Emily whacked away at leaves in front of her with her dagger after setting down her staff. The creature's light shone through the undergrowth, and she could see it more clearly now. It really did look like a fallen tree with a lantern over it, but a narrowing of her eyes sparked her cybernetic eye. The retina became a target on her inspection.

There is a bit of a level difference, but levels aren't everything. If that was the case, then there'd be no chance for anyone to level up. Besides, I was able to deal with one before.

She nodded after psyching herself up. The ambush predator would become the one ambushed. All she needed to do was act fast and use her skill with cybermagic. Her left arm twitched as she remembered that feeling. She looked beneath the lamp on the branch, and she saw the faint outline of a mouth.

The kitsune swallowed as phantom pains jolted her back to the monster. Her breathing was haggard, and it was hard not to imagine what would happen if she got caught again. Would she lose her other arm? Or even worse...

Though, below those feelings, anger bubbled underneath. Adrenaline coursed through her veins at the prospect of exacting vengeance.

She leapt from the bushes with her ceremonial dagger, leaving her own lamp on the ground. The thing didn't move even as she sprinted towards it. Cybermagic formed on the tip of her weapon. The blade formed a large silver bullet, this one bigger than the last time.

As she got close, the creature came to life. Maybe it sensed the danger, or perhaps it knew she was there the whole time. The branch reared back and showed the inside of its mouth.

Rows of sharp, serrated teeth snapped towards her, but her spell was completed.

After all, an animal is just an animal.

The bullet rifled forwards and ripped through the abyloid's mouth. It continued even further and decimated the lamp fixture. The light shattered into small pieces, and the instant the monster fell to the ground, a chime sounded in Emily's head.

Her victory was swift and deadly. It filled her with a mix of emotions. Something that had severed her arm like it was nothing died like it was nothing. It truly was like the rule of nature. One must adapt to survive, and sometimes that means setting a trap. Other times, that means creating a rifle.

She plunged her knife into the creature's body, digging into it. Another. She stabbed it again. Another.

After stabbing it a few times, she'd exhausted all of the rage of losing her limb. Not only that, but she started considering how much of a waste of stamina this was. She stabbed it one more time and cut off equal chunks.

The chunks held green sap-like blood, and touching it revealed it to be slightly sticky. Emily refused a taste test, but she walked back towards her staff with a slender piece of the monster. She grabbed her ceremonial dagger and wrapped the piece of wood around it, gluing it to the end of the staff above the light.

Her nanobots helped her create a seal with the glue and the knife, turning her lantern staff into a sharper version of itself. She marveled at it, spinning it around in her hand a few times to see if it would tear apart.

Using two other chunks of the creature, she started sticking the pieces to the bottom of her silk socks. With the assistance of her cybermagic, she'd made wooden shoes that stuck to her silk wrappings. While not perfect, it was definitely preferable to stepping on hard rocks. The bark on the outer soles provided somewhat of a grip to the ground's surface.

The notification brought a smile to the fox girl's face. With each skill she was closer, with each level she felt it, the freedom on the horizon. She took a deep breath and clutched her staff.

Her tail waved behind her, and she walked to the next victim. Another lantern shone in the distance, this one closer to the water. She reached the edge and saw it sitting near the water's surface and not moving.

Another creature was here. This one was a bio luminescent frog. It also avoided the light, acting just as those other insects, but it was much larger than any frog Emily had seen. This one was almost as tall as Emily herself, and its tongue whipped out of its mouth as fast as a bullet.

It struck the abyloid's lantern and shattered it with a single motion. Emily watched with wide eyes as the tongue started wrapping around the abyloid's body. The other monster flailed around, but the frog was too fast.

The beelzebufo's mouth was not wide enough to swallow the monster, but it seemed to have another method. Magic channeled down its slick body towards its head, and it spat out acid. Within seconds, the abyloid started to dissolve.

Emily's pointed ears twitched to the low groaning of the dying monster. Though, she definitely didn't want to wait. She channeled her own magic into her staff and conjured a large shell of white light at the end. Nanobots swirled around, creating a luminous sphere.

The frog's eyes turned in her direction, and Emily felt a bad premonition.

She leapt to the side just in time to avoid a large glob of acid landing where she was. The substance sizzled the ground and grass behind her. Her heart thumped in her chest as she looked back to the frog and saw its eyes arrive at her new location.

