The claws of the Lurker punctured through my wings, yet I didn’t stop moving, I tried biting at its head, but its head moved strangely, evading my attack completely. Unlike myself, my body cared about getting damaged and forced both of my wings to flap, forcing me away just as the Lurker used its long protruding claws to swipe at me. It never stopped looking at me through the entire time.

Not wasting any time, the Lurker suddenly leaped and tried grabbing me.

The blue rectangle appeared just as the Lurker started its leap.

Due to constant use of [Dodge], [Dodge] has leveled up!

My body suddenly changed course with a single flap of my wings and moved to the side.

The Lurker watched and crashed into a tree, it wasted no time in climbing up the tree and onto a thick branch, its claws never stopping and its eyes never leaving me alone.

I didn’t plan on staying and ran through the forest floor, I didn’t have time to watch the Lurker, but I could hear it by the constant snapping of branches and the ‘tik’s as it plunged its 6 claws, 3 on each arm, into the wood. It thankfully stopped trying to be stealthy as I had no idea how I would deal with it if it was quiet as before. Thankfully, it was only quiet when I didn’t know that it wasn’t there.

I ran into a hollowed-out tree lying on the ground and just as I did so, I felt the hollowed-out tree shake as something landed on it forcing it to start rolling down the small slope. I heard thunks as long black claws pierced into the wood, almost puncturing me in place.

Even with the tree spinning, the claws never stopped searching for me, thankfully they stopped once it was spinning fast enough, unfortunately the tree broke in half as it struck a rock forcing me out of the tree.

I looked around until I found the red eyes which the shadowy form responded by twitching once before the Lurker leaped at me, missing with its leap, it came at me with winded up swings, but missing due to me constantly backing up. It, however, dug into the ground and every time its claws resurfaced, my vision was slightly impaired due to a shower of dirt and grass.

This was all so much, half the time my body or my [Dodge] skill was evading the Lurker by itself. The other time I could only scuttle backwards hoping for the Lurker to miss me, which didn’t happen so often. I couldn’t rely on the [Dodge] skill as every time it worked there was a moment where it would not be working, for some reason it activated twice when it leveled up, so I guess it resets every time it leveled up?

I grimaced as I saw my entire wing get ripped off. This was due to the constant uprooting of the ground, making it so I couldn’t see the slash coming my way. It didn’t seem interested in my wing as it flung it far into the distance.

There goes my [Dodge].

I saw the next strike coming and decided to do something bold. I folded my remaining wings and ran forwards instead of backwards. Instead of biting as if that ever worked, I shoved the Lurker with all my weight into a spot where the moon lit up.

It didn’t move far as I was light, but my sudden action seemed to catch it off guard as it moved a single foot back and into the light that it evaded easily before. The reaction was immediate, a loud wail sounded out and the sound of sizzling sounded afterwards.

It backed off on all fours, giving me a moment of peace. But that was short lived as it came bounding at me more aggressively than before. As I suspected my [Dodge] skill stopped activating and I could now evade a minority of attacks, thankfully the attacks that went through only scratched me.

I had an idea from this however, since the moon light seems harmful to the Lurker, there was a place I wanted to go to, however it meant I had to go back to where I saw the Lurker.

I skidded backwards as the slope got steeper, the Lurker, seeing this leaped once again at me, but with all the strength I could muster, I ran sideways evading the Lurker and going back up the hill. I could hear the Lurker run after me. Its larger size made it faster, but since the moon sometimes broke into the forest, it had to sidestep slowing it down significantly.

I was thankful that we were still close to where I first saw the Lurker and I could already see the tree that was still somehow standing even if half of it was bending downwards.

Now how can I make you fall?

I looked behind me just as I got under the towering tree and my eyes widened at the incoming darkness. I leaned back using the force of my wings flapping, but I was too late as my other large wing was torn in two, turning into a useless stump. Now all I had was two useless small wings. I backed up into the tree just as the Lurker stabbed at me again, thankfully it missed and rather its claws plunged deep into the tree causing the tree itself to creak and shake.

