The carapax guard came toward me, halberd drawn back as if it was planning to cut me in half from my nose to my crotch.

I didn’t know if it was my adrenaline, my steadily increasing experience levels, or repeated exposure to terrifying shit, but I was ready for it. I’d already spent hours practicing my abilities, and I’d already faced several different sizes and shapes of things trying to kill me.

My body lurched into action before I could form a complete thought.

I shifted my weight, pushing off my right foot to dodge. At the same time, I formed an image of my bottle and urged the mana to take its shape. The echo appeared a few feet in front of the carapax, floating like a cloudy blue hologram suspended in midair.

I urged it straight for the beetle’s chest.

The ethereal bottle of poison zipped through the air toward the carapax as if pulled by a string. It collided with the guard with a quiet woosh, vaporizing in a poof of smoke and releasing a bottle of rot poison to splatter against the beetle’s center of mass.

The poison hissed, bubbled, and dripped but didn’t kill the halberd-wielding beetle.

I only had a fraction of a second to register that the beetle was still coming. The poison hadn’t even slowed it down.

Insect legs churned as the massive creature approached, poisonous rot steam billowing away from its thick armor as it charged—eating up the distance between us in a blur as it dragged the long halberd in its wake.

Oh, shit.

I jumped out of the way at the last moment. The carapax lifted the weapon overhead in a flick of its wrists, then slammed it down faster than I could blink.

The ground shuddered beside me and pellets of dirt and dust exploded against my skin.

The next swing came before I could even react. This one landed directly on my chest, but bounced away as the blue, rippling light of my Ring of Protection bloomed to life.

It gave me a second to scramble to my feet and throw myself to the side. I was still too slow. I felt like I was in a dream where I couldn’t make myself move quickly enough—like everything in the world was moving at light speed, and I was underwater.

Cold bit into my lower leg, catching me with enough force to spin me through the air.

I landed face-first, and the agony came as I tried to get to my feet. Icy pain spread from the point of impact, and I felt the warm rush of blood.

The carapax was already facing me with its weapon pulled back for another strike.

With my leg feeling heavy and unresponsive, I scooted back on my ass, eyes wide as I stared up at the relentless carapax looming over me.

Another blow caught me on the side of my helmet with a clang. Panic was threatening to take over.

I’d felt confident.

I’d felt ready.

Fuck. Come on. I needed to get it together. It wasn’t over yet.

I rolled away from another blow that left a deep gash in the dirt where I’d been lying a moment ago. I spread my legs and pushed myself back, dodging another that nearly castrated me.

I finally had an opening to point my palm and project a rush of poison. This time, I avoided the thick chest carapace and aimed for its less protected cluster of legs.

The poison hit with a splash that nearly blew back on me. But the effect was instantaneous. Two legs melted immediately, snapping under the carapax’s weight and breaking in half. The beetle staggered, interrupting its swing to use the halberd as a temporary crutch.

Sensing my chance, I raised my palm and sprayed as much poison as my mana allowed, blasting the rest of its legs and then aiming for an arm. The thin, unprotected legs burned away as the carapax shambled toward me, trying to move on melting legs that were breaking apart with each step.

Foul-smelling steam hissed away from its body, rising in a thick yellow cloud that partially obscured the beetle. One of its arms fell away with a bony creak, thumping to the ground where it continued to twitch.

With the last of my mana, I stood and sprayed poison, aiming it from a safe distance so it arced down and landed in a gap between the heaviest carapace and the neck. The beetle shuddered, twitched, and then went corpse-stiff as it finally tipped backward, crashing to the dirt.

You’ve reached level 41!

“God damn,” I breathed. “And a big fucking yay for me…” I sank down to my knees, gasping for breaths as I surveyed the kill. There was a pink, fleshy sac that looked a little like a kidney sitting beside the guard. I frowned at it, then leaned forward and scooped it up in my hand. A tooltip appeared over it.

[Carapax Pheromone (Rare) (Modification) ?]

Call me gross, but I immediately dropped it into my epic bag of duplication. Just to be sure. I closed the bag and opened it again. There was still only one pheromone sack inside. It was worth a shot. If that was a rare ingredient, it was probably worth something, after all.

I stuffed the pheromone in my slip space as I formed a few ideas about how I could use something like that if I didn’t end up selling it. I had another pinging notification from my helmet.

That was strange, considering I’d just checked my notifications after killing the carapax.

What else was—

[Common Accomplishment] Simultaneously draw the aggression of (10) carapax. [Reward - Common Survival Token]

[Rare Accomplishment] Simultaneously draw the aggression of (50) carapax. [Reward - Rare Survival Token] “The funny thing about this reward is most people don’t survive to claim it. But you’re Seraphel! You’ll figure something out. By the way, I’d start running back to your friends nowish… Those bugs are moving fast, and they seem really, really mad. They got this crazy idea that you want some of their queen’s nectar. Then again, they think that about anybody who gets so close to their village. Did you know they send every single fighting bug in town when they pick up the scent of danger? Isn’t that a little strange?”

