Published at 9th of April 2026 7:26 am

Chapter 349: Stealing from Monsters

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Nicolai and Serrin hovered on the cusp of the Scale Vipers domain. Both saw through thermal vision, and both had Souls tightly Shelled, but neither used any form of Cloaking Symbiote.

Serrin had told him that it was common knowledge amongst Hornets that Cloaking Symbiotes of all forms were ineffective at extremely close range. Serrin had demonstrated it for him. You couldnt stand inside of someones Soul Sense while Cloaking and expect not to be spotted, as the Cloaking Symbiotes would give off a faint buzz that was quite noticeable. The Scale Vipers were so tightly packed that their Soul Senses formed a continuous mass, a kind of spiritual mist, and the pair would be moving constantly through that mist. They couldve used Cloaking Symbiotes and flown above the Soul Sense mist, but that would just delay the problem. The Shardache stalagmites were all on the ground.

In this case, simple Shelling was better.

The nearest column of Shardache was nearly ten metres away. Normally, not far, but that was quite a distance when the floor was made of Scale Vipers. Fortunately the Vipers werent clumped quite so closely together out here on the outskirts. Here, there was actually the occasional empty space. Electric-blue lights flickered in his AR lenses as Simulations picked out all the empty spaces between him and the Shardache, analysed them and came up with the ideal route. The chosen spots glowed.

He glanced back at Serrin, who nodded his readiness. For a moment Nicolai experienced an odd wave of deja-vu, the sight of the Hornet kitted out in thermal goggles, mask, and a tooled-up tactical vest over his armour taking him back to other operations, centuries ago. Simulations, lost in the sense of other times and other places just as he was, attempted to ping Serrin the same details it had outlined in his vision, only to fail because Serrin had no augments. The failure of this snapped him and the Modules out of it. They were not on Earth, and Serrin could not receive such messages. At least, not yet.

He nodded back then turned and crept forwards. Balancing on one leg he raised his foot, fished for a spot between the mess of Scale Vipers, set it down and gradually shifted his weight onto the new position. The moment his foot was planted, he slowly raised his other, arms spread for balance as he performed a graceful pivot and extended his leg toward the next spot.

Halfway across he managed to glance back, and saw Serrin following closely in his wake, performing the same slow, exaggerated movements, picking his way through the Vipers.

Nicolai arrived beside the Shardache, and registered a problem.

There was a Scale Viper curled up tight around the stalagmite. Quite a big, Tier 2 Viper. There was a tiny bit of space around it, suggesting it had claimed this stalagmite, and that it was somewhat territorial. The space was good, the fact of it hugging the stalagmite was not. The rock saws hed created for this were very quiet, but they did cause faint vibrations. The Viper might feel those vibrations where it touched on the stalagmite, and it gave them nowhere to put their feet.

He looked to Serrin, spread his arms to indicate the Viper, mimed gripping it and pulling it away. Serrin nodded.

The pair of them moved slowly into position, making use of the inches-thick circle of space around the Viper. Hunkering down just behind its shoulders, Nicolai had a close-up of the Vipers leathery, slumbering features. Black lips were pulled back to reveal sharp, curving teeth, breath hissing out of its nostrils. Its head was bigger than his chest.

He pressed his fingers into the ground beneath it and, with utmost care and a grimace on his face, began to worm them slowly under it. The Viper didnt react at all, and soon hed gotten the entirety of his forearms under it, felt it as a warm, heavy bulk.

The Viper let out a grunt when they began to pull. It shifted, rolling slightly back, and for a moment Nicolai wondered if it was about to roll right over him. But it stopped, settled. He exchanged a glance with Serrin and they tugged a little more.

It took minutes of breathless, sweaty effort for them to move the thing. By the time they were done its bulk rested over their feet, and they had to pry first forearms out, then feet before they could step at last over it, into the now empty space around the Shardache.

