I did not move for a long while.
The divine silk still shimmered beneath my skin — too faint for sight now, but alive. It coiled and slumbered beside the memory of Arachnia, and every so often, it pulsed.
Not a heartbeat.
A weavebeat.
It was like a threadline had been stitched into the air between us. I felt her even in silence — not speaking, not watching, just present.
And I…
I sat. Curled in the center of that dead cathedral of webs, the scarf warm around my neck, the stone beneath me rough and ancient. The hollow pulsed gently, like an old body breathing slow.
"So this is what it means," I murmured.
To evolve.
To preserve.
To carry something larger than myself.
And then, something changed.
It was subtle at first.Just a pull in my silk.A twitch in the thread I'd left on the arch behind me.It tugged.
But not like before.Not like wind.Not like a curious creature.
No — this one came gliding.
Thread Disturbance Detected
[Source: Unknown | Pressure Class: Mid-tier Aberration]
[Intent: Violent | Predation Signature: Divine-Responsive]
[Warning: Entity drawn by Divine Thread Signal. Prepare.]
My eyes narrowed.
The hollow… darkened.Not because light vanished.
Because something was coming.
Something that stole light behind it.
It stepped forward again.
Not walking.
Gliding.
The air bent around it. Not because of power, but stitching — its limbs were repositioning, each step sliding bones into new shapes, tendons unwinding and reweaving like some cruel joke on natural design.
The Thread-Cutter…
No.
This was something else.
[Classification Updated: Lesser Chimera – Divine Silk Parasite Variant]
[Threat Level: Aberrant – Grade B-]
[Known Capabilities: Multi-Form | Thread Immunity | Predation Instinct – Divine Marked]
[Weakness: Core Instability / Fragmented Mind]
Its eyes snapped.They changed.
From red… to green… to mirror-like silver.
It hissed again, but now with a mouth that did not exist seconds ago — a mandible-covered wolf's snout, too wide, too wet, too wrong.
Its words now came cleaner.
Lower.
Mocking.
"Preserver.""Keeper.""Little hunger-bug…"
It raised its hand — if you could call it that.Its forelimb shifted, claws bending, splitting, a hook unfolding from its wrist like a wasp's sting made of shadowed bone.
"Give me the goddess."
"I'll suck her dry… again."
My threads snapped taut.
I knew what this thing was.
A divine scavenger.
Something that had tasted god-flesh once — maybe long ago, during the final screams of Arachnia's fall. It had gnawed what remained. Maybe even wore pieces of her old worshippers.
And now it wanted more.
Not to rule.
Not to understand.
To feed.
"You don't deserve her," I hissed.
Then I launched.
No hesitation.
My silk flared. I spat a net straight toward its face — reinforced thread, cross-woven to shear stone. I'd used it once on the centipede. This time it was stronger.
But—
Ssshrrrrip—!
It transformed mid-collision.
A serpent's body split from its shoulder, mouth erupting sideways, devouring my web mid-flight.
It slithered around the impact, its legs retracting, its ribs breaking inward to form a coiled lower half.
Then it lunged.
Too fast—!
I blinked back.
Silk burst from my limbs, anchoring me to the stone, swinging wide around the pillar. My own threads bent the impact — a trick I'd practiced in my den.
The thing hit where I'd been and shattered webbed floor.
The stone cracked.
The cathedral groaned.
And still — it laughed.
"You learned to spin," it cooed."But you've never been unmade."
I landed again.
Legs wide.
The scarf fluttered — and something inside me pulsed.
Not fear.
But protection.
Not for me.
For her.
The cocoon.
Arachnia.
And even—Tamm.
"You won't touch them," I growled.
The Chimera's face peeled again.
This time, it took on mine.
Not fully — but enough.
My eyes. My mandibles. A mockery. A mimic.
It grinned.
"Come now, little Ren…" it said, in a perfect copy of my voice.
"Don't you want to know what you'll look like… when I wear you?"
The mimicry split.
My eyes — my face — now stared back at me, grotesque and incomplete.
The Chimera cocked its head, tongue unspooling into a thread-blade.
"What will you do, little thread?" it whispered."You're soft. You preserve. You pity."
It lunged again.No hesitation.Faster this time. Its torso spun, limbs twisting into bladed wheels, slicing through the air like bone saws.
I didn't dodge.
I moved in.
Drew its attention.
Let it commit.
And right before impact—
I dropped a decoy thread.
A snap of silk I'd anchored behind me.Bait.
It sliced through it, mistaking it for my path.
In that heartbeat—
I vanished left.
Slid under its guard. Spun low, using its own momentum.
Spat a thread—Hooked it around its jaw—Yanked.
Its face turned mid-spin, exposing the base of its neck.
My mandibles latched.
CHHHK—!!
I bit deep.
Not just flesh.Thread lines.Its false connections. The grafts. The seams.
It screamed.
Not pain.Anger.
