I was startled, for sure. Swearing and struggling to my feet, I met the creature’s eyes, and my heart skipped around my chest. It was the size of a person, with translucent scales that shimmered like the sheen of oil on a puddle. It was mostly humanoid, with four limbs and a head, but that’s where any relation to a human departed. Each of the four limbs had an extra joint, and the four-fingered hands were split like a chameleon’s, two pairs of fingers opposed. Each finger was bulbous, and a large blue-black claw curled away from the pad of the finger. A pair of long thick tails or tentacles sprouted from its back, and they moved like sinuous snakes.

The face of the beast was terrifying. Three pairs of eyes looked out at me. The largest pair was high on the head and were shining insectile orbs. The second largest pair were forward facing and had black irises with glowing green pupils with no sclera. They were locked on me. The last set was set on the side of the head and swiveled around independently. There was no nose or ears, and the shape of the head was similar to that of a tortoise, blocky with a jagged beak of blue-black chitin or whatever beaks are made of.

We both froze as recognition passed. I had seen it, and it had noticed that I had recognized it. With a ripple, the scales changed, and it disappeared from visibility. I could still feel it on the wall outside, barely hearing its hearts as they sped up. Shit shit shit. There was some fucking alien monster out there! I scrambled for my trusty weapons. It was clinging to the wall outside my window like some sort of gecko.

I had just laid my hand on the bar when I felt the scratching of the monster’s claws on the glass of my window. I heard Tukey and Lina moving around, and Lina shouted, “Izzy? You okay?”

“There’s a fucking monster!” I yelled as I spun around, raising the mace. I felt the glass break. No, that wasn’t right. The claws cut the glass like diamond. It was coming in. I lunged forward and swung the mace while it was pulling the glass away. I couldn’t see the alien with my eyes, but when the glass fell away, my vibration sense outlined it clearly. I don’t think it understood that I could “see” it by it clearly understood what a swinging mace was.

The head of the mace smashed through the window as the alien leaped away from the wall. Damn, that thing was fast. With the glass cut out, I felt the alien twist in the air, and the two tails lashed out. A hard spike in the tip of each pierced the wall. The twin tails pulled the creature back toward me with all four of its limbs coming for me. I saw five-inch claws extend from the bulbous fingers as they came toward me. Heart thumping and adrenaline burning through my veins, I stood there.

It came through the window, and the claws lashed through me. I had phased and let the creature come. Not meeting the resistance it was expecting, the creature stumbled, and I side-stepped, dropping the phase and hammering down with my mace. I activated Vibrating Strike and put everything I had into the blow. It was fast, twisting out of the way of a direct strike, but I still caught it in the shoulder. Brzzt - shlorp! The joint and part of its chest exploded as the mace struck. The tarry black ichor that sprayed from the body stank, and I couldn’t help myself from retching. The monster screeched, and all of the hairs on my body stood on end. It faded into view. I locked eyes again with the alien as it reached for its wound.

The door behind it slammed open, and Tukey shouted. “Floor!” and the command triggered old training. I dropped to the floor, and the cannon in the old man’s hands thundered. It was somewhere between a plasma rifle and a shotgun and was Tukey’s personal creation, “Velma.” The brilliant flare of barely contained hyper-excited energy flashed across the room and caught the alien in the back. The superheated bolts of iron slammed into the wound immediately following. The monster’s chest burst outward, and it stopped screeching. It fell forward, slumping to the ground.

[You have slain Hunter, Rislyh, experience gained

First time kill experience bonus earned.

Survivor bonus experience earned.]

“What the fuck is that thing?” Lina said from behind Tukey as I stood up. She had a large pistol in her hand.

I looked askance at Tukey, and he shrugged before saying. “Some new kind of mutant, maybe? The System called it a Risley Hunter, though. Whatever that is.” He struggled with the name. “Most mutants are named for whatever base animal they come from.” Both he and Lina wrinkled their noses and made faces as the smell sunk into their nostrils. This thing was potent.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I whipped sickening black goo from my face. The skin where it had touched was tingling. A message popped up in my head. “Aww, shi-it.” I muttered. “Don’t touch the black stuff. It’s toxic.”

[Rislyh Blood Toxin - Resisted]

“You okay?” Lina asked, concerned as she held her nose. Tukey backed his wheelchair up and almost into her. She stepped aside as he rolled away.

“It’s fine. I’m very resistant to this sort of thing now.” I replied as I knelt beside the corpse.

Tukey called from the hallway, “I’ll get masks and gloves. Lina close the door so that stench doesn’t get into the rest of the apartment.”

Lina grimaced , stepped out of the room, and closed the door after saying, “I’ll get some fans.”

