Over the course of the next week, sweltering heat descended from the heavens to scorch the earth with a hungry vengeance. Its angry dryness smothered the world like thick smog, allowing no room for respite from the constant bombardment of the thin air which sought to drain all moisture. In such a situation, tiresome activities became hopeless as the air even heated the lungs.

As if participating in a competition of inducing suffering, the passing winds played their part and instead of providing respite from the scorching heat, they boosted the hotness to make it even drier; something that the Malfae had difficulty wrapping its little blue head around. The passage of these thirsty winds left misery in their wake as all they left behind was severe dehydration which often led to parching deaths. Life miserably struggled and endlessly suffered before it died to the increasingly hostile environment. It seemed as if the very heavens wanted to see the naked dance of naked.

And this was the situation at night. The [Hive Monarch] couldn't even begin to imagine the condition during the day when the tyrannical Sun reigned supreme.

It was thus no surprise that the [Reincarnated] was already regretting being alive, despite it being the Malfae's first summer. At the same time, the blue creature was incredibly thankful that it hadn’t hatched in the middle of this hungering summer. For if it had been so, the [Survivor] had no delusions about its survival. As a mere caterpillar, it would have died thirsty and parched. Perhaps its roasted body would have made a tasty snack for the bird that had been its very first encounter with death.

Suffering through such weather, its plan of hunting the stupidly powerful scorpion was flushed down the drain. However, it hadn't been before it had suffered because of her inexperience of hostile environments, causing the daring Malfae to experience the unforgiving hostility first hand when it had decided to continue the stakeout even after the arrival of the winds.

For its monumental stupidity, the [Reincarnated] had found itself dehydrated by the end of the night and only a hurried trip to the rapidly diminishing lake had saved its life. The tepid water had gradually rehydrated the Malfae but hadn't cooled it down. After this baptism by fiery winds, the cowardly creature had locked itself within its shadowy crevice. Let alone staking out the scorpion, the [Hive Monarch] hadn't even dared to go out to hunt. Hence, as nights passed and it maintained its self-isolation, the Skill [Night Vision] had levelled up once to reach Level 7.

During this time, the blue creature had survived on a simple diet its own eggs. However, the need for water had persisted. The Malfae had made use of the nearby lake initially to solve this problems but the water-body had already been tiny before and the heat hadn't helped it any. As a result, the lake had shrunk under the ceaseless assault until it had transformed from a small lake to a muddy pool with nothing but rotting fish. The creature hadn't been there since.

With the lake out of the picture, the Malfae had experimentally ordered the blue caterpillar to drink its own venom. If the experiment failed and the bug died, it wouldn't be much of a loss but if the experiment succeeded then it would provide valuable information. Fortunately for the blue caterpillar, it had survived consuming its own venom, forcing its creator to care for it. The Malfae wouldn't have otherwise.

However, this delicate balance hadn't lasted long as the blue vermin possessed the Title [Hungry] which forced it to ceaselessly devour. Luckily for the caterpillar, it was just a single drone so the Malfae had provided it eggs too. If there had been even a single caterpillar more, the [Hive Monarch] would have killed them to feed itself. As a result of the caterpillar's unending hunger, the [Survivor] had used its Skill [Drone Eggs] so much that it had levelled up from Level 6 to Level 7, thus costing 70 MP to creature 28 Eggs.

However, the Malfae was an immortal and despite what she had been in her life, the Malfea ended up killing the pit of ceaseless hunger in annoyance. Its corpse had even made for a nice change from the diet of disgusting eggs.

And thus, passed the most trying part of the year. The height of the summer, heat and death.

0.0

Within the baking crevice, a soft hum echoed and the sleeping Malfae's massive ears twitched. The hum gradually strengthened to evolve into a gentle pitter-patter which pervaded the Malfae's subconscious mind. As it did so, the temperature decreased, gradually at first but then it rapidly fell as the heat dissipated. Meanwhile, the smothering dryness struggled against the rapidly erupting humidity and the death heralding wind lost its edge to become cool and moist.

With the cold and moisture as its heralds, a delicate scent spread out which whispered of the wet earth and the fresh rain. It was petrichor born from the first rain; a scout of Monsoon which had chased away the peak of summer. The sweltering heat had been killed by the mere echos of the Monsoon’s footsteps.

The Malfae woke up to this serenity and gingerly walked up to the edge of its crevice to be greeted by a landslide of water-droplets which tried to soothe the parched earth. The [Hive Monarch] dumbly stared before it rushed out in the rain with abandon. The cold droplets hit its heated flesh and it laughed. The petrichor hit its antennas and the [Survivor] breathed in as it activated [Sense].

The scent of the rain and the wet mud instantly multiplied, almost overwhelming it and the creature laughed. ‘Rain!’ Despite having just woken up, it felt more alive than it had all week. ‘Rain is the best season after all!’ The creature laughed while flying around until its wet wings supported it no more and it fell with a wet splash in a recently formed puddle of water. It splashed the water and played around in pure joy. This rain did not just nourished the earth, but it also nourished the spirits of all the creatures that had been suffering.

