Become One with Me!

Raiden Mei was usually even-tempered, but she was getting a little angry. Kiana really didn't take her own safety seriously at all.

If Mei hadn't reacted quickly and caught Kiana in time, Kiana would be lying in that pit with the spider right now!

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, Mei. I was just too worried about you." Kiana immediately admitted defeat and apologized rapidly. "When I saw you facing such a shameless— I mean, terrifying monster, I was worried sick."

It wasn't even wearing clothes.

How shameless!

When she climbed onto the rooftop and saw that the giant spider had stopped laying eggs, she froze for a moment. Its upper body was completely bare, and even its hair wasn't covering anything.

Did it have no sense of shame at all?!

Just because it was a Kishin, did that mean it could wander around naked without the slightest shame?

Being naked was one thing, but it was actually naked in front of Mei! This was absolutely intolerable!

That was how Kiana got the idea to smash the spider's head. Then she put the idea into action, relying on her status as the Herrscher of Finality's vessel to leap off the roof and actually bring the baseball bat down hard on the giant spider's face.

The result was exactly what she wanted.

The baseball bat knocked the giant spider down.

The move had been practically perfect. Not only had it dealt effective damage, but it had also coordinated perfectly with Mei.

"Worried too..."

Raiden Mei's words cut off abruptly. She stepped forward and shielded Kiana behind her.

The giant spider in the pit ahead moved its legs, then used them to support its massive body and stand back up.

The giant spider's beautiful human head had nearly been smashed open by Kiana's swing. Its face was covered in blood and swelling.

It might have been dazed as well, because it swayed a little after standing.

That resentful voice rang out again. "It hurts, it hurts! Ah! You will die!"

The spiderlings it had sent out to scout around and entangle the others rushed over from every direction in response to its summons.

Across the open ground, from the cracks, from underground...

Kiana had thoroughly enraged the giant spider just now, driving the beautiful-headed spider into a frenzy.

The spider itself was fragile, but there were simply too many of them. They were so densely packed that just looking at them was enough to trigger trypophobia.

"Don't get caught up fighting these little spiders."

Raiden Mei warned her. The speed at which they killed them was more or less equal to the speed at which the giant spider spawned them.

"Got it!"

Kiana gripped the baseball bat and said, "I'll draw its attention from the front and create an opening for you, Mei!"

This beautiful-headed spider didn't seem to possess any exceptionally powerful regenerative ability. The wounds Kiana had inflicted still looked quite serious.

It had probably put all its skill points into spawning troops, web attacks, and defense.

If it hadn't encountered someone as unreasonable as Kiana, the speed at which this giant spider spawned offspring, along with the terrifying sharpness and toughness of its webs, would have been enough to give anyone a headache—or even drive them to despair.

At that moment, Raiden Mei didn't hesitate. She acknowledged Kiana, then raised the blade in her hand.

She still wasn't strong enough.

For now, the best way to deal with this giant spider was to have Kiana draw its attention head-on while Mei searched for an opportunity to land a killing blow from elsewhere.

"Hey, ugly! Over here! If you've got the guts, fight me one-on-one!"

Kiana had already charged forward. She sent one little spider after another flying with several swings of her bat, dodging the sticky webs as she advanced toward the hollow where the giant spider was.

"Die! Die!!"

When enemies met, their hatred ran especially deep. The giant spider could no longer endure the resentment and fury in its heart when it saw Kiana.

Several webs under its control spread across the ground ahead. Kiana found the gaps and dodged through them.

The webs looked thick, but their destructive power was astonishing. When they landed on concrete and stone, they sliced through the material into tofu-like chunks without the slightest difficulty.

It was easy to imagine what would happen if they landed on a person.

"Is your aim any good?"

Kiana continued taunting it and drawing its aggro. Against an intelligent but irrational monster like this, a few insults were enough to attract all its hatred and create an excellent opportunity for her teammate.

"That swing just now felt good, didn't it? Want to try taking another hit?"

Kiana dropped down and rolled forward a short distance, dodging another lethal web attack. Waiting for her was one of the beautiful-headed spider's raised legs.

The giant spider raised its leg and stomped down at Kiana, just as a human might try to crush a cockroach.

But Kiana wasn't a cockroach, and the spider wasn't human.

Kiana braced both hands against the baseball bat and forcibly blocked the blow. Her face flushed slightly; even her strength wasn't limitless.

Attacking really was more comfortable.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed the spider's leg away with all her strength. Then, taking advantage of the spider's unsteady footing, she sprang onto its leg and leaped several times, landing on its body.

"Can't spawn more troops to hit me now, can you?"

Kiana looked at the giant spider, its face bruised and swollen, blood seeping down its body. She rolled her wrist. "Don't say I'm bullying you. From here on out, this is a one-on-one battle between us."

"Die!"

The giant spider was furious. What did these hateful humans take it for? One after another, they had climbed onto its perfect body, utterly defiling its purity!

"Quite the bad temper."

Agilely dodging the giant spider's web attacks, Kiana still had time to keep talking trash. "This level of strength isn't enough. It's far worse than before. If you want to kill me, you'll have to show a little courage."

