Synexus stood alert as he heard the primal growl echo out of the surrounding darkness. He slowly turned to follow the noise, trying to find even a glimpse of what was hunting him. The growl didn’t sound quite right, but it still instilled fear in him. This was his first monster, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He had to focus. This was life or death.

  The Branch had trained Synexus in combat from a young age to get him ready for the world. A lot of that training was with bamboo training swords, so the Ancient Bamboo Katana that had been given to him, felt natural. He realized that he should have tested it before he needed to wield it, but hindsight wasn’t going to save him now. Pulling the katana from its sheath at his waist, he stood ready for whatever was coming out of the shadows.

  That’s when the growling stopped, and the head of a feral looking beast slowly showed itself. Synexus could see something was off because it didn’t have eyes. Its eye sockets were completely empty. He stood there staring into the two voids trying to figure out what in the world this creature was.

  It stopped with only its head visible. The fur was gray, and the head resembled that of a big wolf, but something was off. It growled again; however, the growl didn’t come from its mouth. The horrible noise sounded like it was coming from the body of the beast. Then Synexus heard more growls.

  He started to panic at hearing thousands of echoes of that noise all around him. They had surrounded him, whatever they were.

  Synexus was considering fleeing and running until daylight could provide him some sort of protection, but he didn’t know how many were out there. Almost sensing his thoughts, the wolf’s head slowly crept forward. The fire light caught the fur of its body and to his surprise it was deep black. It opened its maw to show razor sharp teeth, and its body snarled. That made the decision for him; he had to stand his ground.

  The wolf leapt toward him, trying to catch his arm with the teeth. He was easily able to dodge. The movement felt sloppy and slow. This was not a wolf. Synexus had seen many in his time with the Branch, but he himself had never fought one. After dodging another lunge, he decided to try and counterattack. The katana blade swung out and was just about to contact the body of the wolf when the fur parted out of the way.

  Synexus continued to dodge, trying to process what just happened. After a couple more attempts at injuring the wolf, he concluded that the wolf was hollow, and its fur was alive. However, he did know that the head of the beast was solid, so he aimed for that. With one strong swing of his katana, the snout and jaw fell to the ground.

  The beast seemed to be stunned for a second, but that was okay because Synexus was too. There he was staring into the half head of a wolf, and it was empty. No blood, or brains to be found. Just empty space. His thoughts were firing as fast as possible to identify this creature and how to kill it. So many questions were racing through his synapses. How many were there? Could they even die? How is its fur alive? And then the creature collapsed to the ground where the pieces of its skull were laying, however, instead of dying, the fur revealed itself to be a swarm of spiders, and they dispersed in every direction.

  Synexus started stomping on them as they came towards him. There were too many. Dozens of the small void black spiders started crawling up his body, still snarling like the wolf. He was panicking at this point and brushing them off as fast as he could. They just kept coming. It was an endless swarm, and he was their dinner. He could feel the bites starting to sink into his skin, but that wasn’t even the fact that scared him the most. What was more terrifying were the spiders that had bitten him started to speak in his own voice. It was all nonsense. They sounded almost exactly like him. It was eerie, and…no! What was he doing. He needed to act, so he took off running.

  Synexus managed to get most of the spiders off himself as he had gotten some distance between the swarm. That’s when a thought occurred to him; he had heard them surround him. If that was true, then why did only the spiders in the wolf attack him? That’s when he hit the spider web surrounding his camp.

  His whole left side was stuck in a web, a swarm of spiders all yelling “HUNGRY” in his own voice were almost upon him, and for the first time in his life, he realized how much the Branch had protected him. The Branch. He wondered if they would find his body after this or if he’d just be forgotten. Then he remembered his last conversation with them and how he told them he wouldn’t fail. That was the spark he needed to get his head back in the moment and think of his way to victory.

  “What do I have?” he said out loud. Back in his mind he went over the inventory of plants in his dimension bag, his regular bag, and what was on his person. His katana was in his only free hand which was ideal because he needed to cut these webs, he hoped it was sharp enough. With a couple strokes of the sword, he was able to get his left arm free, but the spiders were going to be there in a few seconds. He needed to buy time and that’s where the Star Flower came in. His left hand reached into his bag and pulled out the beautiful yellow flower. He closed his eyes and crushed the flower in his hand causing an extremely bright flash. Even with his eyes closed he knew it worked. Without wasting any time, he cut the rest of his body free and took off back towards his camp.

  The spiders were in a panic trying to get their bearings after the flash blinded their eyes momentarily and Synexus made the best of it. Once he got back to camp, he pulled out all the full-grown Crimson Aura Herb he had and laid it in a big circle around his campfire. Taking a burning log from the fire, he lit the circle of herbs on fire to start creating heavy red smoke. He wasn’t sure how long that would keep the spiders out, or even if it would at all, but he needed more time.

