These assassins have been a pain in my ass for years now. Four, to be exact. I still don't know who's signing their checks, but they've been relentless. I'll give them this much though: they're creative. I've been shot at, drowned, even shoved toward a dungeon warp—that one nearly worked.
But lately? Poison. Always poison.
And whoever cooks their poisons is a brilliant bastard. Every time it's something new, every time it nearly drops me. Blood coagulant one month, neurotoxin the next, then—why not—acid in my veins. They've got range, and every batch is stronger than the last. Unfortunately for them, I adapt. My body learns, hardens, resists. What doesn't kill me just makes me resistant to that kind of poison next time.
Eventually, the real problem for them wasn't the toxin—it was delivery. Their blades can't pierce my skin anymore. That little upgrade came around the same time people started calling me the strongest man alive. Which, funny enough, is probably why I haven't seen them in a while. They've been busy brainstorming the big question: how do you poison a man you can't cut?
Turns out, they found an answer. Burn the skin off with dragonfire first, then slip the venom in. I'll admit, that's clever. Disturbingly clever.
What bothers me more is how they pulled it off. A dragon, two giants… that kind of muscle doesn't come cheap. Somebody out there wants me dead badly enough to burn through a fortune just to try. For what reason? I don't know. But the title of World's Strongest draws heat, and I've made plenty of enemies in my time.
I coughed up a mouthful of black blood. Tasted like liver, or some other organ I probably need. That's been going on for hours now. My ass feels fused to the ice from lying here so long. Pretty sure I've been puking out pieces of myself.
Oh hey, a seagull. Cute little thing. I wonder—hey! Stop pecking at my puke. That's disgusting. Ugh. At least don't crap here too.
…Oh. It died. Right. Probably shouldn't be surprised the bird couldn't handle organ slurry full of experimental toxins. Poor bastard.
Well, nothing to do but wait. At least the sun's gone, so it isn't blinding me anymore.
I don't know how long I laid there until I finally had the strength to move. I admit, I passed out fell asleep a couple of times. Still weak, but I'll recover. I always do. My body adapts—twists itself into something resistant, stronger than before. That's my advantage.
But I'll give them this: I respect those bastards. Even though I beat them every time, they don't exactly lose. I killed their soldiers, survived their traps, but they still did the job. Their blades found flesh. Their poison got in my blood. If I wasn't such a freak of nature, I'd already be a corpse.
I win with brute force. They win with planning. And part of me thinks that, sooner or later, that balance tips their way. I need to win every time. They just needed to win once.
I made my way back to Alimony, half running, half warping, all stumbling. A couple times I went down like a newborn sheep, legs useless, but each day it got a little better. By the time the familiar roads came into view, I was more or less back to myself. Still had a headache splitting my skull in two, though. That poison clings like a bad hangover. Next time, maybe I'll just drain my blood out and let it remake itself clean. Don't worry—I can make more.
"Hi, Tom."
"You look like shit."
"Yeah. It's the new fashion trend. I see you're keeping up."
He just stared at me, stone-faced. No banter, no smirk. "Been a while since I've seen you this bad."
I gave him a crooked smile. "Yeaah. Some edgelords tried to off me."
"Guess you won."
"That I did."
He nodded once, businesslike. "Your shipment came in four days ago. Still sitting here. Julius has been poking at it already. You'd better get moving."
"Thanks, Tom. See you around."
Still the same Tom I know. Only guy I've ever met who refuses to get any character development.
On to Julius' lab. I could already hear the clatter and hiss of tools through the walls, the muffled chatter of science-people doing science-things. When I stepped in, Julius and his three coworkers were clustered around the spider remains, dissecting, cataloguing, scribbling like mad. Branrick, the old truck driver, was hanging nearby, arms crossed while his rigs sat parked out front. I gave him a nod; he nodded back.
"Honey, I'm home!" I called in my best falsetto. Not even a twitch from Julius or his crew.
"Hey John. Glad to have you back," one of them said without looking up.
"Thanks… Sophronia, right?"
"Mm-hm." Back to scribbling.
