Chapter 12

It’s always like that, one moment everything’s fine, you’re getting closer to the hole to the next floor, the next moment boom! A monster appears from the ceiling, all roaring flames and rocks and rage, and start attacking you! Well, us in this case, but still!

I could feel its bloodthirst when it looked at us and I readied my sword, but I couldn’t do anything!

For fuck’s sake! It was too far!

Then the thing roared again, and another wave of power broke against the shield protecting us, shattering it so suddenly I had no time to react.

Kael tried to grab my hand, but before he could a wave of heat rolled over me, pushing the air out of my lungs, and then darkness fell on me.

I screamed as I felt a horrible pain eat at my face, I was lost, I started panicking, I couldn’t open my eyes! Then a smell like a burned pig filled my nose and I wanted to puke.

I tried to stand but it was too hard, too painful. I heard more screams, Kael calling to me, but I felt trapped in my own body. I raged and struggled against my heavy limbs, but I couldn’t move!

Then I felt as if I crashed against water from very high, and nothing else.

***

When I woke up I was trapped by something sticky that wrapped all around me.

“AAAAARGH!!!” I tried to open my eye but screamed, pain exploding in my eyes before light flooded them.

The light was too painful! I quickly closed them again, then breathed deeply.

I calmed down a bit, but then I had time to think and realized that I was alone in an unknown place and I couldn’t even see.

Panic crept into my mind but I fought it, I tried to control my breathing and keep calm. It worked.

I opened my eyes again, this time slowly, and it wasn’t as painful… but something was wrong.

Everything was blurry. I was surrounded by large white sheets, I think, with big grey chunks that could have been rocks, if I squinted hard enough, but apart from that it was too hard to see.

I bit my lips in frustration and focused elsewhere, trying to get out of whatever was sticking to me.

I pulled and pulled but nothing happened, the white thing just stretched and got even more sticky. It was slimy and nasty and as I struggled and failed to get out, I felt that I was losing it.

“Oh come on!” I screamed out while I pulled with all my might, but the thing just whacked me back against the stone.

I clenched my teeth. “Fuck this.” I let all my frustration explode into a cloak of angry flame, washing far away from me and turning everything into ashes.

As soon as I was freed, I fell on the ground, where more of that white thing burned instantly.

“Clunck.” Terrenacht fell at my side a second after; it had been hanging not far from me, and I smiled when my weak vision finally recognized it.

“There.” I took it and put it back in its scabbard, its reassuring weight helping me to stay focused.

I tried to look around me, but my eyesight hadn’t improved at all in the last few minutes: The world was still made of blurry stains of color, which was far from fun.

Even from up close I couldn’t see better, and I was still clueless about where I was or what had trapped me.

I shrugged; it wasn’t painful anymore, I could live with blurry eyes for now. Anyway I was sure Nathaelle could fix it, so no biggies!

I was just a bit worried since neither Kael nor her seemed to be around, but there was no point in panicking, so I pushed that to the back of my mind for now.

I let my cloak of fire die off ‘cause the heat was starting to get annoying, I mean, the floor was starting to glow! Okay, maybe I had been going overboard a bit, but it’s not my fault if that white thing was so gross and sticky!

“Stunk!”

Fuck! And then, because all of that wasn’t enough, something jumped at me! I didn’t hear it, I didn’t feel it, I didn’t sense it in any way, no, one moment I was looking around and the next, boom! Something crashed on my back, smashing me on the ground!

A heavy metallic “ting!” rang in my helmet as the thing tried to piece my back, quickly hitting my plastron multiple times and failing to pierce the metal before I wrapped myself in fire.

As soon as I did the pressure disappeared and something screamed, or rather screeched. I tried to look at it, but I was still blind as a mole.

“Tss!” I clicked my tongue in annoyance. This place was already getting on my nerve.

I turned my cloak into a storm and flailed it around left and right, like hands if I was hunting a mosquito in my room at night, and another screech answered. It sounded as if it was getting away and fleeing, or at least that’s my guess.

