Darkness.Thick, endless, smothering.

  I was aware before I was alive.No light. No sound.Only a slow, grinding awareness, like ancient gears turning in my mind.

  The first thing I felt was hunger.The second was the chill of stone beneath me.

  I moved without thinking — tiny motions, instinctive and alien. Eight limbs, segmented and sharp, scraped against the rough floor. A body low to the ground. Fangs heavy with venom.

  Spider.

  The realization slithered into my mind not with panic, but a simple, clinical acceptance.It was a fact. Nothing more.

  I was something new.Something small.And in this world, small things died first.

  I adjusted to the body easily. Movement was fluid, natural. I could scale the jagged walls of the cavern with little effort, clinging to surfaces that should have repelled me.

  Hunger gnawed at my mind with every motion. A primal need.

  I paused, anchoring myself to the ceiling with thin, unseen silk. My body hung still, nearly weightless.Below me, the dungeon yawned open — tunnels like veins in a corpse, air stale and heavy with the scent of decay.

  Somewhere in this pce, life existed.And where there was life, there was death.My future meals.

  Time passed without meaning.

  I stayed hidden, listening. Watching.Movement in the distance — shuffling, dragging steps, bored breathing.

  Prey.

  My legs tensed.The instincts of the spider wanted to pounce, to feast immediately.

  But I held still.No... not yet.

  Hunger was a tool, not a master.A sharp bde that could carve survival from this pit.And like any bde, it must be wielded, not allowed to swing wildly.

  I stalked the creature in silence, weaving above it from the ceiling. It was slow, wounded — the scent of blood sharp in the air.

  A goblin.Malformed. Broken leg.Pathetic.

  I studied it clinically.The way its muscles pulled awkwardly. The way it stumbled and gasped for air.Weak. Vulnerable.

  Killing it would be easy.

  But there was something... crude about an easy kill.Something wasteful.If I must survive through death, let death be efficient. Clean. Meaningful.

  With calcuted patience, I watched it limp closer to a narrow corridor — a natural choke point.Perfect.

  I moved ahead silently, ying down thin, almost invisible threads across the path.A web. Crude for now. Basic.But functional.

  I positioned myself just above the web, body coiled like a spring.

  The goblin stumbled into the trap without resistance.One leg caught.It jerked back, shrieking in panic, tearing at the sticky threads with dirty cws.

  Too te.

  I dropped in a silent arc, fangs fshing.

  Venom nced into its throat — a precise puncture between pulsing arteries.It thrashed once.Twice.Then went still.

  I fed methodically.

  There was no savagery in it.No indulgent bloodlust.Only necessity... and a strange, quiet satisfaction.

  As I devoured the flesh, something stirred within me — a deep, resonant pull.

  [Predator Skill Activated: Absorbing Target Attributes...][Skill Acquired: Minor Regeneration]

  The message formed directly into my consciousness — a cold, mechanical presence.

  I processed it without surprise.It made sense.

  Eat.Adapt.Evolve.

  Nature's w, simplified and sharpened into something useful.No wasted motion. No wasted potential.

  I finished feeding, leaving nothing behind but drying blood and shredded bones.

  The body was a resource.Not a trophy.Not a warning.

  Efficiency was survival.

  I moved deeper into the dungeon.

  Every surface was jagged and sharp, like the world itself had been broken by careless gods.The air thickened with moisture, carrying the musk of unknown beasts.

  I began to y threads behind me as I went — a primitive map, a sensory network.The web was not only for catching prey; it was an extension of my mind, my will.

  With it, I would know this dungeon.Every tunnel.Every ir.Every breathing thing that dared to exist within my reach.

  Time blurred again.

  There was no sun, no moon, only the endless churn of survival.

  I grew stronger with each kill — careful not to overhunt, to maintain the delicate bance of prey and predator.A careless hunter starves sooner than the cautious one.

  The creatures here were varied.Malformed rodents. Blind reptiles.Even other spiders, rger but dumber, sves to instinct.

  They fell in time.Some quickly, some after careful stalking.

  Their flesh filled my body.Their traits sharpened my edge.

  Each kill refined me, honed me.I could feel it — not just physically, but mentally.

  Thoughts grew clearer.Strategies more intricate.Hunger... deeper. More purposeful.

  One day — if days could even be measured here — I encountered something new.

  A predator.Not a creature, not prey.Another spider — a massive thing, bloated and primitive, its many eyes dull with bloodlust.

  It spotted me at once and lunged, limbs cracking against the stone floor with thunderous speed.

  I dodged, barely.

  It hissed, shing out again.

  I calcuted instantly — weight, speed, reach.It was strong. Much stronger than anything I had faced.

  But strength without precision was noise without music.Brute force.Savage and stupid.

  I fled — weaving through narrow tunnels, leading it on.

  Each passage grew tighter, narrower.

  I drew it into a trap of my own making — dense webs yered in shadows, invisible under low light.

  It charged without thought, crashing into the silk.Tangled. Slowed.

  I struck from above, a bde in the dark.

  Venom. Fangs. Precision.

  It thrashed, shrieked — the sound of a dying god in a broken world.

  And then... silence.

  The feast was long.The rewards... greater.

  [Predator Skill Activated: Absorbing Target Attributes...][Skill Acquired: Venomous Fang Enhancement][Skill Acquired: Minor Web Reinforcement]

  I absorbed it all.Not just the body — the potential.

  Stronger. Faster. Smarter.

  Piece by piece, I was remaking myself.Not a mindless beast.Not a creature of instinct.

  Something other.Something higher.

  And when the time came, when the final prey was caught, and the final secret id bare before me —Even the architects of this cursed existence would tremble.

  Because I would not just survive this world.I would understand it.I would own it.