Chapter 39: Epic evolution (II)
The silk split.
A hand emerged first — human in shape, crimson-skinned, strange markings etched across the back of it in shifting lines of green and black, tipped with claws dark enough to look carved from obsidian rather than grown from anything living.
Malrik didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, for a second.
That’s not a spider’s leg.
The rest followed slowly, tearing through the remaining silk in long, deliberate motions that felt less like an animal struggling free and more like someone unwrapping a gift they already knew the shape of. When it fully emerged into the chamber’s dim light, Malrik understood exactly why the process had taken three hours instead of minutes.
The upper half was unmistakably human — a woman’s torso, crimson-skinned, the same strange green-black markings winding across her collarbone and down both arms in patterns that looked deliberate, almost decorative, like something painted rather than grown. The lower half remained entirely spider, eight legs folding out from beneath her into a wide, careful stance.
And she was smaller.
Not larger, the way every previous evolution had gone. Smaller — barely three meters now, roughly half the size she’d been walking into that cocoon, the mass somehow redistributed rather than simply lost.
He stood without fully registering that he’d moved.
This isn’t just stronger. This is a completely different species.
The Plague Spider lowered herself before him — not the mechanical, instinctual crouch every spider tonight had shown when facing him, but something controlled, deliberate, almost formal.
"...My lord."
Malrik froze entirely.
What a... Did she speak now?
"Have I finally started hallucinating?"
The two words replayed in his head three separate times before his brain finished catching up with what his ears had just confirmed. None of his souls had ever spoken to him. Not the wolves. Not the King. Not even the Queen herself, in either of her two previous forms tonight, had managed anything beyond posture and instinct.
Why now? What changed?
He forced himself to think it through instead of simply standing there gaping at her, which was — he was fairly certain — not the reaction expected of someone who’d apparently just conjured an intelligent being out of pure evolution points.
Every rank up, the body changes. The mind changes with it. Rare to Epic isn’t just a bigger number — it’s an entirely different kind of existence. Smarter. Aware enough to actually address me instead of just obeying me.
And I’m standing here like an idiot while she waits for me to say literally anything back.
The notification arrived before he managed to.
[Your Plague Spider soul has gained the skill "Plague Bloom".]
[ Skill: Plague Bloom ] The user’s venom evolves into a living plague. Whenever a poisoned target dies, its corpse releases a Plague Bloom that infects all enemies within a 15-meter radius. Each infected target suffers continuous Poison Damage and reduced Vitality. The plague can spread repeatedly as newly infected targets perish.
Malrik read it once. Then again, slower, letting each sentence actually land this time.
This isn’t a weapon. This is a chain reaction.
Every kill becomes another kill. Every death spreads to whatever’s standing near it. This doesn’t stop when the fight’s over — it stops when there’s nothing left standing close enough to catch it.
He thought back, almost involuntarily, to the cave floor from the night before — thousands of spiders packed shoulder to shoulder, tearing each other apart under Lilith’s illusion. If this skill had existed then, in that exact moment, the entire colony might have wiped itself out from a single poisoned corpse rather than needing an hour of orchestrated chaos to finish the job.
That’s not power. That’s a small apocalypse wearing a spider’s face.
He looked at her — still bowed, patient, waiting for whatever instruction came next, apparently content to hold that position indefinitely if he didn’t say anything.
I need to be extremely careful about where and when I ever let her use that.
"...Stand up " he said finally, because it felt like the least he owed her after making her wait through his own stunned silence.
She straightened, eight legs settling into a stance that somehow managed to look poised rather than merely functional. Up close, her crimson eyes — four of them now, arranged differently than the original eight had been — held an attentiveness that hadn’t existed in her previous forms at all. She wasn’t just watching him the way an animal watches its handler.
She was actually looking at him.
Considering him.
Then, driven by instinct, he opened the screen of the spider queen’s status.
────────────────────
Name: Spider Queen
Rank: Awakened
Level: 40
Potential: Epic ★
ٍٍSkills : Acid Ejection , Deadly Injection , Acid Web , Plague Bloom
────────────────────
A satisfied smile appeared on his face as he looked at the state of the spider queen.
"You already have a name," he said slowly, testing the words as much as testing her reaction to them. "Spider Queen. Does that still fit you?"
A pause. Then, quietly: "...If it pleases my lord, I would keep it. It is the name you gave me."
Something about the answer — measured, respectful, entirely her own choice rather than an instinctive default — settled a question he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying since the cocoon first split open.
Whatever she is now, she’s still mine. That part, at least, didn’t change.
He allowed himself a slow exhale, the first one all afternoon that felt like actual relief instead of exhausted relief.
"...Spider Queen it is, then."
He looked past her toward Fenrir, still waiting at the edge of the chamber, shadow rolling gently off his coat in slow waves — five stars standing beside a single Epic star, an army built out of exactly the kind of gamble that had nearly gotten him killed twelve hours earlier.
Two evolutions. Two completely different outcomes. And I still have thirteen thousand points left to find out what else this Class can actually do.
His gaze drifted toward the cave entrance, where Eliza was almost certainly still standing guard, entirely unaware of what had just finished growing on the other side of the stone.
She’s going to have questions.
Whatever the case, I certainly don’t intend to reveal my talent to anyone.
Now, should I evolve Fenrir and Lilith to epic rank as well, or evolve the rest of the soul army?
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