Chapter 32: Venom Spider Queen (II)
The Wolf King crossed the distance first.
Its body became a blur of emerald and black, cutting low and driving hard into the Queen’s left side.
She didn’t stagger. One leg swung out and caught it mid-lunge.
BOOM.
The King hit the cavern wall and left a shape in it. Before the Queen could follow through, three Spirit Wolves were already on her — one clamping onto a front leg, one going for the neck, one angling toward the abdomen.
She moved with a speed that didn’t match her size.
Two wolves went flying. The third left a shallow score across her carapace before a leg came down through its body. It dissolved into emerald particles before it hit the ground.
"Spiders."
The resurrected Venom Spiders split without hesitation — half driving beneath the Queen and throwing webs around her legs, half scaling the walls before dropping onto her from above.
She tore through the first web instantly.
Another replaced it. Then another.
They weren’t trying to hold her. Just slow her, tangle her movements, pull her attention in too many directions at once.
Exactly as intended.
The Wolf King recovered and came back in hard, clamping its jaws around one of the Queen’s rear legs and pulling. She screeched — fury, not pain — and her attention snapped toward it.
Malrik’s voice cut through the noise.
"Lilith now."
"As you command, Master."
The smile was gone. Her right hand rose and the violet mana gathered around her fingers, denser than before, converging into a single focused stream rather than spreading outward.
Everything aimed at one target.
"Prison of Delusion."
The Queen froze.
Mid-movement, one leg suspended in the air, crimson eyes flickering like a flame someone was trying to blow out.
Lilith’s jaw tightened. A thin line of sweat appeared at her temple.
"...She’s resisting. I won’t hold her long."
"That’s enough." Malrik was already moving. "Everyone — attack."
The Spirit Wolves closed in with coordination they hadn’t shown before — not random aggression, actual positioning. Two on the front legs, three on the rear, the rest cycling in and out to keep her body torqued in awkward angles, preventing her from settling her weight anywhere.
The resurrected spiders moved differently. They knew this body. Same species, same structure — they climbed onto her and drove their fangs into the joints, the softer sections between plates, every gap in the shell that they understood from the inside out.
Malrik reached her and thrust forward.
CLANG.
The spear tip struck her neck and held for a moment before biting in — barely. The carapace was considerably harder than anything he’d hit tonight.
If this spear was Mortal Rank it wouldn’t have gone in at all.
He twisted the blade.
Blood came. Dark green, running fast.
He pulled back and drove it in again. Same location. Then again, each strike landing in the wound already opened, deepening it rather than spreading it.
Third. Fourth.
The crack around her neck spread outward with each impact, the shell failing in a concentrated area rather than across the surface.
Lilith’s voice came through strained. "I can’t—"
"One more."
He pulled back fully and put everything into the fifth strike.
The spear drove deep into the damaged section.
For a moment — nothing.
Then the runes along the blade lit up. Dark crimson spreading from the tip into the wound like something catching fire.
There it is.
[Skill Activated: Crimson Wound.]
Dark green blood erupted from the Queen’s neck in a sudden surge and kept coming — the wound pulling itself open rather than closing, the bleeding accelerating instead of slowing. Her body convulsed once, hard, throwing two Spirit Wolves off her back.
"Master!"
Lilith’s pupils had contracted. "I’ve reached my limit—"
The cracks running through the illusion reached the center.
The Queen’s eight crimson eyes snapped back into focus all at once.
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
The shockwave hit before the sound finished.
The Queen’s body convulsed outward and everything clinging to her went with it — Spirit Wolves, resurrected spiders, the Wolf King itself thrown back several meters before it caught its footing.
Lilith lowered her hand.
"...She broke free."
Malrik had expected it. Ten seconds was what they’d been promised, and ten seconds was roughly what they’d gotten.
It had been enough.
Dark green blood poured steadily from the gash across the Queen’s neck — the wound Crimson Wound had opened wasn’t closing. Her carapace was cracked in three places. She was bleeding from more bites than he could quickly count.
She was still terrifying.
Her eyes found the nearest Spirit Wolf.
SHHK.
One foreleg, one motion. The wolf split cleanly and dissolved before the pieces landed.
Before Malrik could issue a command she was already somewhere else.
BOOM. A second wolf gone. BOOM. A third.
The gap in Rank was showing itself plainly now. She was injured, bleeding, moving slower than she had at the start — and she was still dismantling his souls faster than he could redirect them.
"Fall back!"
They moved. She didn’t let them.
She drove forward and a resurrected spider stepped into her path. She went through it without slowing. A second wrapped web around her leg — the strand snapped like thread. A third hit her from above and her abdomen swung and the spider shattered against the cave wall.
Several more souls dissolved in quick succession.
Malrik tracked the Queen’s movements and the bleeding and the gradually shortening gaps between her strikes.
Slower. She’s definitely slower than ten minutes ago. The poison is working. Crimson Wound is working.
Not fast enough.
He clicked his tongue.
"Then I’ll speed it up."
He stepped forward and didn’t raise the spear.
His left hand came up instead. Emerald and black mana gathered above his palm — darker than usual, heavier, the air around it dropping a few degrees as Death Mana condensed into a single point of pitch-black light.
The sphere compressed further, then further, until it felt like it was pulling the light around it inward.
He aimed at the Queen’s shoulder.
"Death Ray."
The beam hit her squarely.
BOOOOOOM.
Dark energy spread across her carapace on impact. The shell began rotting where it touched — cracks spreading outward, the flesh underneath blackening, a section of her armor collapsing inward.
The Queen screeched.
Malrik looked at the damage.
Localized. A meaningful wound, but contained. The spell hadn’t reached far enough into her to do what he needed it to do.
"...Not enough."
Too low a level. The skill wasn’t there yet.
The Queen turned.
For the first time since the fight started, her crimson eyes moved past every soul in the cave and found him directly.
Oh.
Her abdomen began expanding. Slowly, deliberately — her jaws opening as dark green liquid gathered inside her mouth. More than before. Much more. The poisonous glow of it reflected off the cave walls, off the webbing, off everything in the cavern.
Eliza’s voice came sharp from behind him.
"Young Master — back, now."
She recognized what was building. Malrik recognized it half a second later.
This wasn’t the narrow stream from earlier. This would fill the entire area. There was no angle from which any of his souls — or he — would be outside its reach.
Damn.
He gripped the spear.
The Queen’s jaws reached their full extension.
"Lilith!"
She was already moving.
The smile was gone entirely — the first time he’d seen her face without it. Both hands raised toward the Queen, her crimson eyes lit from within, and an overwhelming wave of violet mana erupted around her that didn’t spread, didn’t drift, didn’t settle the way Prison of Delusion had.
Every drop of it drove toward a single point.
"Mind Collapse."
The Queen’s entire body locked.
Her eyes went wide — eight of them simultaneously, an expression Malrik had no word for — and something invisible struck her from the inside. Her body shook violently. The acid she’d been building erupted from her jaws before she could direct it.
Upward.
BOOOOOOOM.
The ceiling took the hit. Molten stone rained down across the cave. Burning webs fell in sheets. The Queen screamed — not fury this time, actual pain — and her legs buckled beneath her.
Lilith lowered one hand. Her breathing had changed.
"...Now, Master."
----------------
Author’s Note:I hope you like the new book cover! I’d love to hear what you think, so don’t forget to leave your feedback in the comments.
Also, if you’re enjoying the novel, please support it with Power Stones. Your support means a lot to me and motivates me to keep writing and delivering even better Chapters.
Thank you for being part of this journey!
Comments