The darkness below them parted, and the new space began to rise.

  It came up in blocks, stone and structure sliding into place with the same calm, manufactured certainty as the sinking warren. The arena assembled without seams or sound. Kaizer didn’t move until the platform steadied again. He kept his feet planted, knees soft, and watched the last pieces settle into place, slow and deliberate.

  Construct stood at the edge of the platform and leaned forward, hands clasped behind his back. He looked too pleased with himself to bother hiding it.

  “This is better,” Construct said, then glanced back at Kaizer like he expected agreement. “No clutter. No wasted variables. Just the parts that matter.”

  Kaizer tightened his grip on the spear and rolled his shoulders once. The huntsman core pulsed in his stomach, steady as it had been since the safe room, and he kept it contained without needing to stop and breathe through it. It was still there. It still burned. It didn’t get to decide when he fought.

  “You’re excited,” Kaizer said.

  Construct blinked, then smiled again, unbothered. “Yes. I forgot what it felt like.”

  Kaizer snorted. “Try not to build something that kills me in the first five seconds.”

  Construct’s eyes lit up at that, not offended, not defensive. Interested. “If it kills you in five seconds, the calibration is still wrong. That would mean it’s too strong for the purpose, or you’re weaker than your previous outputs suggest. Either way, I learn nothing useful.”

  Kaizer glanced down at the forming arena. It wasn’t a cavern. It was a carved space, circular enough to be deliberate, with a raised ring of bare rock around a lower centre and a set of thick anchor points embedded into the stone in a repeating pattern. Curtains of silk hung in sections from above, not draped randomly, but placed like partitions, with gaps between them that looked wide enough to move through and narrow enough to punish anyone who tried to sprint. The centre basin was lower and darker, a shallow dish of stone with a slick sheen like moisture had been worked into the surface on purpose. The outer ring looked drier and rougher, better footing, but those hanging sheets broke sightlines and made angles awkward.

  “So this is a raid room,” Kaizer muttered.

  Construct tilted his head. “A raid?”

  “A fight designed to make you look stupid if you charge in,” Kaizer said. “Usually with a giant monster and a bunch of rules you don’t get told until you’ve already broken them.”

  Construct looked delighted by that explanation in a way that made Kaizer wary and amused at the same time. “That’s a very efficient entertainment structure.”

  Kaizer stepped closer to the edge of the platform as the last of the arena locked into place. The anchor points were cut with grooves to hold tension without fraying, and the partitions were set so you could see just enough to commit to the wrong choice.

  “You look disappointed,” Construct said.

  “I was getting bored anyway,” Kaizer replied, and he meant it. The warren had been useful, but it had been predictable. It had been a job.

  Construct’s mouth twitched. “Then I’ll try not to bore you.”

  Something scraped below them.

  It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. It was the sound of hard legs shifting against stone, and then the faint creak of silk tensioning under weight.

  Kaizer’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t move his feet. He didn’t rush his stance. He simply let his attention settle into the centre basin and waited for the dungeon’s response.

  ====================================

  Mutated Sydney Funnel Web

  ====================================

  Level: 42

  Rank: F

  Tag: Dominion Boss

  Variant: Newcastle Big-Boy

  Extremely dangerous funnel web. The Newcastle Big-Boy variant is twice the size of a regular Sydney Funnel Web Spider. Extremely poisonous and can pierce skin with ease.

  ====================================

  Kaizer stared at the name for half a second and felt his mouth go dry.

  “Newcastle Big Boy… really? Why the fuck did scientists even think that was a good name,” he muttered.

  Construct looked briefly confused, then his eyes flicked as if cross-referencing something internal. “Ah. A cultural label. I was wondering why a spider would be named something so stupid.”

  “It helps with fear,” Kaizer said, and then the thing moved.

