From my maw, a primal snarl emerged. I knew I should be kicking the mantids to preserve my health. Instead, I lunged forward and bit the head off of the closest mantid while the bugs next to it sliced into me. The pain, sadly, did not bring me out of my frenzy.

Good news? I’m apparently a good monster and as I went and tore chunks out of various mantids, something inside of me had gone into overdrive. Each wound oozes twice as much gel as before, but this was a good thing. It was the result of my body turning each chunk of meat into more gel almost instantly.

The problem with this is that it wasn’t very efficient and took a good bit of stamina. Like trying to fill a black hole, I kept killing and eating until I was the last one standing. At that point, my enhanced digestion fell away, though the frenzy remained as I ripped and tore through all the bodies, including the exoskeletons which I had been avoiding up to that point.

And what do you know? Dense exoskeleton seems to be pretty decent for creating gel. Rocks and stuff sadly don’t work at this point though or I could have just camped out in my cave. Anyway, I didn’t quite eat all the mantids, but I definitely worked my way through most of them.

I wish I could say I was full at that point. I really do. However, I was still hungry, with all the previous eating going purely to regenerating my gel. None of it stuck around in my stomach to actually feed me.

At least this gave me a chance to have a cooked meal as that still probably helps with hunger. Whatever psionic nonsense is going on with creating more gel seems to ignore basic things like bioavailability. After all, it was able to make use of the exoskeletons, which I wasn’t normally able to digest.

Anyway, I dragged a collection of limbs back with me to my cave. While the legs aren’t exactly heavy with meat, I at least know I can eat the meat when not psionically digesting stuff. Plus, who doesn’t enjoy crab legs? Me. I don’t mind them, but they’re a bit more work than I prefer. Good news, these mantid limbs are big enough to be worth my time.

And of course my cave had a new inhabitant. This time, it turned out to be some kind of zombie all by itself. Not the classic version from modern movies, though. Damn thing was covered in hair? Maybe mold? Whatever it was, the zombie was fuzzy and oddly enough, green. Because why not? Oh, and it had skin as tough as wood.

Before this, the most resistance my claws faced was trying to cut bone. All the other more fleshy undead, the parasites, and even the mantids with their exoskeletons were cut through. My claws leave trails of sundered flesh.

Against this zombie, my claws sheared off fur, but barely dug into the flesh. After my frenzy to start the fight, they forced me to take a step back. I growled and lowered my stance.

The zombie charged at me and tried to slam tackle me, but it wasn’t any heavier than a normal person and so with a shoulder strike, I flipped it over my back. It tried to grab me, but it had put a bit too much into the charge. As it lands, I move deeper into my cave.

It recovers quickly, but I’ve already made it to the throne room. This sets me up to take advantage of some of my preparations. Though the zombie falls for the most simple change, I made before I can even try anything fancy. I’m actually kind of embarrassed for the zombie.

All I did was carve up a section of floor so that it was deceptively uneven. It was nowhere near perfect, but from the entrance of the room, the floor looks relatively flat. So yeah, the zombie tries to chase me into the room and after putting a foot wrong, takes a header face first into the ground.

I wasn’t expecting this to work? After all, the zombie had the run of the place. There wasn’t even any defeated undead scattered around so it likely had been here for a good while. Yet it fell for the stupidest trap? A trap it should have known about?

I almost hesitated, assuming this was a trick as the zombie didn’t seem quite so brainless. However, so far in the fight, I hadn’t been seeing any openings so against my better judgment; I jumped on the chance.

And guess what?

It wasn’t a trap! Even to this day, I am flabbergasted. That damn zombie made a rookie mistake despite being an evolved undead? Sure, at the time I didn’t recognize what evolution did for the undead, but now? It might not be adult human levels of smart, but the cunning it should have had was completely missing. May either was a forced evolution by some necromancer?

Whatever, the important part was I got in there and grabbed the damn thing’s head and neck. Which was when how big I got in my combat form really hit me. My claws were too big to just grab the zombies throat, even if I had tried to with a single claw. In fact, while I hadn’t noticed it yet, my combat form had been growing in size.

Anyway, I crushed the zombie’s rotten skull, slaying it. You really shouldn’t let an enemy grab one of your weak points. Though this was quite lucky for me, as the skin was tough enough to have made the fight a long drawn out one. A thing I could not afford.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

As it was, I managed to get those mantid legs roasted and packed away. Then Harold showed up. My time had run out, but at least I was in my cave. Oh, and Harold wasn’t exactly being stealthy. He arrived at my cave while firing off some explosive spells to clear out the next group of undead planning to assault me.

I wasn’t ready, but I wasn’t not ready either. So him showing up at that moment wasn’t optimal and yet I assumed I could manage it. One teensy tiny little problem. Because yeah, under normal circumstances, I stood maybe a thirty percent chance of not dying. Which all things considered, is pretty gosh darn peak performance for someone that, what, under a week ago didn’t even know magic existed?