I walked over to Julius and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Hey buddy. How's it going?"
"Doing alright. This specimen you hauled back is phenomenal." His tone was flat, clinical, but I'll take it.
"I am pretty good at my work, if I do say so myself."
"You're alright."
I rolled my eyes and dropped onto his couch. The cushions swallowed me. After weeks on the road, that felt like heaven.
"So. How is it? Can I use it?"
Julius didn't even glance up from his instruments. "It's compatible, yes. From what I've tested."
That sounded promising—until he added, "However… you're too strong for it."
"Damn it." I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "Guess I did kill it in one punch."
"But not all hope is lost John." He finally turned to look at me. For the first time since I entered, his attention wasn't on the spider, but on me. His expression shifted.
"You look like shit."
"Why, thank you. I worked hard for this new fashion trend. You should give it a try."
His brow furrowed. "Was it them again?"
"Yeah." I exhaled. "This time they brought friends. A dragon. Two giants."
Julius frowned, the lines in his face deepening. "…That's new."
"New and worrying. I don't even know what they promised the dragon to make it do their bidding. I got better though."
"Good. As I was saying, not all hope is lost. Look here." He gestured toward the corner of the lab, where the smaller spider corpses are laid out.
"See this one? Oldest specimen you brought. Makes webs, eats flies, nothing special. The one beside it? A little bigger, second oldest. The next? Bigger again, younger, and suddenly it spits venom. Completely new trait."
I leaned closer.
"I also found something interesting," Julius continued.
"What's that?"
"The older spiders are mothers to the next generation. Over and over, each one stronger, faster, stranger. See here?" He pointed at the largest cage. "We estimate this one is from the hundredth or so generation. Metal chitin. Venom spray. Redundant organs. And most importantly—the first to develop spatial abilities you've seen."
"Neat."
"Not neat, John. Dangerous. If these creatures are left unchecked, they'll become catastrophic. Stronger every generation, inventing new abilities as they go. The only saving grace? They plateau eventually. Longer gestation, slower cycles. And you killed their strongest—so the line is, for now, broken."
"Ok?"
He paused, smiling faintly.
"The problem is, the strongest one you killed still isn't strong enough for your new tattoos."
I waited. "The good news is, you also brought these." Julius walked to a drawer, opened it, and slid out an incubator. Inside: eggs. Dozens of them, fat and throbbing like diseased hearts.
"The latest generation of these… actually, what should we call these?
"Spiderbuns?"
"No."
"Spinderellas?"
"…No. Name TBD. Anyway, with luck, these little ones might just be enough for you." His hands hovered over the eggs as if they were gems.
"When do they hatch?"
"They already are. Taking their time. By nightfall, they'll be crawling."
"Fantastic. Not creepy at all."
"We'll still need them to grow. Thankfully, they grow fast. But we'll need a constant supply of meat. Alive. That's how they feed."
"Guess I'm on hunting duty. I'll have to do it later though. I need to sleep."
"Yes you are. And when you do, get a variety—normal animals, some mundane, some exotic. I want to test for dietary influence on ability expression."
"Sure thing. Want coffee with that too?"
"Yes." Aaaand he's back to ignoring me.
"You sure you don't want to name them Spiderbuns?"
"No."
"Okay, okay—hear me out… WebMD."
"John, go to sleep."
By evening I was back in the wildlands, rounding up anything that twitched for the spiders' dinner menu—birds, insects, even a deer or two. They'd grow big enough for those soon enough, and better to prepare than to be surprised. Everything I caught went straight into their bellies.
The spiders were kept in a containment zone outside the city—by law, no one was stupid enough to let highly dangerous magical creatures anywhere near civilization. I haven't been inside the place personally; my aura would unravel the wards containing them, and after seeing firsthand what these things could do, I wasn't about to argue. Best they stayed penned in the middle of nowhere. I could already picture the disaster if even one slipped loose into the local ecosystem.
Julius and his team figured it would take about two weeks for them to hit maturity. Two weeks until we found out just what kind of monsters we were raising. At that time, I was staying mostly in the wildlands, away from the city. I put them in a blackout enough times already.