Shaking my head, I poked at the scaled body. Velma had done her job. The alien had been nearly torn in two. I reached over and picked up the severed limb, examining the scales. They looked like dark glass, almost like obsidian. Each was sharp-edged and harder than steel. They interlocked, and each had a thick muscle attached to the underside. It looked like each scale could move and refract the light differently.

Its claws curled like an eagle or falcon. The claws rotated forward on a joint inside the bulbous finger. The pad of the finger was ridged with tiny scales. Looking at the claws, I gained a new understanding. The spacing of the claws and some of the chunks of Sanjan I had cleaned up earlier today were of similar size. Something had cut him up like a pair of parallel razors, and now I could see that this was a likely culprit.

I dropped the arm to the floor and walked over to the body, at least what was left of it. The black blood was leaking across my carpet, but there was no hope of saving the carpet. I would need to clean my room with fire after this. Strip it down to the studs just to get the smell out. The blood was thick and oozed like molasses. More messages pinged in my head about resisting the toxin as I looked at the body.

What had made this thing like this? It wasn’t from Earth that much was for sure. Yes, it had bi-lateral symmetry, but the twin tails and additional joints spoke of a different evolutionary path. Whatever world this thing had come from must have been far more hostile than Earth. Creatures didn’t evolve thick scales, camouflage, claws, and toxic blood for shits and giggles. While this was a predator, it wasn’t at the top of its food chain for a large part of its evolutionary process.

I looked at the thing’s head and shuddered. The jagged beak was just the outer part of its mouthparts. An interior mandible that opened vertically was filled with sharp hard ridges. Shuddering to think of getting bitten by it, I stood up and stripped out of my clothes. I had only been wearing sweats, and they were now ruined. I wiped myself down with an old towel and piled the stinking stained cloth onto the blood pool to maybe soak up some of it.

Someone knocked on my bedroom door, and Lina stepped in wearing a gas mask and blue rubber gloves. Hopefully, they would be enough to keep the smell out of the house. She looked at me and pointed at the bathroom while she plugged a box fan into the wall by the door. I stopped past her as she plugged another into the wall in my room and pointed it outside.

I turned on the hot water and heard someone pounding on the apartment door. I could hear Tukey grumble and complain as he went to answer it. The town guard had finally arrived. Yay for the cavalry.

I stood under the hot water for a long time. I could hear folks moving around the apartment, with Lina and Tukey and several other voices as well. No one interrupted my shower; thank the System for that. I stepped out and toweled off, dressing in some old shorts and a ragged t-shirt. I caught myself in the mirror and grinned. I was always fit, but the upgrade to E-Grade and all the stats had really reshaped my body. My abs were defined, and my chest was sculpted. Reality intruded on my brain after my moment of vanity.

I stepped back out into the hallway and almost ran into a uniformed guard I didn’t recognize. My vibration sense flooded me with information; there were ten guards now in the apartment, as well as Lina and Tukey. I joined them in the kitchen, where I saw an old friend of Tukey’s, Inspector Jade. She was a tall woman with shining black hair and dark eyes. She carried the perfect beauty of an evolved and was perhaps one of the most frightening people I had ever met in my life. Her dark eyes bored into my soul, and I shivered a little. She was the single most powerful person I had ever met. Maximum level D-rank and had been stuck there for a long time.

“Izack. Nice of you to join us. How are you doing?” She said in a calm and friendly tone that sent tingles along my spine.

System Information

Rislyh

Also known as the “Spore-Hunters,” the Rislyh is a species of sentients found across the Galaxy. Found originally on their homeworld of the same name, they are a hostile species not known for any technological advancements. They are a telepathic species known to form communal hive minds when found in pairs or more. The Rislyh have little societal structure and are rarely found in groups more significant than a colony of around a thousand members.

Rislyh come in three distinct varieties. The Hunter is the most widely known and encountered. The hunter variety is the warrior and scout of the colony. Colonies launch Sporepod-encased Hunters across the Galaxy. The Drones are far larger than the hunters but are no less fearsome. They are the builders, guards, and minders of the colony. The colony is centered around the Hive Lord, a non-mobile central mind of the colony. This hyperintelligent entity guides the colony and drives the hunters to spread the species.

When a Hunter finds a world uninhabited by Rislyh, they seek to establish a large enough food supply. When a sufficient food supply is found, they will self-evolve into a Hive Lord and establish a colony.

Most established worlds can easily defend against such incursions as Hunters rarely reach D-Grade. The original homeworld of Rislyh was destroyed 2.7 million years ago once it was located. An unknown number of Sporepods had been spread across the galaxy prior to that event and by subsequent colonies of this species.