Transmigration in Mordor

In the fetid darkness of the tunnels, Zac thought back to the horrors he had already encountered. The small spiders, a pure pack threat. The large Spider, an abomination of teeming flesh and insatiable hunger that had already devoured him. The Void Entity, a cosmic madness that had broken his mind, but from which he had extracted a lesson in insignificance. Now, his [Forge of Brutality] vibrated in his fists, his Razor-Stinger was an extension of his will. He sized up the threats, no longer with the panic of a prey, but with the cold, clinical precision of a constrained predator. The solitary spider. The big one. The one that had devoured him. She was not just an opponent. She was a test. A revenge his new nature demanded.

He returned to the beast's lair, his heart hammering against his ribs like a dull war drum. It was no longer terror that quickened his pulse, but the wild, macabre excitement of a gladiator entering an arena where defeat meant an immediate return to agony.

The fight was a cacophonous symphony of violence and suffering, replayed over and over, each attempt carving new scars into his memory.

The first was a slaughter. Zac attacked, a new fury animating his movements, his razor-stinger tracing deadly arcs in the darkness. But the spider was a mass of primal reflexes, faster, more massive than he had anticipated. It seized him, its hairy legs lifting him before its fangs sank into his shoulder. The venom burned, a familiar agony that spread through his veins, plunging his mind into a veil of darkness as the creature devoured him.

He woke up in the waterfall cave, the metallic taste of venom still on his spiritual tongue. Sleep had brought him back, but not peace. Without a word, he left again, his resignation transformed into an icy obstinacy.

The second attempt was more cautious. He used his [Coward's Stealth], moving like a shadow among shadows, his steps not stirring a speck of dust. He dodged better, his strikes, sharpened by the [Forge of Brutality], landed more blows. But the spider surprised him with a sneak attack, an unforeseen swipe of its leg that threw him against a rock wall, his back hitting the stone with incredible violence. The pain was a tearing sensation. Zac succumbed again, the bite plunging him into darkness.

The third attempt was the apotheosis. The rage, this time, was cold, calculated, distilled to perfection. He had learned. He anticipated the spider's movements, its charges. He approached it silently, a specter of determination. He no longer sought to impress, just to kill. After a fierce battle, a grotesque ballet of flesh and chitin, where he was bitten several times, his arms and legs lacerated by the creature's legs, he finally managed to plunge his razor-stinger into the beast's thorax. A sinister crack echoed. The spider collapsed in a final spasm, a mass of broken chitin, twisted legs, and greenish fluids, curled in on itself. A pile of gore and debris.

Zac, panting, his body covered in oozing wounds, approached the corpse. The creature was an abomination, even in death. A sweetish, metallic stench rose from the carcass. He searched the beast with desperate stubbornness, his fingers digging through the slimy flesh and fractured chitin, looking for loot. Eyes. Venom sacs. He found nothing of interest. Even the spider's stinger, torn from its base, was fragile, far from being as sturdy as his own Razor-Stinger. He took it anyway, aware that every tool, no matter how insignificant, counted.

He looked up. The spider's body was surrounded by an impressive amount of threads, a tapestry of death. He began to explore the cave. Quickly, he found himself trapped. The spider threads, more numerous and thicker than ever, woven by a generation of smaller spiders, formed a sticky and oppressive labyrinth.

Carelessly, he got entangled in the web. Panic seized him, a rising wave of helplessness. He fumed at his own stupidity, the rage against himself boiling in his veins. He struggled, his muscles taut with effort, his hands gripping the sharp obsidian. He used his [Razor-Stinger] as best he could to cut the bonds that held him, the sound of the threads snapping and tearing echoing in the cavernous silence.

The noise had been loud. Too loud. An alarm for whatever lurked in the darkness. Zac didn't waste a second. Fear, that old companion, whipped him. He ran at full speed toward the waterfall, his breath short, his lungs burning, his heart hammering in his chest. Arriving at the waterfall, he collapsed to the ground, exhausted. He curled up in a ball under his cloak, seeking refuge, and fell into a deep sleep, his last thought being the satisfaction of being "safe" in his lair.

Nothingness. And then... the sensation. Not the crushing pain of resurrection, but a brush. An icy shiver ran up his neck, a chitinous leg grazing his skin. The Shroud covered him entirely. In the confined darkness, Zac understood with brutal clarity. A spider was there. On him, or very close. He was under the cloak, but it had touched him. A fraction of a second, and the survival instinct, honed by so many deaths, overrode the panic.

He didn't scream. He didn't have time to lose consciousness. His mind, both terrified and hyper-lucid, ordered his body to move.

Then after a few minutes of anguish, the unthinkable happened. The spider slowly descended from the ceiling, suspended from its thread. It landed a meter away from him. It didn't attack him immediately. Inexplicably, it moved away, as if disoriented.

Taking advantage of its turned back, Zac pounced. He didn't think. He drove the stinger he held in his hand into the spider's back. A sharp crack. The creature collapsed instantly, taken completely by surprise.

He caught his breath, his heart pounding. He tried to understand. Why hadn't she attacked him? Why had she left?

After a long moment of reflection, enlightenment struck. He remembered the property of the invisibility cloak: it kept him hidden from the world during his sleep. He was invisible when he slept.

He leaned over the spider's corpse. He examined the stinger he had used. It was neither his `Razor-Stinger`, nor the other fragile stinger he had found the day before.

Dubious, he observed the stinger. It looked similar to the `Razor-Stinger`, but it was oozing a black-purple liquid. The spiders' poison. He searched himself but found no other stingers. He only had one left: this one.

He looked at his cloak. The polymerization. The fusion. The Shroud wasn't just a cloak and a bed. It fused things.

A cold satisfaction washed over him after these two crucial discoveries. The cloak made him invisible during his sleep. And the cloak could fuse objects he carried or handled with it.

Empowered by his discoveries, he headed for the waterfall. The smile that split his face was a rictus of despair and cruelty.

He looked at the waterfall.

[Tears of Regret: 2]

[Echo of Ungoliant: 3]

He had just killed the large spider (1 Echo), and now this one (1 Echo). This was in addition to the Echo from the spider he had killed the first time. He spent his 2 Tears on the `Forge of Brutality` skill, bringing its level to `[Forge of Brutality: 3/?]`.

[Waterfall of Night]

[Tears of Regret: 0]

[Coward's Stealth: 1/?]

[Healing Stagnation: 1/?]

[Forge of Brutality: 3/?]

[Echo of Ungoliant: 3]

He was stronger, his weapon more venomous. He was ready to die again, but next time, he would die better.