OP Absorption
Chapter 51: Trust Issues

"This thing’s hide is too damn thick!" she yelled, her blades flashing as she parried another blow, the impact jarring her bruised arm. Sweat plastered strands of hair to her face.

"Focus fire on the joints!" Gary shouted, loosing a crossbow bolt that ricocheted harmlessly off the creature’s main carapace.

Susan gritted her teeth, danced back from a spray of acid, and lunged forward again. She saw an opening – a momentary gap where the leg met the thorax. She drove her right blade in, feeling resistance give way slightly.

The monster shrieked again, not just in pain but rage. Ignoring Mary’s flanking attack, it spun with unnatural speed, its heavier scorpion tail blurring toward Susan faster than she could react.

Her eyes widened. She tried to twist away, bring her blades up, but she knew she wouldn’t make it. This was it.

CLANG!

A black polearm materialized between her and the incoming stinger, intercepting the blow with a shower of sparks. The force of the impact echoed through the clearing, but the weapon held firm.

Susan stared, stunned, as Fin stood before her, staff planted, effortlessly holding back the attack that would have impaled her.

He glanced back at her, his expression unreadable. "You okay?"

Before she could answer, he turned back to the monster. He didn’t just block the next attack; he deflected it with contemptuous ease, using the creature’s momentum to spin it off balance. Then he moved.

He flowed forward, staff blurring. A thrust shattered a leg joint. A spinning strike cracked the carapace near the head. A final, powerful overhead blow slammed down, crushing the creature’s skull with a sickening crunch.

It collapsed, limbs twitching, then went still.

The entire sequence took less than five seconds. He hadn’t used any visible draining power, just overwhelming speed and devastating precision.

Silence fell.

The team stared, first at the dead monster, then at Fin, who stood calmly beside the corpse, breathing easily. The unsettling feeling was back, stronger this time. He hadn’t just gotten stronger; he seemed like a different class of fighter altogether.

Susan lowered her blades slowly, taking a shaky breath. "Yeah," she managed, her voice slightly hoarse. "Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks, Fin. You came back." Relief warred with the unease settling in her gut.

He nodded, then gestured behind him. "Got company."

The team’s attention snapped past Fin. Standing weakly under the shadow of the trees, radiating misery and hatred, was Arachne. Pale, trembling slightly, her extra limbs limp, but unmistakably they could see she was a monster.

Instantly, weapons came up. Gary dropped the crossbow and went for his hammer. Joe gripped his daggers tightly. Mary’s sword pointed unwaveringly at Arachne. And Lucas was ready with a fire spell.

"Monster!" Susan spat, raising her own blades despite her exhaustion.

Hana reacted fastest. Drawing a wicked-looking combat knife coated in something dark, she lunged past Fin, aiming straight for Arachne’s throat. "Die!"

Fin moved quicker. His staff whipped out, catching Hana’s wrist in a move so fast it was almost invisible. He stopped her cold, his grip like steel.

"Easy," he said, his voice dangerously low.

Hana struggled against his grip, her eyes blazing. "Let go, Fin! That thing is a dangerous monster, we need to kill it right away."

"I know," he replied calmly, not releasing her. "She’s also our way out of here."

He easily twisted the knife from her grasp and tossed it aside. She stared at her empty hand, then at Fin, shock warring with fury on her face.

"Out?" Gary lowered his hammer slightly, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"She knows the exit," he explained, finally releasing Hana and gesturing towards the still-trembling Arachne. "A portal. Needs her mana signature to activate."

"You expect us to trust her?" Susan demanded, gesturing sharply with her blade.

"I don’t trust her," he said flatly. "But I control her." He flexed his right hand slightly, and Arachne flinched visibly, letting out a small gasp. "She behaves, or she dies. Simple as that."

The team looked between Fin, the clearly weakened but still menacing Arachne, and the almost casual display of power he had just shown, both in killing the monster and stopping Hana. Doubt and suspicion clouded their faces.

"Fin," Mary said, her voice quiet but carrying weight. "That power... draining the matriarch, stopping Hana just now... It’s growing fast. Too fast. What’s happening to you?"

"I’m getting stronger," he replied, meeting her gaze directly. "Like I said I needed to."

"This isn’t just getting stronger," Lucas spoke up nervously, pushing his glasses up. "The rate of progression is... abnormal. Unprecedented. Absorbing power like that, controlling a sentient monster... it defies known mana principles."

"Known principles don’t seem to apply much in this place," he countered. "She’s our ticket out. Are you coming, or do you want to stay here and argue about principles until the next oversized bug shows up?"

He turned to Arachne. "Lead the way. Waterfall, you said?"

Arachne shot a venomous glare at the assembled Hunters but nodded meekly under Fin’s implicit threat. She started walking, albeit unsteadily, toward the east.

Fin followed, staff held ready. After a moment’s hesitation, the A-rank team exchanged uneasy glances. They didn’t like it. They didn’t trust the spider-girl, and they were beginning to question Fin himself.

But he was right. Arguing here was pointless.

With visible reluctance, Gary slung his hammer over his shoulder. Susan sheathed her blades, wiping blood from her arm. Joe and Lucas fell in behind them, Mary taking up the rear, her eyes fixed warily on Fin’s back.

Hana lingered for a moment, retrieving her knife. She stared after Fin, her expression tight and unreadable, before slowly following the rest of the group, her hand clenching and unclenching around the hilt of her weapon.

The power Fin displayed, the way he controlled the spider-girl... it was both useful and deeply worrying.

’Seems I will have to eliminate him, before he becomes a problem for the association.’ She thought, tucking her knife in her bag.