The scanner gate slid shut behind me with a soft hiss.
Floor Three's C-wing stretched out, a cavernous space of towering metal shelves under a false dawn glow. The air smelled of ozone and old paper. My Codex flickered in the corner of my vision, a silent countdown.
**[Codex Panel — Active Status]**
Permanent: Ink Bite (F), Ink Needle (E), Shadow Step (E) [3/5 slots]
Temporary: Thread Trap (E-grade). Timer: 23:41:12.
Twenty-three hours. One skill to make permanent.
I moved. Not running. A fast, quiet walk that ate distance. Sera's map was burned into my memory. The bounty zone was three sectors deep, a nest cluster marked in pulsing orange. Standard procedure: clear the drones, isolate the Weaver, kill it clean.
My boots made no sound on the polished floor.
Halfway to the second sector junction, I heard it.
Not from ahead. From the left. A different access corridor.
The sharp *crack* of splintering wood. A yell. Then the rising, chittering hum of a dozen ink-drone wings.
Zheng Kai's team. They'd triggered the swarm early.
I didn't slow. I turned right, down a narrower aisle stacked with crumbling ledger boxes. Their fight was their problem. My window was ticking.
The nest came into view at the end of the aisle.
It wasn't a nest. It was a slaughteryard.
Twelve F-rank ink-drones hung from the ceiling, suspended by thick, glistening threads of black ink. They weren't moving. Their carapaces were cracked open. Hollow. Empty.
In the center of the web, the E-rank Ink Weaver pulsed.
It was bigger than the briefings said. The size of a large dog, its body a bulbous sac of shifting darkness. Eight spindly legs anchored it to the web. It wasn't spinning. It was feeding. Thin tendrils of shadow stretched from its maw into each drone, sucking the last dregs of ink from their cores.
The Weaver glowed. A deep, ugly violet light throbbed under its skin.
Evolution. It was herding its own drones as fuel. Pushing toward D-rank.
My plan—clear drones, then Weaver—was already ash.
The Weaver's head rotated. No eyes. Just a smooth, dark surface that focused on me.
It knew.
I moved.
Not toward it. Toward the nearest suspended drone. My right hand came up. Ink Needle formed in my palm—a sharp, condensed spike of black. I threw.
It punched through the drone's empty shell. The thread holding it snapped.
The drone corpse hit the floor with a wet thud.
The Weaver shrieked. A sound like tearing metal.
It scuttled sideways, fast. Two legs lashed out. Strands of ink shot toward me—not the sticky Thread Trap yet. Simple binding shots.
I Shadow Stepped.
The world blurred. I reappeared three yards left, behind a stack of boxes. The ink strands hit where I'd been, sizzling against the floor.
Another drone. I Needled it. Thread snapped. Corpse fell.
The Weaver's glow intensified. It was losing food. It charged.
Eight legs scrabbled across the web. It dropped from the ceiling, landing in a crouch. Its maw opened. Chittering sound hammered me—a disorientation pulse. The shelves around me wavered.
I clenched my teeth. Stepped again.
Right behind it.
Ink Bite. My left hand gloved in corrosive darkness. I slammed it into the Weaver's back leg.
The chitin sizzled. The leg buckled.
The Weaver spun. A leg caught me in the ribs.
Air left my lungs. I flew back, hit a shelf. Something in my side cracked. Pain, sharp and immediate.
I pushed off. Breathed through it.
The Weaver was retreating. Back toward its web. Toward the remaining drones.
Deny it.
I Needled two more drones in quick succession. *Thud. Thud.*
Six drones left hanging.
The Weaver stopped. It turned. The violet glow under its skin was frantic now. Desperate.
It reared up. Its abdomen quivered.
Thread Trap.
Not a single strand. A net. A web of sticky, tar-like ink erupted from its spinnerets, spreading wide. No dodging left. No space.
It engulfed me.
The threads wrapped my arms, my legs. They hardened instantly, like quick-setting cement. I was pinned. The sticky substance burned where it touched skin.
The Weaver scuttled forward. Victorious.
My Codex lit up.
**[Transcription: Thread Trap (E-grade). Timer: 24:00:00.]**
Contact. Physical contact with the skill. It copied.