He pulled his rock saw from his own tactical vest, activated it with a faint hum, and set to work on the first little outcropping of shale, carefully scraping at the stone. Frowning, he realised the stone was actually a lot stronger and harder than hed anticipated, much harder than the rock theyd practised on. Threat Analysis immediately started burbling that if he pressed too hard the Shardache may well break the saw. Hed have to go extremely slow and careful.

He raised his head, looking to warn Serrin, when he heard a nasty, expensive crunch.

Serrin was staring at the chewed up, broken edges of his rock saw, frozen. They both were, unmoving, ears and Souls craned for any signs of Vipers waking.

The ripples of a powerful Soul stirring washed over him, and amidst the white-hot shapes of the mess of Vipers he saw something huge shift. A Tier 3, and it was waking. Shit. He looked to Serrin, shaping the ripples to hiss, Abort!

Mimic their Soul Senses, Serrin whisper-rippled desperately.

Something very strange then happened to the Hornets Soul. It shifted like an optical illusion, going further than simple Shelling, shifted until his Soul near-perfectly resembled a Scale Viper. At the same time, Serrin had taken some of those exaggerated steps, only far swifter than before, and now was crouching down and squeezing against one of the Vipers, until it seemed to be hugging him.

The Hornet practically disappeared against it, his Soul fitting like a lost puzzle piece into the mesh of Vipers.

They had not drilled this, and this was definitely not the way. Part of him was cursing Serrin for not mentioning this higher-level of Shelling before, but most of him, and the Modules too, just saw it as another challenge in a long line of challenges. Something to master, only in this case failure to master it right now might just result in death.

Plus, hed just seen a perfect demonstration. Even as he had these thoughts Nicolai was taking big steps and sinking down, every iota of focus bearing down on the shape and sense of his Soul, feeling at the Vipers all around him.

Hed just finished folding himself into the sleepy grip of one of them, just finished kneading his Soul into this newest shape, when he felt a faint vibration through the stone. As from a heavy step. He closed his eyes, but felt another source of vision. The mining bot, back at the entrance, holding it open for them.

Just as he switched into its cameras, he and the others realised the danger. The Tier 3 had come to its feet, eyes open, Soul Sense spreading out. There was a brief and intense mental debate as they determined whether to have the mining bot slowly swing the slab of rock it held back into position, or simply stay perfectly still. Perfectly still won the vote.

The Tier 3 was coming in their direction, moving slowly and a little unsteadily. Shaking its head here and there, evidently still extremely sleepy. Psychology posited that, as a Tier 3, this one was in some way changed and thus more resistant to the gas.

Then he stopped thinking about any of that, because it was looming over him, looking down.

I am a Scale Viper, thought Nicolai and the Modules and the Mask as one.

The Vipers Soul Sense blanketed the area, probing investigatively to see what it was that had caught its attention.

But Nicolai felt that Soul Sense pass over him, and the Tier 3 turned away and shuffled off. It headed deeper toward the centre of the cave, here and there startling another where it sepped on a tail or a leg, but these weaker ones were more strongly affected by the gas and merely stirred. The Tier 3 didnt seem bothered by the total silence, the stillness of its fellows. In fact, from what he saw, it was angling to use this opportunity to get closer to the richer energy in the centre, where most of the Shardache stalagmites were.

Finding a spot it liked, it settled down and soon was as fast asleep as the rest of them.

Nicolai and Serrin rose like zombies from the grave, exchanged glances, and set straight back to work.

He started carefully cutting with his rock saw, while Serrin came beside him and sped his work by seizing the Shardache and pushing it into his bag.

Slow minutes passed as he worked the column, focusing on the bigger clumps. It was mostly silver Shardache, but towards the top there were a few bits of gold.

Fifteen minutes later he received a ping. The gas was almost out. For a moment he stared at all the Shardache yet unclaimed, an almost physical hunger plucking at his limbs before he tore his eyes away. He held up his palm until hed caught Serrins attention, then he pointed to the exit. The Hornet nodded, tying off the bag of Shardache securely then hefting it on his shoulder.