It tried to shift again — this time into a brute-beast, all muscle and horn.
But—
My threads were already inside it.
I'd learned something from weaving my little nest, from repairing webs. From binding wounds.
If you understand how something is stitched…
…you know how to unravel it.
I twisted.Spat internal silk.Pulled.
And the form shattered.
The Chimera buckled — mid-shift, caught between too many bodies, too many stolen shapes.
It collapsed, twitching, unable to re-form.
Its eyes flared.
It tried one more time—
"You… you are not a hunter," it hissed."You're a parasite—!"
"No," I whispered.
"I'm a weaver."
I sank my jaws in again.
Deeper.
And this time—
I devoured.
[Aberrant Core Consumed – Chimera Variant]
[Divine Silk Parasite Signature Eaten: Thread Immunity Dismantled]
[Skill Gained: Partial Formshift – Fragmented]
[New Trait: Chimera Memory Fragment (Locked)]
[Transformation Unlock Path: 3% Complete]
[Warning: Incomplete Devour – Will require further aberrant cores for stable usage]
The hollow fell silent.
Only the echoes of its scream remained, caught in long-dead webs.
I stood over what remained of it — a twitching heap of mis-stitched flesh, twitching, unravelling, unworthy.
But useful.
Inside me, I felt its memory curl like a thread-spool half-unrolled. I did not want it. But I kept it.
Preserved.
And Arachnia's voice whispered faintly once more:
"Ah… you learn quickly, little hunger."
"That was not strength."
"That was… skill."
I didn't answer.
Instead, I turned away.Back toward the center of the web cathedral.Back to the cocoon where her last self slumbered.
And I whispered:
"No one will wear what's mine again."
"Not her."
"Not me."
"Not anyone."
The broken cathedral of silk no longer moved.
Even the webs, once shivering from divine tension, now hung limp — threads like exhausted lungs exhaling their last. My own breathing slowed. Silk no longer flared inside me. Mana cooled.
I stood alone.
And for the first time… I was not hunted.
Not hiding.
Not starving.
Just… listening.
Then the system clicked.
Not sharp. Not mechanical.
Soft.
Like a voice had grown into it.
And it spoke:
"Designation recognized…
Chimera Core: Syrri.
Speech protocol unlocked.
Partial Formshifting unlocked.
Memory fragment… transferred."
The air stirred. Not wind. Just a presence.
Not from the corpse.
From inside me.
A thread pulled taut.
And then—
Her voice.
Not Arachnia.
The Chimera.
"You bit deep, little thing," she said.
She. Her voice now singular, unlike the chorus of madness it once was.
"Not enough of me remains to hate you. That's something."
"My name was Syrri. I was made, not born.
I tore, stole, consumed… but I never wove. Not once."
A pause. A sigh.
"But now, you can."
"Take my mimicry. Take your voice. I leave it willingly… thread-child."
A pulse flickered in my throat.
A strange feeling.
I opened my mouth.
And this time—
"Voice… test?" I said.
Rough.
Scratched.
But words.
Speech.
"I… can speak?"
I blinked.
Then smiled — or whatever counted as smiling with a larva's mandibles.
"Finally."
And from the cocoon, Arachnia stirred.
Not to correct me.
Not to mock me.
But to answer.
"Yes," she said. "A voice is not just for sound. It is for thread."
"To speak is to bind. To promise. To name."
"Now you carry a name… and a question."
I nodded — threads behind my eyes shimmering.
"Hey," I said.
"Goddess of Gluttony, right?"
A long silence.
Then—
"You may call me Arachnia.But yes. Once, I was Gluttony."
"Speak, thread-born. You've earned a question."
I stared upward, toward the broken arch of the hollow — where darkness gave way to long tunnels and distant echoes.
"What's… above?"
A silence.
But it was a deep silence — like her breath was drawn from a thousand webs across the world.
Then her voice came, low and old:
"Above this layer lies the Forest of Oukra."
"It was once my domain — a lush, boundless green, ruled by fang and claw and silk."
"There, monsters dwell not in hatred, but survival. Ogres. Serpents. Golems. Kin who knew the rhythm of hunger and balance."
"But now… the forest burns."
"The humans — they dig. Build. Cut. Their roads run like blades through the canopy."
"And my threads rot."
"This dungeon? It is mine. My last cradle. My deathbed. My temple."
"And now…"
A pause.
A whisper.
"…my rebirth."
I said nothing.
Just stood there, breathing thread-scented air, soft light reflecting in the quiet silk strands all around me.
Then she said one last thing:
"Go above, little one.Leave the hollow be. Let it mourn.Climb."
"Explore this world.
Hunt it.
Learn it.
Change it."
"Maybe your hunger can do what mine could not."
I looked to the tunnel ahead.
No more fear.
Only curiosity.
And my voice, still new in my throat, rasped:
"Alright."
"Let's see what's waiting above."