Divine-Class Awakening: I Can Steal From Gods!-Chapter 33: Where the Webs End

Neo kept moving after a light breakfast, the tower still hanging far ahead like an insult the jungle kept showing him without ever letting it come closer.

By now, he had started getting used to this place. The heat still clung to him, the ground still shifted between roots, rock, and wet soil, and the green never stopped pressing from every side, but the constant discomfort had lost some of its edge. What helped most was that, so far, the only Soul Beasts he had run into were spiders. Annoying, ugly, poisonous things, yes, but predictable once he understood how they hunted.

The lemon had turned out to be useful.

He had brought it as part of his food, nothing more. Now it was smeared across his clothes and skin wherever the juice would hold. The sharp citrus smell clung to him badly enough that even he was getting tired of it, but it had done exactly what he hoped. Arachnids hated strong scents, and this one bothered them enough that many of the spiders chose to keep their distance instead of closing in. Not all of them. A few still attacked. A few still wanted to test whether he was worth the trouble. Most, however, saw him, caught the scent, and veered away as if deciding he was not prey worth touching.

That had told him something he had not expected.

’I thought Soul Beasts attacked anything that moved.’

Apparently not.

They were monsters, not idiots. If something smelled wrong, or looked like more trouble than it was worth, some of them preferred to leave it alone. That made sense once he stopped thinking of them as mindless killing machines. Soul Beasts were better than normal beasts in almost every way. Stronger. Faster. Sharper. Their senses were probably better as well.

Which made the spiders’ advantage here obvious.

They usually knew he was around before he knew they were around.

The lemon did not erase that problem. It just tilted it enough that he had room to keep walking.

So the day passed with Neo advancing through the jungle in long, humid stretches, the distant tower inching closer only when the trees chose to be generous. He killed what he had to kill, cut down a few more spiders when they got ambitious, and consumed the Soul Cores they left behind, the yellowed crystal orbs dimming in his palm while his soul devoured what was inside.

Progress came, but slowly.

The jungle was larger than it had any right to be, and the tower still looked far enough away to make him click his tongue under his breath.

’A few more days, probably.’

He hated that answer, but hating it did not shorten the distance.

What felt stranger was something else.

He had not seen anyone.

More than two hundred awakened had entered the Breach. A full day had already passed, and he had spent all of it moving, hunting, adjusting, surviving, yet he had not crossed paths with a single person.

’It’s not like I mind being alone.’

That part was true.

Neo had never needed company to function. He preferred working without someone breathing beside him, without anyone slowing him down, asking stupid questions, or expecting him to share every thought that crossed his head. Solitude had never bothered him.

This time, though, it came with an inconvenience.

’I do have a group now.’

He preferred being alone. That did not change the obvious. Clearing a Breach with a team was faster. Safer, in some situations. The rhythm they had found back there had actually worked. Max at the front, Alice breaking pressure when brute force was needed, Marika burning what had to burn, Snot slipping into gaps where he had no business fitting, and Neo making use of whatever they opened. The pace of his Soul Core had climbed much faster with them than it did now, trudging through miles of jungle to stab one spider at a time.

They had good chemistry.

He was not thrilled about admitting that, even inside his own head, but he was not stupid enough to deny what was useful just because it sounded sentimental.

By late afternoon the jungle had started changing.

At first it was hard to notice. Fewer webs between the trees. Fewer signs of movement. Longer stretches without any Soul Beast at all. Neo walked for a long time without seeing a single spider, and the absence itself became its own kind of pressure.

No movement and more importantly no red points buried in shadow. Even the faint sense of being watched had faded.

’Why are there no Soul Beasts here?’

It bothered him more than the spiders had.

This place should not have been empty. The tower was still ahead. The jungle was still dense. There was no reason for all the spiders to avoid this area unless something stronger had already claimed it.

That possibility sat badly in him.

’Or maybe this section is just far from everything.’

No.

That excuse died as soon as it formed. Soul Beasts moved. They hunted. They spread. A zone this empty, inside a place like this, meant something had driven the others out or kept them down.

Before he could chase the thought any further, his nose caught something in the air.

Blood.

Neo stopped walking.

The scent was old enough to have settled into the damp evening air, but not old enough to disappear. Familiar to him in the worst way. He turned toward it and followed the trail through roots and low brush until the remains came into view.

A body.

Or what was left of one.

The torso lay twisted near a patch of black roots, one arm torn free at the shoulder and the head lying a short distance from the rest. The lower half was gone entirely. Not severed cleanly. Eaten. Whatever had done it had not been in a hurry.

Neo crouched beside the corpse and gave it a quick check.

No Soul Core.

’Hm. So much for being a vulture. Would’ve been nice.’

His mouth flattened.

The answer was standing right in front of him. The reason the spiders avoided this stretch. The reason the jungle had gone quiet. Something stronger lived here, something high enough in the food chain that even Soul Beasts knew better than to wander too close.

’Shit.’

Night was coming down fast, and he had no good options left.

He could leave the territory and stumble through the dark hoping to find somewhere better before full night settled in, or he could stay, trust that whatever ruled this place had already eaten recently, and pray it had no reason to go looking again before morning.

Neo glanced at what remained of the corpse.

The damage looked fresh enough. Not recent in the sense of minutes, but not old either. Whatever killed this man had eaten well.

’It fed not long ago.’

He straightened and glanced through the darkening trees.

’If it’s full, maybe it won’t bother moving tonight.’

His eyes narrowed slightly.

’Yeah, and maybe life suddenly got generous.’

Even so, wandering blind through unfamiliar jungle at night sounded worse.

He made the choice.

The only part that truly annoyed him was the citrus smell.

He had used the lemon because it kept the spiders away. Now it might do the opposite and help something stronger notice him from farther off. Neo clicked his tongue, found a broad-rooted tree with thick leaves draped low around it, and picked the hollow between two roots as his shelter for the night.

He stripped down to his underwear and inner shirt, the outer clothes still carrying the stronger scent. Shirt on one branch. Trousers on another. Boots off to one side. He spread them apart on purpose, leaving the smell in several points around the tree instead of close to where he meant to sleep.

If the beast came out hunting, maybe the scent would pull it in the wrong direction first.

Not much of a plan.

Enough of one.

Neo eased himself down between the roots, one hand near where he could summon the sword at once if needed, and closed his eyes while the jungle darkened around him.

Sleep came badly and light.

He had no idea how long he stayed under before a scream tore through the night and ripped him awake.

"AAAH—!"

Neo’s eyes opened at once. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

A female voice and he knew it.