I won right? There was blood spewing out of the arachnid's head. My spikes had dug their way all the way through the brain. It was impossible to survive.
But yet again, I was too hopeful.
The arachnid ripped its eyes out right in front of me as I stood there watching it brutalise its head. Gore and goo were flying everywhere. The socket and the eye nerve were thicker than I expected them to be. It was a horrific sight.
I didn't want to approach it, but this was the best chance I would get to continue causing harm to the arachnid. I sighed as I jumped back into the battle.
I slid underneath it to split its belly/mouth thing up as it struggled. It was rather easy. A huge splash of some liquid fell behind me, glowing a calming yellow. The flowers underneath started to rot.
That could've been bad. I needed to remain fully alert, but it wasn't time to stop now.
Don't grow complacent.
I used my momentum to slide back up and let go of the spike, grabbing its two back legs in the process. I placed my leg on its ass and snap!
I pulled the two legs off, then the other two, and then the next, then again. By the time I was done, it had no limbs anymore. I turned it into a completely useless bug. But the process was taxing, to say the least.
The shrieks got louder. And blood was everywhere.
I stopped for a second to catch my breath.
Maybe two seconds, maybe three. I was feeling lightheaded. There was poison in my system. An appreciable amount entered my lungs. And my regeneration was having trouble keeping up with it.
But I had to push through it. After the passage of what seemed to be mere moments shrieks seized. I immediately looked back up.
And staring down at me was the arachnid. Fully recovered. You couldn't make this shit up even if you tried to.
"For fuck's sake." It hadn't even been a minute.
The webs started flying everywhere again, legs headed straight to me.
I fought back again. Endlessly. I would hurt it fatally and it would regenerate again. It was a battle of whose regeneration would run out faster. At the end of it all, I was getting pushed into a battle of endurance. I didn't have the time to think of a way to resist.
Limbs flying everywhere, gushing wounds, blood, burning eyes, everything.
We were brutalising each other and our ourselves trying to survive. This was the fight. The smell of blood and poison. I wasn't going to last. Even though I was healing myself every second, even though I had plenty of food... my body wasn't rejecting the poison!
My mind was going blank, my hands numb.
My cheeks felt numb and my eyes were bloodshot. The arachnid was still standing tall as if I didn't phase it. It was looking down at me. Again, it had no human emotions, but there was a semblance of a smile.
They loved humans after all. Massacring them that is.
Around half an hour of pure violence had passed. I realised that the arachnid wasn't even trying to protect its head. Making me conclude that there was nothing there. I was going after the wrong place. Breaking the legs meant nothing. Slashing across the belly did nothing. I didn't know where its weak point was. I was out of options.
I still had food to last me plenty of regenerations, but the poison would kill me soon if I left it as it is.
This was probably my last chance. I had somewhat accepted my death before I came here. No, who was I kidding? I was confident that I would be able to squash a bug at least. I didn't even consider dying so poorly. That was increasingly becoming a possibility.
Not if I can help it.
If I had to die I would rather this bug eat me than die of something as pathetic as poison.
One last time.
I used my spike to lift myself up.
A leg came right at me and ripped my left thigh off. I couldn't regenerate it. I was out of juice. But that was fine. I left the spike and started to fall forward. Using that momentum, I channelled the last bit of my strength to the toe of my remaining leg and shot forward... Almost parallel to the ground. The grass grazed my chest as the environment flew behind me.
Before I knew it I was under the arachnid.
Its bottom mouth's teeth were almost trapping my back. Poisonous gas was all around me. Its mouth was just about to consume me.
I grabbed the ground and using the spring from my jump forward, launched straight up. Into its mouth. Willingly.
"HARDENING!"
I wasn't holding back. This was do or die. Or maybe die or die. I didn't know. I just knew that I needed to let as much out as I could. While drowning in its poison, my body hardened up, and I felt protrusions reach out further and further off my skin. Impaling everything around me. There were holes around me running through its flesh.
I couldn't feel a lot. But the body was turbulent. Swinging around. The tongue under me was trying to push me out.
"HA-ARDENING!" I locked the tongue in against the top of the mouth. Even more spikes grew out of my body. The struggle kept getting harder and harder. The spider shoved its legs inside itself to eject me. But I impaled them too.
It was crashing onto trees trying to do anything to get rid of me.
I was losing consciousness but-
"HHHHAAARRRDENING!!!!" Even more than before, spikes were extending everywhere. Almost every inch of my foetal posture was ejecting spikes.
The arachnid was jumping hoping I would fall out, its movements getting even more erratic. A swing to the left! Then to the right! A bash. It was difficult to keep track of what even was going outside! The insides were getting jumbled. The poison sac was leaking out. My back was burning. Everything was moving around as mush.
And then after a really long toil
.
.
.
It stopped.
The body fell to the ground. It was the end. The rhythmic contractions of the flesh around me ceased. The arachnid died.
But I was unable to keep my consciousness. I was almost dead too.
It wasn't good while it lasted.
Hahh... As if. I won the fight. It was impossible to die now. I couldn't even reach a peaceful end. I was aware of that fact at least.
In the pits of the arachnid's dark belly, my left arm started to glow.