Chapter 25
—--------
Under a small pebble in a world littered with eight legged, beady-eyed, nightmarish-looking creatures, a peculiar glimmer of light materialized from thin air. It caused the water to slightly ripple and make way for the arrival of an existence that could only be described as an aberration.
BLING!
With one final shimmer of opalescent light, Astaroth fully came into being. And the form he took was none other than…!
"A damn spider… Fucking hell…"
While shaking his beady-eyed head in slight annoyance, Astaroth opened up his system interface and measured the damages…
BLING!
—-------
{[Infinite Energy System]}
[Host: Astaroth]
[Evolution Area: Pond]
[Evolution Stage: Bell Spider (Lvl 1)] - [1/1,000 (G13)]
[Energy Storage: 1/1,000 (G13)]
{[Top Energy Abilities:]}
[True Energy Absorption (Lvl 1)], [Spider Grapple (Lvl 1)], [Blood Drain (Lvl 1)], [Blood Restoration (Lvl 1)]
[Venom Spit (Lvl 1)], [Speedy Regeneration (Lvl 1)], [Spidey Senses (Lvl 1)], [Claw Slash (Lvl 1)], [Web Swing (Lvl 1)]
—-------
"Hmm… It seems like a lot has changed this time around. Even the Energy Level and such have vanished from the system interface."
Making unusually human expressions for a spider, Astaroth stuck his prickly legs in the air and waved them around.
[Ding! The Energy Level has been deemed useless!]
"Ah, yeah, I figured as much. But what about my leveled abilities and the different formatting?"
[Ding! All of it was deemed useless; therefore, it was removed… permanently!]
"...Way to tell me that everything I've worked for thus far has been for naught…"
Astaroth shook his head in defeat.
Right after figuring out that he had become a spider, he also learned of how pointless his efforts actually were in the grand scheme of things. It was fair to say that he was having a rather shitty day.
"A day… It really hasn't even been a day since I arrived in this world. Actually, let alone a day, I don't even know if it's been a single hour…"
This train of thought got Astaroth to thinking about just how many Energy Overflows he has had thus far. The exact number had to be nearing a few dozen, and that fact kind of frightened him.
If he kept progressing at his current rate of evolution, wouldn't he actually wound up becoming invincible?
"Or maybe it gets far tougher to progress once I actually make it into the human world…?"
[Ding! That is not the case! The host is meant for things that even he himself is unable to fathom! The first few hundred stages of evolution will pass by like a fleeting cloud!]
"Ahh, well, that's good to hear."
While pretending to wipe the perspiration off the side of his forehead, Astaroth returned his focus back to the new changes to his race.
From Elder Sponge to Bell Spider, it was hard to tell if he actually advanced any…
"I know it's just my biased prejudice against spiders that warps my sense of judgment, but why did it have to be spiders…? I don't like spiders, and to go so far as to force me to become one… Is this some cruel test of fate to see if my resolve will waver…? If so, fate was good in picking what she did…"
Crick, Crack.
Feeling up his own body made Astaroth feel genuine disgust.
He would even go so far as to say that he abhorred spiders! He hated the way they moved, the way that they had an unnatural number of legs, and most of all, he hated how they looked at him when they locked eyes!
It was creepy as hell…!
In the end, Astaroth had no choice but to vent his frustrations with a heavy sigh. Coincidentally, he also finished up the analysis of his new body.
The form he took was that of a common water spider, otherwise known as a Diving Bell Spider. But for the system, it must've found it far more convenient to simply call them Bell Spiders.
As for how he looked as a Lvl 1 Bell Spider. Well, to say the least, even as a spider, he appeared rather tranquil and tacticturn.
The subtle yet profound shade of black, the light yellow stripes lining his right legs, and his large behind. Even his couple dozen eyes looked kind of droopy and made him seem like a very laid-back… spider…
"It makes me cringe just saying that word, and yet I'm actually moving around inside the body of a spider as a spider… Life sure throws some shocking curve balls when least you expect it-"
Whoooop!
Interrupting his thoughts was the crisp sound of water cutting right by his face. He closed his eyes for only a brief moment, and when he reopened them, a different kind of feeling crept up his spine.
Right in front of him stood a Bell Spider using its eight legs to just barely keep itself in still motion. The beady black eyes of this creature were all honed in on the same target.
"Why is it looking at me like that? And why does it seem rather… harmless?"
Astaroth couldn't believe what he himself was thinking, but the similarly-sized, freaky spider kind of reminded him of a large dog with how it stood there and bobbed.
"Esceeetch!!!"
Immediately taking back his previous statement, Astaroth felt the hair-tingling screech of the opposing spider all throughout his body.
The spider was definitely hostile! And it 100% wanted to eat him whole!
It stopped the puppy dog act and used its body to lunge at him and spread out its legs. Though originally the same size as Astaroth, with this horrifying usage of |Spider Grapple|, it now looked like the most terrifying thing to see in an Alien movie!
"Damn, I really hate spiders."
Astaroth leapt out of the direct attack path of the opposing spider. He then used |Web Swing|, causing a thin string of white stuff to shoot out of some unknown part of his body.
The white stuff somehow stuck onto the water and urged his body to move from its place, to which he gladly accepted.
The white string slingshotted him to where it had magically latched onto. From here, Astaroth got into the blind spot of the Lvl 1 Bell Spider and jumped down from his position.
Taking the spider completely by surprise, he gave it no time to catch a breath as he used |Claw Slash| and slashed out with his leftmost and rightmost legs.
At the release of this attack, the opposing Bell Spider had three separate lines of blood separate its body. It then died on the spot and split up into four evenly-sized chunks.
|True Energy Absorption|
After using his handy dandy energy absorbtion ability, Astaroth received his first system notification since arriving in the Pond Evolution Area.
[Ding! You have absorbed 1 (G13) Energy from a Lvl 1 Bell Spider!]
[Ding! Your total (G13) energy has increased from 1 to 2, effectively doubling your power!]
—---------