Scarlet Asger

I ignore the ringing in my ears as I finally jump up towards the demon while using blood boil and life drain on it at the same time. Though it doesn’t give much reaction to the two. Instead it raises both of its bladed legs to strike at me, but I roll out of the way before climbing back to my feet and running around it as the legs dig their way into the soil where I was at. Then I rake my claws across its lower legs and grimace as I feel the resistance meeting me. But it’s not too much resistance that my claws don’t do any damage at all. So I continue doing so to all of its legs that I pass by before jumping out of range of it the moment its limbs break free from the soil again.

Okay, this thing doesn’t actually appear to be as much trouble as I was expecting. It looks like its maneuverability is drastically lower than the other spiders, likely due to its change in form. And it only barely seems to be able to support its weight while standing on all six legs, so it shouldn’t be able to use those legs as weapons very well either. Just the two bladed ones in the air.

The main issue is the-

I wince, the ringing in my ears growing much more pronounced as the spider lets out another screech, almost making me stagger in the process. But midway through this time, I straight up switch to my human ears and let out a sigh of relief. Because while it still hurts, it doesn’t hurt anywhere near as badly as before.

“You won’t be able to do that in the future, so you should learn how to control your ears better,” Tar suddenly states, making my eyes narrow.

Not really sure what he means by that exactly, but I don’t have the time to ask. Because the spider queen is already rushing towards me again, taking advantage of my stunned state by swinging its bladed arms straight at me. And I only barely move out of the way enough that instead of bisecting me, they go straight under my arm and cut through my jacket and into my side. The very same side that was stabbed earlier.

Damnit, what’s with that spot getting injured so much today?!

Although in hindsight there are definitely worse places I could be injured. And I also can't help but be glad that I have my armor now, since that would've been a lot worse without it.

I grimace as the wound throbs with pain, and I feel blood seeping from the wound and going down my side, fortunately not soaking into the water, or in this case blood-proof armor. But I push through the pain as I reach for the blade before it can even make it half a meter from me where I tighten my grip on the dull part of the limb. Only for that to end up making me fly with it instead.

Shit.

The limb ends up going upwards, bringing me with it before stopping. And right when I’m wondering how I’m gonna get down from here, I look down to find myself right over the queen’s body.

Oh. That’ll work.

The limb suddenly begins spasming, throwing itself around trying to knock me off, and when that doesn’t work, the spider brings its other bladed limb up to me. But before it can reach me, I simply let go of the limb and fall onto the spider’s back where I pull my fist back and slam it into the back of the spider’s head, burning massive amounts of my own blood in the process to strengthen me as much as possible. And with the strength boost, I manage to knock its head into the ground, sending the limbs that were starting to move in my direction off course instead as its entire body stumbles.

I push even harder, burning more blood as I repeatedly slam my linked hands together into the back of its head, my legs wrapped around its neck to stay on top of it. Then, after cracks start opening up on its carapace, I pull my shifted arm back before digging it inside of the crack, slowly widening it until I can fit my hand inside where I reach around to find its brain. But by the time I manage that, I hear the ding sounding in my head marking the creature’s death as it collapses to the ground.

Without wasting any time, I rip my hand out of its head before climbing off of its corpse. Then I simply collapse to the ground flat on my back while breathing heavily in exhaustion.

After several seconds, I try to get up, only to find that to be a very large struggle. Likely due to blood loss, both from burning my blood too much, and from the open wound on my side. So I repeat what I did earlier, exposing the wound to the moon, although not lying on my side this time since that’d be too difficult to manage at the moment. Then I let the System messages from the queen flow since I have nothing better to do while lying here.

{Level 60 Demon Breeder Original Variant defeated. Bonus EXP is awarded for killing a creature over fifteen levels above you. Bonus EXP is awarded for killing an original variant demon.}

{Twenty-five skill points are awarded for killing an original variant.}

{One skill point is awarded for killing a demon.}

{Congrats, you have leveled up to level 45. Two Free Points have been awarded to you and your stats have been updated.}

{Congrats, you have leveled up to level 46. Two Free Points have been awarded to you and your stats have been updated.}

Two levels from that? Really? Just a single demon?

“It’s because it was an original variant,” Tar says, acting as if that would explain everything. “An original variant is the term the System uses for the origin of a variant in a Fracture. Meaning the variant spawn you killed before weren’t original variants, but this breeder was.”

Oh. That makes more sense.

“Yeah,” Tar says before adding, “it’s mostly just a term used for the variants that are able to spawn more variants, like this breeder.”

Yeah.

I painfully move my arm in front of my face before texting the others to tell them that I’m fine. Then I open my status and allocate my free points from these two levels.

And then proceed to just stare at my status with a smile on my face.