Chapter 30: Level Up!
Neither of them spoke for a while.
The cave did the talking for them — screeches layering over screeches, bodies hitting the ground hard enough to shake the floor, green venom spraying across webs that were already soaked with it. Thousands of spiders, and not one of them had looked in Malrik’s direction since the mist settled.
It was like they’d forgotten he existed.
He broke the silence first.
"...What exactly did you do?"
Lilith turned around, smile exactly where it had been before.
"Something quite simple." She gestured toward the chaos like she was pointing out a minor architectural detail.
"I imprisoned their minds inside an illusion. They no longer perceive what’s actually around them." A spider nearby tore the leg off another and kept going. Lilith watched it without expression.
"To each of them, every spider in this cave is an enemy. They’re not being controlled. They’re just acting on what they believe is real."
Malrik nodded slowly.
"So you never touched their bodies."
"Of course not." Her eyes curved slightly. "A puppet follows orders. But an enemy..." She paused, clearly enjoying the phrasing. "...will kill another enemy with everything it has."
He couldn’t help it.
"...Terrifying."
"I’ll take that as a compliment, Master."
"There are limits."
Both of them looked at Eliza. She hadn’t moved her eyes from the battlefield.
"If the target has strong enough perception, they’ll notice inconsistencies in the illusion. Once they realize they’re trapped, breaking free becomes possible." Her tone was completely even. The kind of even that came from stating facts, not opinions.
Lilith glanced at her.
Something passed between them — brief, unreadable — and then Lilith laughed softly. "...You’re knowledgeable."
"Resistance against illusion-type abilities is standard training for high-ranking combatants."
"Then you already understand why it works so well here."
Eliza nodded. "Their perception is too weak to find the cracks."
Malrik looked back at the swarm. "So it’s not that spiders are easy to deceive. It’s that your illusion is stronger than their ability to question it."
Lilith’s smile widened. "As expected of my Master."
More spiders fell. Then more. The cavern floor disappeared under the weight of the bodies piling up across it.
The notifications started coming.
[Experience Increased.]
[Experience Increased.]
[Experience Increased.]
They kept arriving faster than he could read them, stacking in his vision like an avalanche that had found a slope and decided not to stop.
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
[Level Up!]
...
[Level Up!]
Before he could process it:
The numbers kept climbing. Every spider that died to one of his bound souls counted toward his contracts — and they were dying by the hundreds, by the thousands, killing each other with a commitment that would’ve been impressive under any other circumstances.
The notifications slowed gradually as the movement in the cave thinned.
Then, finally:
[Level Up!]
[Level 27 Reached.]
Quiet settled over the cave for the first time since they’d entered it.
Malrik checked the Bond immediately.
Spirit Wolves: Level 27. Wolf King: Level 27.
Most of the venomous spiders were above level 30, so the increase in their level was minimal compared to the wolves.
The whole army had risen together. Every soul he carried had climbed the same distance he had, just as the Class description had promised.
A satisfied smile.
"...Excellent."
Then it faded.
He looked across the cave — corpses covering the floor in every direction, thousands of them, the air thick with the smell of venom and something sharper underneath it.
Something was wrong. Not in any way he could name immediately. Just a gap in the picture, a shape that should’ve been there and wasn’t.
"The wolf pack had a King."
He turned toward the deeper dark.
"So where’s the Spider Queen?"
Silence.
The cave gave him nothing back.
Then—
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
The sound didn’t echo. It filled the space completely, wall to wall, ceiling to floor, like the cave itself had screamed. Loose stone cracked free from the ceiling and dropped. The surviving spiders — the few still moving — froze instantly, like puppets whose strings had all gone taut at once.
Malrik raised his head.
A shadow detached itself from the ceiling high above, supported by thick strands of web, Five meters tall. Eight crimson eyes, each one larger than his head, locked directly onto him.
The surviving spiders lowered themselves to the ground the moment it moved.
Not fear. Recognition.
Their ruler had arrived.
Malrik’s smile came back.
"...Finally."
The creature landed.
BOOM.
The cave floor cracked beneath its weight. Stone fragments rained from the ceiling. Thick webs stretched behind its body as it settled, eight crimson eyes scanning the cavern with the unhurried certainty of something that had never once needed to hurry.
Every surviving spider dropped immediately. Not scrambling, not fleeing — just lowering themselves flat, trembling, the way things do when a deeper instinct overrides everything else.
Their queen had arrived.
Malrik pulled up the system.
[Venom Spider Queen]
[Rank: Awakened ]
[ Level 40]
Awakened??
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