In the system's inky blackness, Alex’s consciousness stood vividly alert. He lost whatever purchase his feet had found in the empty space and began to drift, detached from reality, Here, he was not bound by its rules or limits. Except one; the limit of time. Aside from times March- slowed to a crawl- His mind was his reality, and it was here he faced a crucial choice: the selection of his latest crystal gained skill.
His first option, 'Lesser-Hivemind,' presented itself as a network of thoughts, a web of minds interlinked. Alex envisioned the strategic advantages, the seamless flow of information and tactics between allies. But it would be limited to just one person, either John or the kid- that ‘thing’. Perhaps he could use it to find out her true motives, if she was acting on the Queen's orders. And then what, think them to death? He thought. The skill had no immediate combat uses and relied heavily on others. Aside from the single use of shared thoughts, the skill would be useless against the queen and her soldiers.
But Predation had potential. A lot of potential. It was primal and beckoned to him. He saw himself gaining strength, and vitality from his vanquished foes, a direct path to power that was easily exploitable. But the act of consuming another's flesh for power was a step into a realm where humanity and monstrosity blurred. And if it gave significant stat boosts at higher levels, what was to stop him from tweaking his moral quandaries? What if he needed to take a bite out of someone to survive? What if the stats became permanent? That kind of temptation could topple even the most noble of men. All it would take would be a moment, a single lapse of judgement or bending of his views of the right and wrong things to do, however small, and he would be set down a path of no return, a path that lead to him treating people as mere morsels to be consumed. He found himself wondering if the path was all but guaranteed to strip him of the very essence of his human soul, and his questions led him to a definitive answer. The skill absolutely had the potential to turn a man into the very thing he sought to defeat. Eating monsters and eating people wasn't something he felt was befitting of a swordsman; not only was it pretty evil, but In all honesty… it was kind of gross, too.
Then, there was 'Abyssal Chitin', another tempting skill, but for different reasons. A carapace of armour, a shield against the physical assaults of this unforgiving new world. The shapeshifting elements were pretty damned cool, and the ability to conjure a weapon at will paired well with skills like mana blade and his executioner skill. But technically his inventory already did that, in a way. And then there was the fact that the skill didn’t match Alex’s fighting style; It promised resilience, a chance to become a bastion and bulwark against an onslaught of enemies. But Alex wasn’t a defensive fighter. He could be, but it just wasn't his style. Not to mention the skill was not without its drawbacks – the heavy toll on his mana reserves, the potential sluggishness and vulnerability when the mana waned. It was a fortress, yes, but one that could crumble under sustained assault.
Finally, 'Beastial Senses' emerged from the depths of his mind, a skill that would amplify his perception to superhuman levels. It paired well with his Inner and Outer sense skills and matched his style almost perfectly. He imagined sensing the slightest tremor, the faintest rustle of an enemy's movement, turning the world into his personal theatre with everything easily seen and interpreted. But with this heightened sense came the risk of overwhelming his mind, the barrage of endless information that could distract and confuse him at critical moments.
The skills appeared as distinct pathways, each branching off into uncertain futures. His decision loomed, a defining moment in the inky blackness of the system. But he was out of time, he had to make a decision now. And so he chose.
[Grade F Skill: Bestial senses - Arachnae (Passive) selected!]
At the notification's arrival, colour bled into the system's world of darkness, and within a fraction of a second, Alex returned to the world.
But the world to which he had returned was unlike any world he had experienced before. It was a world of new sensations.
He could feel the sounds of the chamber, he could feel the currents of air in the same way one could clearly feel a finger's path tracing along their skin.
He could almost see them.
The subtle shifts of the air on his skin sent a surge of information flooding through his mind. Of The air drifting in his vicinity, its currents, ebbs and flows pushed by the mouth, pores, and movements of all beings close to him.
It painted a static image of his immediate surroundings. Like a subtle hazy picture in Alex's mind's eye. It was Blurry and unclear, but enough to make out important details; the movements and general figures of all present. With this, he could sense any attacks or projectiles even while blindfolded.
He leaned into the sensation, his head tilting imperceptibly forward.
A crackling series of clinking sounds from the Queen's porcelain joints sent pulses through the chamber, waves of sound that cleared the fuzzy image in Alex’s mind. The rings of sound waves shot from one end of the chamber to the other, turning soft lines clear and hard as each wave of sound washed over him, adding small details like the slight twitch of John's fingers beside him, the fact that John wore three rings beneath his gauntleted hand, the blood-stained scar on his back beneath his clothes. See the form of a human girl beneath the webbing of the kid to his right and outside of his field of visual view.
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Then the rest of his new senses crashed into him in a wave of overloading sensations.