Shit.

I started running but pulled up with a limp when my injured calf protested. My leg still worked, but it felt concerningly numb below my knee. It also hurt like hell, but that was a given.

I hobbled back toward the camp as quickly as I could. I wanted to focus on speed, but I knew I was bone dry on mana, so I forced myself to try to meditate as I moved. I had a few siphons left if the carapax showed up before I could recover my mana, but I wasn’t ready to use them quite yet. Maybe I wouldn’t need to.

Just one carapax had very nearly killed me several times over. Fifty would crush me to paste. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I thought Bloody Steve and the whole group could handle that many.

Then I thought about the townspeople.

I slowed my pace, stumbling to a stop.

I was leading fifty angry, murderous bugs toward our camp.

Those people were trusting us to protect them. I couldn’t lie. My self-preservation instincts screamed for me to trust the murderous little tomte and the others to save my ass. I was already wounded, and the flimsy hope I had was an idea I couldn’t be sure of.

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

But… I’d be taking a risk by running back to camp. And it wasn’t my risk to take…

I clenched my fists and glanced back from the way I’d come. “Shit, shit, shit,” I hissed. I looked toward the camp, then to my left. I couldn’t hear them, but they had to be close.

“God dammit,” I muttered, then changed direction. I stopped heading for camp and veered towards the river instead. I was supposed to be on the path to becoming a god, right? I needed to trust my instincts and take calculated risks when I could. Even with my life on the line, I just had to override a few warning alarms in my brain, ignore the voice shouting for me to go get help, and drag myself away from camp and toward the river.

If I listened to my instincts, they were telling me to seize the opportunity here. There was a narrow path to come out of this ahead, and I had to trust that I’d followed those same instincts in another life to become the person this world knows as Seraphel.

I could make this work.

I only had to forget that failure wouldn’t mean loading up a quicksave like if I was playing a game and trying to squeeze out an economic advantage early to get a leg up on my opponent. Failure wouldn’t mean a heavy sigh and walking away from my computer. It would mean being chopped to pieces by giant beetles with medieval weapons made of scrapped-together bug parts.

I spent some of my short, limping hike thinking about how I might have just sealed my fate. I spent the rest trying to devise a plan from what few tools I had to work with.

I still couldn’t hear any approaching carapax, so I dumped the rest of my Alchemist’s Kit, meaning I was down to one full kit’s worth of vials and no more corpse fingers. A problem to worry about later, assuming there was a later.

I scooped up water from the stream in my empty Alchemist’s Kit and shoved the slimy pheromone sac inside. It slopped into the bottle, instantly reacting and forming a golden yellow potion that glowed from the inside. It gave off a musky smell so strong I thought it might vaporize my nose hairs.

I was moving with what I used to think of as “EMT speed.” It was the razor’s edge between moving so fast that you screwed things up and moving so slowly that somebody died. I needed to hurry, but I also couldn’t afford to screw any of this up.

My heart pounded in my ears, but I ignored it.

I unstoppered one of my ten vials of my Recovery Potion and downed it. I didn’t know if it would do anything for my wound, but I was already gassed from my painful limp to the river. I sighed with relief, feeling a bit better. Then I pulled out a Siphon and sucked it dry. A few moments ago, I was thinking of saving it until I reached the camp and assessed the situation. Now, though? Now, I was firmly in “this is an emergency” territory. If I had something, I was going to use it.

After burning through some siphons in the ruins and several more before my encounter with the briarwraith, using one now brought my total down to only three.

With full mana, a slightly refreshed body, and a lump of cold ice in my stomach, I looked at my new potion.

[Carapax Pheromone (Common) ?]

I dumped a huge pile of pheromones on the ground, completely draining my mana. I pulled out another Siphon and sucked it down. Two left.

I tore a strip away from my increasingly tattered “new” clothes. I tied about half of the length above my wound, pulled it tight, and then picked up a stick. I wrapped the remaining cloth around the stick and used it as a lever to pull the bandage tighter, then finished tying it off so it was locked in place for constant pressure. The sudden tightness made my eyes water from the pain, but I didn’t have time to slow down.

The other danger from my wound was infection. While it wasn’t an immediate danger, it would kill me just as surely as a giant beetle if I managed to survive this and didn’t take care of it. I could at least wash it off in the stream to reduce the risk slightly.

I dipped my split skin in the stream and watched the already congealing blood loosen and drift away with the current, darkening the waters. Hopefully, Minara could patch me up when I was back.

If I survived to get back, that was. I took a few deep breaths, looking around for any sign of the approaching carapax. This was a crossroads moment if there ever was one.

I needed to move, but I also needed to make sure I was really doing this. I started limping away from the pile of pheromones as my thoughts raced. Sweat already beaded on my face beneath the helmet as I sucked in pained breath after pained breath.

I saw three choices ahead of me.

