Demonic Devourer's Development

The cave we were in wasn't that big. It was just a tunnel with the water stream in the middle, only a couple meters wide at its widest and with a ceiling just tall enough that no one here needed to bend to avoid a meeting between stone and their foreheads.

In other words, this was a setup for a fight in pretty close quarters.

I accessed the bugmen again. They not only had knives, but also claws that looked sharp enough to kill. And their needle-like teeth that could be a deadly weapon, too. I didn't remember them using them much in the past, but these times the bugmen I saw were overpowered thanks to magic water. These two were just bugmen. The OP one here was I.

Not waiting for them to attack me, I swung my hands, letting the wind blades fly. With an almost soundless swish, the invisible projectiles flew over the short distance that separated me from the two bugmen, aimed straight for their vitals. There were just a couple of steps between us—I won't miss from there.

It would've been nice if I just killed them with that attack, but I hoped the bugmen would be stronger than that, and wasn't disappointed. They must've heard the blades' flight and jumped away from their path in unison. They weren't fast enough to avoid the attack completely, but it missed wide enough to only leave some deep scratches and cracks in their armour. The chitin was nothing before blades able to cut through stone.

Then, after only a moment of hesitation, both bugmen lunged at me as one. They were fast, I had to admit, and their synchronicity was inconvenient. It was never easy to dodge or block more than one attack at once, simply because it was hard to concentrate on more than one thing at once, not to mention that my limbs wen't placed quite right for that.

I dodged one, but that distracted me from the other one. The knife of the bugman plunged into my shoulder. He was aiming for my chest, but I still could do at least that much.

It was to no avail. My slime-like body barely felt the stab. My organs, my body parts, my everything was liquid and malleable now. The only thing I wasn't able to do was splitting myself in two without losing a half. Piercing attacks were just a mild inconvenience to me.

But the bugman didn't need to know about it. I stumbled, as if hurt, instead of immediately retaliating. It was hard to tell if the bugmen got the bait, since they were so expressionless, but I didn't wait for the confirmation.

I swung my claws and caught the bugmen unaware again. The first one dropped instantly, with its head almost severed from his body by a deep gash; the second stood straight for a moment longer, because the hand I plunged into its chest kept its body straight until I shook it off.

Three dead bodies laid before my feet, and the blood from them covered me from head to toe and flowed into the water. Throat wounds were always so messy… Good thing I had water to wash myself at just nearby now.

I ate the bugmen with relish. They had a tender and sweet meat, very much like human or a pig. I wished I had fire to cook it, but without it, I settled with raw stuff. And what would you know? Each bugman gave me as much EXP as a female Frost Griffin!

A single glance at the new abilities in my evolution tab was enough to understand why. 'Telepathy', 'Blind Sense'… So that was why bugmen cooperated so well without sounds—they communicated telepathically. They didn't seem to read my thoughts, though, but that didn't mean that the ability didn't allow it. It was possible that bugmen just didn't have it high enough.

Then, 'Blind Sense'. I assumed it was something that detected things around without a use of sight or other senses. Despite what I thought and their antennas, bugmen didn't seem to have 'Enhanced Smelling' in their abilities, though.

Good thing I had my own since I was intent on evolving into a bugman. Except… I needed to get more EXP for that, much more than I had. I spent all of it on my abilities, and evolving into a bugman cost 7 million!

I would need to eat a dozen more of them to get that much. Maybe it was time to go back to good old eradicating everything alive in the area with traps and ambushes. Time to test the capabilities of my invisible webs.

With a grin, I spit out some and began to spin a web on the entrance that bugmen came from. I was sure that soon the scent of their blood will attract more predators. Well, they were going to be in for a surprise.

I made the web nice and thick, something that an average monster here won't break out from. If my webs weren't transparent, it would've been too easy to notice, but as it stood, I could cover the entire tunnel entrance in webbing and then forget about it and walk into it by accident.

Well, I wasn't that forgetful, but after I finished, I couldn't spot the webbing in the dark, nor could I scent it. In case I did forget, I left a claw mark on the wall next to it.

I left that trap alone and moved on, still up the stream. There were many monsters who came to drink from it, and many places to leave the webs at. After I left the rainbow water region and levelled up, there were no enemies to challenge me much, which meant safe grind while my body absorbed the miraculous power of the rainbow stone.

Despite that, I kept vigilant. There was no saying when I will meet something unusual. Still, when I did, even though I was prepared for the many things, that one monster was still above and beyond, no matter how you looked at it.