Chapter 81: Bloodbath Spider

Karl looked down at the egg. The Bloodbath Spider was an urban legend. They were an invasive predator from a nation to the East, and survived entirely on blood, like a mosquito. But unlike the common mosquito, they grew to the size of a small car and had mandibles that could tear through steel to get to what they wanted. They were supposed to have been hunted to extinction, but it seemed that there were still some hiding out here in the wilderness. Karl was still admiring the soft egg when the truck made an abrupt turn, circling back the way that they had arrived from, and Jodi increased his speed. "You know that it is an egg, right? It's not hatched." Karl reminded the playboy. "Yeah, you say that now, but where is Mother Bloodbath? They lay their eggs on the strands of their web. If Hawk came back with a spider egg on him, he broke a strand of the web as he flew over to get the other egg. They don't lay many eggs at a time because it would overpopulate an area too quickly, so they're probably going to be very protective." He replied, beginning to panic. "The mother can bite through the armored roof of this truck," Daniel whispered to Karl, explaining the situation more clearly. They had four fully trained and high-ranking Elites, but precisely zero who fancied walking home after their car was demolished by a giant spider. Karl moved the egg back into the secondary Beast Space. If they didn't find another option, this Bloodbath Spider hatchling would do very well. It looked like the spider and the Lightning Cerro might be his only options if they were picking today because Jodi was headed straight back to town, and he wasn't even slowing down when they got near the river, where the other options on the original list should be. "Well, it appears that I've got two choices. How about I hold them both and see which one I can get to hatch and bond first?" Karl offered as the town walls came back into sight. "Two is enough." Jodi agreed. Alice looked ready to disagree with him, but the other two looked like they were on his side with the plan to not spend any more time in the wilderness after the day that they had. They had only run into a few predators, but they were the worst possible ones to anger. At the very least, they would wait one night before going back out again. The Academy had permitted the trip, and they didn't have a set schedule, so they could stay out here for a week if they needed it. As long as the answer of whether Karl could bond another monster was clear, they could take all the time that they needed. Once they were both safely set in the secondary beast space, the two eggs seemed to be coexisting without any issues, but they couldn't be moved to Hawk's space anymore, which made Karl wonder if he was going to have to move one of them out the minute that the other one hatched and bonded. There was one easy way to find out. Karl began to meditate and pour energy into the space, which flooded into the eggs. They were both immature eggs, though, of more powerful monsters than the Windspeed Hawk, and the change was immediately noticeable. The embryos in the eggs began to develop at a massively increased rate as the space increased in size to accommodate them. He should probably pick one or the other well before they hatched, but both were growing so well that Karl didn't want to change anything yet. There was always the possibility that he could have multiple beasts in the space once they were bonded. Perhaps this second space was for unbonded pets in waiting? The first to hatch was the Cerro, with small horns smashing through the eggshell, and a sense of mingled joy and relief flooding Karl's mind as the small reptile bonded with him. As Hawk had done, the beast began to grow rapidly out of its awkward newborn phase, but the Cerro wasn't as helpless as a baby bird, and he was screaming for food already. Karl focused and found that he could move the creature to Hawk's space, but he felt like a visitor there. It wasn't his space, but the small, prehistoric-looking beast began to graze happily on the imaginary grass that Karl had made, and its body fleshed out with the influx of energy. So, Karl kept adding more energy to the second space with the Bloodbath Spider egg, which was still growing and maturing. "What are you up to? We're here." Alice asked. "I need to focus. I think that the eggs can both be hatched and bonded." Karl muttered, not opening his eyes. "Alright, just follow me to a hotel room, and you can finish your work," Alice instructed as Jodi parked the truck. The others went to talk to the staff, while Alice led Karl to a room, then closed and bolted the door while she waited there with him. "If that spider hatches, and you can't bond it, you will need one of us here to keep you safe. It will be weaker than you, but they're fast, and they can dig inside the skin, which makes victims panic." She explained. Karl hadn't considered that possibility. If he couldn't bond it, he likely couldn't keep it in that space either, but he wasn't sure that either he or Hawk could handle it running wild in the hotel room. A tiny spider running loose would be a nightmare to catch, but Alice was a mage, so she likely had some way to deal with it. Karl forged ahead and kept the progress going on the spider egg in the secondary space, growing it to the size of a baseball, with a transparent membrane that held a large black spider inside. It was almost ready to hatch, and the space had been expanded by quite a bit, though the quality of it still seemed very low compared to the first space. In retrospect, that was the wrong course of action. But Karl had no way of knowing that until the egg hatched and the pain hit his mind.