  It didn’t climb into view like the spiders before it. It came out of the centre basin in a blur of compact mass and thick legs, low to the ground, black and wet-looking in the dim light, with fangs that caught the glow for a fraction as it shifted its head. It didn’t test distance. It didn’t circle. It went straight for him with the single-minded commitment of something built to end fights quickly.

  Kaizer stepped off the platform onto the outer ring and met it with the spear two-handed, point aimed at the space it had to cross. The spider didn’t care. It hit an anchor point, changed direction mid-burst, and the spear tip skimmed along its underside without finding purchase. It was faster than it should have been, not just in speed, but in how it used the room. It used tension and partitions like they were part of its movement.

  Kaizer rotated his grip and slammed the spear shaft down instead of trying to pierce, clipping the spider across a front leg and forcing it to skid sideways. The chitin felt dense through the impact, like striking a hard knot in wood. The spider recovered instantly and snapped forward again, legs loading and releasing in short, brutal bursts that made its movement hard to read. Kaizer took a half-step back to keep range and felt a thin strand brush his shin. He lifted his foot and cleared it.

  The strand tightened anyway.

  The spider reacted to the tension like it had been waiting for it. It lunged through a partition gap and came in low, not for his torso, not for his arms, but for the leg he’d just moved. Kaizer dropped the spear point, tried to block with the shaft, and was a fraction too late.

  Fangs punched through his wrappings and into his lower leg.

  Pain flashed so hard it turned white for a heartbeat. Not just the puncture. Something else followed immediately, heat spreading fast under the skin, crawling up his calf with a speed that made his breath catch. Kaizer’s stomach clenched. Instinctive Regeneration surged, his body trying to close the punctures, trying to force the damage out, and it immediately felt like it was chasing something that kept getting ahead. The bite burned. The burn turned sharp. His calf tightened as if the muscle had decided to lock.

  His balance dipped. His left leg felt too heavy and too light at the same time.

  The spider tore free and snapped back, ready to hit again.

  Kaizer didn’t chase it. He didn’t shout. He shoved the spear butt into the stone to steady himself and stared at his leg like it had become a problem he had to solve, right now, in the next breath. Heat pulsed with his heartbeat, and the sensation was already pushing upward in a way that made his jaw tighten.

  He could feel it climbing. He didn’t need a warning window. He didn’t need the System to name it. His body was giving him the only information that mattered.

  Kaizer made the decision with the same simplicity he’d used when he’d swallowed the huntsman core.

  “Not losing the whole body to a leg,” he muttered.

  The spider lunged again, aiming for the opening it had already made.

  Kaizer pivoted on his good foot, dragged the spear across the gap to keep distance, and dropped his weight low. He hooked his right claw into the wrappings above the bite, tore cloth, and yanked it up to expose skin already flushing dark around the punctures.

  He didn’t reach for his knife.

  He didn’t have time to be careful.

  Claws of Silver slid out with clean weight, the sheen catching the dim light for a fraction. Kaizer braced on the spear with his left hand, dragged his bitten leg back a half-step, and raked his right claws through flesh above the punctures.

  Pain hit hard enough to make his vision snap, sharp and immediate, but it was his pain, chosen and controlled.

  The funnel-web came in again, close enough that Kaizer smelled wet chitin and something sour. He slammed the spear shaft into its face without looking, the impact knocking it off line for a heartbeat, and used that heartbeat to finish the job. Another brutal rake. A twist. A final pull that wasn’t graceful and didn’t need to be.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  His lower leg came free and dropped to the stone with a wet slap.

  For a second, the sight of it made his stomach heave.

  He didn’t let it.

  He shoved the severed leg away like rubbish and clamped both hands over the stump, pressing hard, forcing his body to stay upright while the spider recalculated. The venom heat stopped climbing. The pressure that had been pushing upward was gone. The problem had been cut out of him.

  He still had the bigger problem in front of him.

  The spider hesitated for the first time. It shifted its weight, and the partitions trembled as silk tension changed with the movement.

