Chapter 50: Level Up! [2]
"Proceed."
The Soul Forge answered immediately.
White light erupted in front of him. Eight enormous limbs unfolded from within it, stretching wide as a silhouette took shape. A giant spider, suspended above the snow, still forming.
Then the white light collapsed inward.
Flames exploded from its legs.
Crimson-orange fire raced up each limb like blood running through veins, wrapping around the body before hardening into dark dense plates across its frame. Its claws extended, each one glowing with a heated edge that didn’t flicker.
Alden stared at it.
[Soul Forged Successfully!]
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Name: Unregistered
Type: Forged Soul
Base Beast: Giant Spider
Integrated Concepts: Glow + Razor Claw
Evolutionary Variant: Flamestone Spider
Rank: A
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’Yes.’ His eyes lit up.
Then they found the name field and he looked at the enormous flaming spider in front of him.
"For now I’ll just call you Flamestone, there’s no time for names. We’ve got work to do." He pointed at the Thunder Ape bearing down from the left. "Defend me while I heal Glacius."
The Flamestone Spider turned and locked onto the Thunder Ape.
The Ape came in fast, lightning coiling up both arms, its feet hitting the ground with impacts that cracked the frozen surface with each stride.
Flamestone didn’t back up.
A web shot forward and wrapped around the Ape’s wrist.
The Ape roared and wrenched its arm backward. Flamestone was dragged across the snow, all eight legs carving trenches, sparks flying where its claws caught the ice and then it anchored. All eight limbs planted at once. The web pulled taut.
The Ape’s momentum broke for half a second.
Flamestone vanished beneath the Ape’s arm, moving under its guard before the beast could process the direction change. The Ape’s other fist came down and hit empty ground.
Flamestone was already climbing, one leg on the Ape’s forearm. The spider scaled the enormous creature in under two seconds and reached its shoulder before the Ape’s hand could find it.
Its claws ignited.
SLASH!
A burning line opened across the Ape’s shoulder.
The Ape grabbed for it. Flamestone released and dropped, but before falling a web caught the Ape’s chest and swung the spider around the outside of the beast like a pendulum. As it came around the back, both claws flashed.
SLASH—SLASH!
Two more wounds across its back.
The Ape spun furiously. Flamestone disappeared, web attached to a nearby rock, body swinging sideways as the lightning fist tore through where it had just been.
Then the light around Flamestone intensified until it became hard to look at directly. The Ape instinctively raised one arm to shield its eyes.
Three webs fired simultaneously.
One caught the Ape’s ankle. One caught its wrist. One wrapped around its torso.
Flamestone pulled all three at once.
The Ape’s balance broke. Its enormous body staggered backward, arms pinwheeling.
Flamestone surged forward with all eight legs burning.
BOOM.
It hit the Ape’s chest like a thrown boulder. The beast went back three full steps before it caught itself, chest heaving, for the first time looking at the spider with something that wasn’t just rage.
Behind Flamestone, Alden had both hands on Glacius.
The black smoke poured steadily.
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[Soul Healing]
Pyrion: 100/100 ✔
Glacius: 18 → 47 → 79 → 100/100
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Glacius opened its eyes.
It pushed to its feet in one motion, shook the frost from its fur, and let out a growl that had nothing tired in it.
Alden pulled his hands back.
"I feel like my mana is draining healing them." But he ignored that and looked across the battlefield.
Flamestone was holding the Ape’s attention. Pyrion was still moving around the Dragon, keeping it turning, never letting it settle. The Dragon was bigger than Pyrion but Pyrion was faster than anything that size had a right to deal with.
His eyes sharpened.
’The Ape is stronger than the Dragon. It’s been taking both Glacius and Pyrion to keep it honest. But now Flamestone is here.
If I can get to the Dragon while it’s distracted, get my hand on it—’
"Glacius! Pyrion!"
Both of them looked at him immediately.
"Take the Ape! Both of you. Flamestone and I take the Dragon."
