The battle between the scorpion queen and Solomon began with a flash of metal.

Dividing under the queen's outstretched claws, Solomon sliced off one of the queen's three venomous tails. The bulbous appendage fell off and landed in the desert sands with a sickening thud.

Solomon didn't stop his charge and kept running off into the desert. Right behind where he had just attacked from, both of the other tails lashed against the sand.

"Shit! it's way harder when there are three," Solomon swore.

This time, when he attacked, he aimed for the scorpion's legs, swiftly cutting off two of them as he ran by. He was taking full advantage of his tail's ability to extend outwards, striking from a safe distance when an opening presented itself.

The queen let out a shrill screech and threw her massive 10-tonne body at Solomon. He had just barely managed to dodge by jumping up into the air when both of the scorpion's tails came lashing toward him.

He skillfully flipped in the air, dodging one of the tails before parrying the other with his only remaining dagger. The other one had been lost in his first fight against multiple scorpions.

Solomon landed and skidded along the sand before eventually coming to a stop and brushing off the impact of the blow.

His arm was still shaking slightly, "Damnit, She's even stronger than the King. And, I don't think I'll be able to break open that carapace with brute force. I'll have to look for a weak point."

He began running rings around the Queen. This was something he learned to be effective against the scorpions. Because they struggled to turn around because of their massive and bulky bodies, when he ran around one of them in circles, it would become disoriented.

As he ran around the queen, He would occasionally lash out with his tail, severing another one of her legs.

Eventually, He had managed to completely immobilise the queen, who was left stranded on the ground. All her legs had been cut off.

But, just because the queen couldn't move didn't mean she wasn't dangerous. All it would take for the tables to turn was Solomon getting struck with one of the remaining tails or claws.

Next, He targetted those venomous tails that had been causing him so many problems. He approached from behind the queen and kicked up a lump of sand, before jumping back out of the way.

Sensing the movement, the Queen struck out at the sand with her tails... and hit nothing.

After his distraction went off without a hitch, Solomon was able to get on the scorpions back. He swung his tail casually and sliced off the rest of the queen's tails.

"Honestly, I was expecting this fight to be harder," Solomon admitted out loud. "I mean, you scorpions have given me so many problems these last few weeks,"

Of course, It wasn't that the scorpion queen was weak, In fact, she was indeed slightly stronger than the king. Solomon was simply stronger than her by now. He had absorbed the life force of 100s of scorpions and grown incredibly strong.

Not only that, after the many repetitive battles with the scorpions, he had learned their moves and attacks off by heart. It was all too easy for him to predict how the Queen would react to his attacks and plan accordingly.

This was why this fight had ended up as more of a one-sided beating than a fight. and the Queen knew that she had dreaded the day this fight would come ever since he had killed her King.

So, now that Solomon was complaining she had been too easy to kill she was rightfully furious. she writhed beneath him, desperately clicking her claws and snapping at empty air.

"Ugh I've had enough of that clicking noise," Solomon said before finding a chink in the queen's armour and putting her out of her misery.

He began to absorb her life force, but his thoughts were distracted. He couldn't help but be worried. He had spent so much time killing the scorpions, he was wondering if there would be any Shrike left for him to kill.

While he was absorbing the scorpion queen's energy, something strange began happening. Usually, whenever he would absorb the energy of a scorpion, some of it would strengthen his body, while the rest would improve his venom gland and tail.

But this time, all the energy was pooling into his tail. Running along the centre of his tail, a crack began to form. 'Thankfully, it's not as painful as that time with the fruit,' Solomon thought.

'This should be me absorbing the abilities of the queen. When I first killed a venomous scorpion, I formed a venom gland. I wonder what ability I will gain this time,'

Solomon didn't have to wait long for his question to be answered. After the crack formed up the centre of his tail. His tail split in half with a click. Now, two separate tails were hanging behind him.

"I guess the queen did have multiple tails," Solomon mused. "It seems I have absorbed this ability of hers."

This was exactly what had happened. Through absorbing the essence of the Scorpion queen, he had evolved to have multiple tails.

'This could end up being even more helpful than the venom if I use it correctly. Although it may be slightly difficult to coordinate at first.'

Solomon stepped off the queen's empty carcass and laughed. It was a morbid sight, but he couldn't help himself. The satisfaction he felt right now was immeasurable. Two whole weeks of constant fighting and running had finally paid off. How could he not feel good about this?

He turned and began walking back toward the city. On his first day in the desert, he had to stay careful, for fear of being attacked. but now, after killing the scorpion queen, he could safely say that he was the strongest thing in the desert and walked back with casual confidence.

...

Sophia waited until she was sure Solomon had actually left before picking up the book she had been reading earlier. She dusted it off and placed it back on one of the jam-packed shelves.

"That was a boring book," She mumbled. Still, She had quite enjoyed it. It was a traditional story about a paragon hero who had to fulfil a prophecy of some sort.

Since she was young, she had always enjoyed these sorts of stories. Her mother would often tell her fanciful tales of her escapades with the patrol unit.

Her mother would weave action-packed stories, filled with daring escapes and near misses. Each time, her troop would just barely manage to make it back to the city.

One day, that barely just wasn't enough. Her mother hadn't returned no matter how long she waited.

That was why she loved stories about heroes. The hero would always have a happy ending. They would always make it home in the end.