0.0

The Monsoon's first rain brought various new critters out in the open which resulted in a feast for the Malfae. It devoured spiders, crickets, centipedes and many more. Or better to say, it killed them because it could and ate merely a bit of their flesh to taste all flavours. The Malfae was just malicious like that.

Having had its fill, it flew back towards the scorpion to resume its hunt. However, the scorpion was long gone from the area and the rain had washed away all lingering scents. This caused the critter population to decrease under the frustrated Malfae's senseless rampage.

With its immediate goal unfulfilled, the cowardly [Reincarnated] reverted to its search for the perfect prey. Over the course of the next week as light showers came and went, it continued to look for its impossible goal. The constant failures would have caused it to go on senseless rampages but the failure of temperature to rise back to its previous horrendous level and the death of the parching winds, caused it be in rather good mood.

As the search continued to fail, the [Hive Monarch] finally expanded the horizons of its search and found something. The newfound prey was a spider which emanated a sharp and bitter scent that the Malfae now knew to associate with venomous creatures. Though the sense of peril emnated by the newfound spider wasn't as strong as either the spider in the spider hunting ground or the scorpion near its birthplace.

This spider was grey as the darkest rain clouds. Its main body was about half a mortal’s finger while its long and unending legs were the length of a mortal’s finger each. Its numerous dark eyes were clustered around its small head and 2 massive pincers, almost the same size as its head, guarded its mouth. The spider was postively enormous when compared to the Malfae which was as tall as a mortal's finger.

The 8 legged creature was silently sitting in the middle of its nearly invisible web below which was a puddle of water about the size of the mortal’s palm with the depth of a mortal’s finger. An optimum position to catch the unsuspecting and thirsty prey.

The Malfae landed on a nearby branch and observed its massive prey. ‘If I am going to hunt this thing then I need to study it first.’ To do this, the cowardly creature decided to follow the same procedure that it had devised to hunt the scorpion before nature itself had interfered. Thus, over the course of the next few days, the Malfae observed and came to a few conclusions.

The first of which was confirmation of venom and the second had been the lack of any chitin Skill. Contrary to the Malfae’s expectations, the spider hadn't activated any such Skill in the time that blue creature had been monitoring it. While the third had been the ability to shoot its web as a rope, quite an expected Skill which the [Survivor] had even been subjected to as a moth. However, The Malfae was surprised to find that the spider displayed no other Skills which was contrary to the numerous it possessed.

With its observation complete, the creature called up the [Malfae Shield] to the forefront before racing it forward to smack the spider out of its web. After all, fighting a spider in its web was nothing but suicide. However, the spider sensed the rapid movement and dodged, causing the shield to hit the web and get stuck. The more the Malfae tried to free its shield, the more entangled it became.

Meanwhile, the spider hadn't been waiting patiently. Instead, the spider shot out an incredibly thin thread at the aggressor. The Malfae had been expecting it of course and flew up to dodge. Deciding to give up on the shield, the [Survivor] dismissed the entangled shield to summon a new one which materilaised as the original dissipated.

Now that its sneak attack had failed, the [Reincarnated] no longer cared about subtlety as it again charged its shield at the spider. The spider jumped to dodge and as the shield became entangled into the web once again. However, the Malfae was prepared this time and dismissed it immediately as the spider shot another thread. The new shield materialised as the thin thread rapidly approached and hit the shield instead.

The [Hive Monarch] capitalised on this opportunity to yank on the shield and successfully pulled the surprised spider out of the web. However, the spider had lived for long and wasn't stupid. It let go of its thread and fell. However, the multi legged creature shot another thread which hit a nearby branch to halt its fall. The Malfae flew up while it sent its shield racing towards newly formed thread. Once they met, the shield rotated to wrap the delicate creation around itself causing the spider to hiss in alarm as it tracked the Malfae with its numerous eyes but the Malfae was already high up and out of its reach.

The spider let go of its new thread and entered freefall once again but Malfae was waiting for this and it immediately smacked the spider right in the face, causing its descent to accelerate. Capitalising on the spider's rising panic, the [Hive Monarch] raced down while continuing to hit the spider until it hit the ground with a smack. Promptly, the [Survivor] sent its shield racing towards the spider. Although, this time, instead of hitting the spider, the Malfae aimed to push the spider back and into the puddle of water.

The abused shield shattered as the confused spider stumbled and Malfae summoned another one to repeat the process. The blue creature did not give the grey one even a moment of respite as it continuously bombarded the spider to guide it until there was a splash and the spider fell into the puddle.

The spider tried to find its footing within the wet clay of the puddle but its thin legs sank into the mud instead of finding purchase. The Malfae capitalised that opportunity and used the [Malfae Shield] to push the spider head down beneath the water.

The malicious creature wanted to drown its prey.

