I grimaced, staring down the monster just down the corridor from me. I could hear Victor and the rest retreating farther down the corridor. I wanted to turn and sprint after them, but I couldn't risk turning my back on the monster. There was a single moment of stillness broken only by the sound of Victor and his team's feet slapping against the ground, and they moved further away. The monster and I lay on the ground where we had each skidded to our respective stops, we glared at each other.

  Slowly, we rose like a pair of puppets whose strings were tangled and intertwined, eyes fixed on each other. Watching for the slightest opening to act. Even now, I could still see the barest remnant of Matt in the thing's posture, the echo of a memory, the way the too-long arms hung at its sides, unable to commit to human or inhuman. The mouth split wider, a smile or a hunger-cry.

  I didn’t give it the satisfaction of the first move. My hand snapped to my chest, the [Chitinous Cuirass] a hair’s breadth from being ruined by the last attack; I grabbed the inner edge and yanked, shedding the ruined shell, and hurled it at the monster. The wound it had left in my flesh bubbled and boiled, rapidly healing.

  Vipera had lingered against the wall, her scales and root lattice dulling down, so she could blend in better with the grey stone walls of the corridor. Now she launched herself at the monster from an oblique angle while my ruined armour sailed through the air on a collision course with its head.

  I pressed down the strange pulse of pity I felt for the bug-thing as it half-reared and caught the spinning breastplate, claws crunching the chitin twice before tossing it aside. That minor distraction was the opening Vipera needed. She slipped in low and fast, body uncoiling as she aimed a strike at the joint of its thigh. The chitin there was newer, still wet; her fangs punched through, venom and blue energy arcing from her jaws into the wound. A sound came from the monster that resembled laughter, cut with cicada static. It snapped a clawed hand at Vipera, grabbing her by the neck, but in the same instant I was there, eyes glowing from the sheer amount of mana I was pushing into an overcharged [Edge Glare].

  As if sensing danger, the monster relinquished its grip on Vipera in favour of a rapid retreat; it blurred back over a dozen meters in a fraction of a heartbeat. I mirrored the monster's choice of movement as Vipera slipped into my soul. She would have to be opportunistic in this battle; she was far too vulnerable to a monster that was this fast and agile. I stared hard at the monster as we both took in the distance that separated us. Either of us could have crossed it in moments, but now there was a chance of movement. I needed the monster to follow me deeper into the dungeon; I couldn't take the risk that it could leave the dungeon before the timer on the breach was up. If that thing got outside, it would be an unmitigated disaster.

  It was growing rapidly; that much was obvious by the way its chitin was still hardening in places. Did that extend to its mental state as well? Was it still ruled by instinct more than reason or similar intellect?

  I grinned. There was nothing a predator wanted more than to chase after fleeing prey. I knew that urge better than most.

  I bolted.

  Not with the easy arrogance of someone who expected to win, but with the shameless speed of a mouse dodging a talon. Up the corridor, knees pumping, all four limbs digging for traction because even in human form, I was moving like an animal now. The insectoid shriek that came from behind, told me that the game was on. The tunnel bent left, then right, always downward. I took the turns at breakneck speed, hands out as I sprang at the corner, slamming into the wall and using it like a launch pad to push myself around the corner. not even glancing back. I didn't have to; I could feel it gaining with every heartbeat, claws ticking on stone, the breathing a dry insect rasp. I could hear the screech of its talons raking at the dungeon walls moments after I passed. I needed to move faster.

  Web lines sprang from my hands, aimed at the next corner, the one I knew to be the last before it would open up into the chamber. Still, I didn't halt my headlong rush; I had to time this just right, or I'd end up like a bug on a bumper, pasted along the corridor wall. I could practically feel the bug breathing down my neck as I charged headlong into the blind corner, my heart pounded in my chest, and my blood sang in my veins. Then the world blurred sideways as my web lines snapped tight, I rocketed around the corner as my feet came off the ground from the sheer speed I was moving at.

  A frustrated screech sounded from behind me as I sailed down the corridor and out of the torchlight into the open chamber. Spinning around in the air, I caught sight of the monster barely a scant few feet behind me, claws extended, mandibles open, screeching victory.

  I grinned, my hand pointed upward at the ceiling of the chamber. A web line cut through the air, and a single powerful tug sent me flying away from the monster that was unable to change direction mid-air, just as dozens and dozens of magical projectiles flew towards it like a prepared artillery barrage. One with a single, solitary target, one that needed to be eradicated with extreme prejudice.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  ——-

  -Moments earlier-

  Sofia scattered the rune stones around the tunnel entrances and around herself. Well over a dozen of the flat stone disks littered the ground, each and every one of them carried a rune carved into their surface. Every rune was a little different, each one hand carved to contain a different spell. Projectiles of pure mana, lances of frost, blades of condensed air. The Spells she had prepared were many and varied. Sofia closed her eyes and grabbed hold of the connection she had to every runestone as the one who set it, carved it into the stones. It was an innate connection fueled by her personal connection to them, and assisted by the System, it would take a lot to disrupt the connection when she held onto them directly like this.

