Chapter 33

The trail of crushed spiders remained as the only memory of the senseless slaughter unleashed by the Malfae before it exited the Spider hunting ground to begin its search for suitable prey. However, no matter the effort the creature put in, the [Reincarnated] could not find a creature that easy to kill and gave boundless experience. Thus, the frustration that had just recently diminished, reared its ugly head once again.

However, the creature could not just kill endlessly. Hence when it arrived at the clearing once again, its eyes were restlessly twitching. The blue creature landed outside of the entrance before it activated [Sense Essence]. The [Survivor] would have preferred to use [Sense] too but that Skill had a time limit and the creature wanted to save its use for the hunt.

The silent clearing was peaceful and unchanged with ants milling about their ordinary existences.

The creature of malice flew in to land near the centre of the clearing. Its dark eyes sought the spot where the moonlit flower had existed and they found nothing once again. The Malfae could not help but sigh as its instincts screamed that it had missed an incredible opportunity. After all, an immortal had been guarding that flower!

However, as there was little it could do now, the creature shook off the feeling and took to air before softly landing on a branch near ant colony. The [Survivor] was planning to test one of the stronger treasure hunter ants this time, as stealthily as it could as it didn’t believe that [Malfae Shield] would be able to stand against the sturdy defenders of the colony.

After a while, the Malfae locked in on a treasure hunter ant that was larger than usual and took to air to follow its prey. Once the ant was out the colony’s reach, the [Reincarnated] swiftly acted as it brought the [Malfae shield] forward, from where it had been protecting its back, to bring it crashing down on the clueless ant. The spread-apart wings rushed to snap close against the neck of its target.

However, the ant looked up at the last moment as its antennas twitched. It moved out of the way but it was already too late and the jaws closed shut before shattering like glass. Malfae wasted not a moment to summon another shield which it sent reeling against the cracked chitin on the disoriented ant’s neck. The shield hit true before shattering into pieces, yet the ant still lived.

The Malfae revealed its sharp teeth before it flew towards the injured insect. As it neared the downed but not dead prey, the [Survivor] pooled venom in its mouth to spit in the open wound.

However, the defiant ant turned to face the flying creature as it raised its head to aim. Before the [Reincarnated] could even frown, 2 mandibles raced towards the Malfae as if they were arrows. The wannabe predator tried to dodge the attack but as it wasn’t expecting any retaliation, it failed and the mandible hit it in the abdomen, embedding themselves in its flesh. The wind was knocked out of the Malfae, though the pain hadn’t set in yet either due to shock or adrenaline.

‘[Malfae Shield]!’ The blue creature hastily activated the Skill but the damage was done as it felt its HP decrease by at least a third. Combined with the HP loss that the creature was already suffering due to using [Survive] a couple of nights ago, the creature’s HP was now dangerously low.

The Malfae violently hissed as it sent its third shield towards the still living ant while it retreated. The heavily injured ant tried to dodge but its condition didn’t allow fast movements and attack hit home. Using this moment to settle itself, the [Reincarnated] did not attack further and instead waited. After all, despite the toughness of the chitin covered creature, it could not survive the blood loss resulting from 3 open neck wounds.

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The panting Malfae’s hostile gaze shifted from its prey to the mandibles stuck inside its body and it winced from phantom pain. The Mandibles had stabbed it in the right side of its abdomen, causing 2 steady trickles of blood to leak down from the wounds. The Malfae thought about pulling out the mandibles but then the sight of blood reminded it that those mandibles were possibly blocking most of the blood loss.

Before the creature could abandon its previous line of thought, the phantom pain became real and it hit it with full force. The agony from the stabs raced up its abdomen and even though the creature was used to the pain, it couldn’t stop the hiss that escaped its lips. The creature suffered thought the vicious assault as it gritted its teeth. Its blue fists turned purple as it clenched while it hastily let out short breaths to endure the pain. It was only after it felt its [Pain Resistance] kick in that it unclenched its fists and its breathing normalised.

The [Survivor] waited a few moments more before it gingerly flapped its wings and sighed in relief. The movement of its wings was not disturbed by the wound, which was the best news that it could have asked for. The Malfae immediately took off without even thinking about the ant corpse and returned to the crevice.

As the creature sprawled down on the grass bed in its crevice, it checked its HP and its heart almost stopped. [HP: 112/356]. A single attack from the ant had brought the creature to the death’s door. Although it had already been at half HP before, the ant’s attack had still done damage of 100+ points. If there had been another such attack, the Malfae would have died.

The creature’s scalp tingled and all the hair on its head and back stood up on their ends. Its massive ears flattened against its skull, its dark eyes widened and its wings overlapped themselves to become smaller.

