As the fox turned to run away from her, Goldie only had a split-second before she understood what was happening.

She immediately sprang into motion to follow the creature. Her Mana ball only needed another couple of seconds.

The fox was far faster than her, but in its haste and near blindness, it charged headfirst into a tree.

It bounced and stumbled backward as Goldie closed the distance. The fox turned back to look at her, seemed to decide it had no option but to fight, swung its left claw in the spider’s direction—and it was finally ready. Goldie fired the Mana ball, barely pausing to aim.

The projectile tore through the fox’s paw, boring a neat hole through the left side, then buried itself in the fox’s chest.

The beast slumped to the ground, twitched twice, and then lay unmoving. Blood slowly trickled from the corner of its mouth.

I think I—did I win? Goldie thought wonderingly. Adon, I won!

She activated Telepathy, which she had not used during the fight, and sent the words as a message, as loudly as she could, in the general direction she remembered Adon was waiting.

Adon, I won!

From a distance, at a reduced volume, came his reply: Woo! I knew you could do it, Goldie!

At the sound of his telepathic voice, something inside Goldie released. The spider allowed herself to relax. The fox was dead. Adon had answered her call. There were no deadly predators apparently within sight. All was right in the world.

Goldie walked over slowly toward the fox, her legs making leisurely movements, calm and cool. She climbed onto its nearest paw, and the dead animal did not stir—there had been some tiny part of her that imagined that it would spring back to life somehow—as she walked her way up the length of the fox’s leg. She kept moving up the body until she reached the shoulder, where the leg met the body.

Then the spider began to feed.

Goldie was no caterpillar. She did not slip into a feeding trance. Frankly, even if she had been possessed of Adon’s strong appetites, she was far too anxious about being in the middle of a forest to lose focus on her surroundings for even as long as it would take to fully sate her hunger. Still, despite being in what she firmly classified as hostile territory in her mind, Goldie enjoyed herself. The fresh, hot, red flesh and blood of a predator that she had killed herself, and one that was theoretically outside her natural ability, was rather intoxicating.

Every time she had an experience like this, it was a little bit easier for her to understand why Adon had made hunting such dangerous creatures a major part of his lifestyle.

After drinking just a small amount of the fox’s flesh and blood, Goldie felt noticeably more powerful. She thought it was possible that she was getting more out of this than she had out of all the other meals she had consumed since Evolution, put together.

Perhaps that is the power of eating what you kill yourself.

She began to devise a plan, and as it became clearer, she began explaining it through Telepathy to Adon.

I think we can make Samson stronger more quickly than I grew, Goldie sent in a loud voice—though she did not know whether that would have an effect or not, Telepathy seemed to follow similar principles to the transmission of sound generally. Thoughts grew less audible over a longer distance. Therefore, louder thoughts ought to carry further.

I’m listening, Adon sent back. He sounded like he was trying to yell, too, though the audio quality remained fairly weak. Even if you can’t easily hear me, please assume I can hear you. My Telepathy is very strong. I’m just restraining myself, because I don’t want to hurt Samson’s brain.

The thought that Adon could accidentally harm Samson with Telepathy was a little scary, but Goldie implicitly trusted that Adon knew what he was doing.

I realized that there appears to be a significant benefit to killing your prey yourself, Goldie sent. It is something I suppose I understood when I was an orb weaver. I had little opportunity to have food served to me at the time. Then again, I also was not regularly killing creatures that were substantially more powerful than me back then.

Goldie paused. She realized she probably came across as unfocused. She hesitated, expecting Adon to ask a question—but the butterfly just waited silently. He knew she was going somewhere.

I have an idea for how we can help Samson get the most out of the period immediately after he completes his Evolution, Goldie sent. She began to explain her plan in greater detail.

As she finished, Adon responded excitedly.

That’s a great idea, Goldie, he sent. I don’t know if it will work the way you’re hoping, but there’s no reason not to try. It’s the best way I can think of for us to use our time wisely while we wait for Samson. I’m glad you’re feeling so good about the results of your fight with the fox. I know I’m stuck over here, watching Samson, but is there anything I can do to help?

Nothing that I can think of, Goldie replied quickly. You are already doing the most important thing.

Well, all right, Adon transmitted. Goldie heard the slight unease in his voice. Knowing Adon, he was probably worried about her—and maybe bored. He wished he could be doing something to contribute, something to get stronger—anything but the nothing that he was probably up to currently.

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The spider would gladly have accepted Adon’s help if he could assist her without abandoning his defense of Samson, but this plan was something that only Goldie could do.

It is nice to feel useful for a change, Goldie thought to herself.

She continued eating the fox as she contemplated how she might best accomplish her mission. The flesh was extremely satisfying. With each portion she consumed, the spider wanted more.

Goldie opened the Evolution Store. She knew that with the death of the fox, she would have acquired a large sum of Evolution Points. It was time to put those to work. Hopefully there would be some new Skill or Adaptation that could assist her.

She saw that she had a total of 1242 Evolution Points to spend, though she could not be certain how many of those were from the recent fight and how many she had acquired through the slow accumulation of points when she was in the palace, receiving her meals without any struggle.