The Weaver loomed over me. Its maw opened. Rows of needle-teeth gleamed.
I stopped struggling.
I let my left hand, already gloved in Ink Bite, press against the threads binding my arm.
They corroded. Melted like wet paper.
My arm came free.
The Weaver froze. Confused.
I ripped my other arm loose. Ink Bite ate through the threads. I dropped to the floor, the remains of the web falling away in tatters.
The Weaver backed up. Too late.
I didn't use Shadow Step. I ran. Straight at it.
It spat another disorientation pulse. I ignored it. The world tilted. I kept my feet.
Three yards. Two.
It lunged. Teeth aimed for my throat.
I dropped. Slid under its bite. My right hand came up. Ink Needle, point-blank.
I drove it up into the soft underside of its abdomen. Twisted.
The Weaver convulsed. A gurgling shriek. It collapsed on top of me.
Heavy. Cold ink spilled over my chest.
I pushed it off. Stood. Breathing hard. My side screamed where the leg had hit.
The violet glow under its skin faded. Died.
Silence.
I looked at the web. The remaining six drones hung lifeless. The bounty was clear.
I checked my Codex.
**[Codex Panel — Active Transcriptions]**
Thread Trap (E-grade). Timer: 23:59:47.
One temporary skill. One permanent slot open. Twenty-four hours to inscribe.
I turned. Walked out of the nest sector.
The sounds of fighting from Zheng Kai's direction had stopped. Either they'd cleared their swarm, or they'd been overrun.
I didn't care.
The walk back to the transit hub was quiet. My side ached with every step. I could feel the bruise forming, maybe a cracked rib. I kept my breathing shallow.
The scanner gate beeped green. The lift took me up.
The Assignment Hall on Floor One was loud. Crowded. The morning rush.
I walked to the bounty counter. Placed my guild tag and the Weaver's core—a small, dark crystal—on the desk.
The clerk, a bored-looking woman with glasses, scanned it. Her eyes flicked to her screen. Widened.
"Solo clear? E-rank Transcriber?" She looked at me. "Nest cluster, Weaver plus twelve drones?"
I nodded.
She processed it. The credit chime sounded in my tag. The public bounty board on the wall behind her updated.
Bounty #3077: Ink Weaver Nest (Floor 3-C) — STATUS: CLEARED.
Clear Time: 47 minutes.
Cleared by: Liam (E-rank Transcriber), SOLO.
A few people near the board noticed. A murmur started.
The main doors to the hall slid open.
Zheng Kai walked in. His team followed. They looked rough. Armor scuffed, one guy holding his arm. They went straight to the counter next to mine.
Zheng slapped his tag down. "Bounty three-zero-seven-seven. Team clear."
The clerk looked from him to her screen. Back to him. "It's… already cleared."
"What?"
"Cleared. Forty-seven minutes ago. Solo."
Zheng Kai stared at her. Then he turned. His eyes found the board. Saw the line. Saw my name.
His face went blank.
The murmur in the hall died. Everyone was watching.
Zheng looked at me. I was still at the counter, waiting for my physical credit chip.
"You," he said. Flat.
I took the chip from the clerk. Turned.
"Problem?" I asked.
His jaw worked. He took a step forward. His team shifted behind him. "You stole our bounty."
"It was an open bounty."
"We triggered the swarm! We softened it!"
"You took twenty minutes longer." I pocketed the chip. "Sounds like a you problem."
A low laugh came from somewhere in the crowd. Someone else shushed them.
Zheng's hand went to his sword hilt. "You think because you got lucky with a Page-Claw Crab you can talk to me like that? You're a *clerk* with a fancy title."
I looked at his hand on the hilt. Then at his face. "You want to check? Again?"
The memory of the C-wing, his blade at my throat, hung between us.
He didn't draw.
The hall was utterly silent now.
I walked past him. Toward the exit.
His voice came from behind me, low, meant only for me to hear. "This isn't over, transcriber."
I didn't stop.
I pushed through the main doors into the morning light. The ache in my side was a steady throb. My Codex glowed softly with three timers.
I had twenty-three hours.
And I needed a D-rank target.