The Lurker seemed to try and pull out its three claws out of the tree, yet it was not able too. That, however, didn’t stop the Lurker from using its other arm, instead of stabbing like before, it instead slashed with its claws removing both of my antennas completely, and creating deep groves into the bark, causing more creaks to come from the tree.

I could’ve stayed right there and waited for the Lurker to do more damage to the tree, but it was stuck here, I could just climb behind it and rip off its head, so that’s what I did, I ran around it, its eyes finally leaving me alone. It started panicking from what I could see, it started moving around frantically trying to remove its arm from the tree.

I jumped up and tried grabbing onto the back of the Lurker, but my legs couldn’t pierce the skin of the Lurker, and with the constant shaking I slipped right off. What was worse was that the Lurker decided to use its claws to cut off its other arm, becoming unstuck.

It shrieked loudly, shaking my vision as it twitched and looked at me. I could hear its heavy uneven breathing.

But I could also hear the snapping and creaking of the tree.

With a long whine, something that the Lurker ignored completely as it grabbed towards me, the tree crashed into the forest floor, bathing the form of the Lurker in beautiful.

I watched in fascination as the form of the lurker was finally revealed. The lurker had a similar face structure to a pup, it opened its mouth to scream and wail at the moon allowing me to see the many uneven and sharp teeth in its mouth. Instead of having fur, it had something that looked like a black shell, but it wasn’t.

It locked eyes with me and reached out with its arm, yet it was slower than before.

I stepped back as the Lurker’s red eyes slid out of its sockets and onto the floor. It wailed more as it blindly reached out, its shell-like exterior started forming half domes and started sliding down its body lanky.

It didn’t last long for the Lurker to release one last deafening wail before falling to the ground, the sound of sizzling filling the air.

[Lurker] has been defeated.

Level up x8!

Once the blue rectangles appeared, I dismissed all of them and immediately tried eating the Lurker, but my mouth went numb immediately as intense heat greeted me. I pulled back, but I didn’t wait long as I braced against the intense heat and pulled the dead Lurker into the shadows of the forest.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The sizzling continued for a bit before the sounds of the forest were the only sounds remaining.

I tapped it with my foot and felt that the body had turned colder, but it was still hot.

I didn’t care however and immediately started eating.

It tasted horrible, the flesh had a texture that made it hard to bite into and rip apart, the taste was just plain awful, even the blood tasted bitter.

Yet I didn’t care, I greedily ate my fill and then some more. The creature had larger hard things in its body so I wasn’t able to eat those which I was glad for as that meant my body wouldn’t shove it out of my mouth like last time.

Once I felt full, I gained more clarity and groaned mentally at the loss of two wings and many other damages that made my body feel horrible.

That meant I would need to give the pup more food so that it would heal me, which made me grumble more. I looked at the half-eaten Lurker and grimaced, I’d rather never have to eat a Lurker again. I was slightly curious about something, however; I dragged the now cold body into the moonlight and watched in morbid fascination at the prolonged sizzling of the corpse which caused the remaining flesh to fall off the pinkish hard things in its body.

The flesh that came off turned into some sort of liquid which started bubbling before dissipating. Nothing else happened so I left for my home until another blue rectangle appeared.

Corpse of a monster has been acquired, skill [Summon Undead] learnt 3 / 4. Complete one more objective to learn this skill. Quest updated.

I was immediately curious as I had forgotten that I had a so called ‘Quest’. It had appeared only twice and didn’t explain much so I just ignored it.

Now however, I know how to gain more information using [Appraisal].

The muffled sounds of a creature from far away sounded out, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I should do this somewhere else...

----------------------------------------

Once back in the safety of my home, I looked at the blue rectangle that had followed me throughout the journey back. I didn’t waste any more time and used [Appraisal] on it.

[Quest]

Beginner necromancer

* Seen a complete ritual circle for creating undead

* Seen the summoning of high ranked undead

* Acquired a skeletal corpse of some sort

* Created ritual circle for creating undead

Reward

* Skill [Summon Undead]

Ritual circle? It's talking about the... what was its name...? The demon thing?