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  Next, he took out a few liing plant seeds from his bag and started pouring his mana into them.

  Liing Plant: A suitable fire accelerant. Can be ground into a highly flammable powder.

  That’s what his sensors had discovered about the plant and the Gene Library entry confirmed it. He had to make sure before staking his life on it. The three liing plants were now fully grown, his mana was almost depleted, and the spiders were now standing just outside the ring of red smoke. They were looking for a crack in the defenses and he wasn’t sure how long that would hold them off. He needed at least a few minutes as he frantically grounded the plants into a powder with the butt of his katana handle. The only problem now was how he would deliver it.

  The spiders were moving as one around the circle looking for an opening, however, they couldn’t find one. Some of the spiders tried moving through the burning herbs and caught fire. Others got into the smoke and turned back as if it messed with their senses. It seemed like his defenses were holding as Synexus was finishing up the last liing plant. He tore off one of his pant legs and cut it into squares and little strips of fabric to construct make-shift bombs. He dumped a little powder into each one and tied it off with a strip of cloth. They did not look pretty, and he wasn’t even sure if they would hold together, but it was all he had. There was enough material to make six of the mini-liing powder bombs and he was hoping that was enough to scare the spiders off. To finish them, he took the stems out of dried leaves he was using to start the campfire earlier and stuck them in each bomb as the wick. Then he waited for just the right time.

  Synexus knew the other spiders were amassing with the ones that originally attacked him because the swarm kept getting bigger and bigger. It was like a sea of black constantly undulating as the spiders were crawling all over each other for the chance to feed first. The original swarm was still chanting “Hungry” in his voice which unnerved him quite a bit. When the trail of spiders from the forest stopped and the smoke was starting to die down, he knew it was time.

  He took the first bomb and lit the wick with a piece of burning bark. It flew into the dark mass of spiders and did absolutely nothing. Synexus cursed at himself. The stem must not have been dry enough. He lit the second wick and threw it in the general area of the first and after a few seconds there was a huge explosion as the second bomb blew up which caused the powder in the first to ignite. Spiders and fire flew everywhere, causing the surrounding plants and spiders to catch fire. This caused the swarm to panic, but instead of fleeing they tried to push through the smoke to end the fight. Before they had time to react though, Synexus had already lit the third wick.

  The third and fourth explosion caused even more destruction and chaos for the spiders and the forest. Synexus didn’t like that he was lighting the plants and trees on fire, however, he would do what he could for them after he survived this night and it looked like he was going to survive the night. The spiders had thinned out considerably due to the fires spreading through them. He threw the fifth and sixth in the densest spots towards the back of the swarm which ended up catching the massive spider web perimeter on fire.

  Morning came to the charred forest and Synexus hadn’t gotten even a minute of sleep. After most of the spiders had burned, he had left the ring of safety and killed any stragglers he saw. He only knew he killed all or at least most of them when the System had given him a notification.

  You have slain a Mimic Spider Swarm

  Extra experience has been given for your first monster slain

  Slayer of Monsters Achievement had been unlocked

  Slayer of Monsters: You will now be able to see the remnant magical material of slain monsters.

  Yes, it was indeed a Mimic Spider Swarm, and they can all absolutely burn. Those things were nightmares that should not exist. Synexus was glad to get his first achievement out of the fight though since he didn’t even know achievements were a thing. He was, however, disappointed that he didn’t get another level since it was a tough fight. Then after the fight, he had to make his way through a burning forest several times to put some of it out with water from a nearby stream. He then went around and helped some of the plants to grow back with his Accelerated Growth skill which did end up giving up a couple more levels.

  Accelerated Growth has leveled up!

  Accelerated Growth has leveled up!

  That’s right, it was now up there matching his Gene Library skill. Now the only one lacking was his Gene Editing skill. He had to get back on his way or else he would test it out some more, but before he left there was one thing he wanted to check on. His achievement said he could now see remnant magical material from slain monsters. After looking through the pile of burnt spider bodies he had found two things. One was the skull of the wolf where he found that the fangs had remnants of magic in them, and the second was from the spiders. He held his fingers on both for his sensors to give him information about them, but now that he had gotten familiar with processing the information he was able to see it on the System display quicker.

  Fangs of the Ground Shaker Wolf (uncommon): These fangs hold remnant magic and can be used in crafting and alchemy.

  Mimicry Dagger (uncommon): The echoes of a skill used by the Mimic Spider Swarm has been reformed into this dagger. Mimic the voice of anyone you stab with this dagger for a short time.

  They weren’t super helpful to Synexus since he didn’t know how to craft magical items or do much alchemy yet. The dagger was nifty, but he wasn’t planning on stabbing people and why would he want someone’s voice? He put them in his bag and then began his journey East once again.