Lewd skill in a filthy world
Chapter 93. Trial

Chapter 93: 93. Trial

The stone Tsukuma towered above Shin, its face carved with apathy, save for the one emotion it was ever cursed to feel: killing intent. Its dark, hollow eyes locked onto Shin like a predator stalking a broken prey.

Shin, despite the blood loss soaking through his bandaged side, was already scrambling for his firearm, fingers fumbling with the cold steel though deep down, he knew bullets wouldn’t do a damn thing to something like this. Still, he wasn’t going down without trying.

The creature crouched with impossible speed. For something as titanic as it was, it moved with the reflex of a beast born for war.

Its heavy hands tapped the rocky ground with thunderous force, and in the very next second, the ground trembled violently, as though responding to its command. Jagged spikes of stone began ripping up from the earth, one after another. Sharp as razors, and thick and vicious enough to tear through an elephant and leave nothing behind but a gore of tattered flesh, bones and spilled blood.

[WARNING! DANGER ZONE - Immediate Threat Detected!]

The system alert blared in crimson across Shin’s vision. The attack was fast that if it hadn’t been for the danger alert warning him milliseconds in advance, he would’ve been skewered without even realizing it. But even with the system’s heads-up, dodging was barely possible.

He shifted his weight, stepping hard to the side, then backflipped three times in a row, rolling off to the left just as another spike shot up behind him. The stones followed him relentlessly like the ground itself wanted to kill him, responding to every new step with another stab of death.

"Shit!" Shin hissed.

With a grit of his teeth, he summoned two clones, the max he could handle right now, since he didn’t have the Hivemind skill to allow him to be able to control a lot of clones. But these two were enough.

"Go!" he commanded.

He ran up the side wall, used his momentum to kick off it, and his clones, anticipating his move intertwined their hands to create a makeshift springboard, catching him midair before they launched him higher, but a few milliseconds after, the spikes ripped up from the ground and shredded them into pixelated white dust.

"Slide..." Shin muttered mid-air, wrapping his hands tightly around his firearm.

The Tsukuma, standing on terrain now turned smooth as ice by the Slide skill, suddenly lost its balance. Its weight shifted too fast, and the stone monster slipped, crashing onto its back with a tremendous boom, the tremor shaking the whole cave like it would collapse.

As the Tsukuma writhed, trying to regain its stance, Shin rained hell upon it by unloading round after round of bullets into the soft patch of flesh on its abdomen. The only human-like skin it had. The only place where the bullets didn’t ricochet.

"DIE, YOU FREAK!" he roared, emptying his clip mid-fall as he descended like a black-winged angel of death.

He landed on its stomach with a thud, dropped the firearm to hang from the sling over his chest, and unsheathed both daggers from his scabbards on the side of his shorts. Without hesitation, he plunged them downward to try and slice the tsukuma to shreds of meat and stone, but—

Clang!

The sound echoed, accompanied by little sparks as his daggers bounced off like toy knives, unable to pierce through it.

The Tsukuma roared. Its stone arm swung with sickening speed and smashed Shin dead on, flinging him away like a ragdoll. He slammed against the cavern wall, spine-first, hard enough to crack stone. A fresh jolt of pain ripped through him as blood spurted from his reopened wound on his shoulder.

"Damn it!" he hissed, his voice strained and broken. "Should’ve known... The system would never let us reach the next safe zone without throwing some twisted goddamn ’trial’ our way! I should’ve waited two more days for my healing to be unlocked!!"

He grimaced, his body shaking as he tried to stand.

But he knew one thing: waiting two more days for his Spiritual Healing skill to be unlocked again would’ve meant starving. Supplies at the Tokyo safezone had dropped to almost nothing—just water and alcohol these days. Not even food, so coming here today was just... unavoidable.

"If I lose too much blood... I’m dead," Shin told himself, gritting his teeth. The Tsukuma was still down, but already pushing itself up again. Not much time.

Cowardice wasn’t shameful when survival was at stake. And it’s one of the most underrated strategies in battle.

So, he turned and ran, or at least limped at full speed through the jagged, torchless tunnel. The Tsukuma’s scream echoed behind him, a guttural shriek that felt like it belonged to something ancient and unnatural, something that shouldn’t exist.