They got moving, following the same route as before. Frowning, Nicolai noticed the Vipers around them were stirring a little. He wasnt sure why at first, until he realised there were emanations and ripples coming from the Shardache in the bag. Emanations neither he nor Serrin were really able to stop.

Similar emanations had come from the Shardache while it was in place where it had grown, but, now separated, they were quite a bit stronger. Something to do with harvesting? Who knew.

The Vipers nearby were shifting more and more, and not just around them. Threat Analysis had thrown up an alertall through the cave they were stirring. There was still plenty of gas around, and they should all be asleep. The single tested Viper had slept for hours while breathing the gas. It was something to do with the Soul Sense mist.

The ones stirring around him and Serrin were causing a ripple effect. Their shifting Soul Senses touched on others, who touched on others. The effects of the gas were being shaken off.

The pair of them felt it at the same time, an invisible shift. They sprung into motion, leaping forward, just as the Scale Vipers all around began to raise their heads and open their eyes.

One of them reared clumsily up right in front of him just as he arrived, letting out a tea-kettle hiss and biting at him. Nicolai slammed his bionic down, clonked the outraged Viper in the head and used it like a fence-pole, vaulting clean over.

Then the space all around and in front of them became a shifting mire of Vipers, all thrashing to their feet at once and knocking into one another, falling and rising again in a tide of increasingly awake and furious lizards.

Oma rushed through his Nodes and the Claw erupted with a scream of ripples, and he saw Serrins Stinger coming likewise to life. But immediately their Soul Senses were hemmed in. The ocean of Viper Soul Sense around them, previously passive and unreactive, was now a crushing pressure from all sides. It was difficult even to keep their Soul Senses out at all, to stop them collapsing into their Souls.

The pair stuck close, reinforcing one anothers Soul Senses as they leapt from Viper to Viper, quick as shadows. They used snapping heads as stepping stones, scaly necks as slides, darted into the spaces where one Viper would rise too faststill clumsy from the gasand stumble into another.

Three Vipers got their feet solidly under them and lunged from behind, while one came straight at them from the front, jaws opening wide. But the pair of them wove their Soul Sense tendrils around the other, managed to punch through the crushing ocean of Viper Soul Sense. Serrins Stinger stabbed the charger in its Soul Sense, popped it like a balloon, then Nicolai seized it bodily with the Claw. He grabbed Serrin by the arm, dragged on the Viper so its weight slingshotted them forward. The Vipers charge turned into a headlong tumble, a despairing hiss trailing from its jaws as it sailed below the pair and crashed into the tangle snapping at them from behind. He and Serrin spun through empty air, Vipers all around.

Now the Soul Sense sea was coming truly alive. It seemed an entity itself, an emergent predatory intelligence rising out of hundreds of individuals. Nicolai felt the dispersed awareness like a monster coming to stand right behind his shoulder, breathing heavily, and through this shot individual lines of awareness like tracer rounds drawing orange lines through the night. Tier 3 Vipers, reaching out.

The pair of them shot into the tunnel. Nicolai passed straight by the mining bot that blocked one side of it, tumbled onto the stone floors, rolled and sprinted.

But behind he heard a metallic thump, turned to see Serrin struggling to his feet some distance behind, having hit the mining bot.

Go, go! cried Serrin, already up and running. The mining bot was seized by some combination of Vipers and Symbiotes acting via Soul Sense, hauled clear and torn apart by the Vipers unreasonably sharp claws, the huge slab of rock itd been holding up cast away.

Vipers poured into the tunnel after them like oil down a drain, preceded by furious hissing and a wave of Soul Sense. The automated cart was crushed and buried.