“Okay.” I nodded sharply and took another deep breath, trying to keep calm. I was getting angry easily because of Terrenacht’s hunger, and Nate warned me about the mistakes one could do when not calm enough.

I was trying to apply her lessons but it wasn’t easy.

“Okay.” I said again, less angry. I started walking forward, keeping my fire cloak this time, burning every last shred of the white stuff that I found for good measure.

***

This cave or whatever it was didn’t seem to have an end. I was getting bored, in particular since I could hear some things crawling and scurrying in the dark, and by some things, I meant a lot of things. Once or twice I even think I saw a projectile fly at me, but it got turned into ash before touching me. Still, the constant creeping noises and prodding attacks were starting to get the better of me even though I was using every calming exercise that Nate taught me, which wasn’t a lot but I don’t blame her, she was always as calm as a tomb so I guess she never had the use for them.

Think positive.

Well, at least my eyes were slowly getting better, that was something, right?

Right?

…Oh, fuck those things…

“Go away!” I screamed, filling the tunnel with flames from top to bottom.”Just Go! The Fuck! Away!”

“”“SCREE! SCREE!””” Hundreds of screams echoed around me, and I realized that my, erm, fit of anger didn’t have the expected outcome when something jumped at me again!

I quickly drew Terrenacht and, feeling the hungry blade tug at my mana, I saw it coat itself in its usual cloak of nothingness, so sharp that I cut right through the monster, some blood splattering on my helmet and my face before it was quickly burned.

Another one came from my left and I quickly spun on myself to intercept it, but instead I crashed into it when yet another one jumped on my back and made me stumble forward!

They were charred by my cloak, I could see it! But that didn’t stop them! I don’t know why, but now that they were attacking me all together they didn’t stop even once, and I was bobbed around like a drunk barrel!

I did my best to slash at the monster but I could feel my armor slowly breaking down.

Eat…

I swung my head, trying to focus, but a busing noise was slowly rising in my head.

“Fuck!” Something crashed into me and made me roll on the floor until my head got slammed into a wall.

“Give me a break!” I screamed at them as I swallowed my flame and replaced it with water, trying to make as big a bubble as I could to push away the monsters.

It worked somehow, and I found myself catching my breath against a wall, under maybe ten meters of bright blue water. It was a bit hard to maintain, but I could endure it. Kael could do it, so I don’t see why I couldn’t!

Soon however, the water started to turn filthy green and my lungs started to tingle, and I realized they were mixing poison in my clean water!

Of course it didn’t affect me, I think, because of Nate’s training, but still! I wasn’t even fighting them or burning their stuff anymore!

I violently cast away my current bubble of water, washing the poison away with it, then quickly put up a quarter sphere behind my back, to slow and weaken any enemy that would dare backstab me and, grabbing Terrenacht with both hands, I screamed.

“COME AT ME!”

I had enough of this chaotic back and forth and tug and poke and you know what fuck this!

Forced to face me but not threatened by my fire anymore, the strange black creatures rushed at me mindlessly, and I cut them down just like that!

Fuck this place and fuck those monsters and fuck Nate, I’ll just cut my way through them until there’s nothing left!

Eat…

AND WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT HEADACHE?!

***

Blood and bodies littered the ground and even the walls, stuck in the same gross thing that had trapped me. I was panting heavily, and so tired that I was bent on Terrenacht to stay on my feet

A lone girl and her sword stuck in the ground, that was nearly poetic. Ha, I felt like Kael, being all literate and shit.

I really thought I could rest, like, really! But I guess I hadn’t earned it yet.

A good enough appetizer, the voice resounded in my mind, here’s your part…

I was confused and looked around, but before I could get a grasp of what was happening, something shot out of Terrenacht’s handle, flooding through my hands.

I felt attacked, I felt like drowning, I felt like my body was gonna explode and my mind was gonna split.

Then it did. At least my body did. Explode, I mean. Although I guess it wasn’t the exact word, but Kael wasn’t there to berate me!

I felt the rush flood through my body and pressure building in my lower back. It was painful, so much so that it pierced right through my Pain Resistance skill like a hot knife through butter.