But how could the attack of a mere ant do so much damage to the twice evolved, Tier 2, Malfae? It could do so because much like the Malfae the ant too was a twice evolved creature which had evolved from a Larva to the Worker Ant and finally to the soldier ant. It wasn’t the treasure hunter ant that the malfae had fought but the same Guard Red Ant that the Malfae had previously wanted to avoid. It had just been smaller because it had recently evolved and had yet to achieve its full size.

As it was a Guard Red Ant, it had evolved to fight for the colony and had received the Skill [Mandible Strike] at Level 5 from its latest evolution; much like how the Malfae had received the Skills [Poison Resistance], [Flight] and [Drone Eggs] at Level 5. And at Level 5, [Mandible Strike] did 50 points of damage for each mandible while the rest had been from bleeding.

The creature of course didn’t know this. ‘This f****** world. Out there to kill me. An ant does 60+ points of damage with a single Skill. 60+! While I struggle to do 10 points of damage over a minute! What b*******.’ The creature grumbled at the unfairness of it all as it hesitatingly eyed the 2 mandibles still stuck in its flesh.

It wanted to remove the mandibles but feared that doing so would result in HP loss and then the creature would not be able to use [Moulting] to heal. But leaving them in also did not suit the creature as it irrationally feared the mandibles getting stuck in its flesh. However, as it lacked even the simplest method to provide first aid, the creature unwillingly decided to remove the mandibles only when it had accumulated enough HP to use [Moulting].

Thus the creature began its solitary confinement once again. Though, its plan was challenged on the third day when the hunger became unbearable. The creature had staved off thirst by drinking its own venom but there had been little it could do for hunger.

Meanwhile, its stab wounds had become infected and shot bolts of agony every time the creature even so much as twitched. In such a condition, the creature could barely walk, let alone fly out to hunt. As the days passed, the unceasing hunger and the crippling agony merely increased. By the time the fifth day arrived, the creature had even begun to run a slight fever while its body urgently needed nutrients to consume and heal.

In such a state, even though its Skills [Pain resistance] and [Night Vision] had levelled up, the creature had cared not.

In one such blaze of agony, the Malfae’s hungry gaze fell on its half-developed eggs and an idea materialised in its desperate mind. It did not hesitate and crawled up to the eggs, fighting off the piercing agony as it did. Its sharp-toothed mouth drooled before the malicious creature consumed an egg whole.

The egg was salty, crunchy, gooey and mushy within the creature’s mouth but the Malfae cared not for it as it swallowed and the fire in its belly instantly dimmed. Barely had the [Survivor] swallowed the first egg before it picked up another and consumed it without a second thought.

It was, thus, on a diet of its own eggs and venom that the [Survivor] survived for the next two days until its HP once again crossed the safe limit for the usage of [Moulting]. The moment it did, the Malfae pulled the mandibles out mercilessly and activated its Skill before the resulting pain could ravage its mind. ‘[Moulting]! [Moulting]!! [Moulting]!!!’

Almost immediately the creature’s HP fell once again into the dangerous territory. Its HP read, [HP: 34/356].

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The Malfae woke up the next night due to the now-familiar itch of its shed skin and started squirming. It did not take much time to free itself of its own shed skin. The creature’s eyes then fell on the 2 mandibles lying next to it and it immediately touched its flat stomach, finding it as smooth as ever.

‘Thank the heavens.’ The creature smiled as it kept on poking the spot where the mandibles had stabbed it. And each time, the flesh bounced back painlessly, the creature’s toothy smile widened as it giggled.

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The creature spent the next week resting within its shelter as it ate eggs and drank venom while it regenerated its HP. By the end of the week, its HP had regenerated to half its maximum and its eggs had dwindled to 5. As a result, the creature decided to hunt the spiders for the next week as it rested, which passed smoothly.

Within this last week, the creature had continued its search for suitable prey but its search remained fruitless. Thus, after almost 3 weeks, the creature once again returned to the ant colony to get the feel of the ants in the clearing. But this time, it came at full health.

From a distant branch, the Malfae observed the ants. It noted the presence of treasure hunter ants and then the guard ants that the creature had dealt with some difficulty. But they were not the only ones. There were a few ants that were almost half the size of a mortal’s finger. These ants, the Malfae had remained clear of as they had seemed tougher than the rest of their brethren. To the [Survivor], the larger ants almost seemed like the overseers, guarding even the guard ants.

The Malfae already knew that guard ants would not give it any Levels; it had learnt that the hard way. And given the lack of other suitable prey, the creature decided to try the bigger guard ants. The one that was the overseers. This was an incredibly foolish decision of course.