  Kaizer didn’t wait for it to decide.

  He yanked a strip of cloth from his wrappings with his teeth, wound it around the stump, and pulled it tight with both hands until his fingers went numb. He used the spear as a lever, twisting the cloth into a tourniquet with the shaft, cranking it down until the bleeding slowed from a spill to a heavy seep. His face went pale. Sweat ran down his temple. His breathing stayed controlled anyway, forced into rhythm by habit and stubbornness.

  He could feel Silver’s will sitting there, ready to answer, but it needed a moment of intent. One clean breath. One clean second.

  The spider didn’t give him either.

  The huntsman core in his stomach pulsed hard, reacting to shock and blood loss, trying to flood his channels with restless essence. Kaizer clamped it down with focus, holding it steady so it didn’t spike and make his head swim at the worst possible moment.

  He pushed upright on one knee.

  The spider moved.

  It launched again, not at his stump, not at his torso, but at his balance point. It wanted him on the ground. It wanted him tangled. It wanted one clean bite somewhere it couldn’t be cut away.

  Kaizer planted the spear butt into stone and used it as a third leg, forcing his body up into a hobble. The first move was clumsy. His centre of gravity shifted wrong and he almost toppled. He caught himself on the spear shaft and felt the tourniquet tug, pain flaring through the stump like a warning he couldn’t ignore.

  The funnel-web hit the spear shaft mid-burst, skittered off it, and snapped its fangs at his hip.

  Kaizer jerked back, the spear scraping along rock as he used it to drag himself out of reach. He wasn’t fast anymore. He couldn’t trust a quick sidestep. He couldn’t rely on balance the way he had ten seconds ago.

  So he stopped trying to move like he had two legs.

  He made the spider come to him.

  He shifted toward an anchor point on the outer ring, staying on rough footing where he could set the spear clean and not slip. The funnel-web followed, legs tapping stone with a speed that made his skin crawl. Kaizer jabbed the spear point toward the anchor groove instead of the spider, caught a thick strand, and yanked it sideways.

  The strand tightened.

  The spider reacted to the tension automatically, shifting its approach angle, and Kaizer used that moment to slam the spear shaft into its front leg again, clipping it hard enough that the joint buckled and the spider’s body dipped. Kaizer drove the spear blade down into the seam behind the leg base, twisted, and felt chitin resist like a locked door. The funnel-web snapped at the shaft and Kaizer ripped the spear free before it could be grabbed.

  He kept moving, hobbling, spear as crutch, forcing his path around the edge, always keeping the spider in front of him and never letting it disappear behind a partition where it could come at him blind. The fight turned ugly and fast, not because it was long, but because every second demanded something. Balance. Pressure. Breath. A decision that couldn’t be revised.

  The spider lunged again and Kaizer took the hit on the spear shaft, letting the fangs bite wood and metal instead of flesh. The grip was strong enough to yank the spear forward, and Kaizer let it, then used the pull to drag the spider toward bare rock where there were fewer strands for it to use. He slammed the spear butt into the ground, pinned the shaft under his forearm, and drove his left claw down into the spider’s head.

  Chitin split with a harsh crack. The spider bucked. Kaizer’s stump slipped, pain flashing as the tourniquet tugged, and the world tilted. The funnel-web twisted, trying to free itself, and its fangs scraped along his thigh, just a graze, but the fear hit anyway. Another bite there and he couldn’t cut it away fast enough. He’d bleed out. He’d lose control. He’d die.

  His breath hitched.

  Good.

  The voice didn’t come through his ears. It sat behind his thoughts, dry and certain, like it had been waiting for him to stop pretending he could brute force everything with one mind and a spear.

  Kaizer’s jaw tightened. “No,” he rasped, and the word tasted like blood and iron. “Not now.”

  Let me do it. I’ll kill. I’ll get you out.