Something churned and pushed to get free from the inside of my tail and I fell on the ground, screaming, rolled in a ball with my arms wrapped around my legs.

The thing pushed again, once, twice, then another ache appeared, like my skin was being torn apart, like one of the dolls I broke when I was little.

My tail morphed and changed and expanded like a balloon, larger and larger until it got stuck, like a strangled throat. The pain weakened a bit after that but I quickly felt trapped in my armor, as if it was to my size no more, the tail that didn’t feel mine anymore trying to expand even more but was blocked by my armor.

I was in too much pain to think for real, but I instinctively pushed my mana through the matrix of my armor and my lower back suddenly exploded, my flesh bubbling like hot water as it bloomed outward, the metal parting away to let place to whatever was grinding me with agony, the metal flowing and stretching around and covering it like clay.

I was breathing fast and my heart felt like exploding, but at least my suffering started to finally weaken.

My head wasn’t as clouded by pain anymore, but my body was still reacting like I was under attack, so I tried to calm my breathing and stop the shivers running along my arms and legs.

I slowly sat cross-legged on the ground; my body felt weak and my limbs were heavy, but that was nothing compared to… to whatever the fuck was that other, new feeling.

It felt heavy on my back, and not from the exhaustion, more like my tail had become a lot more cumbersome, its skin touching the ground didn’t give me the same feeling as before at all, like it was laying on the floor instead of simply brushing it.

My eyes were still wounded but when I turned to look behind me I still found a black mass shooting out of my lower back, where my tail should have been. It was large and sprawling and a lot bigger than I was used to, like a massive black oval balloon. I think it was partially covered in armor, my armor, too, but it was hard to tell; black and blue and some sparkling things seemed to mix over it but I didn’t know what was part of my clothing and what was part of my new skin.

I moved my hands to touch it softly. It was still sensitive, I clearly felt my caress on my own skin, but that skin felt strange, like a warm and smooth shell of some kind, lacking all the fluff my tail normally had.

"What the fuck?" I exclaimed, touching and prodding it hard to try and understand what it was, even with my shitty eyesight, but I couldn't piece together what had happened to me.

Why was my body distorted and disfigured like that?!

I gritted my teeth and frowned, trying to contain my growing nausea, disgusted by that thing that was stuck to my back! It wasn't enough that I was lost and bothered by monsters and didn’t know where Kael and Nate where, but now I had to deal with a big hunk of hard dark flesh hanging from my back instead of my beloved fluffy tail?!

I didn't have the time or energy for such bullshit!

Furiously and maybe a bit impulsively, I grabbed Terrenacht hard and brought its edge toward the thing hanging in place of my tail. I looked at it one last time and hesitated, after all it could be painful since it was stuck to my own body, but I quickly overcame my doubt when another wave of nausea attacked me, and I violently slashed at the large black thing where it connected to my body.

Terrenacht answered and coated itself in black nothingness, I even felt the tug on my mana since I was tired, poisoned, I had lost a lot of blood and just finished fighting.

One perfectly clean cut later and the horrible appendage fell on the ground, and I followed right after, screaming, the shock making me let go of Terrenacht.

The pain, gods! It was like I had cut my own tail, my own limb, my own body! I felt the torture of blood gushing out of the open wound and I instinctively tried to cover it, staining my hands in red.

Thankfully my body soon started to heal and mend the wound and, with it, the pain grew weaker.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Okay, cutting it may have been a shitty dumb idea, like, one of the worst ideas I ever had, but at least it was taken care of! My tail may not grow bat right away but I just had to ask Nate once I found her, so no biggies!

Or so I thought, but once the wound was closed and I sat down again, recovering my breath, I felt it once more, the bubbling of flesh like a growing balloon and, to my horror, when I looked at my back, I saw the black sparkly hunk expanding once again, it even looked exactly like the time I lost a hand and it grew back in no time, it was my body recovering and healing.

That thing was part of my body!? It wasn't a parasite or a sickness or anything, it was a part of my body and healed like the rest of me?!

Nonono, what the fuck! Go away!

