The sound of Lumy tearing through the fibrous muscle of the plant beast was the only thing filling the small clearing. Armen sat on a fallen log, watching the gruesome display with a mixture of fascination and fatigue. He felt a strange vibration in his mind, a familiar chime that made him sit upright. He swiped his hand through the air, and the UI flickered into existence.
[Notification: Enemy Defeated]
[Reward: 1 Point]
Armen stared at the single digit on the screen, his jaw dropping. "Finally! A point!" he cheered, but then his face fell as the reality of the math hit him. "But that's only one point? Are you kidding me? That is cheap as heck! I need fifty for a single draw. Do I really have to kill fifty of those moss badgers just to roll for a new beast? This system is a grind-fest."
He sighed, leaning his head back against the bark. "Well, better than zero, I suppose. Eat up, Lumy. At least one of us is getting a decent meal."
Lumy didn't look up. She was busy snapping a leg bone, her jaws dripping with that dark chlorophyll-blood. The gore was messy, bits of green flesh sticking to her obsidian scales. Armen watched her, feeling the heat of the afternoon sun and the heavy, humid air of the forest. He was starting to feel a bit more grounded in this body, though the ribs still poked uncomfortably against his skin.
Suddenly, a sound cut through the forest. It wasn't the rustle of leaves or the call of a bird. It was a high-pitched, mechanical drone. It sounded like a chainsaw being revved in the distance, growing louder and more frantic by the second.
Bzzzzzzzzzt!
Armen frantically looked around, his heart jumping into his throat. "Lumy, stop!"
He looked up, and his blood ran cold. Descending from the canopy was a nightmare of evolution. It was an insect, but it was four feet tall, its six spindly legs tipped with serrated hooks. It looked like a monstrous mosquito on steroids. Its wings were a blur of translucent grey, but the most horrifying part was its abdomen. The sack was massive and bloated, pulsating with liquids of different colors: vibrant reds, sickly greens, and deep purples, all swirling together in a translucent, chitinous gut.
Armen squinted, trying to sense the pressure. It was heavy, vibrating, and sharp. "Another Rank F beast," he muttered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "I can't tell what its element is. Is it water? Poison? Plant?"
The mosquito beast landed on a branch ten feet away, its massive compound eyes reflecting the scene below like thousands of tiny mirrors. It looked at Armen for a split second, its proboscis twitching, but then it saw the corpse. It saw Lumy, her mouth full of the grass beast's meat, and it immediately went berserk.
The insect let out a piercing, vibrating scream that made Armen's teeth ache. It flapped its wings violently, its body trembling with a mindless, territorial rage.
Armen looked at the bug with pure disgust. "Why the fuck is it getting angry for? Lumy didn't steal its kill. Matter of fact, it's trying to steal a kill from us! What a narcissist beast. You didn't do the work, you overgrown pest!"
The mosquito didn't care about Armen's logic. It saw the meat and the predator eating it, and it decided the clearing wasn't big enough for both. With a sudden, violent burst of speed, it launched itself from the branch, its long, needle-like proboscis aimed straight for Lumy's neck.
"Lumy, watch out!" Armen screamed.
Lumy reacted instantly. She rolled to the side, her light-spikes flaring a brilliant, warning gold. The mosquito's needle slammed into the dirt where she had been standing, burying itself inches deep into the earth. The insect yanked its head back, pulling a clump of soil and roots with it, and hissed.
The mosquito didn't wait. It circled in the air, its wings creating a localized wind that blew the scent of rot toward Armen. Then, it lunged again. This time, it wasn't trying to stab. It opened its mouthparts and sprayed a jet of pressurized, boiling red fluid.
"Voidlit Ravage!" Armen commanded.
Lumy's spikes turned black, and she lunged forward, her claws swiping at the insect's legs. She connected, her Abyssal-Death energy carving a dark line across the mosquito's chitin. But to Armen's horror, the effect didn't seem to spread. Usually, the dark element withered everything it touched, but the mosquito's blood-filled sack seemed to pulse, a surge of vibrant red energy rushing to the wound and sealing it instantly.
"What?" Armen shouted, his eyes wide. "The dark effect isn't working that well! Is it because of the blood?... Is it like a blood element beast? Is there even a blood element?"
But it made sense. If the dark element targeted life force, a beast that was literally a walking reservoir of stolen blood might have a natural resistance. Its life force wasn't concentrated in one heart; it was flowing in a dozen different colors through its entire body.
The mosquito buzzed higher, its eyes glowing with a malevolent light. It began to hum a different tune, a low, droning sound that made the blood in the grass beast's corpse start to vibrate and rise into the air in small, floating droplets. The insect was manipulating the gore on the ground, drawing it toward its needle.
"Lumy, don't let it charge up!" Armen yelled, his voice cracking with tension.
The mosquito beast then started to attack Lumy.