The Vipers had been clumsy at first, but they were shaking that off, faster and faster moment by moment. The closest was only metres behind Serrin. The pair ran all out, now using Symbiotes freely, but the tunnel was not a good place for flightSerrins spiritual wings were too large to beat properly. Meanwhile, Nicolai gained ground via the Spectral Claw.

He felt a despairing ripple, turned and saw Serrin slowing. The mass of Viper Soul Sense had reached him, tore through his protection and now tendrils of yellow force were snatching at his limbs. He tumbled into a flailing roll and came to a stop with more of the tendrils seizing at him, and the Vipers closer than ever. To his side, dropped in his fall, was the sack of Shardache.

Nicolai skidded to a halt, seized the support strut beside him and snapped the Claw back. For a frozen instant he considered the Shardache, then he seized Serrin by the leg and heaved.

But the Hornet was stuck fast, tied up by Tier 2 and 3 Symbiotes, and the Vipers closer than ever.

Nicolai pulled a mental switch, and the tunnel detonated.

Starting from the remnants of the mining bot, then progressing down its length toward them, the explosives went off. Viper after Viper was buried in rock, and the Soul Sense mass was crushed away.

Without the resistance Serrin shot toward him, whipped away just as a a ton of stone slammed into the ground where hed been. It crushed a leaping Viper into a mess of blood and bone.

Serrin slammed into him and they tumbled, rolling in an ungainly mass for several metres. Coming to a stop they separated, scrambled back and away. The collapse was coming after them, a wave of choking dust and chunks of stone rushing before it, the floor and walls all shaking at once. Tottering like drunkards they rose and staggered, flailed, struggled as fast as they could only to pass a line drawn in red chalk on the floor, the safe point.

They kept going even so as the stone finished slamming down behind them, finally toppling into a panting heap just metres away, staring warily back at the settling rock.

We made it? Serrin asked, after a minute of quiet contemplation.

We made it, Nicolai replied, staring at the settling rock. The shadows were stirring angrily in response to his thoughts. The Shardache theyd worked so hard for was there, crushed beneath tonnes of rock. Nothing for it but to try again. Itll be harder, much harder. The Vipers would be restless after this.

You shouldve grabbed te bag instead of me, came Serrins ripples. The Hornet was sprawled out on the floor. Nicolai was tempted to do the same.

He snorted. I was thinking the same thing.

Serrin raised his head, and his antennae bobbed. Kind of like a wink. He raised his hand and held up a bag, a familiar bag, with a flourish like a magician completing a trick, a delighted little twist to his mandibles. The bag of Shardache.

Nicolais eyes widened. How?

I stung it, said Serrin, smug.

He felt a similar smugness from the Mask, who had certainly noticed his brief hesitation earlier. The Modules, whod been suspiciously quiet, were already throwing up a slow-motion video.

Serrin had been upright, arms back from the Soul Senses dragging on him, while one of his legs was stuck out straight towards Nicolai, the Claw gripping it tight. The moment the collapse started and the Vipers Soul Senses were severed, he shot toward Nicolai. But just as he started moving, his tail-like stinger darted down, extending further than Nicolai wouldve thought possible, and the sharp tip stabbed through the bag.

Tricky, murmured Nicolai, with a wry smile. Serrin continued to surprise him.

###

The pair of them looked over the wealth of Shardache spread over the table. Serrin took a deep breath, steeling himself, anticipating that Nicolai would immediately want to push for Tier 2.

This time, he told himself, I wont abstain, I wont stay weak. But the human surprised him.

That can wait until next week. I need to purchase some augments in the city first.

Vexira wont be happy about that. The thought was far from upsetting for him, but hed thought Nicolai didnt have much choice. What about her poison in you?

Shell give me the antidote. She needs me too much to kill me just because Im a week slow. But we wont waste this time. The human turned a slow glance around the inside of his base. I want to do everything we can in preparation for Tier 2. We will hunt spirit beasts for Symbiotes, and there is much I want to build here.

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