Buzz Windbreaker floated in the air, in a slender shaft of sunlight that pierced the rotting leaves overhead. The green do of the jungle shook with the vibrations of unseen-creatures, but he was steadfastly staring at the ancient tree in front of him, where heavy fruit glowed with slight bioluminescence. Their skins glimred with silent malice, power-veined, like arcane-hearts beating in slow rhythmic defiance against the silence of the canopy.
His many-eyed eyes twitched.
"One... two... three... five?"
His wings were finely veined and gossar-thin, and buzzed in staccato bursts as he hovered nearer, the air about him thickening with a tension not of curiosity alone.
Six yesterday.
Buzz Windbreaker was a Tsetse Fly, but not by choice, but by rebirth. He had been counting them ever since he first had co into this weird cradle of forgotten gods and dead knights. Six fruits. Now five.
His proboscis jerked frantically.
"Did Tenebrisilk eat one of the fruits? That spiritual parasite..."
His eyes were directed to the great spider that lay in awe-stricken motionlessness on the outer shell of the tree. Tenebrisilk. A nightmare of eight legs. Its shell was as black as obsidian oil, and as imnse, with eldritch lines running through it that glimred vaguely with ancient circuitry.
Its radiance throbbed.
Thick as yesterday. Much more concentrated. Buzz could observe now the remnant of mana drained directly out of one of the divine fruits and transford into runic latticework, which now enclosed the limbs of the spider in a spiraling, evolving glyphs.
"So it ate the fruit," Buzz murmured in dawning hunger. "And it grew stronger..."
The consequences struck him like a series of falling spells. And since that accursed cosmic spider had the power to grow out of a single fruit, then what could it do to a Rank 2 insect like himself?
He hovered closer. His compound eyes flicked with trembling greed. Arcane saliva almost pooled at the tip of his razor-thin proboscis.
But then —
The air twisted.
No wind. No movent. Just an abrupt pressure drop, like a silence so intense it had physical mass. Goosebumps rose across his exoskeleton, every limb twitching involuntarily.
Then ca the voice.
"Why are you staring at my fruits..."
It was a whisper, playful yet soaked in sothing ancient, sothing not ant to speak through mouths. It slithered into his thoughts like psionic rcury.
Buzz’s wings faltered for a fraction of a second. That fraction was enough.
He spun midair, gaze darting through the branches, across the vines, into the warped corners of forest shadows.
"Who? Where?"
He didn’t see anything.
He didn’t have to.
The spider was watching him.
Not with hunger.
With intellect.
All eight of Tenebrisilk’s jewel-like eyes shimred with cognition. Calculation. Contempt.
"Are you a thief?" the voice whispered again, this ti with a trace of wounded pride, like a child denied its favorite toy.
Buzz’s nervous system scread.
Not just because the spider was speaking.
But because he could understand it.
Tsetse Flies weren’t supposed to possess psychic language receptivity. The skill hadn’t been unlocked. Yet here he was, digesting the spider’s words with terrifying clarity.
"Why... can I understand you?"
The voice sharpened.
"Why are you looking there and here when I am speaking to you?"
Enough.
Buzz didn’t stay to ask questions.
He didn’t formulate a witty response. He didn’t bargain. He didn’t dare to linger.
He bolted.
Wings shrieked with kinetic force as he tore through the air, a blur of panic and raw instinct, headed straight for the fallen knight’s corpse.
Behind him, the spider’s voice called, almost petulant:
"Hey! Don’t ignore ! Where are you going?"
But Tenebrisilk didn’t follow. It simply retreated back to the sacred shadow of its pulsing fruit.
Buzz didn’t care. Survival over conversation. Every ti.
---
He flew through the air, the broken tops of the trees below him a whirling green whirlpool.
When he had passed the boundary of the field of death, the area around the body of the knight, he sensed it.
Pressure.
The air was filled with mana like liquid smoke. It stuck to his wings, to his limbs, like the will of a dying god.
The very air was more dense here. Sluggish. Swarming with the aftershocks of forr might.
"Blood Infusion!"
He didn’t hesitate.
His blood boiled.
Ancestral fury filled every capillary of his little insect body, and he burned lifespan like wildfire. In his legs and belly red circuits flared, cut by instinct and desperation. He doubled in size. His muscles swelled with transitory bulk. His shell turned black.
He dove.
The body of the knight was motionless, a sculpture of frozen combat - pale as marble, hair as tarnished gold, the wounds that would not bleed.
Buzz alighted on the hand of the knight. It was glacial.
His legs jerked against the frozen flesh.
He used another skill.
"Robust Iron Fra!"
A grey light fell over his body as over a piece of tal, and solidified each part, each joint, each hair of his small body. He was made armor itself.
His proboscis had penetrated the palm of the knight with perfect accuracy.
Then it struck.
Not blood.
Wine.
The aroma filled his body in a celestial choir.
He trembled. He buzzed. He shook.
"Oh. My. Gods."
It was inexpressibly delicious. As old potions stored under the shrines of forgotten gods. This was not food to a reincarnated drunkard like Buzz Windbreaker. This was ascension.
He gorged.
He was a king drinker.
[Lifespan absorbed: 6 days... 10 days... 9 days...]
His heart grew big. His threads of mana grew. His eyes throbbed with uncontrolled delight.
But even as he feasted, the knight’s body fractured.
Cracks ran across the corpse.
Hairline first.
Then like shattered porcelain.
BOOM.
A radiant detonation of golden particles erupted into the sky, scattering the soul-ash of the once-mighty warrior back into the world.
And amidst the celestial storm...
[Ding! Evolution Progress: 100%. Additional requirent: 5 years of lifespan... Satisfied.]
[Soul Forces Detected. Initiating evolution sequence.]
Buzz grinned.
"I’ve broken the ceiling..."
His status screen materialized:
---
[STATUS WINDOW] Stage 1, Rank 2 Na: Buzz Windbreaker Species: Tsetse Fly Bloodline: None (Insufficient data, continue gene collection.) Lifespan: 2 years Evolution Progress: 100% Spiritual Force: 0.214
[Evolution Available: Tap to Evolve]
Buzz flapped backward. The exhilaration twisted into caution.
"Need a safe spot. Just in case... that spider senses this."
He deactivated his Blood Infusion, shrinking to his default state. He scanned the forest with battle-honed paranoia, searching for sowhere shielded, isolated, untainted by predators or ancient things pretending to be cute voices.
His wings kicked up again, this ti driven not by panic, but by a hunger that had found its purpose.
He was ready to evolve.
The old world had taken everything from him.
Now, he would take it all back.
Starting with power.
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