The days ran into each other, undifferentiated and endless, as though time itself had given up the ghost to the claustrophobic atmosphere that hung over the courtyard like a spell cast by some unknown, ancient hands. The ever-hungry Tsetse Fly, Buzz Windbreaker, hung about the obsidian-barked tree without ever venturing far. Something in the land’s silence felt sacred, forbidden, and fatal.
Every sunrise oozed through the canopy like golden resin, and every moonrise snaked through the branches like a spectre serpent, and Buzz was reminded that the world did not mind whether he lived or died. There was a pressure, invisible, which curled its fingers about his little instincts, and squeezed softly but surely, and whispered with every wink of wind that the moment he should pass some invisible boundary, something eldritch and old would put him out of existence without a trace.
Buzz was now flying by routine of ritual, never again venturing beyond the roots of the great tree and the necrotic glade that lay about it. He hunted desperately, in measured spirals and close zigzags, every wingstroke measured. But the fruit--those distended, glowing crimson balls which hung like eldritch hearts--still shone over him like a silent challenge, their spiritual vibration eating into the roots of his thoughts like hunger made flesh.
Buzz’s compound eyes flicked repeatedly toward the human corpse sprawled beneath the tree. The man had been lying there now several days, but the rot had not taken him. No fly, not even mold. His shape was the same--only his presence had started to fade, where once it had been full of evil spiritual weight, now a breath of what it had been.
The ground about him spoke otherwise. The earth split and crumbled in twisting lines, bled green life until nothing was left but a yellowish decay. The world had seemed to shriek and to deny the possibility of the existence of the man.
Buzz hovered silently, his wings whispering in place. A primal, ineffable instinct stirred in his tiny thorax: that forbidden power was ebbing. The spiritual pressure had softened. Its iron grip on the world was loosening.
His stomach clenched, a phantom fire igniting deep within him—a spiritual hunger that had nothing to do with blood and everything to do with destiny.
He almost moved. But just as he did, something else brushed against him—a frigid thread of dread skimming across his carapace like the caress of a dead god. It was a gaze, silent and sharp.
Buzz didn’t need to turn to know.
The Nether Swan Spider.
It sat coiled high in the branches, watching him through void-black eyes that shimmered like bottomless wells of entropy. He didn’t dare return its gaze. The last time, he had looked too long, and he’d felt his soul tremble. Not metaphorically. Not figuratively. His soul.
"I swear, brother, your fruit doesn’t even smell that good..." Buzz lied aloud in a nervous drone. The only answer was silence and that awful weight of attention.
A soundless scoff, a mental press of disdain.
Buzz took the hint. With a low vibration of his wings, he darted away, gliding along the humid wind that curled through the forest.
Only a few hundred meters away, a new presence loomed.
Buzz halted in mid-air, his antennae twitching as a shape emerged from the tangled shadows—a beast, massive and unmoving, resting atop a heap of shattered bones that told their own morbid tale.
At first, it resembled a wild boar, but the details told another story: a bristled hide that shimmered like dented steel under moonlight, tusks jagged like ritual blades, and spiritual pressure that rolled out in lazy pulses, almost hypnotic.
Buzz’s proboscis twitched. That same signature... It echoed the spider’s aura, but diluted, more feral, less controlled. A predator, yes, but not a sentinel. More... approachable.
Spiritual Force: contained. Tangible.
His mind crackled with realization.
If he could pierce it—just once—then maybe he could ascend. Original content can be found at novel⟡fire.net
Buzz approached with reverent care, his gossamer wings silent. He landed on the beast’s flank with the grace of a whisper. The boar didn’t stir.
Opportunity demanded ruthlessness.
He crouched. Proboscis extended.
Pain reverberated through his mouthparts like a tuning fork struck with a hammer. He reeled, tiny legs buckling.
The hide of the beast was not hide. It was armor.
Damn... this pig is a tank, he thought.
The thoughts of Buzz whirled. Should the boar wake up, he was the only feast.
[Ding! Obstacle to the evolutionary road identified. Please level up to overcome current limitations.]
His compound eyes contracted. Oh, that helps a lot, you know.
However, no sarcasm would substitute action.
The heart of Buzz flared, and at the thought the forbidden heat surged.
The burning wave burst in his body. His exoskeleton swelled, plates expanding, merging, solidifying. Chitin covered muscles curled. His body lengthened, segment by segment, until he towered nearly twice as large as he was before—a reborn aerial demon in the form of an insect.
He plunged in once more.
This time the flesh yielded.
He felt warm. Stolen time. Stolen life. He quaffed.
[+3 Days of Lifespan Absorbed.] [+4 Days of Lifespan Absorbed.] [+2 Days of Lifespan Absorbed.]
The light in his eyes came back.
Then came the signal he was waiting.
[Ding! FFF Grade Skill Detected: Robust Iron Frame.] [Cost: 60 Days of Lifespan. Acquire Skill?]
The reaction was automatic.
Time was drained out of him like sand into a hole. His life bled, but he was not afraid. Only evolution.
A floodgate was opened.
Runes cut themselves into his nerves. Internal structures re-shaped. His shell grew thick, compact, strengthened by the density of minerals that had never before been possible to anything of his size. The blueprint of the skill, an architecture of survival, was fed into his mind.
No time to enjoy the feeling, however.
The animal trembled under him.
A gruff growl came out of its throat.
Eyes opened, eyes of bestial intelligence and savage wrath.
The chase was not unilateral anymore.
The actual battle was to commence.