Fidex's body began to change. Flesh rippled, transforming into strands of crimson thread that pulsed with an eerie vitality. The threads crept toward the Spider Monster's corpse, sinking into its flesh.
Under Jin's watchful gaze, the Spider Monster's body began to disappear piece by piece. Contorted white bones emerged from beneath dissolving flesh—especially in the creature's lower half, where a twisted spider-like framework of interlocking bones formed a grotesque chassis. Each segment was thick and dense, the structure that had given the monster its impossible size and strength.
Tiny human limbs tumbled from the dissolving abdomen as the fusion progressed.
Jin watched the status panel with growing excitement. The Fusion Degree was climbing faster than it had with any of the ordinary Zombie corpses. Within minutes, it jumped from 92% to 98%. The Spider Monster's higher-tier flesh was far more potent, the conversion ratio dramatically better.
"Almost there."
As the Fusion Degree approached 100%, only half a torso of the Spider Monster remained. Jin knew it was inevitable now.
Then—a new notification flickered into existence, different from the standard fusion updates.
[Detected: Unique essence within fused material. Extracting trait…]
Jin's breath caught. He'd never seen this before. Fusing metal had granted Claw and Metal Body, but those were tied to material types, not specific creatures. This was something else entirely.
The crimson threads pulsed brighter, writhing as if the Spider Monster's flesh was fighting back. Fidex's body convulsed, its four arms twitching in unnatural rhythms. For a moment, Jin felt a surge of alien sensation through their bond—a flicker of many eyes, of tension in silk, of the air trembling with approaching movement.
Then it settled.
[Spider Monster Flesh fusion complete. Zombie Flesh LV2 achieved.]
[New skill acquired: Rapid Healing (Passive)]
[Rapid Healing: The fused flesh now knits itself with unnatural urgency. Wounds do not close completely, but bleeding slows significantly and the body stabilizes against shock. Current effectiveness: Severe bleeding reduces to a slow ooze within minutes; the Summon can continue fighting through injuries that would incapacitate a normal creature. Deep wounds remain open and require proper treatment. Effectiveness increases with Summon evolution.]
[Additional trait assimilated: Web-Woven Instinct (Passive)]
[Web-Woven Instinct: The threads of perception, stolen from the weaver, now cling to your Summon's soul. A faint tremor in the world's web alerts to threats before they land. Grants subliminal warning against incoming physical attacks. Warning manifests as a brief, ghostly "echo" of the attack's trajectory moments before it strikes. Current effectiveness: 0.3 seconds warning, 70% trajectory accuracy. Effectiveness increases with Summon evolution.]
Fidex's rank updated simultaneously.
Summon: Fidex
Rank: First Order High
Skills: [Claw] [Metal Body] [Rapid Healing] [Web-Woven Instinct]
Fusion: Common Metal LV2, Zombie Flesh LV2
Jin stood frozen, staring at the panel.
Two skills. Not one.
Rapid Healing—the natural extension of reaching Level 2 Zombie Flesh. Not the full regeneration he'd secretly hoped for, but something arguably more practical in the apocalypse. The skill wouldn't close wounds, but it would keep Fidex fighting long after a normal creature would have bled out or collapsed from shock. In a world without hospitals or sterile bandages, that kind of endurance was priceless.
But Web-Woven Instinct… that was something else entirely. A stolen trait, ripped from the Spider Monster's essence and grafted onto his Summon. The inhuman awareness, the ability to read movement and react with terrifying speed—now Fidex possessed a fragment of it.
Jin's first reaction was exhilaration. With Metal Body's defense, Rapid Healing's endurance, and Web-Woven Instinct's predictive evasion, Fidex had become a nightmare to put down. The three skills compounded each other perfectly.
Then came the second reaction—hot, bitter, and utterly irrational.
Neither of them is mine.
He swallowed against the feeling, but it clung to his throat. Metal Body he had synchronized. He wore its metallic sheen beneath his clothes, felt its protection every moment. But these new skills—Rapid Healing keeping Fidex fighting through wounds that would leave Jin crippled, Web-Woven Instinct reading attacks before they landed—they belonged to Fidex alone. His Summon could take a gut wound and keep moving while Jin would be on the floor, bleeding out, praying for help that wouldn't come.
He thought of the Spider Monster's attack, how it had moved with terrifying precision, how none of them could track it. Now Fidex could match that. But what about him? If he faced another such creature, he'd still be a step behind, still flesh and blood, still one lucky hit away from death.
Jealous of my own Summon. The realization made him grimace. It was irrational. Fidex's strength was his strength, channeled through their Contract. Yet the feeling persisted—a gnawing urgency, a hunger to claim those abilities for himself.
I need to synchronize them. Both of them.
The thought crystallized, sharp and absolute. Metal Body had come through focused comprehension in the cognitive space. Rapid Healing and Web-Woven Instinct could be the same. He just had to find the way in.