The creature itself did not know, but its decision to hunt the overseers was less its conscious decision and more it’s instinctual. The Malfae had been hurt deeply by an ant. An ant! And no matter how it justified, its pride and malice could not bear it! Even though it had killed the offending ant, the pride could not suffer it!

The creature’s inherent and instinctual pride could not bear being defeated by something that it looked down upon. Perhaps its sense would have prevailed if it was so thoroughly outclassed that its other instincts overwhelmed its pride, much like how its sense had prevailed when it had foolishly decided to fight the cockroach monster. But as that was not the case, the creature subconsciously acted on its pride.

The Malfae searched for an isolated overseer and soon enough its search bore fruit. It did not attack though and instead, it landed on the nearby tree as it observed its powerful prey to make sure that it was truly alone. Once the [Reincarnated] was sure of its prey’s location, it flew above the massive ant and guided its shield to the front while spreading the wings apart until gaps appeared in between them. Then the shield descended like the wrath of nature.

The massive Ant’s antennas twitched as it sensed the descending winged shield. However, the Ant did not look up to ascertain its attacker and instead, its red chitin gleamed like a polished gem as it activated a Skill of its own. Meanwhile, the shimmering shield hit the ant and shattered instantly, without even leaving so much a scratch on the brilliantly gleaming red chitin.

The blue creature blinked in surprise but the ant had already turned around and launched its mandibles at the flying pest. ‘Oh f***!’ The flying creature did not make the same mistake as the last time and instantly dodged the incoming projectile before flying straight up as fast as it could. With its heart-pounding, it continued to race up and only dared to stop when it had escaped the ant’s range.

Though the moment it glanced back, its pupil-less dark eyes widened beyond its control, its massive ears flattened, goosebumps erupted on its head and back as its hair stood up on their ends. Blood drained from its face and its heart began to run a mile a minute while its body trembled.

All the ants, no matter how small or big, no matter if they were lifting a rock or hunting critter, no matter if they were on the ground or climbing up the trees, all of them had stopped mid-work to turn their heads towards the Malfae. Their insectoid gazes remained fixed on the [Survivor] as if unwilling to leave it even for a moment.

‘How is this even possible?’ The trembling creature gulped and flew even higher before leaving the clearing without any hesitation. None of the ants moved as the creature flew and none of them reacted as the flying pest left the clearing. They merely tracked the creature with their beady eyes.

Terrified out of its wits, the creature did not stop flying until it was once again within the safety of its home but even then, the creature couldn’t stop trembling. ‘What was that?!’ Every time the creature thought back to the moment, its heart almost stopped. It hadn’t felt such danger even when it had challenged the cockroach in its arrogance.

But how?!’ The creature had seen its certain death reflected in the beady eyes that had locked onto it to track its movements. Never had the creature felt such danger before. ‘What flower? It’s just death there!’

As the creature heart slowed down and blood returned to its face, it couldn’t help but think about what had just happened. All those ants had turned as one. They had looked at the Malfae as one. They had even tracked it as one. It had been almost as if they had cared about the ant that the Malfae had attacked and had wanted to defend the ant together. But that was the nature of mortals. Not immortals. Immortals did not care. They could not care.

‘How can they be like that? They had clearly evolved, hadn’t they? They were immortals! How can they care and coexist?’

The creature’s questions were valid of course. An immortal did not care for other immortals. An immortal did not coexist with other immortals. Yet these ants seemed to do just the same. The Malfae had not noticed this before, as the ants had been ants and they had been behaving like ants. It had been what it had expected them to do. There had been nothing unordinary about ants behaving like ants.

But how could The malfae know what was ordinary behaviour and what was unordinary behaviour for the ants? It had these expectations due to the influence of her memories. Because of those remnant memories, it had not even occurred to the Malfae that the immortal ants shouldn’t be able to behave like ants. For doing so would stand against the very nature of immortals.

‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ The creature shook its head. ‘What is important now is not how the ants lived. No, the important thing is that I do not go there. Ever.’ The creature placed its hand on its chest and felt its heart race. ‘Calm down. Calm down.’ It patted its chest until its heart slowed down a bit. ‘It’s over. It’s over.’

As its heart calmed down, its eyes fell on the remaining eggs. ‘How far along are they?’

The creature breathed deeply before it activated [Sense Essence]. ‘Not too long now.’ The shape of the essence within the eggs had begun to solidify. And while the colour of the essence remained the same as the Malfae itself, there was no denying the fact that the shape of the egg’s essence and that of the Malfae were completely different.

The creature sighed and did not bother with the egg anymore. It had long since made peace with fact that the eggs would not get well-grown Malfaes out of the eggs.