Still, Shin didn’t stop. He kept moving to a more darker side of the tunnel, which sounded quiet at the first impression until he heard something moving.

There were skittering sounds.

All around.

He stumbled, his boot catching something brittle. He looked down with squinted eyes and saw a human skeleton, half-buried in dust. Its ribcage crushed in.

Was it chewed?

His breath grew ragged.

Ahead of him, there were tunnels branched from the walls, small, ominous crevices. He considered hiding in there ... but something in his gut twisted. These small tunnels just felt... wrong.

And then he heard it. fre\e(w)ebn ov.e l\. co.m

More chittering!

Tiny, crawling sounds from deep within those holes.

He froze.

Behind him, the Tsukuma’s movement had stopped. But around him, something else was moving. A lot of somethings.

[WARNING!]

[You’ve entered Titanomyrma Territory.]

[783 Titanomyrma beasts detected – approaching.]

"You’re kidding me..." Shin muttered, stepping back as red eyes began to glow from the tunnels, one by one.

The swarm began to emerge.

They were like ants, but massive—about the size of a wolf with red, armored bodies, thick and scaled. Their antennae twitched as they picked up his scent. Their legs moved in uncanny synchronicity, a swarm with a mind shared.

They didn’t hesitate.

Neither did Shin.

He lunged forward, slicing into the first ant that approached. His dagger pierced its underbelly. Green ichor erupted, stinking like rotting meat and chemicals. With a grunt, he followed up with a slash across its head, sending it rolling.

[Soul Harvest Working in Background...] [+0.01 ANT-SENSE]

His eyes lit up.

They had souls. That meant: stat farming.

Excitement surged. His injuries still burned, but the promise of growth numbed the pain.

"This is exciting."

He charged.

Clang! Slash! Thrust! Cut!

Each swing of his blade found flesh. Each fallen Titanomyrma fed his soul harvest.

But they adapted. Fast.

Some swarmed his legs, biting into his skin with razor mandibles.

And they were smart.

Ants could sense weak points.

Some climbed the walls, others the ceiling. They began to drop on him from above, trying to overwhelm him. He moved, ducked, slashed, but one landed on his shoulder, clamping down on his wound. Shin let out a tortured scream and fell to the ground, twitching, as more of them began swarming him from all directions.

Then—whoosh—his clones appeared behind him. One picked up a rusted sword from the skeleton nearby and hacked at the ants. The other used its fists to smash heads, green goo splattering.

[Soul Harvest...]

[+0.001 Jaw-Grip Strength ×7]

[+0.001 Burrowing Instinct ×4]

[+20 MP]

He clenched his teeth, his dagger still in hand. "Die, damn you!"

He stabbed through the one on his shoulder, twisting the blade until it went limp.

Bloodied, he stood again.

He threw a dagger to one clone. "Here! You guys better handle this!"

The swarm moved like a living tide, but now, he was the eye of the storm. Thanks to Soul Harvest and his growing Ant-Sense, Shin began to feel the battlefield in unnatural ways. He could sense positions, hear subtle leg clacks, anticipate movements by instinct.

He closed his eyes for a second.

Yes. 526

He could even count how many were left just by their skittering steps and hissing breaths.

"If I fight smart... I win."

Normally, clone combat would burn mana too fast. But with MP returning from kills, his mana bar barely moved. He wouldn’t run dry anytime soon.

He smirked darkly. "Fine... let’s do this. Time to become the puppet master."

He crouched, shifting to command mode. His clones—one with the rusted sword, the other now wielding a dagger moved like wild reapers, cutting through ants with brute savagery. Shin supported from behind, sniping key targets, coordinating positions, and directing ambushes with tactical precision.

The ground became slick with blood and ichor. Ant heads piled in corners. Limbs twitched uselessly.

This wasn’t a battle anymore.

It was a harvest.

And Shin was the farmer of souls.

Up ahead, in the dark, he could still feel the Tsukuma—still watching from the shadows of its territory, its rocky fingers twitching with rage.

Shin wiped blood from his mouth, watching his clones dance death among the swarm.

"This... This is how I win."

For the first time since stepping into whatever this place is, he smiled—not with relief, but with hunger.

The odds of survival?

They’d just shifted.

Just a little.

But enough.

TBC