I grabbed Terrenacht again, the previously severed appendage still bleeding beside it, and used the sword to cut my newly grown hunk of flesh again, readying myself for the pain this time around.

I once again cut straight through it, suffering flooding my mind and trying to bring me down while I stood firm and waited for it to go away.

I hate waiting.

The wound quickly mended like the first time but to my growing repulsion another deformed tail emerged from down my back! AGAIN!

I brought Terrenacht close once more but stopped before cutting in my flesh. I had an insane regeneration ability but it was still exhausting to recover large chunks of my body, so it was dumb to harm myself in the middle of enemy territory.

I felt enraged about that fact, I just wanted to keep whacking at the thing until it stopped growing, but I just couldn't, it was too dangerous.

I had to get used to this horror of a tail for the time being.

"Fuck," I said, clenching my fists, "Fuck-fuck-FUCK! AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!" I screamed, trying to vent as fire exploded around me, incinerating the two remains of my new tails and burning away many of the closest monster corpses alongside the white gross thing.

It didn't help.

Still angry, I went on my feet but the thing on my back was heavy, heavier than my real tail by far, and I fell.

That didn't help me to calm down but since I didn't have anything to vent on I just swallowed my rage back and tried to go on my feet, again and again and AGAIN!!!

It took me a shit-ton of tries to finally get the hang of it. It wasn't a problem of strength, nothing was since Nate gave me the Behemoth’s blood, but the tail was just wrong, it moved my… I don't know, I think Nate called it a center of gravity? Yes, that’s it! I think it change my center of gravity, and even all the strength that I had didn't help me.

I infuriatingly simply had to get used to this new weight and how it was dispatched on me, like a strange rigid backpack full of water hanging on my tail.

What a shitty day.

***

Once I had recovered and calmed down I started walking again. This time the tunnels were deadly silent and I ended up walking for quite a long time, or at least long enough for me to start getting bored again, before I realized I was leaving something behind me.

I only realized it because I had to take a break to drink and eat something; That’s when I saw that the very same white thing covering the walls was coming out of my deformed tail, one long white thread that wasn’t burnt by my cloak of flame, just like it didn’t burn my hair or skin even though my Fire Resistance shouldn’t have been good enough to protect me from my own flames.

I blinked once or twice, surprised, then I frowned while clicking my tongue.

Another thing to fucking deal with.

Nice.

I also realized that my eyesight had recovered quite a bit while I walked and this time around, and I took another look at my behind while eating.

The bloated black thing turned out to be some kind of… carapace-covered appendage, very bug-like and strange. The black part turned out to be chitinous, while the green that was mixed in it came from my armor, it must have stretched itself alongside my new tail when I pushed my mana through the item matrix, but it was incomplete and crude, it looked like the explode shirt of a strongman that flexed his muscles or something.

I also recognized that the sparkling of the carapace was the same that I had on my skin, and since that came from bathing in the unicorn blood, that thing really was part of my body.

I tried to think about something else that would upset me less and ended up turning my gaze toward the white string. I slowly took it in my hand; It was sticky just like the rest of the white stuff, but at least it didn’t stick to my skin.

First good news of the day.

And then I started connecting the dots. I looked around me, first at the white stuff that turned out to be many threads woven together, then at my own thread, and finally at my bug tail, and I smacked my head.

Urgh, better not tell that one to Kael, he’ll make fun of me forever if he knew how much of a dumbass I was!

Well, my bad eyesight was to blame, too, but still!

After all, it wasn’t hard to understand what the monsters that attacked me must have been, I mean, the whole cavern was covered in spiderwebs, that strange white stuff, and somehow I had grown a spinneret in place of my tail, so I guess they must have been spiders or something like that!

Dumbass.

At least my curiosity and self-deprecation ended up driving away my disgust and boredom for a time. I put my leftover food and water back in my storage, and I started experimenting with this strange new thing.

I slowly took the thread in my hands and played with it. It was stretchy and strong, but I could still tear it down quite easily. I was strong after all!

Then I started pulling on it, ready to stop if it was painful, but I just ended up getting more of the thread out of the… my(?) spinneret.