One: do the logical thing and run back to camp. I could assume we’d put up a good fight and acknowledge the carapax may even find the party after killing me if I manage to lead them away. My “heroic” attempt to save them might just mean getting myself killed alone instead of being able to stand at their side and help.

Two: do the slightly less logical but more honorable thing. I could take my pheromone potion, run in a random direction, and sprinkle tempting scents for the carapax to hopefully chase after. I would lead them as far as possible from camp, then circle back and tell everybody we’re in danger and need to get away. That option brought the real possibility of Bloody Steve, Kass, and Perch wanting to go after the bugs, though.

Three: the thing I was pretty sure I was going to do… My secret messenger seemed to go out of their way to let me know the carapax would all be away to look for me. Why phrase it that way unless there was an opportunity there?

For all I knew, I could walk up to the queen, snag some nectar, and do it all without fighting.

And if I arrived at the village to see it was swarming with bugs, I’d just cancel my plan and hobble away as fast as possible.

Fuck. I could already feel where this was going, and it made my stomach want to drop out of my ass. But I pushed through it. I needed to be this version of myself if I was going to succeed here.

Option three, then.

I adjusted my path a little so I was looping back toward the place where I’d killed the first guard—closer to where the supposed carapax village probably was.

I just had to assume the queen wasn’t dangerous herself. But didn’t bug queens usually wind up being some kind of huge, helpless Jabba-the-Hutt type who make eggs while the colony keeps them alive? I had to hope so.

I dragged myself forward, distracting myself from the ache in my leg with thoughts of what I could do with that nectar. Upgrading a potion would be fun, but it would be a fleeting benefit. I’d already seen how often I needed to empty out my Kit to switch something new in. Realistically, I would probably try to sell something like the nectar. If it was worth as much as the others implied, that money could go a long, long way.

I heard a fast-approaching chorus of clicking sounds and a rush of movement to my left. I ducked, wincing at the pain in my calf from crouching. I found a cluster of thick bushes and shoved myself inside, ignoring the grooves several thorns dug into my skin.

A swarm of bright red carapax guards streamed out of the trees. The bugs held a variety of chitin weapons. I saw spears, halberds, greatswords, and even a few bows. I shivered as I watched them pass by in the direction I’d just come from. Seeing those gigantic bows and the quivers full of arrows as long as my body made me more certain I’d made the right call. Even Bloody Steve would’ve likely struggled to fend off a barrage of human-sized arrows while the giant beetles overwhelmed him.

I waited until the group of carapax passed out of view, then continued onward. I planned to search around the area and find that “village.” Whatever it was, the beetles were big enough that I imagined their home would stick out like a sore thumb.

It wasn’t long before I made it back to the carapax corpse. I picked up its giant chitin halberd, halfway expecting it to dissolve like Jinglefoot’s knife had. To my relief, it stayed in one piece. Maybe bugs couldn’t tether mana or the item was simple enough to be classified as mundane. It was almost two feet taller than I was, but it made a good enough crutch to lean on for support. I expected it to be heavy with how the carapax had dragged it, but the whole thing must have been hollow. It felt light as plastic. I still had to grip it carefully because it was made of sharp, segmented chunks of bug carapace. Any one of those seams could’ve probably sliced through me like butter. I couldn’t even guess how something like this was put together.

Maybe they grew it?

I looked around the area. If they’d been alarmed enough to swarm me, they must have thought I was close to their village. At least, I hoped that was true. With my calf, I wasn’t going to cover much ground.

My whole leg was throbbing, and I felt slightly lightheaded, which made me worry I was losing more blood than I thought. Continuing to move around on it was probably the obvious explanation. I popped the cork on another refreshment vial and downed it. Eight left.

I stopped to check my tourniquet occasionally, tightening it when I could to try to slow the blood loss. My leg was still drenched in warm wet blood as I limped around in my search. I formed a rough circular area around the dead beetle. If I didn’t find it in my first loop, I’d make a bigger circle on the second pass. After that… I’d either pass out or try to sneak back to camp once I was sure they weren’t on my trail.

But it was taking too long. How long had it already been? Five minutes? Fifteen? I was losing blood and getting slower by the minute. Damn it.

I was thinking about giving up the search when I heard them.

More clicks.

I looked around for something to hide behind, but the trees weren’t thick enough to do more than partially obscure me.

Shit.

I stood my ground as I saw them coming into view.

The ground shook with the weight of the group of eight-foot-tall, giant red beetles carrying deadly weapons. They moved in unison like soldiers, marching into a semicircle as the pace of their clicks increased to a frenzy. I wanted to plug my ears, but I clutched the Alchemist's Kit so hard I worried it might shatter instead.

I’m fucked.

And when you’re fucked, that “stupid, break-in-case-of-emergency” plan you knew you’d never resort to suddenly doesn’t sound so bad…

With my Alchemist’s Kit in one hand, I pointed my empty palm at my face and closed my eyes. Even with the helmet, this wasn’t going to be pleasant.

I used Elemental Projection and wished for the best.