35 Spider Queen

I was exhausted. I had stood here for hours, my feet not moving an inch as I defended the sleeping Lily. However, I had not been idle. Countless small fry spiders had gathered, attacking both in groups and in pairs. Blood Drinker was out of commission, so I relied on Lily's flying blades to defend us. I could not make a shield like she could, I could only control 2 after all. However I had more than enough control to strike at any of the spiders that approached. Their bodies falling to the floor in piles of decayed goo.

The sun had set behind me, meaning that the third day had passed. There were only four more days left to reach the shrine and get back to Master Asura. Half of our squad was gone, thanks to those damn Lycans. Hatred seethed in my inner world, but I suppressed it. A bone chilling figure entered my mind at the mention of wolf pack. A short pale woman with dark hair and a poisonous aura. The man made Esper Spider. Her figure looked familiar, even if I had not gotten a good look at her face. Her weapon however was something that had caught my interest.

Around 4 months ago in class Ash had abruptly decided to switch her major on weaponry, it was sudden but she was allowed to do it once. Apparently she had found a master who wanted her to devote all of her time to training her essence infused threads.

Inside my mind I secretly compared the figures of the two, finding that they were in fact a perfect match. Anger once again welled up in my inner world, but this time I let it be, the only thing I wanted was to crush the traitor.

My internal monologue was interrupted by a stirring underneath me. As Lily lay unconscious. The ground began to quake the rocks and dirt on the ground trembling. As I looked up I was greeted by the sight of a stampeding herd of various types of demonic beasts. On top of the large warthog in the lead was a familiar bulky man covered in blood. Shit. Just what I needed, the god damn lycans while I couldn't even summon Blood Drinker.

I once again carried the unconscious Lily on my shoulder as I ran, but not away from the stampede as you would expect. No, the spider, or should I say Ash? was far to crafty for that. I ran towards the stampede. My two blades whirling around my as uncharged at the stampede. Moments before we collided I rolled to the right, the stampede coming to an abrupt stop feet from where I had been standing. The beasts crashed into each other. Crushing some of the unfortunate ones. Behind the stampede was a horde of small spiders, spread as far as the eye could see.

I couldn't help but shudder at the sight, activating stealth as I snuck into the forest. The additional essence needed to cover Lily was taking a toll, and I could only maintain it for a few minutes, so I ran as far as I could. Heading towards the center of the forest.

Thankfully as I left my stealthed state Lily began to stir on my back. A muffled groan could be heard as she lifted up her head. I found a relatively safe place to stop and set her down. She looked up at me from a sitting position rubbing her head. "I haven't felt this hungover since the party at the Legion." She sighed as memories began to rush into her head. Tears ran down her eyes as I pulled her into my embrace.

I don't know how long I held her like that for. Time seemed to stand still in this forest at night. Not even the stars could be seen through the vast webbing above us. If not for my essence eye this entire forest would be pitch black. The webbing had gotten thicker the further we were in, and I had no doubt we were close to the alter.

Carefully we advanced as I led her by the hand. I grew more wary with each passing minute, I had not seen a demonic spider since we stopped, and I had no idea what they were planning. The forest was strangely quiet as we moved. There was no rustling, even the wind seemed afraid to blow.

After an hour of walking the trees came to an abrupt end. In front of us was a massive crater, that perhaps only I could admire in the darkness. In my eyes countless orbs of color could be seen lining the bottom of the put, which seemed so very far away.

A thin layer of webbing covered most of the opening, leaving only a path big enough for a person to enter. Instinctively I knew that at the bottom of this pit was the shrine, but it was also the home of the queen.

I couldn't help but think the academy had a sick idea of how to level as I observed the crater. A squad would find this entire training to be hell, even if they had not encountered the Consorts. With my blades hovering above me we advanced into the web tunnel that had been made for our journey. The walls were lined with the corpses of beasts and students alike. I had lost track of how many had died on this assignment, far to many for my liking.

We suffered no attacks as we continued downwards, but a sense of danger began to gnaw at the back of my mind. My essence eye could detect an abundance of essence in the air, a mixture of shadow, poison and death. The death essence did not surprise me, death was everywhere. What did surprise me was the lack of life essence. The spider queen should have an abundance of life energy as it gives birth to the countless offspring.

A thought struck me as weird as I contemplated the lack of life essence. Why were the consorts out there? Shouldn't they have been protecting their queen? Shouldn't they have been protecting the young? The spiders here were not like the cannibalistic spiders back home that ate their own young, other spiders sure, but the male spiders would not eat the flesh of their offspring. They would go as far as to feed them as we had seen earlier.

The tunnel reached the floor, and I was met with the sight of thousands upon thousands of destroyed egg sacks. There was no hint of life aura from them, only the decaying stench of death. As I looked up and the webbed ceiling I noticed human sized cocoons swaying from the canopy.

A familiar voice came from behind me. "These lycans meddle where the do not belong. They entered into my forest, and attacked my young. They killed half of my consorts, corrupting their flesh and bring them back as the mindless beasts that you slayed! For this they must all die."

The spider queen Ash circled around me looking me in the eye with her 12 rainbow colored eyes. "They took from me my flesh! Forcing my precious Beast orb into this body, fusing us together. How I Hate them! And you vampire, you are their enemy. You were the bait we needed to bring them to this place. Give me the orbs of my consorts and you will be rewarded. I will make my precious consorts reborn! And together we will end these damned Lycans! We will rid the world of those abominations!"

The three cores I held in my pockets reacted in instinctively to her cries. The souls within yearning for their mate.

"I do not expect you to give them to me for free. I will leave you both with your lives, I have already rid you of the two apprentice lycans who were keeping tabs on you. The members of your squad that the Lycan council had ensured were teamed up with you. I will also gift each of you a beast orb that is far more suitable for your advancement, all I need from you is my orbs, and your silence about my plans for these despicable lycans. "

My left hand shivered greedily at her words, the voice of her Lady Lucia entering my mind "Do as she says my apostle, the orb she has will help you grow, and the lycans are an abomination to all of the gods, you will gain much merit from helping the queen. Befriend her, use her, but be wary for no one is as crafty as a spider."

I smiled as I took out the orbs "I have a condition as well Ash, I want to help. I want all of those human beasts to suffer for what they have done."

A shrill laughter echoed through the cavern followed by a determined voice "So be it."

She threw me two orbs after taking the orbs of her consort. She did not look back as she used her strings to cut down the three cocoons. "Hurry to alter young vampire, this is going to get.. messy."