I disliked the idea of thinking about that spinneret as mine, but whatever…

Focusing on my spinneret, I tried to feel what it was like. And it was…

It was like… hum.

Like breathing out, I guess? You know, you feel that you’re doing something, that something is coming out of you, but you don’t get feelings from it, just like pushing air out of your throat?

I’m sure Kael would have described it better, but I was the one leaving big chunky threads behind, not him, and he wasn’t here anyway.

I bit my lips as a sudden spike of loneliness made me dizzy. I didn’t like being away from Kael, I missed him, it was like a pit in my heart.

I sat down against a wall for a time, feeling defeated…

I took some time to recover from the sudden melancholy, but I didn’t like wallowing in despair either, and I had things to do.

Understanding that black spider tail of mine and its threads, for starters.

I kept pulling on my thread, trying to see if it changed something, but even after making quite a pile beside me I didn’t feel tired or anything. I was pretty sure that I could produce as much thread as I wanted, but it got boring fast so I stopped trying to find my limit.

I got curious as I looked at the walls, I wanted to know the difference between my silk and the one plastered on them, but when I touched it to compare, I found out that it didn’t stick that much either! In the end both things were nearly identical, with mine looking a lot weaker, tough.

I petted the spiderwebs on the walls some more, since it was surprising that they didn’t stick like before, but it was really different!

Sadly even though I was still curious, I didn’t find anything new about my spider tail, just that I could stop producing silk if I thought about it. That was great, though, since I didn’t want to leave a long white trail behind me!

I was still angry and disgusted by this thing on my behind, though… maybe a little less than before, but still a lot!

I really wished to find Nate so she could get rid of it for me. I didn’t want to be stuck with a spinneret all my life, just thinking about it was freaking me out enough that I had to stop and breathe for a minute to avoid getting consumed by stress.

***

I wandered for… I don’t know how long. Long enough for my eyes to recover completely, at least. Nothing really changed around me and I really wanted something to happen, ‘cause all that nothing made it difficult not to focus on my new tail, how its mass moved with me in place of my real tail, how the air or my armor felt on it, and I really did not want to think about.

Focus on something else. I stopped for a second, closed my eyes and breathed out, then I tried to busy myself with anything at hand.

First I looked around. The cavern I was in was different than the one where Nate sheltered us. The rock was darker, and looked sturdier too, and of course everything was still covered in spiderwebs. As I kept walking I realized that it was getting narrower, too, and now that I was paying more attention, it looked like some things had just been here some time ago, but left in a hurry. I could see half-eaten corpses still warm and bleeding, or threads so new they were still wet, as if they were seemingly abandoned halfway through construction or something.

I wasn’t really sure about this, I didn’t know a lot about this place or the monsters that lived here after all, but it looked suspicious to me! And I didn’t run into them either, so they must have been fleeing something coming from my direction! Maybe there was some kind of scary monster behind me?

At that thought I looked behind, even if it wasn’t that useful, and saw the long trail of burned webs I had left behind me, since it was bothersome to walk through them. They didn’t stick to my hands anymore but they did stick to my clothes after all, and even if Nate trained us to not be ashamed of being naked I didn’t want to ditch my armor yet, it was quite useful.

A kept walking for a bit, mulling those thoughts of fleeing spiders in my head, then…

Oh. I stopped as a dumb idea flashed in my head. Maybe they were afraid of me…

That made me smile, even if I wasn’t sure about it. I mean, it was cool to think that the spiders feared me!

With renewed energy in my steps I started walking once more. The landscape didn’t really change though, so I searched for something to play with and ended up using my fire to busy my hands and mind.

Just like when I was bored back in Nate’s cave, I sculpted birds and cats and forms out of flame; It was a good exercise to refine my control over fire, and it was fun too! I love training that’s also playing!

“thud…” I violently stopped walking when a spider silently fell in front of me some meters away. The monster was nearly three meters tall and at least twice as large and long, but I hadn’t even heard it get close to me!

I need better detection skills… I frowned and thought, unhappy about how easily I was ambushed.

