Rowan forced his body to move as quickly as he could, no longer caring about how stealthy he was being. He ran parallel to the wall, and watched as all eight of its eyes blinked rapidly, taking in the situation in front of it.
The spider lifted slightly off the wall at the perfect time, and Rowan jumped, grabbing the sword with both hands. He dangled for a second before he swung his feet to the wall, ready to push off. Only he found that he couldn't, his shoes had gotten stuck to the wall that had regained its stickiness.
However it ended up working in his favour, as rather than his body being pushed away from the wall, all of the energy he exerted was forced to go through his hands and into the sword in the spider's neck.
A stream of brown, viscous liquid rained down on Rowan as he pushed, his sword slowly making its way through the spider. Except by now the spider had caught on to what he was doing, and was preparing to make an attack of its own. Rather than release the stickiness, as Rowan thought it might, it instead hoisted a giant spiked leg up, before plunging it down into Rowan's gut.
Rowan's strength faltered as it passed cleanly through, but he forced himself to keep pushing, ignoring the horrible pain in his gut. Finally, he felt the resistance fade as the sword wrenched out the other side of the beast's neck. A stream of the spider's putrid blood poured out of the cut, but it didn't stop moving.
Despite its jittery movements, and the way it appeared to grow sluggish, it was not dead. He had likely failed to sever the nerves in the spider, leaving it alive but dying. The spider dropped from the wall, and pulled on Rowan with all of its might as it fell, the spike in his gut trying to drag him down.
He felt his feet, stuck to the wall, pull him into the beast's attack as he screamed in pain, torn in two directions. Eventually the web released him, and he slammed into the firm webs with the leg still embedded in his chest. He tried to move, to get up, but the combination of the spike in his gut and being winded by the slam, all he could do was grunt weakly, looking up at the spider.
Eight blank eyes were all he saw in return, and with a shudder, the beast collapsed atop him. In this case, Rowan was fortunate, as the leg slid out of the hole in his body, though the rest of him was crushed underneath.
He felt a sense of dread, his aether reserves were already empty from fighting the toxins in his body, and his regeneration needed more to heal this wound. He then noted that as his aether was coming back, it was healing all of the wounds he had sustained, including the bruising on his back.
'Shit, I don't need that healed, I need my goddamn gut healed, you stupid ability!'
Rowan felt his consciousness beginning to fade from the blood loss, and he felt panic rush through him, as he felt the wet liquid leaking from his spread out beneath him.
'If only my damn ability wasn't healing stuff I don't want healed! Is there no way to control this thing??'
With no other options seemingly remaining, Rowan opened up the system, going straight to his fear of the flesh ability.
---
(Fear of the Flesh -- Fear of Injury) (mastery: 99%)
Your body recovers at an abnormal rate, debilitating injuries disappearing in minutes.
---
A glimmer of surprise went through Rowan's fading mind.
'It increased that much? But I didn't even train it! Maybe if it gets to 100, I'll be able to survive? But how do I do that? I don't even know what got it to 99 in the first place! Maybe... Mastery is what it means? Maybe it's not about mastering the use of it, but becoming the master of it...'
Following that line of logic, Rowan focused as hard as he could on his gut, and on the feeling he got when his flesh was being healed. The faint pinpricks of pain as flesh was rewoven, the feeling of his aether disappearing from its reserve.
He ignored the pain, the fear of the gaping wound and of what it meant if he couldn't heal it. He defied the call of unconsciousness, and fought to force his ability to heal his stomach.
After all, wasn't it his ability?
Time passed by unnoticed as Rowan focused with everything he had on the idea and feeling of healing his injury, and before he knew it, he watched as a grey screen appeared in front of him, informing him that he had mastered his ability.
And with a shock, he subsequently realised that the hole had been restored as well. it wasn't finished, of course, with raw muscle exposed in some places, but he had managed to repair a fatal wound on the brink of death.
He still ached like hell, but he forced himself to squeeze out from under the spider, his hands dragging across the silk that was once more no longer sticky. He panted and groaned, but he did so with a grin of determination on his face.
He had lived.
He had mastered his ability of regeneration, and forced it heal what he wanted, rather than his whole body. Rowan could feel it working inside of him now, the way it flooded his system and healed the whole body constantly.
He had redirected all of it to one spot, to force heal it faster than he could have imagined. Finally clawing his way free of the carcass, he took several deep breaths and set about directing his aether to best heal him. It took half the aether it usually would have, with the healing being focused on the places that actually needed it.
The grin didn't fade as Rowan rose from the web floor, and not when he retrieved the sword from where it had fallen in the fight. It was only in this moment that Rowan accepted what he had become, now that he had made his ability truly his.
He was awakened.