  The huntsman core pulsed hard in his stomach, restless essence pushing at his channels like it wanted to sprint. Kaizer tried to clamp it down and failed by a fraction, not because his focus slipped, but because pain and blood loss were tearing holes in his rhythm.

  Something twisted behind his eyes.

  Pain spiked so fast he staggered. The arena tilted. The partitions blurred into streaks. For a heartbeat he saw nothing but motion and threat, and the world narrowed to fangs, angles, openings.

  He forced a breath and tried to lock it down. He wouldn’t be controlled.

  Will answered anyway, cold and stubborn, trying to rebuild structure out of panic. It gave him pattern and restraint, the next step, the next grip, the next breath. It tried to put his hands back on the wheel.

  I direct. You control. Give and take.

  [Synchronisation: FAILED.]

  His will didn’t hold.

  Ferocity hit like a shoulder-check from inside his skull, not an idea, not a mood, a force that wanted ownership. It didn’t negotiate. It pushed straight through, drowning the careful line until Kaizer felt the moment his restraint stopped being a choice and became something he was watching from behind his own eyes.

  No more.

  Kaizer tried to drag himself back to pure control but couldn’t. The Ferocity Dao took the grip and didn’t let go.

  His posture changed. The hobble vanished into something brutal and efficient, weight shifting without care for pain, only leverage. He let go of the spear as if it was suddenly irrelevant and hauled himself forward, one knee and one stump digging into stone like traction points instead of injuries.

  The spider tried to retreat.

  It didn’t get to.

  Kaizer bit it.

  His fangs punched through chitin at the seam near its leg base, and he tasted something bitter and metallic as he tore. The funnel-web thrashed hard enough that silk snapped. It dragged them both sideways. Kaizer didn’t release. He climbed onto it and ripped again, tearing a leg clean away at the joint and tossing it aside.

  Construct spoke once behind him, low and sharp, and the sound of it carried disbelief more than command.

  “Kaizer…”

  The name hit like a hook in his ribs.

  Kaizer’s head snapped half an inch toward the sound. For a fraction of a second his eyes looked wrong, too flat, too hungry, like Ferocity was wearing his face and daring anything to move.

  The funnel-web shuddered and went limp.

  Its legs twitched in small, dying pulses. Its body had been split open at the seams, and essence spilled out into the air in a heavy pull that made the hair on Kaizer’s arms lift.

  He stayed on it for another heartbeat, breathing hard through his nose.

  Ferocity didn’t retreat cleanly. It fought to stay, looking for the next threat, the next target, the next reason.

  You hesitated. You were going to die.

  Kaizer swallowed, throat tight. “I wasn’t.”

  You were.

  A tight pressure sat in his skull, like two hands on the same wheel. Ferocity shoved. Will failed to take the grip back.

  Then the pressure eased, not because Ferocity gave up, but because there was nothing left to kill.

  Kaizer blinked once, slow. Blood still ran from the corner of his left eye, sticky on his cheek, but the world stopped narrowing into a single demand.

  He gagged once, hard, then forced it down. His mouth tasted like blood and chitin. He pushed himself off the corpse and immediately had to catch himself on the spear, because the missing leg was still missing and his balance was gone. The stump throbbed under the tourniquet, pain climbing now that the fight had ended and his body had time to register it.

  He stared at the funnel-web’s body for a beat, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and breathed until his vision steadied.

  Idiot.

  The word landed behind his thoughts, blunt and disgusted.

  Kaizer’s jaw tightened. “Not you as well.”

  You cut your leg off and you’re still bleeding and you have Verdana sitting there. Once per day. A full shed. Healing. Armour. Are you trying to die to prove a point?

  Kaizer’s throat worked. He hated how correct it felt. He hated more that he hadn’t thought of it before the voice did.

  Good. Now do it.

  Kaizer didn’t answer. He just took a breath and pushed will through Verdana.