The spider frantically struggled as it hit the shield with its limbs but in doing so it increased the pressure on the rest of the legs and they sank deeper. However, the shield too shattered under its repeated assault. In the meanwhile, the [Reincarnated] had flown quite close to the creature and immediately created another shield to keep it submerged. The spider ceaselessly struggled but the depth of puddle was the same as the height of its legs and it had breathed in more water than it should have. Thus, its struggles grew weaker and weaker until its legs hit the water with a tired splash to lifelessly sink while its body lost the struggle and just fell like a sinking rock.

Ting.

Ting.

.

.

.

Ting.

[You have levelled Up! The level up bonus of +3 HP and +3 MP granted.]

Ting.

[Skill [Malfae Shield Lv.3] had levelled up to [Malfae Shield Lv.4]. Damage absorption has been increased to 80 points. The cost has been increased to 40 MP.]

Ting.

[Skill [Flight Lv.7] has levelled up [Flight Lv.8]. Your speed and manoeuvrability have been increased.]

‘Eh!’ The creature blinked for a few moments at the unexpected onslaught and then it laughed. ‘Finally! I levelled up!’ Indeed, the creature had levelled up for the first time since it had begun hunting and now had reached Level 7. All it had taken had been near 210 mana as the creature had cast [Malfae Shield] numerous times.

However, the Malfae's mirth was broken by a scent carried on the wind and it hurriedly activated [Sense]. As the scent grew heavier, a shiver ran downits body and hair on its back stood up. The [Hive Monarch] instantly flew up, causing its vision to expand which allowed it to see slowly moving lizard headed in its direction. The blue creature’s blood ran cold.

It glanced at the lizard before its gaze fell on the dead spider and it hesitated. As the lizard took another step, the Malfae raced down and quickly chopped off all of the spider's legs using the [Malfae Shield]. It discarded the legs to carry the spider's body. Or at least, it tried to. The size of the spider’s main body was a third of the Malfae’s own and it was just as heavy. The creature struggled to fly carrying it but as the lizard was still afar, it managed to bring its hunt up to the nearest branch before it landed, panting heavily.

It had not exercised in a long while and it showed.

The Malfae waited for a few moments to stabilize its breathing before flying again. The lizard, in the meanwhile, had continued to move uncaringly and the [Reincarnated] had no intention of testing its might when it was this out of mana.

Halting and flying before halting again to just breathe was the method the [Survivor] used to get away from the lizard and return to the crevice. Given the effort this method cost, it took the creature quite some time to reach the crevice. Once the creature was inside, it fell onto the floor face first and remained there while breathing hard. Its body was sore, its muscles ached and it felt muscles it didn’t even know it had.

It was miserable.

The creature remained remained motionless as a corpse while waiting for its breathing to stabilize and muscles to stop pulsing in pain. Once it got up, the creature got to work and began dissecting the spider carcass. As the Malfae had not bludgeoned its prey to death this time, the evolved moth wanted to extract the venom sac intact rather than let it burst into flesh. As a result, the creature carefully manoeuvred the [Malfae Shield] as it chopped off the head from the rest of the body and found the venom sac. It then began to eat its fill.

‘Uhh.’ The creature eyed the leftover meat. ‘I will deal with it later.’ The [Survivor] then brought the venom sac over to a small naturally formed depression within the crevice and burst the sac to allow the venom to spill out before it ate the venom sac without hesitation and waited for the poison to do its work.

The creature didn't have to wait for long as its body went numb while it lost a 5 point in its HP. As the numbness spread throughout its body, its limbs became heavy and the effort it took to move them compounded. The [Hive Monarch]’s heart raced as the heaviness increased until the creature couldn’t move at all. ‘Paralysis.’ The creature would have smiled if not for the venom.

After all, its Skill [Poison Resistance] imbibed the effect of resistant poisons into its own venom. ‘With this, I will have pain, auditory hallucination and paralysis!’ The creature continued to lose 5 HP per minute for the next few minutes, but overall, it was not much. And being safe as it was within its crevice, it simply waited the venom out.

-X-

Within a desolate desert, inside a dilapidated shop, on a simple chair, a youth seemingly slept.

-X-

Name: Unnamed

Race: Immortal

Species: Insect

Vessel: Malfae

Level: 7

HP: 371/371 MP: 271/271

HPR: 21 HP/Day MPR: 11 MP/H

Lifespan: 6 Years 8 Months 26 Days

Titles

[Hive Monarch] [Reincarnated] [Survivor]

Skills

[Crawl Lv.5] [Drone Eggs Lv.7] [Flight Lv.8] [Hive Mind Lv.1] [Mana Manipulation Lv.2] [Malfae Shield Lv.4] [Moulting Lv.4] [Night Vision Lv.7] [Pain Resistance Lv.6] [Poison Resistance Lv.10] [Sense Lv.5] [Sense Essence Lv.2] [Survive Lv.3] [Venom Creation Lv.6]