Would I still prefer to be served my meals on a silver platter, or is hunting better? Goldie asked herself as she slurped another mouthful of semi-liquid meat. At least at this moment, the fox felt like an exceptionally delicious meal, but she did not think that was because she had hunted it herself. Is it really worth it to go out into the wild and put yourself at risk just to acquire more Evolution Points with every meal?

She shook her head slightly.

No, she thought. My friend Adon is just a little crazy. The words in her head were affectionate. It is definitely better to sit at home with the hatchlings and have food brought to you.

She returned her attention to the Evolution Store and started scrolling through options.

The spider hardly noticed that as she continued eating throughout the search, her body grew more and more swollen. It eventually came to her attention, because her exoskeleton grew so tight that her skin began to shed.

Oh, she thought as the exoskeleton burst at the seams, revealing a new, fresh layer beneath—and a slightly larger base size for her body. I am growing.

It reminded her of Adon, back when he was a caterpillar, always outgrowing his skin.

She returned her attention to the task at hand before she could grow too distracted with nostalgia. There were only a few Skills that she could see being useful for the idea she’d had: Airtight Construction, an ability that would allow her to make structures that did not let air in or out; Trap Construction I, which spoke for itself; Exoskeleton Dummy I, which would allow her to make her shed exoskeletons into convincing pantomimes of a real spider; and Silk Lasso II, which was the upgrade of Silk Lasso I, the Skill she had already employed to great effect against the fox.

There was also a cool Skill called Water Walk, but even though it sounded useful, Goldie could not see it coming in handy in her current environment. She was also reluctant to get near water anyway.

There were also Adaptations that she could imagine being useful in the forest. Stun Secretion I, which would allow her to create a liquid that would sedate targets on contact; Paralytic Gaze I, which was a sort of quasi-magical power that allowed her to harness Mana and enhance the quality of her presence to intimidate enemies into immobility; and Projectile Hairs I, which would turn the small, short hairs Goldie grew around her joints thicker and harder, increase their number, and turn them into little projectile weapons.

I shouldn’t bother with Projectile Hairs, she thought. That would mainly be useful in a close range fight where I’m trying to defend myself.

It was a strange feeling to be choosing abilities for their potential to non-lethally defeat and capture opponents, when she had spent so much time thinking primarily about how to hide from predators and investing any spare resources into more efficient venom to kill anything that entered her hiding places.

But Goldie quickly made her selections.

She bought Trap Construction I for 50 Evolution Points, and after the knowledge of how to construct a basic trap had poured into her mind, she quickly upgraded to versions II and III. She purchased Stun Secretion I and II for 120 and 240 Evolution Points respectively. And she poured the rest into her stats.

Goldie was tired of being the delicate arthropod who had to avoid being stepped on, and she knew she was growing ever larger, as she continued to eat large meals like the fox that she had been devouring for most of the selection process. So she placed almost all of the remaining points into Strength. Hopefully that would allow her to survive a clumsy human stepping on her head.

Paralytic Gaze I was a very cool sounding Adaptation, but at 500 Evolution Points, it was too expensive to justify the expenditure right now. There would be other opportunities.

After she had locked in her purchases and endured the burning pain of her body growing new glands for the Stun Secretion Adaptations—as well as experiencing the pleasant sensation of her body multiplying its Strength—it was time to put her plan into action.

She took her first steps, and her body felt noticeably different. Much more powerful. Like there was a thunderstorm inside her body. She wondered if this was what Adon felt like all the time. She had seen how he could tear apart other arthropods, even those larger than him.

I should have invested in this much sooner…

Goldie shook her head. This was not important now.

She walked over and climbed the nearest tree and then began weaving silk as thin yet strong as she could manage. Using the knowledge she had obtained from Trap Construction, she began building webs of a kind she never had before.

The simple, elegant, ornamental webs that Goldie had always used in the past were designed with a single purpose in mind: allowing her to restrain and kill prey.

The new web she was crafting was intended to progressively entrap prey even while she was not present, and to restrain larger animals than she had previously been able to catch. There was a complex structure to it where one thread pulled on another, causing more and more sticky fibers to attach to whatever animal brushed past it, until it was thoroughly enmeshed in a tangled weave of strings.

This was Goldie’s bright idea. She would make traps and capture some of Samson’s prey for him. She would not kill them herself. She would just ensure they could not escape once they had entered the kill zone. This would save them a lot of time whenever Samson woke up.

Goldie entered a state of incredible focus as she worked. She had always been an artist in her web design in the past. Now she had a new set of tools and a looser construction to experiment with. She thought deeply about each new thread, as well as about where to apply her Stun Secretion to hopefully best sedate the trapped prey.

As one tree was thoroughly enmeshed in nearly invisible webbing that shot out at seemingly random angles, she moved onto the next tree. Then the next. And the next after that.

Whenever she began to run low on Biomass from spinning her silk, Goldie would return to ground level and feed a little more on her prey.

The hours passed by as Goldie delved deeper and deeper into her task.

The fox on the ground slowly diminished in size.

And more and more trees were brought into the thicket of tissue-thin spider strings.