Shell fragments ripped outward like thrown blades. The first stalker's abdomen collapsed inward, then burst, and the blast carried its own pieces into the second creature before it could even fully react. The second stalker jerked back, legs clanging, body twisting as fragments punched through its brittle structure. It didn't die clean. It started dying immediately, and Kael could see green fluid bead along cracks in its shell.
He ignored the list of drops as he took the steps up.
The Tower tried again to shove rewards into his sight, but Kael kept moving. He stepped past broken legs and twitching mandibles, boots landing on concrete slicked with something that steamed at the edges where heat had kissed it. He didn't look down long enough to feel disgust. Disgust could wait until he was alive.
"What about this guy?" Peter asked as the second spider had its body torn to pieces by the fragments of the first one's metallic shell. But it wasn't dead, it was dying. Bleeding green.