I grabbed Terrenacht but didn’t move, waiting for my enemy to take the initiative, but it didn’t move either and we just stood there looking at each other. This gave me time to look at it, and since I was curious and my eyes were now healed, I took a good look. After all, I didn’t really see what the tinier spiders that attacked me looked like, right?

The creature was big and black and had height legs. So far so good, that’s a spider for you, right? But it was a strange kind of black, with grey spots mixed in that seemed to move and blend with their surroundings. Its legs also looked very sharp and lean, even for a spider, made for speed and discretion, and they seemed padded with hair, as if to make even less noise.

In fact I didn’t hear anything coming from the spider, and I was smack in front of it! I didn’t even see it move, it was like a statue! I didn’t know why, but I was sure that I would lose it if I looked away even for a second.

I felt so stressed by this stand-off that I unconsciously made the fire surrounding me thicker and larger, and the spider suddenly scurried three steps away to protect itself, lowering itself warrily.

Hum… Kael would call that a… conundrum, I guess?

On one hand I wanted to fight it, I was pretty bored and I needed a distraction, but on another hand the whole scene made me wary, as if something was off and, following my instincts over my bloodthirst and boredom, I slowly started to walk away, keeping my eyes right on the big stealthy spider to be sure not to lose it.

It looked at me taking one step, then a second and a third, very statue-like… then it took a step forward and I threw myself on the ground!

“Tching!” A chitinous blade pierced the stone where I had been just a second before, a long black projectile that came from the ceiling behind me.

I didn’t have the time to think about how I evaded the attack, the spider in front of me used the opportunity to get on top of me!

Jumping through my fire to reach me, It attacked me with its mandibles and I parried with Terrenacht, my blade taking some mana to cover itself in its dark sheet, but the spider withdrew its attack just before it hit the sword! Somehow it knew that Terrenacht was dangerous and, I mean, I could understand, that sword was fucking ominous when it wanted to, but I still clicked my tongue at the easy hit that didn’t connect. It was still singed by my flame, though, so that was a good point.

This time however, I had been so focused on the spider in front of me that, when another stealthy projectile came at me, I didn’t even have time to react! It simply crashed against my spinneret and got stuck maybe one inch deep.

Fucking tail, I thought, grabbing the chitinous blade and pulling it out of my spinneret. It didn’t really hurt which reassured me, the mutation of my tail had been quite painful and I didn’t know if my Pain Resistance skill was still working or not, but it seemed that I was worried for nothing. Throwing the projectile away, the flesh wound healed itself in barely a second or two thanks to my super regeneration.

This dance went on for another two rounds, exactly the same each time, with the front spider attacking me to open me up for a stealth attack from that ranged fucker hidden somewhere on the ceiling, and I got hit each. fucking. time. Each fucking time?! Can you believe it?!

This was getting on my nerve, but I still stayed calm because of that feeling of… uneasiness? That something wasn’t right? Oh, and also because the amount of damage I took was measly and directly healed by my insane regeneration, so I wasn’t worried about dying. That helped.

After exactly three rounds of the same attack pattern, the monsters changed their approach.

This time three of them surrounded me, which I didn’t realize until one of them backstabbed me. All together they turned around me and exploited every opening I gave, wounding me three times in a row without giving me an opportunity to do anything!

Of course my armor took most of it and they got burned to reach me each time, in fact I’m pretty sure they received more damage than I did so I was going to outlive them at this rate, but I felt bad about being toyed with like that!

It was like being pummeled with rotten tomatoes! It didn’t hurt, but oh gods was it annoying and embarrassing!

Then they changed their method again, once more after three attacks. This time around, however, I was able to defend myself, simply because they tried three times to do something to me with their web, which didn’t work ‘cause they, like, burned way before touching me.

Then another attack pattern, some kind of gas that got burned away by my fire again, three times once more, then yet another pattern, again testing it three times, and another, and another…

They were never able to really hurt me, yes, but really It felt like I was being tested and I wasn’t acing it, which was quite infuriating.

They crashed against me times and times again, each time attacking me three times then switching attack patterns, getting burned each time until they were slowed down enough for me to finally cut them down!

