I just couldn’t help jinxing it, Shai cursed, barely comprehending what was at play here.

The putrid stench permeated the air, and the excruciating screeches reverberated through the empty pit. The enormous lizard wasn’t screeching at her anymore, but shrieked in its madness, as an unnatural metamorphosis was transpiring within itself. Dark twisted energy surged and swirled around the bloated lizard, causing its flesh to undulate like waves in a turbulent sea.

Evidently, it wasn’t a natural advancement, but that didn’t matter at all if it succeeded in its unmaking. The very first thing it would do after advancing was bite the little white snake alive.

No way in hell Shai would let that happen.

Drawing her fangs, Shai lunged forward, piercing through the grotesque undulations of the flesh. Shai bit into the repulsive creature, clenching her jaw with her everything. Foul blood sprayed into her mouth, its sheer wrongness churning her stomach and convulsing her insides as if she was consuming something rotten and unholy.

There was no question about the abhorrent nature of this transformation. Before Shai questioned if she had seen anything uglier than this skink, but it appeared this lizard was in a competition with itself on being repulsive.

Shai ignored everything around her, as if she had lost all her senses, and continued tearing through the flesh of the lizard. System Grandpa’s voice came announcing something, probably a skill update, but Shai only heard an incoherent murmur.

The massive lizard’s amorphous mass bent to its will, reconfiguring itself into something superior—something agile, powerful, and inherently predatory.

It had become a race against time. Who among the two would finish first? If Shai succeeded before the metamorphosis was complete, the skink would stay dead. However, if the lizard succeeded, it would be reborn as an abomination. Shai would face a far greater threat. An abomination—whatever that meant, it did not sound anything good to her.

The icy coldness of the lizard’s blood numbed Shai’s nerves, but she ignored the consequences and bit deeper into the monster’s flesh, uncaring of the issues she would have to face later. After all, a stomach ache seemed far more preferable than encountering a higher-ranked abomination.

Her body was stained completely with purple and black putrid liquid, as she tore through the transforming lizard, causing it to writhe and squirm as if it had consumed shards of broken glass.

A mind-numbing, piercing pain seared through Shai’s head, forcing her to pause her assault on the transforming lizard. Shai clenched her jaw and focused on fortifying her mind against the attack, creating a protective barrier in her mind.

Even after her rebirth, it seemed nothing was going according to plan. It felt as if an unseen force was toying with her from above, making each circumstance exponentially more troublesome and challenging to deal with.

My mind is an impregnable fortress, nothing can faze me. She continued on with this mantra until a realisation struck her like a lightning bolt.

The mental attack wasn’t from the corruption. It was too focused and pure to be from the corrupting force of the feast, which meant the mental pressure could only be the work of the spider mama. For a moment, Shai was more delighted than worried, as she screamed into her mind, hoping the spider mama would be able to hear her.

Truce! Truce! I call a truce until we deal with this!

As she got engrossed in sending the message, she didn’t notice the imminent threat next to her. The lizard smacked her forward with a pure force of energy, hurtling her through the air as she collided with the sidewall.

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The contorting body of the lizard ceased its squirming. Completely motionless now, though the thick blanket of energy never ceased swirling around it.

Thoughts raced through Shai’s mind as she stared at the lifeless lizard. However, her focus wasn’t solely on the defeated creature. Twisting her head in desperation, she searched for the big spider mama. It didn’t take long to find an eight-legged creature glued to the wall of the pit, eying the still body of the skink.

More importantly, it wasn’t the big spider mama, but a smaller counterpart, though Shai recognised the figure. It was the spider fledgling she met when Serenity captured her.

Shai moved out of the way, swiftly creeping to get the hell out of there. That seemed to alert the empathic spider as a mental assault poked her head again, threatening to breach Shai’s exhausted mind. Gritting her teeth, she unleashed a barrage of curses at the spider, unsure if the fledgeling could hear her.

Most likely, she couldn’t, or didn’t, as Shai noticed the spider’s attention returning to the morphing abomination. It wasn’t dead, but seemed to be in some special form.

Fortunately, Shai wasn’t the only one subjected to the mental torment of the spider fledgeling. Hopefully, the monster lacked any skills or abilities to protect itself.

Abruptly, the swirling power ceased, but the threat she felt did not. Regardless, it wasn’t her problem anymore.

Hey Grandpa, I tried what I could, Shai thought, but now I lack the strength to continue.

Silently, she handed over the responsibility to the spider and made her way out, resisting the mental assault.

However, the spider wasn’t letting her go so easily.

Suddenly, Shai’s world turned upside down as she found herself entangled in spider webs, suspended in mid-air.

Hissing in frustration, Shai directed her attention toward the spider. I know what you’re thinking; she tried to convey, but I swear, I didn’t hunt any spiders intentionally. And this isn’t my doing.

Marvel was small, barely three feet, but she loomed over Shai, her intelligent eyes gleaming with a red hue as if contemplating between eating her now or sharing with the others.

“Stay down, don’t struggle,” Marvel prompted her, establishing a telepathic connection.

Shai glared at the young spider, staring at her in disbelief.

Hey kid, go call your mama, Shai expressed. This isn’t something you can deal with.

Shut up, said the young empathic spider. She ignored her existence completely and put all her focus on the abomination.

Shai’s expression turned to one of concern. In her mind, she mulled over the various scenarios that could arise from this unexpected encounter, contemplating both the positives and negatives of their interaction. You really don’t what--

However, her pondering was cut short by a horrifying screech that reverberated throughout the pit and beyond.

Then came Grandpa’s report with the foreboding news she feared.

[New Quest: Hunt the Abomination]

You have failed to stop the abhorred creature’s unmaking. It had turned into an abomination, abandoned by both life and death. Rest its soul to restore the balance.

Criteria of Clearance: Kill the Abomination

Reward: Quest.]

I really should have gotten out of this pit when I had the chance.

“Quest?” Marvel expressed through the link. “I haven’t had one of these in months.”

However, as she read the context of the quest her expression shifted similarly to Shai.

Their attention shifted back to the grotesque lizard, which transformed into something else after reaching Iron rank. It was no longer ugly, nor was it as rotund as before. The process had converted the excess fat into newfound strength, raising it to the status of an iron-ranked predator.

The lizard now stood upright, towering over Shai and the spider, its terrifying maw emitting spine-chilling screeches. Its scales had reshaped, albeit still bearing the holes Shai created, but no blood gushed out from them.

The creature had not healed completely, as if it saw no purpose in doing so. Its eyes lost their vitality in the transformation, now blazed with menacing red. Although it couldn’t go through the unmaking process without hindrance, it still turned into an abomination, no longer bound by the law of life or death.

[Wyrm - Cursewalker (Abomination) Lvl 54]

Shai exchanged a glance with the spider, who lost all her sassyness. “It may be a little late to say this,” she said, “but it’s just about time you should call your mama.”

Marvel was about to reply to her, but their attention returned to the abomination as it staggered on its first step and fell completely on the second.