Chapter 31: Become One with Me!

Kiana's fighting style was really...

Raiden Mei was anxious, but this was no time to worry about that. Everything Kiana was doing was to create an opportunity for her.

She couldn't afford to miss.

The best outcome would be to kill this spider in a single strike. If she attacked a second time, the spider would definitely be prepared.

Stay calm. Focus.

Raiden Mei concealed her presence and watched Kiana battle the spider, observing the openings in its defenses.

"I'm still going too easy on you!"

Kiana danced as if on the edge of a blade, dodging one web strand after another. She constantly hovered between approaching the spider's head and retreating under its attacks.

The head really was this spider's weakness. Every time she tried to approach it, its already-frequent attacks doubled instantly.

Everything it did was meant to stop her.

I have to find a way to create an opening for Mei!

"Is that all you've got?" she taunted. "Are you really that afraid of getting hurt? Ha, why don't you just give up resisting?"

"Blasphemer! Die!"

The spider had been unable to defeat her for so long that it grew increasingly irritable. After Kiana provoked it once more, fury blinded it. Countless webs shot toward Kiana under its control, blocking every possible path of escape.

It intended to trade its own injuries for Kiana's death!

Trust Kiana!

Raiden Mei's pupils contracted sharply, but she still seized the opportunity. As the spider poured all its webs into killing Kiana, Raiden Mei transformed into a streak of lightning and flashed out.

Hokushin Itto-ryu: Extreme!

It was an incomplete ultimate move she had worked out over the course of one night, but it was still her strongest attack at the moment.

The sharp katana didn't cleave the beautiful head in two. Its human body was less defensive than its spider body, but it was still far tougher than an ordinary human.

Mei's attack merely left a grievous wound across it. The katana triggered its bleeding effect, and bright-red fluid gushed from the injury.

The spider's webs also pierced the spot where Kiana had been, even stabbing deeply into its own body.

Yet Kiana, who should have been skewered like a sieve, slipped past the attack with an extremely blurred figure, then flashed to another position.

"You've improved quite a bit."

Just now, Kiana had used Phase Shift to evade the web attack that would have killed her.

Her reactions had been fast, but her arm had still been grazed. That was the only damage the spider had managed to inflict on her in exchange for impaling itself.

Kiana raised her right hand and looked at it. It was only a superficial wound with a little blood seeping out. It would heal before long.

"That's more like it. You have to hit harder."

"See? You managed to hurt me now, didn't you?"

Kiana looked at the spider, covered in blood and in a sorry state, and grinned. "Shall we begin our second round?"

The wounds on the spider were more than twice as severe as before. Yet the giant spider no longer shouted and raged. Its scarlet eyes stared straight at Kiana.

Beyond the chaos and fear, Kiana actually sensed greed in its gaze.

What was going on?

Kiana frowned.

She hadn't noticed that her blood had dripped onto the spider's body and quickly vanished. Nor had she noticed the Honkai energy patterns spreading across the spider's abdomen.

"It's you. Hehehehe..."

The spider let out a creepy laugh. Though it came from a human voice, it was still enough to make one's blood run cold.

Then something even more horrifying happened.

The head of the beautiful-headed spider—the upper body they had assumed was its weakness and that Raiden Mei had grievously wounded with one slash—began to shrivel before separating from the spider's body.

No—it broke off entirely.

It was as if the upper body and the spider body had never been one part to begin with. The upper half fell from its height and crashed heavily onto the ground.

The giant spider's body twisted. Something resembling an insect seemed to be growing out from beneath its current shell.

Kiana's expression changed. She quickly leaped off the spider's body and put some distance between them.

Its bony shell grew into armor, greatly increasing its defensive power. The place where its head had been turned into a black hole, from which countless black tentacles extended. Each one ended in a huge scarlet eyeball.

All those tentacles stared greedily at Kiana. Then, in a voice that imitated human speech in a way that was impossible to describe, it said:

"Become one with me, and ascend to godhood together!"

All eight legs moved at once. Like a gigantic unstoppable truck, it charged toward Kiana.

"Fuck! What the hell is this thing?!"

It was even more disgusting than an octopus.

Kiana was revolted. She dodged toward the buildings behind her, but the sturdy structures were no more than paper in front of the giant spider.

I killed its beautiful head.

This thing has a second phase?!

Could that head have been stolen from someone else by this giant spider?!

The possibility made Kiana feel so sick that she nearly gagged. She ran even faster.

This thing was genuinely disgusting. Those black, eye-covered tentacles especially made her abandon any thought of standing on the spider's body and fighting it.

The main problem was that she didn't have a firearm.

Regardless of whether it had any useful modifiers, she absolutely had to buy a ranged firearm next time!

Kiana thought that for the third time.

She fled wildly while the spider chased close behind, dodging every web it spat out.

But the park was only so large. Before long, spider silk would probably cover every inch of it.

By then, she wouldn't even have anywhere to put her feet. She could only flee farther away, and she didn't know whether there were any ordinary people in those areas.

A deafening explosion accompanied by searing flames erupted on the spider's body. Kiana used the opportunity to put a great deal of distance between them before finally having time to look back.

It was those armed personnel.