Nullification (D) acquired.]
[This skill cannot grow.]
[Remaining Skill Points: 1]
There was no pain, but cutting off my own leg was not easy. Blood poured out, staining the floor. Weak Regeneration gradually, agonizingly slowly restored the leg, but it didn't heal easily.
[Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.9 proficiency at maximum. Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.9 → Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.10]
[Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.10 has reached maximum level. Weak Regeneration (E) Lv.10 → Regeneration (D) Lv.1]
The flesh that sprouted up became the seed, regenerating the leg. The now D-rank Regeneration showed its ability brilliantly. In the meantime, I checked my skills.
[Swift Foot (E) Lv.5 has been integrated into Gale (D) Lv.1.]
[Gale (D) Lv.1 proficiency at maximum. Gale (D) Lv.1 → Gale (D) Lv.3]
Two skills granted as evolution bonuses. I quietly closed my eyes. In that brief moment, the leg took shape. While I'd pulled back, the battle situation had deteriorated. Aranea, its foreleg and fourth leg severed and its belly seared, couldn't fully demonstrate the movement of its 438 Agility, yet the hunters were still barely buying time, wreathed in light.
"Grrrrr—"
Advance. Don't stop. Devour the spider that had been despair itself.
My wind-clad legs became a gale just as the skill name promised, and in an instant they kicked off the ground and crashed down upon Aranea—!
***
"Ah."
A single syllable escaped. Everyone stared blankly up at the Wolf.
C-. Its movement rendered its assessed rank meaningless. Bizarrely and swiftly, it turned Aranea's attacks into nothing, reading the spider's moves and pressing forward with calculated foresight. A fusion of precision and the unrestrained instincts of a monster—at this very moment, all of them felt fear not of Aranea, but of the Skull Wolf.
"What are you doing! Are you just going to stand there like idiots?!"
As if jolted awake, the hunters belatedly moved. The female hunter gripped her last remaining arrow and carefully aimed at the spider. Her calluses had split, and the effects of mental exhaustion brought vertigo. On top of that, she questioned whether she could even hit that swift spider in this darkness.
No. She had to hit it. This was her last chance. She closed one eye, aligned her sight, and set the arrowhead—
'Fuck... I can't see!'
She needed more light. Just a little more.
Yu Ah-hyeon rummaged at her waist, but she'd already used her Short-Range Teleportation Scroll. She clawed through her pouch, grasping at straws, but nothing came out. Irritated, she ripped it off and hurled it away. Lighting a flame at her arrowhead wouldn't help. The light was needed not here, but far over there. She had to set the spider ablaze. But she had exactly one arrow left. And her remaining mana was scraping bottom—no, it had bottomed out long ago; she was only holding on by forcing down potions.
'Damn it.'
In that moment, an arrow split the air.
The spider glanced at the visible spark for an instant, then quickly looked away. It had struck an unrelated spot and only burned a little of the nearby webbing. The arrow had missed.
"I leave the rest to..."
His eyes rolled back, and the archer collapsed unconscious. The female hunter let out a hollow laugh, twisting the corner of her mouth.
"You clueless moron...!"
It was enough. The flame he'd lit became a beacon. Her vision was blurry, but she'd never been more confident of hitting her target.
The bowstring drawn taut. Muscles trembling. But could it pierce through?
"Drink up."
"Just how many bottles did you bring?"
"I'm so full I could die."
The middle-aged hunter's last remaining potion. She drank it down as he handed it over. Just a tiny amount, but the lingering traces of mana flared up again.
And at last, the female hunter released her final arrow.
***
Even with Gale wrapped around me, all I could manage was keeping pace with a creature that had lost two limbs.
'438.'
No matter how many times I thought about it, it was an absurd number. After all this, we were barely on even footing. But put another way—that meant we could fight. This precarious balance was going to break, and both sides were preparing a decisive blow that would finish the other. The creature and I were both measuring that moment.
'If only it didn't have that Evil Eye.'
My mana was constantly being drained. The skill mitigated the Evil Eye's effect, but even a moment's paralysis meant death. Two monsters, riding the line of death and leaping across strands of web. And at last, the balance broke.
"Kieeeek!"
An arrow fated to hit. Seeing the female hunter collapse in the distance without letting go of her bow, I pulled up the corner of my mouth. With the balance broken, all that remained was to run rampant. The wind wrapped around my legs began to change, as if merging with it. Gradually devouring the fluttering wind, the embers swelled into a massive blaze.
[Ember (D) Lv.1 skill acquired.]
—Ember. The other skill my evolution had bestowed.
Black flames, as if swallowing light, roared fiercely as they rode the gale. Clad in blazing tempest, scorching the earth, I leaped through the acrid smoke of burning webbing.
"Kiaaaaaak!"
I climbed Aranea's screaming body, burning it as I went. In an instant I was atop its back, opening my jaws wide.
"Grrrrr—"
With no hide to hinder me, the bare skull bit into the creature raw. The wide-open jaws closed, crunching and grinding the spider's flesh. Bodily fluid and blood mixed messily and dripped down. I didn't stop, shoving my head in deeper. Every moment, the flames burned the thrashing Aranea, and Evil Devouring greedily devoured the blazing monster. As a last act of resistance, it squeezed out thread, trying to cling to the ceiling—I used Change, as if to gift despair to the creature struggling to shake me off by any means.
"Kieeeek! Kieeeeeek!"
Aranea, now clinging to the ceiling with me on its back, writhed in agony. But—I had experienced this before.
'I'm already sick of that pattern.'
Not with this creature, but on Jirisan. Thrashing to dislodge an enemy mounted on your back. Memories of the eel and the Black Wolf drifting through my mind, I landed gracefully. When I dropped off, the creature, still clinging, slammed into the wall. The surging flames devoured even its spinnerets, burning the threads that extended from them. The acrid smoke settled. Through it, the spider, its threads severed, plummeted to the floor.
[Elasticity (E) Lv.9 proficiency at maximum. Elasticity (E) Lv.9 → Elasticity (E) Lv.10]
[Elasticity (E) Lv.10 has reached maximum level. Elasticity (E) Lv.10 → Superior Elasticity (D) Lv.1]
I sank low, and my legs, coiled tight as a spring, kicked off the earth once more. Not a dash—high. Higher.
At the midpoint between the falling creature and my leaping self, even through the smoke that obscured vision, our gazes crossed. In its eight eyes, I saw nothing but terror and fear.
[Intimidation (F) Lv.6 proficiency...]
"Grk."
A laugh escaped me in that desperate moment.
And at last—the Wolf snuffed out the falling spider's life.