The problem I didn’t consider was what he would have on him. See, the vampires had just kicked me out of the city with barely a goodbye. I didn’t consider that Harold might receive a different sort of welcome, such as being gifted a few powerful magic items. I hadn’t considered that the mages would take this as a proxy fight of sorts against the vampires and other such undead.

It doesn’t make any sense to me even now. After all, the only support I got was to be released on the opposite side of the city. No shade on that, mind you. The extra time I got was vital to my gaining what power I had. It’s just, I’m not undead nor being materially supported by them. The mage faction isn’t even run by speciests like Harold.

Whatever, anyway, Harold arrived through the hallway and unlike a certain zombie, got around the not-a-trap trip trap. Though Harold cheated, so I’ll leave it up in the air on whether I actually did a good job of it.

How did he cheat, you might ask? Simple, remember those magic items he got gifted? Well, one allowed him to just hover about a half-foot off the ground.

So there he was floating into the room. His arms crossed, visible shield spell going, and a couple of glowing orbs over his right shoulder. Then the orbs started to pulse out glowing darts at me. I expected that though so I was already dodging behind the gold throne. Oh, and Harold started chanting to cast his own spell, because all that other stuff was from various magic items.

This was not going to go well for me and I very much realized that. I still needed to try, though, so I started activating my various tricks. They aren’t the most technically complex. I wasn’t a mechanic or some such. But after all those undead kindly donated their gear, I had more than enough supplies to have some fun.

From behind the throne, I pulled a strip of cloth and from deep lines in the ground, a forest of rusty swords popped up. It actually caused Harold to pause his chants and drop his spell. Now, these swords weren’t going to do much, but at least he couldn’t just float over them.

I’m actually quite proud of this little trick. It is amazing what you can do with claws that can carve through regular stone so easily. I basically just carved deep lines into the ground and then made wider areas to stash the swords. It took a little fancy carving to angle the swords enough that I only need to pull a cloth rope and they’d flip up.

It took so many pants being shredded that I could have worn. Not really, though. Only the zombie style undead bothered with clothes and no way was I putting those pants on.

Anyway, this trick was supposed to be used to surprise him so I would be able charge into melee range. Hell, more of the swords failed to rise up than I expected. My hope for this was to create hazards I could body slam him into. With my gel nonsense, being impaled on a sword wouldn’t be too much of a problem so a bear hug into slamming us both onto a sword would have ended as my win. After all, even as a mage, Harold had a human body.

With that shield he was rocking? So not an option anymore. If I stayed in this cave, it would become a burial mound for reasons other than the undead. That called for me to make use of the golf throne and one piece of prep I figured I wouldn’t have a chance to use.

Then a spell blasted the chair, melting off the gold leaf, because of course it wasn’t pure gold. I took that as a sign and hopped on top of the chair back. Good thing the throne was actually a part of the floor or it would have flipped over.

Harold’s shoulder turrets, of course began to fire again, but good news! They weren’t meant to cause damage. Well, maybe a little damage, but their main purpose was likely for applying status effects. One of which, going by the tingly feeling as it splashed across my left leg was to stun me. Good thing I’m not exactly running on nerves in my lower body or that would have spelled my end.

Heh, spelled, because it was magic. Cheap magic at that. A proper stun spell should at least have some effect even on someone like me. After all, it’s magic!

Not complaining, mind you. Even at the time, I simply ignored him and jumped into the ceiling. Yes, into. See, I took some time to carve out a small area right above the throne, just until I hit dirt. It didn’t look like much, because it wasn’t.

For most people, this would not only be pointless, but also dangerous. I had risked a collapse, especially with how little stone there was in-between the room and the dirt above. It was worth the effort, though. After all, if my claws and strength was already enough to go through stone with a little effort, imagine of what I could do with dirt!

Well, I guess you don’t have to since I’m about to tell you. While I wouldn’t say my new form was built for digging, it certainly wasn’t a slouch in such matters. So, when I jumped up, I used my hand claws to grab the edges of the hole, then pulled my feet up.

A rain of dirt fell past me as my legs made quick work of the dirt and I pulled myself up through the hole. Below me, Harold really got mad and began to go on about how I could never escape him and how no matter what he would track me. A little disturbing, but I needed out. So once I had fully pulled myself up above the stone, and having taken a few more shots to the legs, I began to dig up and to the side.

Each swipe of a claw tore out a ton of dirt. Of course, if I tried to make a standing tunnel, that would have been a bit much, but I was just going for a tunnel I fit through. And you couldn’t really call it that much of a tunnel as I sealed it behind me with the dirt I was digging. Oh, and I didn’t expect this to get me ahead of Harold, even if it was going much faster than I had expected.