The mingled fog trembled faintly amid sharp, horrifying shrieks, the yellow-green, viscous miasma quivering as black, sticky sludge burst and scattered under the tremendous force surging up from the depths of the mire.
What had only moments ago been a small, unremarkable heap of silt and dead branches had now transformed into a grotesque Bug Beast steeped in death and ill omen.
The first impression this Monster gave was of a twisted, unnatural amalgamation.
It resembled a huge, deformed deep-sea lobster—or perhaps a mutated underwater spider.
Its entire body was wrapped in a hard, yellow-brown, segmented chitinous shell, rough and matte in texture. The surface was covered in fine scratches, etched patterns, and the occasional tumorous bulge, giving off an icy, damp, uneasy chill and slickness, as though it had come from the depths underground.
Its head likewise bore the traits of an insectoid creature, but the color was clearly much darker, as if it had been forcibly welded on from some other corpse. A pair of stark black-and-white, deathly cold eyes brimmed with chaos and brutality, while its mouthparts were formed from multiple long, tough tentacles dripping with mucus. As they writhed, they tangled with one another, making goose bumps rise all over the body.
Its most conspicuous feature was the pair of enormous, asymmetrical pincers growing from either side of the front of its body.
The pincers were extremely developed, similar in structure to those of a lobster or scorpion, but with even more exaggerated proportions. From a distance, they looked almost malformed and distorted.
As for the destructive power they could produce... the horrifying crack that rang out when the pincers snapped shut on empty air was enough on its own to prove their might.
The strange Monster, whose appearance closely resembled a lobster, attacked from behind