When her father had gone to search for his missing mother and never returned, she had stopped reading stories about heroes so much. She was too busy running the library to find time for such childish things.

That was why, when Solomon had shown up, she had become so excited. It was as if she was in one of those stories of heroes and villains. He was fighting monsters and punishing evil. Was that not a picturesque hero?

And, when she learned that all she had to do to be like him was die... well. Let's just say she had already made up her mind.

She was no longer naive enough to think her parents would return and had no real attachments keeping her here. 'It's not like anyone ever comes to the library,' she had thought.

When she was sure Solomon had left, she went upstairs and took a suspiciously brand new book off of one of the ancient shelves.

She opened the book at the bookmark and took out a pencil. "Hmm... How do I die intentionally and go to hell?" She pondered.

Yes, this notebook contained within it various plans for her to go to Hell. At first, she had simply thought, "I'll just kill myself," But it wasn't as easy as that.

Within the notebook were various crimes put into list form. On one side were the do's and on one side the don'ts

"I still can't bring myself to kill someone in cold blood, so that's off the table," She mused. It turns out that committing truly evil deeds was in fact hard. Because, she was by nature, not a bad person.

"I can file things like adultery and the no pile because I am not married and have nobody to cheat on,"

Usually, this deliberation went on for quite a while. In the end, what mattered was whether or not she was selfish enough to hurt other people to get what she wanted.

So far, the only thing she was comfortable with doing was stealing, lying and gambling. Yesterday, she had even performed her magnum opus of sinning when she had stolen something and then lied about it afterwards. Was this not the pinnacle of evil?

If you were one of the people that lived on the same street as the library, you might have found that a lot of spare change had gone missing recently. The culprit was exactly Sophia, the meek librarian who had been going on a stealing spree recently.

Since she was unwilling to steal anything of actual importance. She contented herself with taking minor things like spare change.

But, all of that would change today. Today, she planned to blow the door wide open on evil deeds and truly commit a despicable act of malice. Arson.

'Of course, I will only burn down empty buildings,' This was what she thought to make herself feel better about it.

Sophia left the library carrying a heavy bag of tinder, carrying a lantern. It was still night time and she needed to be able to see.

Along the way, she had to remain careful not to be caught by the constant patrols. Ever since Solomon broke in a few weeks ago, there had been a curfew set on the city. 'Wouldn't it be embarrassing if I got caught before I even burned anything down,' She thought.

She quietly stole through the night, making her way towards the centre of the city, where an enormous stone cylinder towered up above all the nearby buildings. This Stone cylinder is called the Well and connects the city to the underground river the Styx that brings the city its water supply.

After some deliberation, she had decided to burn down buildings near the water supply of the city. She didn't want the fire to get out of control after all.

Her heart was racing in her chest by the time she arrived at her target. The open market. All of the stalls in the bazaar were left empty throughout the night and the bazaar was very close to the centre of the city, right beside the Well.

Quietly she laid pieces of tinder against each of the stalls and backed off after she had finished setting everything up.

Taking deep breaths, Sophia slapped herself on the cheeks to sike herself up, 'THink about how cool your demon abilities will be and just do it,' She kept telling herself.

Nervously, she brought her lantern closer to one of the pieces of tinder. She was so nervous that her hand was shaking badly and it was hard to keep the flame steady. The lantern was in danger of being put out at any second.

Eventually, the first piece of tinder caught fire. Emboldened by the fact that it was already too late, Sophia ran around the bazaar lighting the stalls on fire in rapid succession.

In the stark light of the morning sun, The market went up in a fiery blaze.

Angry shouts sounded out nearby.

"Nooo! My stall,"

"Arghh quick get the soldiers, that's my livelihood that's burning there,"

"Shit! someone go get water from the Well."

Sophia watched everything from a nearby ally. She had felt so terrible when she realised that she had ruined the lives of the owners of the stalls that she almost went out to apologise and help put out the fire.

She watched with bated breath as one of the stall owners ran towards the well desperately. She was almost as anxious as they were. The man arrived at the entrance to the Well and tore open one of the doors, disappearing inside.

The rest of the stall owners were waiting anxiously for him to return with help became agitated when he didn't even after a few minutes of waiting.

By now, it was almost too late to salvage anything from the stalls and they were more worried about the fires spreading out of the bazaar and into the surrounding houses.

All around the city, people began to wake up groggily. Awoken by the shouts of passing soldiers and the commotion in the city centre.

When the soldiers finally arrived at the bazaar and saw what was happening they immediately sprung into action.

"Why haven't you gone to alert the people who run the well yet?" Asked the captain of the soldiers.

"We did, but the person we sent never returned." replied a confused stall owner.

Sophia was just as confused as he was. She had seen the man enter the Well 10 minutes ago and yet he hadn't come back out yet.

A group of soldiers ran over to the same entrance to the Well that the first man had gone through. Right as they were about to walk into it. The entire Well exploded.

Huge chunks of stone and mortar were sent flying out into the city, crushing numerous houses and people.

From within the cloud of dust raised by the explosion, Roots spread out to blanket the cobbled ground. One of the few soldiers to survive the explosion was caught by the roots and his body quickly withered into nothing.

Sophia watched this happen from nearby in terror. When she saw what happened to that soldier when he was grabbed by the roots, she knew exactly what was happening.

"The Shrike are here!" Sophia screamed