  Warmth ran under his skin in a wave. The outer layer tightened, then slid away in a rush that made his stomach turn again. Relief hit first, the sting and tearing easing, then the scales came, hardening across him in a way that made him feel heavier and steadier. It didn’t undo what he’d done, but it stopped his body from continuing to fall apart after it.

  He spat onto the stone and forced himself to look at the stump.

  He needed one clean moment.

  He found it.

  He pushed his will into Silver.

  Pressure snapped through the stump. Bone, muscle, skin returned in a rush that made his teeth clench, not pain so much as wrongness turning right. His foot planted again, wet on stone, toes flexing once like they were checking reality.

  He could feel it settle, the blessing going quiet in that limb, spent. That leg wouldn’t get a second miracle.

  “About time,” Kaizer muttered, and his voice came out rough.

  He tried to stand without leaning on the spear and almost laughed at how his body still wanted to guard the missing limb that wasn’t missing anymore. He forced his weight onto both feet, recalibrated balance by stubborn repetition, and then stood still long enough to feel how much he’d nearly lost.

  He tightened his grip on the spear until his knuckles whitened.

  “I need a movement ability,” he said, flat, like a statement of fact he didn’t want to argue with. “This isn’t sustainable.”

  The voice behind his thoughts didn’t disagree.

  You finally noticed.

  Kaizer’s mouth twitched, not quite a grin. “Yeah. I noticed.”

  Construct didn’t backseat it. He didn’t offer a tip. He just stood there at the edge of the platform, watching with that bright, hungry interest, like he’d waited a long time to see something go wrong in a way that mattered.

  Kaizer looked at the dead funnel-web again, then looked away. He could feel essence tugging toward him, the clean pull of a kill that mattered. He didn’t kneel. He didn’t go for his knife. His stomach turned at the idea of opening another body right now, and he didn’t trust his hands to be steady.

  “I’m not harvesting that,” Kaizer said.

  He didn’t know who he was saying it to. Maybe himself. Maybe the thing in his head that would happily bite anything that moved. Maybe the overseer who’d built this arena and watched him bleed all over it.

  Kaizer shifted his stance and tested the spear in his hands. Both legs were back. The pain was manageable. The venom was gone. The embarrassment wasn’t.

  He looked up at Construct. “You got what you wanted.”

  Construct’s eyes were bright despite himself. He didn’t hide it. He didn’t pretend to be neutral. “Yes,” he said quietly. “That was… useful.”

  Kaizer snorted. “You can say ‘fucked’ if you want. You’re allowed.”

  Construct blinked once, then smiled, like he was filing that away for later. He didn’t argue. He didn’t correct him. He just watched.

  Kaizer drew a slow breath through his nose, then exhaled. The huntsman core pulsed in his stomach, steady as ever, and he kept it contained. He flexed his restored foot once, then set his stance properly.

  “No more busywork,” Kaizer said. “You said you’d stop wasting my time.”

  Construct’s shoulders lifted in something like pride, then he caught himself again, trying for controlled. “Agreed.”

  Kaizer tightened his wrappings on the spear grip and looked across the arena, at the silk partitions still hanging, at the funnel-web sprawled in the centre like a bad memory.

  “If your next ‘specimen’ bites me,” Kaizer said, “I’m cutting off something of yours.”

  Construct blinked, then laughed, and it sounded relieved. “Noted.”

  The air around them shifted. The arena edges softened in that manufactured way of a space about to be replaced. The hanging silk slackened, tension bleeding out of it until it sagged in slow curtains. The anchor points lost their bite. The room itself felt like it was letting go.

  Kaizer set his feet, both of them, and forced his body to accept the balance properly instead of relying on the spear out of habit. He flexed his restored toes once, then again, like he still didn’t trust the miracle to stay put.

  He looked at Construct. The bastard was still watching him like he’d just seen a favourite scene in a movie.

  Kaizer’s mouth twitched.

  “Now,” he said, voice rough, “show me the loot.”