Two weeks later, the brood reached maturity. They were nothing like the mother I had slain. These were actually slightly smaller, but stronger, faster and more compact. Every detail honed into something lethal. Their chitin gleamed with an unnatural sheen, faint runes flickering across it like molten scars—enchanted armor that could turn aside steel. Venom hissed at the tips of their fangs, corrosive and restless, eager for flesh.
Each spider carried redundancies in its body—extra hearts, doubled lungs, layered muscle that refused to fail. Their legs had lengthened into knife-blades, jointed weapons sharper than forged steel, and from their backs sprouted wings like those of a dragonfly, translucent yet beating with a power that rattled the air.
But worst of all was the new trick. They had learned to bend space in a different way. Before they could teleport at any point through their web. Now, they could also tear open small portals between their bodies and any surface within fifteen feet. Through those sudden rifts, fangs and blade-legs lashed out, striking prey that thought itself safe behind walls or distance. A flicker, a blur—and the kill was done.
I don't have arachnophobia, but reading Julius' report on what the spiders had turned into still managed to send a shiver crawling down my spine. Maybe we should torch the whole batch after I get my tattoo. Yeah. Wipe the slate clean. Of course, I wasn't the one making the big decisions—leave the ethics and logistics to the smart people in lab coats.
"Turns out their food doesn't influence their evolution," Julius said, flipping another page like he was casually reading the morning paper instead of cataloging living nightmares. "As long as the meal has enough mass and nutrients, they change the same way. It needs further studying. Maybe once they start laying eggs, diet might matter. But for now—" he glanced up at me with that infuriatingly smug smile—"I'm sure you'd like the results."
"Well, John," he added, "you're in luck. This batch should be enough for you."
"Great. That's great," I said, relieved. "When do we start?"
"Tomorrow morning. Areva still needs to study the diagrams."
And so, the next day, I found myself back in Areva's shop. Same walls, same shelves, same faint smell of ink and old parchment. Comforting, in a way.
"Hi John," she said, giving me a half hug. "It's been a while."
"Hi Areva. I'm ready to get inked up again." I returned the hug.
"Good." She stood, her expression sharpening. "First, let me see your Warp Rune." I sat down on the bed obediently.
Areva crouched by my right leg, lights blaring, fingertips ghosting over the Warp Rune inked there. She traced the lines like a jeweler inspecting for cracks. Julius did the same near, also observing the rune.
"You definitely overused it at least once," she said, raising an eyebrow at me.
I gave her my best who, me? face. "What makes you say that?"
"Because I can see the strain in the lines. It's still fine, but don't make a habit of it." She stood, rummaged through a drawer, and tossed me a small tin.
"Here, apply that on the rune regularly."
I turned it over in my hand. "What's this? Something to keep the magic sharp? Maintain rune integrity?"
"No. It's moisturizer," she said flatly. "So your skin doesn't dry out and my work doesn't look like garbage."
I blinked. "…So it's for aesthetics?"
"Obviously. If my tattoos are going to power your reckless ass, they're at least going to look good doing it."
"Fair." I slipped the tin into my pocket.
We moved on to business. Areva rolled out her tools, the faint smell of ink and herbs already filling the air.
"So," I said, settling into the chair. "What's this new rune supposed to do?"
Julius answered this time "The spiders have two spatial related abilities. One, they can teleport anywhere through their thread as long as they have physical contact, and two, the mini portals over the surface. We manage to isolate the two, thankfully. We tried implementing their teleporting technique, but it's too specialized with their threads, we couldn't adapt it to anything else. And since you don't produce silk from your butt, we went with the second one. The mini portal."
"Awesome. Teleportation would've been better, but this is great too. These Spiderchonks are awesome!"
"We are not calling them Spiderchonks." Areva frowned at me, feeling offended.
"You're right. Skittershitters!"
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "John. Please. Just sit still."
"...Peter Parker?"
"No." "No." Both of them rejected me. Rude. Not like they had better ideas.
"Fine. Where are we putting it?" I asked as I made myself comfortable on the bed.
