The Zhenix

"Zenix drone" Angela ponders to herself. It wasn't something that she had ever heard of, maybe it was a robot, or a golem of some sort. That would make Zenix some sort of producer, perhaps there was other people in the void.

Nevertheless she still had to destroy... whatever it would be. Angela begins to set up a series of traps; since she doesn't know what form these drones will take she sets up traps for multiple different types, focusing on the ones with a tripwire or a weight release.

After her automatically activating traps were set up Angela then set up a row of trapdoors, binding them to vines that she gathered together in one place. All was set to go and now all she had to do was wait.

Thinking about more ways to boost her combat capability while she waits the time passes by rapidly and after just a short wait the hour notification sounds out.

Chittering sounds echo from within the from one of the caves on the island and an eight legged creature scuttles out. Though it has a thorax and abdomen almost exactly the same as most insects Instead of having a head directly attached to the thorax there was a torso extending out of it, similar to a centaur's. Unlike a centaur, however, the torso and head of this creature were most certainly insectiod in nature with compound eyes, mandibles and antenna.

The creature rushes forward, stopping just before the traps Angela had set out. It cocks its head in an almost eerily intelligent manner, its mandibles clacking in a querying tone. Angela begins to let down her guard, thinking that it could maybe be reasoned with but just as she does crackling sounds come from the drone's four arms, a bone-like blade extending from each of them.

The drone rushes forwards, dodging the first few traps; whether it is by accident, intelligence or instinct Angela cannot tell. Finally it triggers a trap that causes a series of wooden spikes to be pushed up towards it, unfortunately most of them bounce off of the armour and the one that does hit doesn't seem to be deep enough to cause serious damage as the drone keeps on rushing forward.

Angela tenses up, the drone is almost halfway through and hasn't suffered any major damage and if this continued she would most likely be in big trouble. Thankfully after progressing through all the traps except the last line the drone finally triggers one of the heavy traps and a sickening crack sounds out as two wooden logs slam into it from either side.

The drone lets out an effeminate scream of pain that sounds completely out of place with its body; in fact it is almost as if it is coming from Angela's own head. Luckily it had not made it through this time but perhaps next time would not go so well.

With the 55 or so minutes Angela had bought herself she plans to reinforce her defence as well as check the rewards for defeating the drone.

[rank one Zhenix drone slain: +50 anima, total anima:118/196]

50 anima per kill was incredible, though with how much stronger they were compared to the mice it seemed perfectly reasonable. That being said, it would still take another drone if not multiple, depending on how much deconstructing the corpses would increase her anima maximum by.

Clearly the wooden stakes had outlived their usefulness, inflicting minimal damage at best. Angela needed to upgrade her traps, and quickly. The only possibility she could think of is something she would really rather not do.

Unfortunately, she had no other alternative, she would have to steel herself and get on with it. First, if only to distract her from what she was about to do, Angela re-arms the few traps that were actually triggered. She then drags the corpse of the drone back through her defences, being careful not to trigger any traps.

Inspecting the drone, Angela notes that the claws on the drone don't have a blade, they appear to mostly be for smashing and piercing. Holding her breath and closing her eyes, Angela grabs her saw from behind her and begins to cut into one of the arms.

Warm black ichor spurts out of the wound, covering her arm while a fetid smell overwhelms her nostrils. She gags but continues sawing, well aware of the time constraints; she needed a stronger weapon to defend herself as she would be skewered before getting close enough to use her dagger.

The severed arm falls to the ground. It is an unwieldy weapon but it is the best she can do with the time she has, and it is certainly better than her dagger. Angela quickly puts the rest of the corpse in the deconstruction menu in the hopes that it will clear away the smell, though the results prove otherwise.

The corpse gives a whopping bonus of 60 anima, even more than the kill itself and putting her at a total of 178/202, excruciatingly close to what she needed. Though the rest could be made up for by using plants and scraps from back at her shack, the travel time would be far too long, another drone would have emerged and she couldn't leave her traps unattended in case it managed to get past them, she was no match in a one on one fight.

The new hour begins and once again the chittering sounds out, once again the drone stops before the traps and clicks its mandibles. This time however the clicking is different, almost disdainful. The drone moves forwards, slowly and purposefully, each step draining a little more blood from Angela's face. It was taking the exact same path of the last drone only this time, it avoided every trap on the way, almost like it knew exactly where they were.

Angela cursed, she had not expected the second drone to know the experiences of the first drone; she had been treating them like mindless animals like the mice. Clearly this was not the case, these creatures were capable of sharing information in a manner unknown to her and use it in an intelligent manner.

It was only at the last couple rows of traps that the drone began to take things carefully, moving faster and faster until it has reached a frightening speed, so fast that it could completely ignore most of the traps and it quickly reaches the last line of defence: the manually activated trapdoors. After seeing that nothing happened when it reached the trapdoors the drone prepared to lunge forward and it was in this moment that Angela activated the trap, disrupting its lunge as she strikes forward herself, piercing through the drone and killing it outright.

She goes to let out a laugh but is cut short by a coughing fit, blood pouring out of her mouth. Angela looks down, her vision starting to blur and her eyes widen at the claws piercing her chest, she collapses to the ground only managing to carry out one action before her vision fades to black.

[Assimilation initiating]