The demon thing didn’t give much of an impression, I think part of me didn’t want to remember the name of someone that took me away from Silven.

The ‘ritual circle’, however, I didn’t forget. The process was pretty, even if it was almost void of colors.

Now I should probably go into torpor as I felt my energy was at an all-time low... butttt this sounds more fun.

But first, what does the [Skill] even do?

[Summon Undead] Command forces beyond death’s doors.

I stared long and hard at it, after seeing nothing change, I used [Appraisal] on the skill again yet it brought up the same blue rectangle.

Cryptic much?

It sounded cool, but what did it mean?

Wait, wasn’t Green, Pink and Red were Undead? Does that mean I summon them?

I was excited to see them again, it hasn’t been that long since I last saw them, but it would be nice to see them again, even Arrogant.

But how do I go about doing a ‘ritual circle’?

I tried to make a simple circle into the main room, but it seems my writing practice was for naught as the circle looked more like a deformed apple. I grimaced and slowly started filling up the grooves to make the ground level.

This happened a few more times before I decided to just engrave the ritual circle I saw slowly and steadily.

The results were immediately better, but they were more oval than circle.

Until finally I was able to create a circle, it wasn’t perfect, but I was too annoyed to try one more time. I thought of how I would create the symbols and felt that I was already at the edge of my patience, yet I still tried my best to create these symbols.

There were three symbols, all at different points, where the corners of a triangle would be. They did seem to get easier to sketch, but it was still so slow.

I pushed through as I only had to draw a couple more shapes, first I started with the outer triangle as the inner triangle would have to be the inverse of the outer one.

Both were easy compared to the circle and the symbols.

Now the last circle with the last symbol.

In the middle of the inverse triangle, there was a circle with a symbol that looked like a human eye.

Since the circle was small, it was easy to complete, it did take a few tries, but it was less attempts than the first circle. The eye was not easy, it was also the last drawing so if my [Quest] wasn’t complete after this, I messed up somewhere.

I made it perfectly, but my [Quest] still didn’t update. I looked at my other symbols and noticed that one of them was missing a single line at the end. Adding that line brought up the blue rectangle.

Created a poor ritual circle, skill [Summon Undead] learnt 4 / 4, Quest completed.

However, a red rectangle popped up startling me.

No suitable class detected, changing skill.

I was speechless, I had thought that the world was taking pity on me and finally allowing me to see someone I knew, but no.

[Summon Undead] has changed to [Bone Armor].

I guess it's something-

Yet the red rectangle came back.

No skeletal structure detected, changing skill.

I decided to let it play out, I was extremely annoyed, but at least I was getting a [Skill] in the end. Not the [Skill] I wanted when I started, but that’s fine.

[Bone Armor] has changed to [Exoskeleton Armor]

Exoskeleton functions as armor, changing skill.

[Exoskeleton Armor] has changed to [Exoskeleton Manipulation]

I waited a bit to see if my hopes would once again be dashed, but thankfully nothing happened. I dismissed all the red rectangles and left the blue rectangles. If I was not allowed to have the other [Skill]s, I’ll at least learn what I missed.

[Exoskeleton Manipulation] Morph your exoskeleton in a limited way.

[Exoskeleton Armor] Grow an exoskeleton which functions like armor.

[Bone Armor] Drape yourself in impenetrable bones to stop blows.

Why does the exoskeleton’s [Skills] sound so... disappointing?

I was shocked at the weak sounding descriptions of the two exoskeletons’ [Skills]. compared to ‘impenetrable bones’ I simply get a way to morph my own exoskeleton in a ‘limited way’?!

I couldn’t even properly get mad due to being drowsy.

I dismissed the blue rectangles as if they were a distaste to my very own eyes.

I looked down at the ritual circle that took so long to create, and just stood there, mentally complaining about how unfair this world was.

Maybe I’m overthinking it, maybe it’s not as weak as I think.

I cheered myself up as I went into torpor on the spot.

Sadly, my torpor did not give me peace as my mind finally brought up the fact that Green told Silven that it was going to die.

I tried to ignore the feeling of dread, yet no matter how much I tried, they never went away.