I didn’t think twice to put up an earthen wall in front of me as the creature charged. I heard a loud slam on the wall, and felt some of my mana being drained to maintain it. I had hoped the monster would crash into it face first, but when I canceled the spell, I looked right in the ape’s eyes.

I saw a fury burning behind them, and no visible damage done to its face. Instead, it seemed to have slammed into the wall with a fist. I saw some blood trickle down its massive hand.

In a fraction of a second, I cast a fireball aimed at its eyes, while I used my spider brain to cast the flame beam spell. I seemed to successfully blind it, if only temporarily, for my flame beam spell to set the beast alight.

The sudden wave of heat had Cellestra duck onto my back.

The beast was on fire, but I didn’t see it panic as I’d hoped. It jumped a few yards backward before inhaling deeply before exhaling an icy, blue breath that covered its entire body, extinguishing the flames.

“What is that thing?” Cellestra asked, her head still low on my back and her hands had a tight hold on my hair.

“No idea, but it seems tough.”

The beast was at a distance. I used the opportunity to fire a high-velocity ice lance. It hit the beast in the chest, but didn’t leave much besides a small puncture wound. I summoned several more, to similar effect.

“Very tough,” I elaborated.

Its fur had blackened at least somewhat, but not as much as I would expect from that much fire, even if it had been put out.

The beast roared and pounded its chest again before charging at us once more. I skittered away as fast as I could and was able to outrun the creature with relative ease, all while firing off venom bolts in quick succession, using all the forms of venom I had available.

I continued running and casting spells, hoping to get some of the venom in the creature’s bloodstream through the wounds that had appeared by my previous spells. I found that earthen spikes could not be cast in this environment, and judging from the creature’s sheer will to chase me down despite the hail of attacks, these didn’t seem to do much.

I slowed down slightly so that the creature would get close enough for me to use my lightning arc. I then started channeling the beam of lightning as I kept running, making sure to stay in range to keep the spell up.

The beam soon grew in intensity and changed from its dark blue color, to light blue, and then to white. Sparks flew from it as it continued to increase in intensity and mana cost. Cellestra was still holding on for dear life while I focused all my effort into the most powerful spell that I possessed.

The spell’s mana cost increased to the point that it was noticeably draining me. I wouldn’t be able to keep this up forever. I prayed to Elysa for the creature to die before I ran out of mana. If it came down to it, I’d make my escape back through the archway.

The spell grew stronger than anything I’d seen so far. Its white light grew so bright that it started to hurt my spider eyes. I had already closed my elven eyes moments before. The power that originated from where the spell connected to my elven arm was immense. For a moment, I’d completely forgotten that I’d sacrificed power.

The next moment, a scream of pain and rage filled the air, just before the spell abruptly stopped and two messages showed up.

I stopped moving and took a few moments to adjust to the huge loss of mana that I’d suffered in a relatively short time. I took a look at the messages and cursed my luck.

“A floor boss.”

“What?” Cellestra asked, finally raising herself.

“That thing was a floor boss, something called an Apenoth or something. I got a message stating I got an achievement for killing two unique floor bosses.”

I sighed out of relief. “Just my luck that the first thing I run into is a damn boss.”

“I do believe that means that whatever else is down here isn’t as strong, wouldn’t you say?”

I turned my head and looked around, even though I could already see everything around me through my other eyes. There was nothing but snow for as far as I could see. “If there is anything else down here.”

I turned around and skittered over to the dead Apenoth. “For now, let’s see if I get luckier this time. You want me to cook some for you as well?” I asked with a sly smile as I turned my head to watch Cellestra.

“No, thank you. I’ll be fine,” She reacted, almost with disgust.

I grinned as I lowered my spider head and started tearing away skin to expose the flesh underneath so I could start eating.

“I wonder how much I need to eat to trigger the effect. Like, do I need to eat a fixed amount by weight, regardless of the size of the creature, or do I need to eat some certain percentage of the creature I killed?”

“I hope for you it’s the former,” Cellestra said with a grin. “I doubt you’ll have enough space in here otherwise,” She said while pointing at my abdomen behind her.

I sighed. “That would be kind of annoying, for sure. Got any stories to share while I gobble this thing down?”

“Stories?” The elf replied with a frown. “Where am I supposed to get those stories from?”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Never expected I’d have someone to share stories with anyway,” Cellestra continued softly. “How about you? Did you have anything interesting happening?”

“Well,” I started as I recalled something that was quite amusing in a way. “There was this time, not so long ago, when I was still a fairly small spider. Another jumping spider started dancing…”

I raised my third set of legs and started swaying them back and forth. “Like this. I’m confident it was trying to hit on me.”

Cellestra giggled. “Yes. Yes, it was. That’s a jumping spider’s mating dance. Did it have a colorful abdomen and all?”

I nodded.

“And?” Cellestra asked with a sly smile.

“What? Do you think I would be seduced by a spider?” I replied with a smile of my own. “Nope. I killed it. Gave me an achievement too.”

“That poor spider!” Cellestra pouted.

“I tried to run. It just kept following me. What was I supposed to do?”

“Yeah, jumping spiders don’t give up easily. That was a fun story though. Got any more?” Cellestra asked again.

I was having great difficulty eating as the meat was extremely tough. It also didn’t hold much flavor, but I wasn’t sure if that was necessarily a bad thing. At least it wasn’t as bad as the meat I’d had to eat very early on…

“Let me think…”

“Have I told you how I killed my spider mother?”

“If you did I don’t recall it. That’s pretty brutal, I have to admit.”

I chucked. “Gave me a bunch of experience and an achievement to boot. It was fortunate that I did, because it turned out that I needed that achievement for this evolution.”

“That’s… scary to think about,” Cellestra said softly. She was clearly thinking about what could have happened if I hadn’t done that.

I looked at the sky before I continued. “It is. As far as I am aware, this is also the only evolution that would have given me this body to begin with. It’s kind of weird to think about.”

Cellestra nodded. “I’m happy things worked out for you in the end.”

I nodded again while I thought of anything else that could be good conversation material. “As for more stories. I don’t think there is anything worthy of mentioning. I’d have to look at things that happened in my old life, and I’d rather forget that. I think what you said earlier also applies to me.”

I paused for a second and sighed. “My old life be damned.”

“Well, there’s nothing binding you to it anymore,” Cellestra comforted me. “And you have plenty of things to look forward to in this one.”

I looked at the elf and took in her appearance. Her long light brown hair and purple eyes never ceased to grab my attention. She had a serious expression on her face, but it didn’t take away from her beauty. In fact, the way she was able to talk about things in such an honest manner only added to my desire to get closer to her.

If only she knew how much I wanted to spend more time with her.

“You’re right. There’s still much to look forward to.”

Faragi

Special shoutout to my new Patrons

Zackery
Karma Baris

Thanks so much for your support <3