The warning came not as a word, but a thought. Finn shoved off the freezer cabinet and lunged forward, resisting the urge to sprint.

In this supermarket turned dungeon, where blood stained the linoleum in tacky patches and the only source of affection might be the fungi clinging to the ceiling, a full-out run would spell certain death - especially for someone with only fifteen Agility.

Instead, he moved at a fast walk bordering on a jog, kitchen knife gripped low against his thigh. He canted his head just enough to keep the eerie silver light at the edge of his vision.

The ripple in the fungi detached from the corpse two aisles over, dimming three rows of silver in sequence as it honed in on Finn’s position. The Stalker had sensed him almost instantly.

’It’s noticed you but it still hasn’t committed,’ Nyx said. ’Make it commit, oh mighty knife master.’

’Working on that,’ Finn grumbled. ’One serving of Finn tartare, coming right up.’

He rounded the corner and froze in the brightest patch of fungal luminescence he could find in the cross-aisle.

He let his breathing grow ragged, a task made easier by his genuine exhaustion and fear and allowed the knife to tremble in his white-knuckled grip.

To any observer, he looked the part of a terrified low level player, armed with naught but a kitchen knife, realizing with dawning horror that he had become the hunted.

The fungi dimmed to his left. Then directly across. Then above. Finn kept his gaze fixed downward, knowing that looking up would paint the walls with his blood and viscera.

He studied the reflection in a fallen freezer door.

In the warped sliver of chrome, a nightmare unfolded from the ceiling tiles. It had no face, just a long, smooth wedge of gray-black chitin where a countenance ought to be.

A mouth slit lengthwise down the center, gaping open in a manner mouths were never meant to. Six multi-jointed legs protruded from its abdomen as it lowered itself on a prehensile tail, as gracefully as any spider descending upon an ensnared fly.

It loomed directly overhead.

Finn hurled himself sideways - not toward the bank of freezers, but into the shelving where the fungi clustered thickest. His bruised shoulder struck the metal uprights with a violent clang, sending a shudder through the entire fixture.

From the top shelf, a colony of silver mushrooms rained down in a cascade of cold light.

The Stalker dropped, landing amid the luminous fungi.

An unearthly shriek tore through Finn’s skull, setting his teeth on edge. The monster thrashed and writhed, its six legs scrabbling futilely against the linoleum. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Where the fallen mushrooms touched its hide, dim white smoke curled upward, reeking of vinegar and rotting meat.

The forum post had mentioned an aversion to bright light. Whether the fungi qualified had been a coin toss - one which had, against all odds, landed in Finn’s favor.

[-31% HP]

A line of searing pain sliced along his thigh where a flailing limb had grazed him. Blood bloomed hot and wet against his skin. Yet he maintained his footing, knowing he must stay standing. For Nyx was already on the move.

’Little help here, Nyx!’

She materialized from the freezer’s shadow, rebar gripped in both hands, hood thrown back to reveal blazing crimson eyes.

The Stalker detected her presence a half-second too late. Nyx plunged the jagged metal into the base of its neck with every ounce of her Endurance and Strength. The rebar sank four inches deep in a gout of acrid smoke.

’Its hide is too thick,’ she projected.

’Then we go for the seam. The mouth,’ Finn realized.

He was already in motion, kitchen knife in hand. The blade was laughably inadequate against the creature’s chitinous armor.

But as the Stalker screamed, its mouthparts gaped just wide enough.

Finn launched himself forward, skidding on his bleeding leg across half-frozen peas. Positioning himself beneath that eyeless wedge, he thrust the knife up into the open maw and twisted.

The handle snapped off in his grip. The steel did not.

[CRITICAL HIT!]

The Stalker went rigid beneath Nyx, all six limbs seizing at once. She braced her feet against its spine and heaved upward, the embedded rebar serving as a lever.

The gash at its neck tore wider, disgorging a viscous black ichor, neither quite blood nor oil. It cascaded over her wrists in a noxious wave.

At last, the abomination crumpled to the floor, twitching once, and then going utterly still.

The Verge Stalker collapsed. Its body folded in on itself unnaturally, like a marionette whose strings had all been severed at once. Finn, his ruined kitchen knife still embedded in the creature’s mouth, was yanked down with it.

He landed pinned beneath the heavy wedge of its head, the slack jaws settling across his collarbone with a cold, dead weight.

"Nice moves," Finn panted, pinned beneath the corpse. "We barely survived again.."

"All thanks to your bright idea, I must say admit Bearer, you never fail to impress me."

"Thanks-"

For one horrifying moment, he felt the seam where his blade had pierced twitch against his skin.

Oh fuck, it moved...

[ENTITY DEFEATED: Verge Stalker (Level 11)]

[Experience Gained. (Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level.)]

[Experience Gained. (Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level.)] (Bond Share)]

[LEVEL UP!]

The corpse began disintegrating rapidly. Where the Hollow Knight had lingered as a real, rotting carcass, the Verge Stalker was evaporating, its form steaming and growing insubstantial.

Wisps of pale mist rose from the grey-black hide, gentle at first, then in earnest. As they lifted away, the body beneath thinned and dimmed, growing smaller as if it were evaporating.

In mere seconds, the crushing mass pinning Finn shifted to weightless nothing.

He sat up coughing, hands and chest drenched in ichor that was already dissolving into faint vapor against his skin.

The aisle stood pristine once more, fungi glowing silver and serene along the shelves, marred only by a few patches of Finn’s blood on the linoleum.

Where the stalker’s head had lain, a small object remained.

"Bearer," Nyx said, kneeling beside it. The rebar lay across her thighs, her ash-grey dress stained black with gore from the elbows down. She was breathing hard but undeniably still alive. "Look."

He looked.

It was a piece of hide, a neat square no larger than a folded handkerchief. The same grey-black as the stalker but somehow less unsettling, as if the wrongness infusing the creature had been leached out of this remnant.

[ITEM ACQUIRED: Verge-Touched Hide (Crafting Material — Uncommon)]

[Description: A scrap of hide from a creature that hunted at the seams of vision. Garments worked with this material grant the wearer a measure of the creature’s dimming presence. Reduces the wearer’s visibility in low light.]

Finn picked it up, surprised at the lack of weight, less than even its appearance as mere cloth suggested. It was cold to the touch.

"Seems to be material," Nyx observed, making it half a question.

"For an Artificer, probably. We can’t use it ourselves, but we can keep it." He folded the square twice and tucked it into an inside jacket pocket. "Who knows, we might have a use for it later."

"Mm."

Finn checked his own status window:

[Finn Morrow — Level 6]

[Nyx Sanguina — Level 6]

[Stat points available: 2]

Nyx stood slowly, a small wince not quite hidden, but she stood. The gashes on her forearms were already knitting closed, regeneration devouring the damage in steady, pale lines.

Finn remained seated a moment longer. He allowed himself a single deep breath, lungs expanding to their limit, secure in the knowledge that nothing waited to punish the vulnerability. Then he forced himself to his feet.

"Come on, we’ve got a supply run to finish. Let’s hurry."