"Let's not reinvent the wheel here. Same mechanics as your warp rune, but on your arm this time," Areva said. "Half on the forearm, half on the bicep. Which arm?"
I nodded. "I thought about it. If it's going to function similarly to what the Spiderbonks—" "No." "-showcased, then I need it on my left arm. I'm right handed. if I'm punching properly, my left arm tucks in anyway, so it'll trigger, and my right hand stays free."
"Left arm it is."
So began the long process: Julius brewing ink, Areva tapping needles, me looking pretty. Honestly, at this point, it felt almost relaxing. And faster too—Areva's hands had only gotten steadier in my absence, clearly practicing. Good to know she was confident I'd live long enough to come back.
When she finished, I flexed and admired the new spider-shaped rune etched into my arm. "It's badass. Kind of edgy, like something a seventeen-year-old goth kid would wear, but still badass."
"Of course. I aim to impress."
"Let's test it out?"
"Outside the city, please. I don't want my shop ruined."
Me and Julius grinned like we had a new toy to play with. Which to be fair, wasn't far off. We went outside the city giggling like schoolgirls. Areva followed, clearly tired.
"Alright. Test one." Julius shouted from far away, notes in his hands.
I bent my arm. Nothing. Frowned. Then realized the rune wasn't fully connected yet—I had to bend tighter. Fist to chin. The lines lit up.
"…And?" Nothing. I scratched my head. Except—why wasn't it scratching? Where was my hand?
Panic hit. I unbent my left and pulled my right arm back.
"Did you see that?!" I shouted.
"No! Do it again!"
This time I focused. Bent, tightened, glow. My hand vanished. Areva's voice cut in: "Portal! Behind you! And your left hand's gone this time!"
I twisted and sure enough, my hand was sticking out of the dirt a few feet away. Wiggling fingers, sensation intact. Trippy as hell. Like those brain illusions where you know it's your body, but it doesn't feel right. I pulled my hand from the portal and deactivated it. I noticed that for a fraction of a second, the portal remained open even after deactivation. Ok, how do I control where it opens? I activated it again.
This time my leg dropped straight through the ground.
"Whoah!" I shoved off the dirt, but my arm straightened mid-panic. Portal closed.
The pain was instant, white-hot. My gritted scream tore out before I even registered what happened. I looked down—my left leg was shredded above the knee, like a bear had ripped it off.
"John! Shit!" Areva has a worried look on her face, leaning over me. She tried casting a healing spell on my leg. It sputtered out immediately. Yeah. If casting external spells around me was hard, using a spell directly on me is some grand archmage material.
"Julius! What can we do?!" she exclaimed.
He bent down, calm as ever, and picked up my severed leg. "Here."
I grabbed it, pressed it against the stump. My body's regeneration started slow, sluggish. Julius frowned, then muttered, "It's been a while since I've had to do this for you."
"Yeah," I hissed through clenched teeth. "Thanks, buddy."
I breathed heavily. Even for me, this is a heavy wound. Non fatal, but still heavy.
He concentrated, then wordlessly casted a healing spell on my leg. In moments, my healing factor and Julius' spell helped each other, and my leg was whole. Raw, but whole. I'll be fine in a bit, especially with the poison out of my system.
Areva looked a bit in awe at Julius. "Since when you could do that? I'm no slouch at mana control, but that was something else."
Julius thought about what words he should say. "I'm just used to John's aura."
I smiled. "He's being modest."
And it was true. I only know a handful of people that can cast a spell on me directly. One of them is the Dragon King, another is the Lich Lord.
Both of them are beaten by Julius in terms of mana control.
Being the Nanteon-less freak that I am, I can only go off first hand accounts, but I've been told that using a spell on me directly is like 'preventing a river from flowing with nothing but driftwood and a string of yarn.'
I swear, if Julius wasn't so focused on research, he would've ruled the world already. It's part of the reason we get along so well. He's as much of a freak as I am, both in demeanor, and ability. Sometimes I forget that behind that pointy hat, is one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet.
"Well, want to continue?" He offered a hand.
I smiled. "You bet."