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The creature woke up to the sounds of cracks and wiggles. And no matter how drowsy and confused the creature was, the presence of sound in its home shocked it awake. Its gaze hastily turned to the entrance only to find the [Malfae Shield] still blocking it, causing it to frown. As the cracks resounded, it followed the sound and its wary gaze landed on the eggs.

CRACK!

‘Are they finally hatching?’ Crawling over to the eggs, the Malfae waited with bated breath for the creature within to emerge out of the shell. This would be the very first creature that would neither be the Malfae’s prey nor be its predator. It seemed like a foreign concept to the creature, despite being aware of it because of her memories.

It began small. As cracks after cracks spread out over the shell, forming a pattern akin to that of the spider webs. Before, all of a sudden, a piece fell off creating an opening. Beneath the opening, something slimy and blue wiggled. The sight was gross, yet it transfixed the creature.

Lazily -or better to say, tiredly- a slime-covered head poked out of the shell before falling back in. The head fell like it was dead, something which the newborn was obviously not. The tiny and slimy head wiggled around, testing the newfound freedom. As if satisfied, soon the head pushed itself out again. It flinched at the sudden temperature change before it tiredly tried to move. As the creature continued to wiggle, the rest of the shell fell apart, revealing the not so beautiful creature hidden inside.

Truthfully, it was one ugly thing.

The creature was small, covered in slime and barely reached the height of 1/6th of a mortal’s finger. Its head was its biggest past and the rest of the body seemed like a train of blue spheres. The creature was, much like the Malfae’s past self, a caterpillar. ‘Really, what else had I expected?’

The new-born caterpillar wiggled around as if looking for something to eat.

But at that moment, the Malfae felt a strange intrusion in its mind. It was not words or sentences or even speech, per se. It was just a feeling that the Malfae had not felt in a long time and it had hoped to never meet it ever again.

‘…the hunger-induced from Title [Hungry].’ The creature’s eyes widened and its heart raced as it immediately called up its Status. With bated breath, the creature looked at its list of Titles but the blue window mentioned nothing of the sort. The Malfae sighed in relief and focused on the feeling itself.

As the Malfae was intimately familiar with this feeling, the creature was able to determine that the feeling was different this time around. It didn’t seem like its own. It was almost as if the hunger of another being was being projected onto itself. ‘Eh?’

The Malfae’s eyes widened and its gaze immediately fell on the caterpillar in front of it. The bug, in the meanwhile, had returned to the shell and was devouring it at an impressive speed. The Malfae blinked and waited for the bug to finish eating before the evolved moth picked up the caterpillar and deposited it on the nearest tree.

The Malfae would have preferred to first ensure the safety of the plant but the creature knew that if it left the caterpillar with the eggs, the bug would eat them without a second thought. Thus, the creature first placed the caterpillar on the tree and then made sure that the tree was free of predators it had once faced.

After all, if these caterpillars had the misfortune of meeting a snail, they could do little but die obediently. Not finding any snails on the tree, the Malfae once again picked up the caterpillar and placed it one of the better-shaded areas to hide it from the passing birds. The Malfae wasn’t sure if even it could battle a bird, let alone the Egoless drone.

Once the caterpillar had been sufficiently secured, the creature flew off to the spider hunting area and followed its own routine of searching for suitable prey. Which, miraculously, it hadn’t found yet.

In truth, finding prey wasn’t that difficult. The creature was just cowardly and greedy. It wanted to attain Levels without putting its life in danger. On one hand, it disdained the killing of various critters for slow and steady Level ups. While on the other hand, it wanted to avoid dangerous fights for multiple instantaneous Level ups. But could that be possible for an immortal being such as itself? How could such a good deal exist for an immortal?

Thus, it wasn’t that the creature’s searching methods were lacking. It was just that its search was futile from the very start.

-X-

Within a desolate desert, inside a dilapidated shop, on a simple chair, a youth seemingly slept.

-X-

Name: Unnamed

Race: Immortal

Species: Insect

Vessel: Malfae

Level: 2

HP: 356/356   MP: 256/256

HPR: 21 HP/Day   MPR: 11 MP/H

Lifespan: 6 Years 10 Months 16 Days

Titles

[Reincarnated] [Survivor]

Skills

[Crawl Lv.5] [Drone Eggs Lv.5] [Flight Lv.7] [Mana Manipulation Lv.2] [Malfae Shield Lv.3] [Moulting Lv.4] [Night Vision Lv.6] [Pain Resistance Lv.6] [Poison Resistance Lv.9] [Sense Lv.4] [Sense Essence Lv.2] [Survive Lv.3] [Venom Creation Lv.6]


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