Deep in the forest, and very far from her nest, the severely wounded Calamity Spider lay on the ground, her wretched appearance, and the large amount of blood covering her, made her look like a lifeless corpse, but her back which moved very slowly up and down, showed she was still breathing.

She was alive, yet unfortunately, she might not remain so for long, her success in escaping from the humans’ clutches was not without a price, for she had sustained extremely severe damage, and lost all her strength.

She had no Mana or Vitality left, and worse than all of this, her life energy was also declining at a rapid pace, and if she did not do something about it, she would die within a few hours at most.

She needed food, or any other source of energy she could absorb. She knew that well, but the problem was that thinking about it was thousands of times easier than actually doing it.

She was unable to move, or to speak, at this moment she was feeling hellish pain in every part of her body, and merely staying conscious was a miracle in itself.

"Ah..." She let out a muffled groan. Her emotions and thoughts were in a state of extreme chaos, she felt an overwhelming sadness, and at the same time her heart boiled with anger, and hatred.

’Humans, the despicable humans, damn them, I will kill them, why? Why do they always get in my way? I will make them regret it, they ruined everything, cursed creatures, death to them, despicable.’

She cursed them, insulted them, and shouted all kinds of random, incoherent words, desperately wished she could wipe them from existence, and raze their cities to the ground, so that no trace of them remains.

She hated them intensely, not only because of what had happened the previous day, she had faced them several times throughout the years of her life, and there was a long history of blood and enmity between them.

Everything began in the distant past, when she was still a small spider, living alongside her mother. At that time, humans attacked their nest, and burned it completely.

Her fate would have been death, had it not been that her mother did everything within her power to cut a path for her to escape, and what happened after that, well, unfortunately was very harsh for her, for the small spider found herself amid the unknown, fighting for her life.

She might be a monster, but this did not mean she was completely devoid of emotions, for what happened then affected her in several ways, and contributed to shaping her current personality, an evil monster that knows no mercy, nor compassion, seeing everyone as an enemy, and a threat that must be eliminated.

’I am in pain, I feel cold, will I die? No, I do not want this, I want to live, I want revenge, no...’

Little by little, it became difficult for her to maintain consciousness, the chaos inside her head disappeared, and her surging emotions calmed, and even her pain eased, replaced by a strange feeling of cold that seemed to be swallowing her body.

She completely lost the sense of her surroundings, and shortly after that, she began losing the sense of herself as well, she tried to resist, but that was useless, her consciousness continued drifting toward extinction.

’No...’ She released one last scream before her thoughts fell silent. Seconds passed very slowly, or perhaps hours, for she did not know the difference, all she saw, and all she felt, was pitch darkness, and strange coldness.

Amid this terrifying, and somewhat comfortable silence, in the last moments of her life, she suddenly felt something very heavy fall on her back.

This powerful shock that suddenly shook her entire body made her miraculously regain consciousness, and at a rapid pace her body’s organs began functioning again, including her senses.

She detected the presence of several living creatures around her. They were somewhat powerful, and likely wanted to prey on her, but she did not care. This was her only chance to survive, and any delay, even for a fraction of a second, might ruin everything.

She did not know how long she would remain conscious, so she gritted her teeth, and without any hesitation, burned a large amount of her bloodline, and converted it into Mana and Vitality energy.

This was an extremely reckless gamble, for her bloodline was the foundation of her power and determined her future potential. Any severe damage to it was nearly impossible to repair.

And in her case, the damage she had sustained was so severe, that her Rank might permanently drop from B to C, with no way to recover it.

Of course, she was not in a position that allowed her to think about the consequences, for all she was thinking about was staying alive, and truly, what was the point of hesitating or thinking about it, for she had no other choice, unfortunately.

Strength began flowing through her shattered body. She immediately formed several extremely hard silk threads, and grabbed the creatures that were nearby.

She opened her eyes, then slowly raised her head, dirt fell from her face, revealing her features, which were beautiful, and disfigured at the same time.

"Food." She muttered in a hoarse voice while staring at the four wolves with intense greed.

She reverted to her true form, which was noticeably smaller than before, her height barely reaching seven meters, and her length had dropped from sixteen meters to approximately ten.

Yet she was still very terrifying, and merely looking at her made terror creep into the five wolves around her. They trembled with fear, and struggled to break free, but to no avail.

She pulled one of the wolves, dissolved it with her lethal poison, then slurped it up like soup. At that moment, she felt a little vitality flowing into her body.

She felt happy, and since she was not able to maintain her strength for long, she pulled the second wolf, and did the same to it, then the third, and the fourth.

Eating some fresh flesh rich in energy made her regain a little of her strength, and the dullness that had been in her eyes disappeared, finally, she directed her gaze toward the fifth wolf.

It was very emaciated compared to the rest, and barely had any meat on it, it was not truly nutritious, yet she had no intention of letting it go, she was not in a position that allowed her to be selective, and every piece of meat she found was useful.

’This wolf, why do I feel I have seen it before?’ When her eyes met the eyes of the emaciated wolf, a strange feeling of unease came over her, and its unexpected reaction only added to her confusion.

At first, the wolf appeared intensely terrified, but after they held each other’s gaze for a while, it suddenly became calm, and stranger still, its lips twisted into a disfigured smile, she did not understand what it meant by this.

’What is it doing? What is wrong with this wolf anyway? Its condition is terrible. Strange.’ She felt greatly confused, its wretched state reminded her of herself, and for a brief moment she did not know what to do with it.

But, even though it had aroused her curiosity, she was very hungry, and in dire need of food, she ignored her confusion, and pulled it toward her, wanting to eat it.

...

On the other side, before the spider pulled him toward her, Arthur was experiencing one of the most terrifying moments of his life. Seeing the wolves dissolve and be eaten in that disgusting way made every part of his body tremble.

’This is the end, I fled from the wolves only to present myself on a silver platter to this cursed spider, after all that struggle and fighting, I will die in this horrific way. The world is truly unfair.’

From the intensity of his desperation, he no longer felt fear, for there was no point in it like everything else.

An extremely frustrated smile appeared on his face. He brought up the system screen before him and asked sarcastically.

’You will not save me, will you?’

The screen shook, and several letters intertwined with each other appeared on it, they were all in a language he did not know, yet they seemed somehow familiar to him, for they resembled the letters that had appeared on his computer before he was transported to this world.

There were no legendary skills or hidden effects, only strange behavior. Unfortunately, the system did not help him.

’As I expected, you are useless.’ He let out a long sigh, then redirected his gaze to the spider. He wished he could raise his middle finger at her, but even that was not possible.

In the next moment, she pulled him toward her, time slowed in his eyes, he saw everything in slow motion, and got a clear look at his killer, her eight red eyes, her ugly face full of wounds, and also her long slightly curved fangs, which resembled the scythes of death.

’Cursed insect, despite her great power, she wants to eat a near-dead monster like me, does she have no pride? Or is all she thinks about food?’ In the last moments of his life, he could only be sarcastic.

’Food.’ Suddenly a strange idea occurred to him, but at that very same moment, the spider put him in her mouth, and went to bite him.

He had only a fraction of a second, so he did not hesitate, he directed all his focus toward the Dimensional Storage, and opened it.

Several fresh carcasses appeared around him, most of them fell to the ground before the spider, while one of them got stuck in the spider’s mouth, for she had accidentally bitten it while wanting to bite him.

The spider was greatly shocked, she spat Arthur and the other carcass out of her mouth. She quickly backed away, while her eyes filled with disbelief remained fixed on him.