Ten eyes. Eight in the middle. And one on either side. Glistening the colour of blood in the fading sun. The arachnid stared at me.
Fangs, extending out of either side of its face, and eight shielded legs. It stared at me.
Toxic air and mildly sweet odour from all the flowers around me. It scoffed. And in the very next second, it made its first move.
It wished to eat me as a meal, and I wanted to eat it to gain the ability to create its near-indestructible strings. From the overgrown spider's demeanour, I could tell that for it this was just a little game. But for me it was imperative.
You need a net to catch a bird. Even if that bird has a twelve-meter long wingspan. And there was this beast in front of me that conveniently had the ability to make a net that could catch a bird that big.
The only choice I had was to steal that ability off him. If it didn't take me seriously that was its problem.
I refused to believe that I was weak just because I lost to those winglings yesterday. I wasn't going to go down this easily.
I mean sure, this was reckless, I had never gone against an arachnid before, but I genuinely believed that I could do it.
The arachnid lifted one of its hairy legs, and facing it I gripped my machete even tighter. The cool breeze from the dusk was blowing throughout the forest.
I assimilated into the environment.
"Peak predator." The light glow of the sun turned as bright as mid-day and the darkness of the shadows turned black. The movements of the arachnid slowed down to the point I could see the individual hair of its leg flail with the wind. And I could peak into the future.
I wouldn't let it have the first move. Before it could even react to me, I had already headed up a tree. Then I kicked a branch, I was up in the air. I could hear the sound of air zipping around me. My agility was something I had absolute control over now. And with that control, I was right above the arachnid with the blade in my hand.
For a second the time stopped. The world was drowning in both of our bloodlusts. It felt like I knew the environment at the back of my hand, my full focus was on the arachnid.
Its eyes looked up at me, in that momentary stop of time and then- Fwip!
It wasn't the time that stopped but my motion. There were strings entangled around my limbs.
So thin that I couldn't even see them! But they were there. Stopping me from moving. Adhered to my skin and intertwined with my digits. The arachnid looked up at me. I knew it didn't have any human emotions, but the sides of its mouth lifted high. No wonder it didn't move when it saw me up in the air.
But as if that would stop me.
I twisted my wrists and started to pull on the web with all my might. To no avail. It felt like I was pulling on a metal wire. The more I pulled the less capable my fingers became. Blood was dripping off them. It was pointless.
I overestimated my strength again. Oh well. At least the only thing that failed me was my strength.
"Hardening." I hardened my elbows and knees and then immediately made them crumble. Momentarily crippling myself. "Guh.." It hurt like an absolute bitch. But I was numb to the pain now. Or at least I was forcing myself to be. A moment of self-indulgence now would result in death.
I was falling headfirst onto the spider without my weapon. But that was fine. My body regenerated in the seconds that I was mid-air.
"Hardening." Spikes expanded right out of my body and were all directed towards the spider. Time slowed down again, and then the next moment one of its appendages swatted me away with a swift strike on the belly. I tried to resist but I couldn't exactly stop the contact mid-air.
But I could still do more.
While falling back, I dug my foot in a tree's bark and launched myself above the spider again, but instead of fighting it, I grabbed my machete and skid across the ground regaining my balance and regrouping my thoughts.
"Huff." I sighed and the spider scoffed. The sound of rustling leaves was rather loud with my senses pushing way past their limit.
I regenerated my four limbs. Knowing the extent of the regeneration I had, say, two more times I pull that off. But I accounted for that. I pulled out some meat from my pocket and took a bite. That was all it took to get back to my maximum potential.
I was not an easy target.
All of a sudden a rope of web splashed onto my chest. The arachnid was finally on the move. It did seem unnatural how passive it was until now, but it finally made its move.
This was it. There was no holding back for either of us.
There was a flurry of attacks. It went from nothing to all out in a second. Webs left, right and centre. And above and below and from the diagonals, from behind. Everywhere. Poison permeated through the air, into my body. The environment was playing against me, and amidst it all, there was the arachnid calling all the shots.
I won't stop.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!!" I cut the web of my chest, breaking the machete in the process.
I extended spikes from my hands and made them as sharp as I could. But a bone was a bone and metal was metal. The ebony's quality was far from perfect. But it didn't need to be.
The arachnid's legs came rushing at me. Webs were flying around. My foresight was going crazy trying to keep up with everything. BUT TO HELL WITH STOPPING!
"You oversized fucking bug!" I ducked through its legs and found myself right underneath its belly. "I'll kill y- huh? What the actual fuck."
On the underside, there were thousands of teeth and another mouth. A cloud of green smoke ejected out. You didn't need to be a genius to know what the gas was. I dug the spike in the ground and pulled myself out.
But not without taking anything.
I used the other spike to pierce through its leg and skid outside.
There was a web right there as if to catch me. I hardened my body and disintegrated that part. Only to regenerate it again.
And to my surprise that big spider did the same. It was back to having eight legs. The regeneration on that bug was as good as mine. Or maybe better. I couldn't tell. But I knew that-
"That's unfair."
I flicked the spike away and made another.
Without getting a chance to breathe, three of its legs were headed straight at me, with its mouth underneath releasing the fumes. I started rotating the spike to block the attacks but they kept breaking. So I kept making it again.
The spider was constantly pushing me into a battle of endurance. I had to avoid them no matter what. But from what I could tell, I didn't have all that many open opportunities.
I had to take another gamble.
Foresight narrowed the attacks aimed at me down to three, and I picked the least likely one and jumped in that direction. Correcting my direction using the trees. My speed was top notch. My agility was S tier.
Before the arachnid knew it, I was in front of its face.
This was the opportunity.
I used the full force of my movement and shoved the two spikes right into all its central eyes. And hopefully its brain. The only weak spot I could think of. Even I couldn't regenerate without my mind, or so Liu told me.
Blood gushed out like a fountain. Blood curdling shrieks reverberated around the forest.
I fell back for a second to catch my breath.