  It had taken a talking to from her brother before she had returned to her senses from the depths of shock and grief she had been drowning in. Now, on the other side of it, all that was left was anger. Anger and raw, brutal hatred for the thing that seemed to have been driving her lost friend's body around to fool them all. It made her want to scream for a completely different reason. It didn't matter in the end; she would carve her recompense out of its body after she was done. That was if there was enough of it left after the magical devastation she had planned for the moment it exited the tunnel corridor.

  Opening her eyes, she met the gaze of Dave and Alex, who were crouched down on the other side of the corridor's exit. Dave held an arrow at the ready, and she could see the murder in his eyes. He wanted this just as badly as she did. They all did, really.

  "Ready, ready." She called softly to Victor, who waited at her side.

  It was going to be one hell of a light show.

  ——-

  The air ruptured in great gusts as Spell after Spell detonated on top of the unknown monster. I followed the web line all the way up to the ceiling of the chamber, feet planted, grip tight on the line to keep me anchored while I twisted my neck to keep the monster in view as best I could. In that fraction of a heartbeat, the first volley of Sofia's rune-spells detonated against the thing—arcs of burning blue lightning, spears of ice, a hailstorm of razor-thin wind blades. The world snapped white-hot as the projectile array converged on a single point. The force of the combined magic was enough to shove the bug-thing backwards a full body length, and for one glorious second, I thought she'd atomized it on the spot.

  No such luck.

  It hit the floor in a sprawl of twitching limbs and then, impossibly, began to right itself as the last shards of ice melted across its carapace. If anything, it looked hungry for more. A line of greenish ichor oozed down its face from where one of the runic bolts had scored a deep furrow in its chitin shell. I tsked to myself from where I hung, anchored to the ceiling, before releasing my grip on the web line and falling to the floor of the chamber below. My knees bent easily, absorbing the force of the fall. My gaze never left the monster across the way, even as the others circled around to rejoin the group. We stared at each other across the short distance, neither willing to make the first move.

  "Stay back, out of the melee. This is going to get ugly," I said calmly as I took the first slow forward step. No one else moved. I took another step, the tension grew, and my focus narrowed down to a single point. Watching, waiting, ready for a single twitch to signal the start of the death match.

  I took another step.

  Then another.

  The moment shattered, the tension snapped.

  An echoing crack resounded through the larger dungeon chamber as chitin clashed with chitin. We collided like boulders shooting down opposing hills. A black blur shot away from the center of the chamber to smash into one of the far walls, dust and chunks of dungeon stone blasted away from the wall on impact, and flew through the air. I shook my forelegs before planting them back on the ground and hissing a challenge at the monster that I had just batted away like a toy. It was still strong and fast as it had been, but it wasn't nearly as overwhelming in my spider form with its increased stats. It simply didn't have the mass to overpower me, not while it relinquished its grip on the ground in its charge to leap at me. A lesson I had learned some time ago, fighting monsters that were larger than myself, strength wasn't everything unless you specifically engineered a situation to be that way.

  I blurred away from the floor, leaping over to the wall, gaze fixed on the monster as it climbed out of the debris of the wall. It seemed to be looking at me once again, calculating. Or rather, recalculating the threat I posed to it. If I had to guess, I would say it didn't like the equation it was working out. I was going to have to ensure the monster hated it. Looking at it was unsettling for more than a few moments; it was almost like a hole to my more magical senses. It was strange, I had grown so used to my senses almost acting as echoes of each other, my physical senses confirmed what my magical senses told me, and vice versa. The disconnect was disconcerting. Instead of staring at the monster, I glanced around the room. Victor and the others were still frozen where they had gathered up, eyes fixed on me, where I clung to the wall of the chamber.

  Ah, this is the first time they've seen me like this, isn't it?

  Indeed, there are larger concerns, however. It's coming. Vipera responded to my offhand thought. My attention snapped back to the monster as it sailed through the air towards me. I leapt off the wall I was on as I sprayed web lines through the air in a half-hearted attempt to tangle the creature up. I had no illusions that the webs would be able to hold it for long. If at all. Instead, what I really wanted was a smoke screen of sorts.

  A pair of [Edge Glare]s cut through the mostly open air that separated the monster from me as fast as thought. The result was satisfactory, if not quite as significant as I would have liked. The force Spells tore into the monster, green ichor sprayed into the air from the gouges the spell had carved into its chitin armour. A shoulder wound and a leg wound, by all appearances, neither significant on their own. I yanked myself back to the wall with another web line while the monster mounted another wall much the same way I had. It glared at me. I could practically feel the rage rolling off of it in waves.

  I snorted. The monster was the fly to the spider. Trapped and struggling in the web, it just didn't know it yet.

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