Chapter 3: There's always a bigger fish
Chapter 3: There's always a bigger fish
The full body metamorphosis was much more painful than just sprouting a pair of new wings. My low CON left me no defence against it, and I could only writhe in pain as my old flesh fell away to reveal the new one.
The pain, though, was something I had long grown used to.
After a few minutes it abated, leaving only an ache behind, and stretched into my new body. It was smaller and much less mobile, but it had actual limbs! Six of them, three on each side, and I made a small happy dance about having them again. It also had a protective layer of chitin, even over the wings, which was much more comfortable to live in than a layer of mucus.
And the senses! I had an eyesight sharp enough to detect objects, not just movement, and two long antennae to act as my feelers. Not to mention, I could hear much better, too. The sights of the forest—it was a forest, with trees that looked impossibly tall and massive compared to my tiny body—around me. The rustle of leaves and the smells of grass and other insects… so simple, yet so beautiful.
Besides that, I had a sharp stinger at the end of my abdomen, ready to pierce my enemies and fill them with ant acid. My job here, though, wasn’t yet done. I opened my character screen and took a moment to appreciate my new species before moving to abilities.
[Voren]
[General Info]
Species: Erimia Beetle
Sex: Male
Age: 15d
Height: 0.8cm
Weight: 0.026kg
Emotional state: Happiness
Titles: Devourer, Alpha Predator, The Lord of Nine Hells
[Stats]
HP: 2/2
EXP: 13
STR: 1.8
DEX: 1.4
CON: 1.6
INT: 8.3
[Abilities]
Devourer (lv MAX) (Evolution options available!)
Flight (lv 1) (Can be levelled up!)
Stinger (lv 1) (Can be levelled up!)
Chitinous Carapace (lv 1) (species boon)
I could level up ‘Flight’ and ‘Stinger’. I couldn’t do the same with Chitinous Carapace for the same reason I couldn’t level up ‘Mucus’ before—it was a species boon, and therefore, would disappear when I evolved my species again.
Not that I wanted to level it up at all. Instead, I immediately dumped my EXP into ‘Flight’ and ‘Stinger’. Both had equal base cost of two EXP, so levelling them up to the second level required four EXP for each. Levelling an ability to level three required double the cost of levelling to level two, and so on.
With my thirteen leftover EXP, I could only level both of them to level two and have five EXP left. With a single increase in level, the difference wasn’t big, but my stinger now looked a little sharper, and my wings felt stronger.
I lifted my forewings and buzzed my wings for a test, and was pleased with the low noise they produced. It sounded nice. It would alert any prey to my presence, though, but this was inevitable with insect wings. I could only vaguely remember a species of birds able to fly noiselessly…
Such a long-forgotten memory. The mortal realm seemed to awake those in me. There were no forests in Hell where trees were actual trees and not some wretched abomination feeding on torments of human souls.
I imagine any other demon besides me would’ve been awfully confused being thrown into a situation like this one. Then again, any other demon also didn’t have my ‘Devourer’ ability to become anything more than a slug.
I shook my body, pulling myself out of this introspection. It wasn’t time for thinking—it was time for hunting. A beetle was just a stepping stone for bigger, better forms. I had it all planned in my head already. I will use my stinger and flight to kill a spider. This will give me their ability to spin webs, and maybe even their venom. With that and my flight, I will be able to hunt small rodents, especially young ones.
After this, it would be just a matter of time until I ate something worth sticking in for a longer while. Maybe even a human with their thumbs. Or a humanoid monster. I knew there were some—many souls in Hell came there after being killed by one of those.
I flew through the forest, sticking to the shadows and looking carefully for any spiderwebs. It didn’t take me long to find one, with a big, juicy spider in the middle of it. Oh, I could already imagine the taste of its soft flesh under that chitin, the abilities I will gain from it…
The spider stared at my approach fearlessly with its eight beady eyes. It thought itself to be a king of its web, and me—just another fool to fall into his trap. It didn’t know that this would only happen if I really, really fucked up, and I didn’t intend to.
With my weight, a smallest gust of wind made me wobble in the air, and I had to reach the spider and get a hold on it without touching its web, or I would get stuck even if I would kill the spider before it bites me. Because of that, I had to be extremely careful.
I was so concentrated on approaching the spider without ending up as its meal, that I forgot to look—and listen—out for other dangers. I noticed the thunderous flapping of the wings when it was way too late.
The bird caught me with its beak.