I headed down the tunnel my carapace repaired and my movements back to normal. I heard a sound and paused going deep into stealth and flitting up to the top of the tunnel. I could see a large group of the ground beetle humanoids approaching. They looked again to be mostly miners but there were also heavily armed and armored guards among them. I paused. I didn’t need to kill these people and didn’t feel much of a desire to do so anyway.

  I went down a side tunnel deciding to find another way out other than the route I’d taken to get in. I moved through the darkness the tunnels narrowing and growing less clear. I tried to move in the general direction up but the tunnels dipped and turned so much that soon I didn’t really know where I was or where I was going.

  My antenna twitched alerting me to movement up ahead. Slowing I scanned the area, I didn’t want to get into a fight here; the tunnel was low and tight, the worst possible place I could pick to fight in. I also didn’t want to go back since I’d just squeezed through a tight crevasse and going back that way would leave me at the mercy at whatever creature was headed my way.

  Time to test this carapace, I thought, steeling my nerves for the fight ahead.

  I moved forwards and heard the skittering as the insect up ahead moved closer. At first, I mistook it for a scorpion but when my antenna breathed in its scent I quickly realized my error.

  Forceps-like-stingers at the end of the earwig’s tail stabbed forwards towards me. I couldn’t dodge properly and only managed to shift to the side and blast with my stinger. The earwig yanked its tail back its forceps clicking together like a shield blocking my blasts of venom, the acidic poison burned against it but I couldn’t see it doing any real damage to thick carapace of its forceps.

  That was something I’d noticed, my stinger was far harder than the rest of my carapace, my carapace had been cracked and damaged plenty of times, but I’d never noticed any damage to my stinger. I didn’t know if natural weapons were just indestructible, but they were at the very least ten times more durable then carapace.

  The earwig advanced breaking me out of my thoughts and any new revelations. I blocked the next attack with my stinger, but the terrain was far more suited to this thing than me. So many of my skills and mutations had been specked around me being a skirmisher but now I was having to take it directly from the front. I pushed forwards, there was no where for me to retreat and I had to trust to my defenses and take this fight to the earwig. It could block my venom shots, but I was going to ram my stinger right down its throat.

  The monster retreated backwards to keep its reach but I pressed forwards as its tail rose up and down like the stinger of a scorpion striking above the things head but I managed to either deflect, sidestep in the narrow confines or tank the hit on my carapace. The earwig kept backing up until eventually the narrow tunnel broadened out. It wasn’t a cavern like where I’d fought the scarab beetles, but it was as wide as the tunnel where I’d fought the snails.

  Now that there was more space the earwig began to scuttle around me, it was no longer limited to thrusting above its head and its forceps-stingers swiped and slashed at me was it whipped its body at me. Of course, I was limited in my movements anymore either.

  While there was no room to properly fly, I could jump and dodge easily evading the earwigs attacks. I still couldn’t get in any shots with my venom, the earwig using its tail to block the attacks even snapping it down creating an almost wall of wind that stopped them midair. This forced me to go into melee diving in and stabbing out. Its carapace was thick though nowhere compared to mine, but the “steel” part of its name showed how tough it was. If I hadn’t already gotten it this bug might have been a source of Heavy Carapace for me to hunt.

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  It snapped at me with its mandibles, but that attack wasn’t anywhere as fast as its twin stingers, so I easily dodged them and drove my stinger into it ejecting several doses of my venom into it. I moved back dodging a retaliatory strike as its health ticked down. It didn’t die from just that attack but its health ticked down steadily and I got in another hit as its movement slowed then I drove another strike into the same spot and ejected several more charges of venom.

  Its staggered then rolled onto its back its legs curling up as at last it dropped to zero HP.

  I looked it over considering, I needed more biomass but…this was a new insect type I’d yet to see and who knew what I could get from it. I decided to go for it, it cost me a hundred-and-thirty Experience points but I didn’t see any sign of me stopping fighting anytime soon so I would just earn it back. The body disintegrated and I looked over the new biomorph I’d unlocked.

  “Hell yeah,” I said looking it over.

  This might give me a forklike stinger on my arm and an extra barrel like a shotgun and I imagined mowing down a hoard of enemies with my venom shots. I looked around but this cavern seemed devoid of other creatures for now. I sat down with my back to a wall and selecting yes. I blacked out.

  As I came out of being unconscious, I looked down at my arm and frowned. Nothing had changed.

  “I better not have just gotten scammed,” I muttered then I saw it.

  I held up my left arm and saw a completely new stinger. What’s more I could feel the stinger and the venom sack it was connected to, a completely new venom sack. I hadn’t just gotten another stinger this biomorph had mirrored everything from my right arm to my left. I experimented and began shooting, it took me a minute to run dry and I counted my shots as I made them firing into the wall. I’d just doubled the number of venom charges I had.

  The description had barely changed, no new effects or damage types just going from singular description to plural and showing the advances, I’d made in skill and including the damage bonus I got from my Striker-Muscle biomorph. Despite no new damage types this extra stinger was as big an upgrade as my Scarab Lord carapace.

  This would change everything, my fighting style, how aggressive I could be in combat, everything. A murderous grin covered my face.

  “Time to fuck shit up.”