Pyrion’s flames surged up its back.
Glacius’s frostfire flared back to full and charged the Thunder Ape in a straight line, frostfire blazing. Pyrion came in from the opposite side at full speed, cutting a tight arc that forced the Ape to track two directions at once. The Ape spun between them, throwing lightning in both directions, and Flamestone peeled away toward the Dragon.
Alden ran with it.
He jumped and landed on the Dragon’s back, fingers finding purchase in the gaps between scales. The Dragon felt it immediately and twisted, but Alden held on.
"Now, Flamestone."
The spider had already positioned itself below the Dragon’s head. As the Dragon’s jaws opened and fire began gathering in its throat, Flamestone fired a web that wrapped around its jaw and pulled sideways.
The Dragon’s head yanked left. The fire erupted into the sky, scorching the mountainside thirty meters up.
The Dragon roared and snapped its attention to the thing pulling its face.
Flamestone flickered. Its Glow around it condensed into its claw, the flames burning down to razor-thin glowing edges that could cut through the brief gaps between scales.
One claw hit the Dragon’s foreleg and left a glowing wound that didn’t close. Another strike to its flank. A third and fourth from two different angles in rapid succession, each one burning into the scales from the inside out.
The Dragon’s tail came around fast.
Flamestone fired a web to the ground, yanked sideways, and the tail swept through empty air.
The spider used its own momentum to swing around the Dragon’s body, released at the top of the arc, and all eight burning claws came down at the same time.
BOOM.
The Dragon staggered forward.
Alden pressed his palm flat against the scales. Black smoke poured out.
’Come on.’
The Dragon tried to rise. Its legs pushed against the ground. The smoke was pulling something out of it that couldn’t be braced against.
Its movements slowed, breath grew shallower.
"Just a little more—" The smoke spread wider.
The Dragon’s head dropped.
BOOM.
It hit the snow.
Across the battlefield,
The Thunder Ape had gone from fighting one thing to fighting two, and two was the difference between manageable and being managed.
Glacius met its fist head-on. Frostfire against lightning, the collision sending a shockwave through the snow between them and blasting trees back on both sides. The Ape hammered down with its other fist. Glacius caught it, took the force, let its knees bend and then twisted the blow past its shoulder and drove its own fist into the Ape’s ribs.
CRACK.
The Ape staggered sideways.
Pyrion hit it from the right, a streak of white-orange fire slamming into its abdomen and pushing it further off balance. The Ape swung wildly at the wolf. Pyrion was already underneath it, running between its legs, reappearing behind it.
The Ape spun and reached.
Pyrion danced backward and kept dancing, just out of reach, keeping all of the Ape’s attention on the thing it couldn’t catch.
It didn’t notice Glacius until Glacius was already in the air higher than something its size should reach, frostfire condensing around both fists into a dense mass of frozen blue flame.
The Ape looked up. Its pupils shrank.
BOOOOOOM.
Glacius came down with both fists and hit the Ape in the abdomen with everything.
The impact drove the Ape into the earth. The ground exploded outward beneath them, a crater forming instantly, cracks racing in every direction through the frozen stone. Glacius kept its fists planted, kept pushing, not giving the Ape room to redirect the force.
For several seconds there was nothing but the sound of breaking ground.
Then Glacius pulled back.
The Thunder Ape lay in the crater without any movement in its body.
Alden sat back on the Dragon’s still body, breathing heavily. His arm was still outstretched, the black smoke finally dissolving into the air.
[DING!]
[Soul Successfully Extracted!]
[Beast: Dragon — Rank A]
[2× Bonus Active]
[Dragon Soul Fragment ×2]
[Dragon Blueprint: +4%]
[Blueprint: 12% → 16%]
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+3,500 EXP × 2 = +7,000 EXP
Level Up!
Level: 20 → 24
EXP: 22,420 / 25,000
Combat Power: 75 → 88
Rank: D+ → D++
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