Her sphere of light was ready, but the frog's acid was dissolving the monster in its mouth at an alarming rate. Nonetheless, she sent the large orb of light forwards, and it propelled towards the monster like a cannonball.

To Emily's joy, it crashed into the side of its body, and the frog's skin started sizzling as the light expanded. It let out a desperate croak and poured more acid into dissolving the monster in its mouth. Finally, the abyloid shrank down enough for it to swallow the creature whole.

Part of the frog's skeletal structure began poking out through the sizzling light, but it leapt away using its strong hind legs. Acid began pouring from its wound, and the creature's skin started reshaping itself.

No way...I have to kill that thing fast!

She channeled her magic through her staff again, but the creature's eyes flashed in her direction once more. She dove to the side just to miss a tongue rifling by her head.

The thing cut the air around her ear, reminding her of a bullet whizzing by her head. The appendage crashed into the sand behind her, and she had to evade again to barely dodge the tongue on the way back.

With her light as big as she would get it, she launched it once more. This time, the frog sprung upwards with its legs, sending its large body into the sky.

Good idea, but...

The fox girl grinned as her nanobots changed direction with the lights and curved upwards. It's a living light source.

A sphere the size of the frog's body crashed into it, and it croaked. But this time it was the dying croak as acid started raining from the sky. Emily made sure to run as far as she could to evade the falling bits of dissolving liquid.

She sighed as a bit of acid landed behind her with a sizzle. Her fluffy ears twitched on her head for the sound of potentially more predators, but luckily for her, there were no such things in the vicinity. Her breathing eventually calmed down as the adrenaline started leaving her system.

The fox girl took a sip of water from a part of the river the frog had not been in for good measure. She sat against a tree and took out her mashed potatoes. She grinned when she saw steam rising from them. They were still warm and in the same state they'd been in when she pocketed them in her pendant.

She gripped the mash in her hand like she was a savage. It was still warm enough to burn slightly, but she ate it like that anyways, feeling her stamina return to her as she did.

After finishing her dinner, she narrowed her eyes towards her hand, and her own table flashed in her vision.

Her eyes widened at the difference. Not only were her stats increased, but the clothes themselves had changed names. A part of her wanted to inspect each of them individually, but her remaining mana stayed her cybernetic eye.

She looked to her staff, but inevitably the light started flickering. The thing that had held up for so long started going out, and eventually it faded into darkness.

Emily didn't panic. Instead, she fed the staff some of her mana. She could feel her well draining, but each point lit the light up until it was as bright as it was before. She didn't need to check her status to note how much mana it took to refill. She had a decent inclination after trying a few spells.

I bet that was a bit under 20 or so mana points. So those walking sticks were very efficient with their light sources? They even stayed lit after their deaths.

The item itself was strange in many different ways, but once again, she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. As for what she would do next, there was really only one option. She desperately wanted to crawl back to the surface under the light.

It might have been smarter to go around trying to gain levels from the creatures beneath the bog, yet she felt this place weighing on her mind the longer she was down here. The day and night cycles made her anxious, and most of the creature's here were ambush predators. She sighed.

That's just an excuse. Even the creatures up there tried to ambush me.

The real reason was people. She wanted to see them desperately after stumbling on a corpse of one. No matter how many years she'd spent around a crazed man, she still longed to hear someone else's voice. The pull was strong, and she waited out the night.

When light finally arrived, she used her staff to stand upright. She tried to orient herself and eventually spotted the exit of the dungeon. It wasn't too hard to spot, considering it was like an enormous branch of a tree. She took a deep breath and entered the hollow. Her feet started climbing up the bark, and within seconds, darkness surrounded her on all sides.

Once she reached the top, the familiar bog greeted her. On all sides, there were desecrated trees and endless mud. She stepped into the sludge with her new shoes, and it wasn't long until it went up to her ankles and coated her silk pants.

She looked around in all directions, but she could see no signs of civilization. There were more bugs up here though. The same dragonflies she'd seen when she arrived brought her some semblance of calm. Compared to the insects beneath the swamp, these were much more peaceful. At the very least, they never tried to attack Emily, and the same was true this time.

The kitsune walked beneath them with vigilance just in case, but the creatures didn't want to attack her. This time, she walked in the opposite direction of the deeper mud and water, hoping that it would lead her somewhere else.

It led her towards brambles and bushes that were decaying the same as the swamp around her. However, the mud was becoming less and less thick, which she took as a good omen.

With twitching ears and a tail waving behind her, Emily set off into the unknown.