Arachnaerok watched as the whitish entity fell towards the surface of the planet. Her scream had done more than enough to launch the fucker into the air by a fair bit, and if you added in the explosion that came almost at the same time as the atoms in the ground that was formerly above being so violently compacted, then you could understand how the creature could reach such heights. Although, even then, the height that it was falling from seemed to be normally impossible, especially if you estimated the foe’s weight to be something in the same ballpark as Arachnaerok’s former weight.

However, because this was a world partially based off of the rules of a MMORPG, the rules that governed reality were a bit… wonky. After all, there were abilities that could send beings flying, even if there was a weight difference, even if the levels of both combatants were equal or roughly equal. But this… this trip through the skies was still very unusual.

In the end, this aerial transit could be chalked up to one simple fact. Everything native to the New World had a set of set parameters regarding their existence, of which included their current weight. Although that parameter could be altered based on certain factors, the Virus Hunter that The Warden had deployed was akin to a weaponized and completely single-mindedly stupid GM. In MMOs, GMs normally ‘exist’ outside of the normal rules of the game, able to fly around, and essentially have no set physical parameters of any kind.

In this case, the Virus Hunter only had a non-zero weight, which only acted like a normal, standard weight when it was in a zone controlled, or at least monitored heavily, by The Warden. The area it was in was no longer under The Warden’s control, let alone observation, and Arachnaerok had assumed the mantle of absolute ruler of this area in its stead. She now determined the minutia of most, if not all, things in this area. She had become what so many other Tamed Beings had become; an almighty God, although one whose zone of control was limited to a certain area.

And that info dump ultimately brings us back to the Virus hunter that was still tumbling end over end towards the ground. Arachnaerok now had a full grasp as to how to defeat this thing, as now she actually could do damage to it and not merely slow its movement temporarily. The blobby Virus Hunter finally impacted the ground, which caused the second bit of damage that it had ever sustained. The thing was quickly able to right itself and latch onto the ground, which prevented it from bouncing due to the residual rebound of energy that had come from the fall and impact.

Unfortunately for the Virus Hunter, it wasn’t able to stay rooted for very long, as a mass of nigh-indestructible spider silk attached itself to it and was turned into a pseudo ball and chain. Arachnaerok used the humanoid arms and hand on that particular portion of her body to swing that motherfucker around like a flail, smashing it repeatedly into the ground or jerking it around in the air, both of which resulted in the being taking some actual damage, unlike anything that had been done in Round 1.

As the Virus Hunter was swung around, the humanoid face atop the humanoid body of the newest addition to the Alliance’s monstrous pantheon of Gods became more and more gleeful, her smile widening and widening until you could literally see the teeth in her mouth nearly from ear to ear, or, in her case, lack thereof. With a final swing, she launched the Virus Hunter into the air and reduced the webbing on it to dust. As the unnatural creature tumbled through the air, Arachnaerok rushed forward and pulled back a fist. When the Virus Hunter was close enough both to the ground and to her, she let her fist fly and sent the enemy tumbling through open air and eventually across the ground.

This time the Virus Hunter did not immediately stabilize itself, nor did it latch onto the ground and prevent itself from being treated like a ragdoll. At this point, it was using what little bits of intelligence it had to determine which actions would have a greater chance of leading to its victory, and it rightly assumed that forcibly stopping itself would lead to Newton’s Laws of Motion hitting it far harder than if it just let itself skid to a stop. Plus, it predicted that if it did stop itself and Newton didn’t fuck it over, then it would simply find itself wound up in webbing again and treated similarly to how it had suffered before.

What its primitive mind failed to understand was that Arachnaerok was not as logical, nor was she as limited in terms o0f lateral or vertical thinking as it was. While it skidded to a stop, Arachnaerok was hot on its heels, preparing yet another attack. While she did not know if the creature could suffer from status ailments, she was going to figure it out using a physical trial. Even if it wasn’t able to be envenomed, then she was sure that the stuff she was about to do to it would cause some damage regardless.

The Virus Hunter eventually regained its footing and lashed out with its wavy, wobbly limbs just as Arachnaerok got close enough to jab it with a stinging spine that emerged from underneath one of her humanoid wrists. The two kaiju-sized beings made contact with each other, each delivering a melee strike on the other and each understanding a bit more about their opponent. Arachnaerok understood from that encounter that she was much, much stronger, and while she couldn’t inflict any status effects on it, the creature was now in a critical state.

The Virus Hunter, on the other hand, came to the conclusion that it was unable to damage the Inmate it was tasked with eliminating by striking its chitin, and so did the next logical thing and struck towards what it assumed were the more vulnerable fleshy parts. Arachnaerok saw this coming a mile away, but she didn’t fear that at all. She knew her body better than the entity she was fighting did, and used the foe’s insistence on melee as an opportunity to deal another three strikes with her wrist stingers.

The long, wavy, spear-like appendage of the Virus Hunter jabbed a few times at Arachnaerok’s more humanoid skin, but the damage that these blows inflicted was just as insignificant as when it hit her chitin. This caused the Virus Hunter to revaluate the option of engaging in melee, but it quickly came to the conclusion that it would be in danger no matter what range it fought at.

Therefore, it simply kept stabbing away at Arachnaerok’s body, causing minor scratches here and there but not much else, all while the new God of this area used both her wrist stingers, arthropod forelimbs, and both magic and psionic power to pummel the Virus Hunter to the point that it began to destabilize. As the creature began to unravel itself, Arachnaerok understood that its death would be just as violent, if not more so, than its creation.

As such, there was only one thing to do.

“YEET!”