The queen's grasping hands had stopped about 15 metres away from them, the chamber was oblong, and they were all on the far end, out of her reach apparently, the Queen made to move closer and the chamber rumbled further, then she stopped and looked to her soldiers, who at her mere glance, began to approach Alex and his companions as though they had garnered her full intent from a single glance.
The soldiers moved with slow and sure steps, confident in the knowledge that the only path that could allow humans to escape would be a path that led directly to their many blades.
Each step sent waves of information through Alex, an overload. For a moment the overload of information was blinding, his enhanced intelligence stat allowed him to process information at speeds a baseline human could only mimic with tools, but the sensations remained foreign and disorientating. He simply wasn’t used to being able to see so much, so suddenly. He struggled to parse the information until the systems instincts guided him- giving him the sense of the possibility of sorting the overload, allowing him to choose what he wanted to focus on. He has the subtle feeling that if he wished, he could subconsciously choose the level of his focus and grant himself only a 360-degree, 3-dimensional image of his close surroundings, and not that of the entire chamber or the many chemicals, sound waves, and vibrations it held. It felt like holding a conversation while ignoring the freeway behind you. This’ll take some getting used to, he thought with a tightening grip on his sword.
He focused, chasing the sensations of his new Instincts, allowing only the smallest parts of information around his immediate vicinity to seep into focus. as a result, chemical reactions in the air around him washed over everything in his vision, and a few things outside of it. It sent vibrations through substrate that turned everything immediately around him in a 360-degree radius into a view as clear as if he was staring at it all from above. And below. And from the front, too. Vibrations from the floor beneath his feet and the wall behind his back rocked through him, and Alex found himself picking up the most minute of details, things outside his field of vision and things the naked eye could never perceive. He saw the bead of sweat trickling down John's brow to his left and a little behind him… saw the contours of the girl's facial features beneath her webbing, how small pores all over the surface of her skin released waves of chemicals into the air, almost identical to the waves released by the gargantuan looming palm of the queen some metres away. Yep, she's definitely one of them. Alex was almost sure of it now. He could clearly see the form of a human girl beneath the webbing of the kid, despite her standing to his right and outside of his field of view. Alex frowned at what he saw. it was like he was seeing her for the first time, beneath all the frayed layers of ‘prey’ webbing that covered her.
She looked almost exactly like his sister, but different.
The sight of her features conjured buried memories in the recesses of Alex’s mind. He had seen those features before, as a child. Blended in with the features of his younger sister were small hints of his mother's features, too. Alex reeled in shock, his mouth Ajar.
Why does she look like my sister? He knew it couldn’t be her, she had nothing of his sister's personality. Her mannerisms, speech and behaviour were that of a complete stranger.
Another step from the soldiers sent a wave of information crashing through Alex, and this time, rather than treating it as background noise, he chose to accept it all, focusing on the details of his ‘companion’.
He could thin lines patterned across her human-like form, so thin the naked eye would never be able to detect them, arrayed across her otherwise mundane appearance in fractal and insectile patterns. Another vibration rocked through the chamber, as the soldiers marched in unison, and then Alex sensed- no - saw beneath her surface.
She was an arachnae, with dense muscle packed beneath her form. Myriad limbs fused together in each arm and leg, compressed and fit to burst with power. She was dangerous.
Should he kill her? The thought came to him unbidden and unwelcome, but still, he found himself considering it.
Should I kill her? He asked himself, weighing his options. They needed her to fight the soldiers and the queen, but trusting one of them with his life would be the height of stupidity. She could be working with the queen, a sleeper agent, of sorts. He would expect a betrayal at any moment, and would never be able to rest. Her existence also put John in danger. There’s the possibility that she’s a drifter, that worker called her one before, didn’t he? Alex’s eyes widened in realisation. The clues were all there, but he’d been initially blinded by his filial instincts and some semblance of a saviour complex his system granted power had caused him to develop. Then he’d been further blinded by her human appearance to his previously mundane senses. But now it was clear as day, she was a drifter, some strange form of arachnae that mimicked a human perfectly, but she was still one of them- still a monster that kidnapped and ate people.
And she had saved his life.
Alex didn’t know what to think, but he did know that he had to deal with this here and now. But that could be an act to gain his trust, but she had killed plenty of her kind to get here. But she had still attempted to deceive him the entire journey, from the moment he’d come to. He didn’t trust her, he wouldn’t allow himself to- the facts overrode any reasoning; she was one of them, and despite her freedom as a drifter, she had lied to him. She had helped and saved him, sure. They had even developed something resembling camaraderie, the type of familiarity that could lead you to forget to ask for someone’s name as if some part of you already knew it. That was the only reason why he found himself struggling to end her, that and her usefulness in the fight to come. She had already helped countless times in their escape. But why go to all that trouble? He thought, still assessing her. And why does she look like my sister? The question kept finding its way to the forefront of his mind.
Alex raised his sword to the girl's throat. “Who are you?” He asked.