He forced himself to calm down, to think. The skill descriptions said effectiveness increased with Summon evolution. That meant these traits would grow stronger as Fidex absorbed more materials. If he could synchronize them now, even at their current limited levels, he'd gain genuine advantages. The ability to fight through injuries, to sense incoming attacks—neither was invincibility, but together they could mean the difference between life and death.
And if the skills evolved later… He'd evolve with them.
The thought steadied him. He would work on synchronization as soon as he had a quiet moment. For now, he needed to understand exactly what Fidex had gained.
---
He led the Summon to an empty room on the twenty-first floor. The space was bare, cleared of corpses, sealed off from the lower floors. He closed the door.
First, he tested Rapid Healing. He took a kitchen knife and drew a shallow cut across Fidex's forearm—not deep enough to hit anything vital, but enough to bleed. Blood welled up, dark and thick. Then, within seconds, the flow began to slow. By the one-minute mark, the bleeding had reduced to a sluggish ooze. By the third minute, it had stopped entirely, leaving a raw, open wound that glistened wetly but no longer wept blood.
Jin watched the gash. It didn't close. The flesh didn't knit. But Fidex moved its arm without any sign of impairment, the wound simply… ignored.
It stops the bleeding. Stabilizes the injury. But doesn't heal it.
That was the trade-off. Fidex could keep fighting through wounds that would leave a normal creature incapacitated, but the damage remained. A deep cut was still a deep cut. A broken bone would still need setting. The skill bought time, not invulnerability.
He tested further, cutting deeper on a different part of the arm. The same result—bleeding slowed, then stopped, but the wound gaped open. Fidex showed no signs of pain or distress, its movements fluid and unhindered.
It's not regeneration. It's endurance.
Useful. Extremely useful. But not overpowered. Fidex could accumulate damage over time, could be worn down. A lucky hit could still cripple it if it struck something vital—a joint, an eye, a tendon. The skill meant Fidex wouldn't bleed out from a thousand small cuts, but a single catastrophic wound was still catastrophic.
Next, Web-Woven Instinct. He positioned himself across from Fidex and swung the knife in a slow arc toward its arm.
The Summon didn't move—until the blade was halfway there. Then it sidestepped smoothly, the knife passing through empty air. Jin hadn't seen any external signal, no tensing of muscles, no shift in stance. Fidex had simply known.
He increased speed, varying angles, mixing feints with real strikes. Fidex dodged most, but not all. When Jin struck from an unexpected angle with full force, the Summon took the hit on its metal-coated arm, the blade skittering off without leaving a mark.
Three-tenths of a second. Jin calculated. Enough to evade a telegraphed attack. Not enough for something truly fast.
And twice, out of twenty attempts, the skill seemed to fail entirely. Fidex stood motionless as the knife came in, reacting only at the last moment from its own baseline reflexes. Seventy percent accuracy, just as the system said.
Jin lowered the knife, breathing hard. Two new tools—both powerful, both flawed. Rapid Healing kept Fidex on its feet but didn't erase damage. Web-Woven Instinct gave warning but wasn't reliable.
But they can evolve.
He dismissed Fidex, letting the Summon dissolve into crimson light. The room felt suddenly empty.
He needed to find the synchronization method. Metal Body had come when he focused on the feeling of metallic density, the weight of protection. What would Rapid Healing require? Perhaps the sensation of bleeding slowing, the body refusing to give in. The stubborn will to keep moving despite injury. And Web-Woven Instinct—a sense of impending threat, the flicker of an echo before a blow landed.
He closed his eyes, trying to recall the brief glimpses he'd caught during the test—the faint shimmer trailing the knife's path. He reached for it, strained to hold it.
Nothing came.
He opened his eyes, frustrated. It takes time, he reminded himself. Metal Body hadn't come in a single night. He'd need to meditate, to enter the cognitive space where the Crimson Book dwelled, to find the threads connecting him to Fidex's new skills.
But not now. Dawn was approaching, and exhaustion pulled at him. He needed rest, or he'd be useless tomorrow.
As he made his way back to his room, his mind churned with possibilities. The Spider Monster's flesh had yielded a unique trait—not just raw power, but an ability tied to the creature's nature. What else is out there? What other monsters lurked in the fog, carrying skills he could steal?
He would find them. He would fuse them. And every skill Fidex gained, he would synchronize. By the time this nightmare ended—if it ever did—he would be more than human. He would be something that could fight back.
But first, he needed to survive the morning. And Simon's pounding on the door told him morning had come too soon.
He opened his eyes to the gray light filtering through the windows, his body heavy with exhaustion. The knocking came again—urgent, insistent.
He rose, crossed the living room, and called out, "Who is it?"
Simon's voice came through, low and strained. "Jin. Get out here. We have a problem."
Jin's jaw tightened. Of course we do.
He opened the door.