By the time Yun Ting reached the Outskirts Camp, dusk had already begun to bleed across the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of burnt orange and bruised purple.
The so-called "camp" was less a sanctuary and more a graveyard stitched together from the bones of a hundred forgotten places. Old apartment blocks crumbled into themselves, leaning on each other like drunkards. Shelters made from scavenged wreckage groaned in the wind, their rusted metal sheets lashed together with beast sinew and frayed wire. The whole place smelled of blood, smoke, and something far worse—hunger.
As she crossed the warped perimeter—just broken fences and half-buried stakes, silence swallowed the camp.
Dozens of heads turned.
Men stopped mid-sharpening their bone sabers. Women crouched by fire pits fell into stillness. Even a filthy kid chewing on dried jerky dropped it into the dust, eyes round.
Yun Ting didn't slow.
She kept dragging the corpse behind her—its slick, venom-scorched body thudding along the gravel as she walked.
No one dared stop her.
Not here.
In the lower zones of Taixu, a Velkwraith corpse meant rations. It meant warmth. It meant someone was powerful. Even a juvenile one like this was worth at least a week of food or more, if someone knew how to extract the venom glands intact.
And yet… no one moved.
Because dragging one alone meant something: either you were insane or too dangerous to challenge.
She was new to this slum—but not unknown. In a place where even basic rooms were considered luxury, she lived in apartment 2BK. Not much, but far more expensive than the sunken pods or collapsed units most others shared. People whispered she came with Genome Credits.
"Did you see the burns?" someone whispered as she passed.
"She fought it bare. No spear."
No one stepped forward. No one offered help.
She reached her building. The old stairwell greeted her with its usual groan, and she climbed it slowly, corpse in tow. Up to the second floor. Room 2BK. Her space. Her trench.
Inside, the air was cooler. Still. Familiar.
She let the Widow's body collapse beside her prep slab, then slumped to the floor with a ragged sigh. Her muscles ached. Her fingers trembled. But rest was a luxury she couldn't afford yet.
Gripping the legs again, she hauled the beast out to the balcony—the only place big enough to work without choking on the stench.
She tapped the embedded heat crystal on the rock stove, and it flared to life, a dim red glow humming beneath the pit she had carved into the balcony's stone. Just enough to cook meat. Not enough to light up the night.
She worked methodically. One limb at a time. Bone slab. Dagger.
Shink.
The blade slid through the first joint with a sick crack. Blood hissed as it sprayed, thick and dark.
The flesh wasn't what she expected —spongy, fibrous. Like wet wood soaked in oil. Deep purple streaked with silver veins. Strange... but not rotten.
"Still fresh," she muttered, nostrils flaring.
She laid one leg over the crystal's heat and waited. The smell rose—meaty, almost like crab, with a bitter undertone. She didn't like it.
But she was starving.
She bit in cautiously and chewed.
Stringy. Rich. Bitter at the back of her throat. But edible.
She ate in silence, watching the dim tree line in the distance, until the edge of hunger softened.
Then she returned to the corpse and began slicing deeper into its center, fingers seeking for anything valuable.
Click.
Her dagger struck something hard.
She paused.
Not bone. Not chitin.
Reaching into the thick, wet cavity, her hand slipped past slick membranes and fatty coils until her fingers brushed something smooth.
Cold.
Circular
Glowing faintly blue.
She narrowed her eyes and pulled.
It was wedged deep—almost fused into the creature's flesh. It took effort for her arm to fully grasp it, the thick Widow blood resisting every inch.
Maybe…
She gritted her teeth and summoned a small flare of flame to her fingertips.
Scarlet Flame.
It danced up her wrist like a serpent and slithered into the thorax cavity, hissing against the wet meat. Slowly, the blood began to boil away.
She reached again.
This time, her hand touched something spherical. Smooth. Heavy. Coated in fluid that reeked of death.
She pulled it free and blinked.
It wasn't a beast core as expected
Those pulsed with spiritual complexity, layers upon layers of evolving patterns. This... was dense. Still. Like a locked door.
Velkwraiths didn't have cores. They didn't evolve. They fed and died. Simple as that.
So what the hell was this?
She lifted it under the lamplight.
The object gleamed—metallic, faintly blue. Her reflection stared back at her through smears of blood and oil.
"Artemis," she murmured, without thinking.
Silence.
Her jaw tightened.
Right. No AI tech on Taixu Island. Surveillance bans. Zero uplink zones. No scanning. No help.
She tried striking it with her dagger—only for sparks to fly as if she'd hit steel. Not even her spirit-forged blade left a dent.
She cursed under her breath.
Only one thing left to try.
Dragging out her stove, she carefully set the crystal again, this time pouring more of her own spiritual energy into it. The red glow intensified, enough to make her sweat. She placed the orb—core, egg, whatever it was onto the slab above the flame and took a step back.
Then waited.
Ten minutes. Nothing.
An hour.
Still nothing—except the thing was glowing brighter now, pulsing like it had a heartbeat.
Three hours.
She kicked the tiles in frustration,making dust shatter all over the corpse of the widow
"Devil's Palm."
She stretched out her hand, and the flame surged. She grasped the core and lifted it. The flame clung to it greedily, wrapping around its surface.
Crack.
A hairline fracture split across the shell. Something thick oozed out—dark, viscous fluid that smelled of rotting eggs. The stench hit her like a punch. She flinched, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Still, the scarlet flame refused to die. It surged through the cracks, eating deeper.
Crack.
Then—something moved.
A leg poked out.
Yun Ting's heart seized.
She dropped the object with a start. It rolled, hissed and split.
Not a core.
An egg.
A small creature unfurled from the slime. Slender legs. Black carapace still wet. No wings.
It shook off the muck and stared up at her with bulbous eyes.
But only two of them.
Widow hornets had six.
She froze, breath caught in her throat.
Then a soft ding echoed in her mind, and a notification screen shimmered into view.
> Species: Evolved Grade Hornet Spider
Abilities: Unidentified
Genome Points Possible: 12,000
Forex Exchange: 120 Gold Coins
Her eyes widened.
That was a lot. Her rent was fifteen gold coins a month. Meals cost one gold, maybe two if you wanted real meat.
This was a fortune.
Her lips began to twitch into a grin—until the screen shifted again.
> Kill and eat flesh to evolve
(Not Confirmed)
---
She stared at the message.
Then at the creature.
It was tiny. Harmless. Still licking her boot like it thought she was its mother.
Her stomach churned.
Evolving… changing her DNA, this meant her body would become more complex than a normal warrior's body .
The spider blinked at her, rubbing its front legs together, purring softly.
She clenched her fist.
Power was everything in Taixu.
Her flame flickered at her fingertips. she had to kill it or sell it
The choice sat heavy in her chest.
And for the first time that night… Yun Ting hesitated.
---