Chapter 59: Chapter 59- The Infestation (Part 3)
Chapter 59- The Infestation (Part 3)
"Mmm... Mmm..." Rein groaned dryly as he started opening his eyes. His entire body ached greatly. Every inch of it felt like it was burning in hell and yet also submerged in freezing coldness. He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe, and his mind refused to think as fast as usual.
His vision was blurry as he wandered, his eyes left and right, trying to make sense of his surroundings. It was dark and very humid, to the point where breathing became even more difficult.
"Hnng..." He coughed dryly as he squinted in deep pain. ’What... happened?’ He asked himself. ’I can’t... remember anything...’
All he could remember was him fighting the spiders and then suddenly, he passed out... Something had hit him, but he didn’t know what it was.
After a few seconds of adjusting to the light and the immense pain, he finally realized the very first important detail. Rein... was upside down. He felt it, the blood slowly pooling in his head, and he was feeling dizzy.
’Wha...’ He instantly tried to move his limbs out of panic... Only to discover the second important detail. Rein was completely immobilized. His arms, legs, and torso were tied, and he couldn’t move them at all, no matter how much he tried.
"Hnnng!" He clenched his teeth as he started resisting while looking down. ’What the hell is even restraining me?’
Looking down, he saw what he was stuck in. The substance was stringy and rubbery yet also extremely sturdy and impossible to tear. The sensation made Rein realize what he was in...
’Webs?’ He frowned. ’Massive webs...’
That realization sent chills down his spine. Webs, spiders... It didn’t take long for him to link two and two together.
’They didn’t eat me immediately?’ He thought to himself as he clenched his teeth. ’Fuck... They still got me bad... I’m badly injured.’
The blood was seeping through the webs, and he could see it. That was a very, very bad injury, and the only reason he survived it was because of his inhumane regeneration ability.
’I need to get out of here immediately. The fact they still didn’t eat me yet is good...’ He thought to himself as he was about to try to summon his sword. However, at that moment, his eyes suddenly looked up (Down from a normal perspective), and his breath immediately got stuck in his throat.
All around him, in every single direction and as far as his eyes could see, were people... all wrapped in cocoons of webs that seemed to have consumed them completely. Hundreds... no, thousands of people, all trapped in there.
From a single look, he could tell that all of them were dead... or at least most, as no one was moving except for him.
At that moment, Rein could only stare in silent horror at the nightmare. He had witnessed many things in his life, most of it being death, blood, and all that is cruel and gruesome in the world. He thought that he had grown tolerant of what this world could offer. Yet... in a stroke of irony from fate, that idea was completely shattered.
His heart started racing faster, and for the first time in what felt like eternity, Rein felt fear. A true, primal fear.
’This is screwed... This is so screwed...’ He cursed as he looked down quickly and then summoned his sword. Changing his grip, Rein started trying to slice the webs. Luckily, his sword was sharp enough to cut through the thick webs. If it were incapable of that, Rein was truly and utterly in a horrendous situation.
He cut the first layer, then the second layer, while keeping his eyes on his surroundings at every instance. He was confused as to where the spiders were since he couldn’t really see any of them around, and that raised several alarms in his head, but he wasn’t going to wait and see if they came back or not.
*CUT*
As the third layer of the webs was severed, Rein was about to try and cut the last one when...
"..!!!!" He suddenly felt a chill run down his spine as his senses picked up something approaching from the darkness ahead. Immediately, Rein stiffened and stopped moving completely. He made sure to pretend that he was completely dead.
’Something is coming... Something very strong. Extremely strong.’ He thought to himself as he squinted his eyes and stared ahead. His heart rate only kept increasing. That was when it finally emerged.
An extremely long limb stretched out of the darkness... Then another, and another... At the same time, a head the size of a large truck appeared in Rein’s vision. That sight alone sucked all the blood out of his face.
It was a spider... A spider that was the size of several buildings... With limbs that stretched for dozens and dozens of meters. Its eight red eyes stared coldly into the darkness. It was silent, didn’t even make a single noise walking in.
Looking around, it seemingly inspected the den before it moved in. Climbing the webs, it moved through them with terrifying agility for its size.
Rein immediately closed his eyes and didn’t move another muscle. He knew that the moment he moved was the moment he would die. That spider was terrifyingly strong... So much so that it put the grizzly bear he fought two days ago to shame. It made that creature seem like powerless prey.
This was an apex predator, a monster that couldn’t be rivaled.
’Why the hell does this thing even exist?! Is it their queen? Maybe just the strongest one?’ He thought to himself as he felt the shadow loom over him. For a second, he felt like the monster was staring at him, and he tried not to react at all.
His hand was still clenched, ready to summon the sword and cut the last layer to fall to the ground. However, even in a situation as terrifying as that one... Rein was patient. It was one of his strongest qualities, his ability to remain patient and composed even when every fiber of his being screamed at him to just cut the webs and run for his life.
The seconds that passed after that felt like years. Rein started truly fearing that he was busted. But, as a relief, the monster then started moving again, passing over him to the other side of its maze of webs.
Rein tried not to exhale to not alert it. But, he still opened his eyes to check what it was doing. The spider moved to the other side and then stopped at a random cluster of human prey and other mutated monsters. Then, it leaned down and opened its mouth as it swallowed several of them in one bite.
The sound of it chewing their flesh and bones echoed in the silent den. He could hear the blood dripping, the bones being crushed, and the sound of its swallowing its prey. Then, it took another bite.
’Great... This is exactly what I needed. A monster that could swallow several creatures in one bite... It has possibly consumed thousands of people, and there are thousands more waiting to be consumed... If I don’t escape immediately, I will soon be one of them.’
So, while the monster was occupied, Rein summoned the sword again and then very slowly tried to cut the last layer.
Any mistake... Any noise... And his death was set in stone.