Oh yes, because I didn’t stand there passively the whole time, I did try to kill them, but those fucker were just so fast, they evade every last one of my attacks!

So you can guess how relieved I was when they were so burned down that I got to hit them…

The three spider cadavers lay at my feet, as silent dead as they were alive. I had won, but somehow I felt humiliated, as if I had won only because they were dumb enough to relentlessly attack me without a care for their own health pool, and not because of my own skills or merit. Shitty victory.

I was so frustrated I started kicking their dead bodies, quickly turning them into a pulp as I tossed them around and made them crash against the rocky walls.

“Fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU!” I kept saying until I felt better, and that’s when things got worse…

The adrenaline from the fight was just beginning to leave my veins when I heard the voice again, making my heart beat faster in fear.

An adequate meal… here’s, your part…

It felt old, and distant, empty and dry like an old abandoned well, at least that’s how it made me feel, but that feeling was quickly washed away when another wave came from Terrenacht, my fear turned into panic as my heart raced even faster.

I was going to change again, I felt it, but I didn’t want to! I was already deformed enough by that horrible thing on my back, I didn’t want my body to change again, please!

But begging didn’t change anything, and I felt the wave consume me from the inside, rolling and swelling upward until it settled on my upper back.

My panic ballooned and I touched my back where the heat was pulsating, I didn’t know what to do!

Then it started. The heat pushed under my skin and I felt something slowly burst out of my back, ripping my very skin and torturously pushing against my armor as my body felt choked by my blue full plate armor.

Losing my mind to the pain again, as if my Pain Resistance was useless, I started clawing at my back mindlessly to try and free myself from the prison of metal surrounding me, my mana shifting and pushing through the matrix of my armor to create space for my new horrible mutation, but it wasn’t fast enough!

“Crrrriiish!” The metal screamed as my mutations surged through it, The disgusting thing growing on my back had punched right through it!

The pain intensified still and I started rolling right and left on the ground, my arms and legs spasming as I bit my tongue, and then just as fast as it happened, it disappeared.

I stopped moving and remained to lie on the ground on my side, panting heavily, my eyes full of stars born from my agony. My face was all wet and hot and I realized I had cried a bit. I furiously whipped my tears away and felt that the ground was uncomfortable, like, imagine big rocks sticking on your sides, kind of uncomfortable.

I moved a bit but it didn’t go away and, in the end, my discomfort won over my exhaustion, and I sat cross-legged.

Or at least I tried, because halfway through my motion, I felt something new. I was propping myself on the ground, but not just with my hands, and that startled me so much that I pushed too hard and ended up face-planting.

I quickly went back on my feet, panicked, and looked behind me.

Fuck I thought, and I had to stop myself from puking.

Four large spider legs were now growing out of my back, hanging backward lazily, their chitinous black surface just as sparkly as the rest of my body, and I could feel through them, I could feel their touch and I could move them.

Just like the mutated tail, they were clearly part of my body, but… but they weren’t part of myself! They were gross and stood out and felt in excess, I just wanted to tear them away from my true body with my own hands! I was clenching and unclenching my fists, trying to control myself because I knew that I couldn’t get rid of them that way, they would just grow back like my cursed tail, I was stuck with them!

Hmm… you’re still scrawny, take another helping…

The voice whispered…

No! Nonono please!

P-please, I can’t do this a third time! W-whoever you are, stop it, I beg you! T-Terrenacht! By now I was pretty sure that I was changing because of Terrenacht, but Nate never talked about it, only about how I would absorb skills!

You’re weak, you need to eat…

The voice answered as if it was speaking to someone else.

I felt yet another hot wave assault me from Terrenacht’s handle and I threw it as far away as possible in anger and fear, but it didn’t stop what was happening.

Heat exploded in my head and I crushed my hands against my eyes. Something wet was coming out of them, but it couldn’t be my tears since there was way too much of it. Three spots on each side of my eyes turned prickly, then felt like full-blown daggers coming out of my forehead.

The pain became too much, and I felt my mind slip away…

Nothing can live without eating, not even the gods…

The voice whispered as I fled the pain of being awake.