Chapter:28-Elite Horned Spider(2)
Darkness wasn't just in the cavern; it was the cavern. A living, breathing entity that pressed against Edwin, coating his skin with the slick, cold dread of a tomb. The air hung thick, not just with the stench of rot, but with the ghosts of a thousand other decays. It wasn't just flesh and blood; it was something acrid, something chemical, a manufactured horror that burned in his nostrils and clung to the back of his throat. Each breath was a violation, a lungful of poison designed to unravel his sanity.
And then it landed.
The Elite Horned Spider. Not a creature, but a blasphemy. The same ugly face he had seen 87 times stared at him.
Imagine the fevered nightmare of a dying god made manifest. Its carapace wasn't just obsidian; it was a shifting, pulsating darkness, as if veins of shadow bled beneath its surface. Countless eyes—too many, an obscene number—glimmered like polished onyx, each reflecting a shard of Edwin's soul, a fractured mosaic of his terror. He saw himself reflected back, not as he was, but as he would be: broken, consumed, a husk discarded in this lightless place.
The legs moved with a sickening precision, each strike a calculated act of violence. The air itself seemed to scream as those chitinous limbs descended, the sound cracking like bone. Edwin threw himself aside, a desperate, instinctual spasm. The cavern floor erupted, stone fragments turned into razor-edged projectiles. He felt them tear into his flesh, a hundred tiny betrayals across his skin. He rolled, the cold slick of blood mixing with sweat, his hands already finding the familiar grip of his bow.
No room for hesitation. Hesitation was a luxury he couldn't afford, not here, not now.
He nocked an arrow, the motion ingrained in his muscle memory. He channeled the [Rune of Enhancement], a surge of power that felt like both ecstasy and agony, and let the arrow fly. It wasn't just an arrow; it was a prayer, a curse, a desperate plea hurled into the face of oblivion. It screamed through the air, a sharpened whisper of death, before finding its mark—burying itself deep into one of the spider's bloated, glossy eyes.
"Anybody told your eyes look fucking hideous!" Edwin said with a sarcastic tone.
The shriek that followed wasn't just a sound; it was a psychic assault. A violation of everything natural, everything sane. It was the death-cry of a thing that should never have been, a sound that clawed at the edges of reality. Wet, guttural, full of a hissing, alien rage, layered with something…wrong. Like it was trying to speak, to force words through a throat that had never known language.
"KHHH...GHHREEEGHHHH!!"
The spider thrashed, blind and furious, its claws carving gouges in the stone, missing Edwin by inches. He moved, driven by a primal imperative. He had to move, had to survive. He holstered the bow, the cold steel of his sword a small comfort against the encroaching darkness.
A shadow, vast and terrible, loomed.
CRASH.
A leg, thicker than any tree he'd ever seen, came down with the force of a collapsing mountain.
Impact.
The cavern floor ceased to exist, pulverized into dust. The shockwave slammed into Edwin, turning him into a ragdoll. He was thrown backwards, his body impacting against a jagged outcrop of rock. Pain exploded in his spine, his ribs cracking like twigs. The world swam, a kaleidoscope of blood and darkness. He tasted copper, the metallic tang of his own mortality.
Move. The thought was a desperate command, a last flicker of defiance.
He staggered to his feet, his legs trembling, threatening to buckle beneath him. He ran, blindly, desperately, into the fields of eggs. A grotesque parody of life, a landscape of bulbous, pulsing spheres. Their translucent skin revealed the writhing, half-formed horrors within, a glimpse into the spider's nightmare womb.
He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the spider wouldn't harm them.
A grotesque instinct, some abominable mockery of motherhood, compelled it to protect its unborn spawn. The Elite Spider loomed closer, its mandibles twitching, dripping a fluid that hissed and smoked as it melted the very rock beneath it.
Edwin nocked another arrow, his hands shaking, his vision blurring. Fired.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Each arrow found its mark, rupturing the glossy orbs with wet, sickening pops. Black ichor gushed out, pooling on the floor, sizzling against the stone, filling the air with its acrid stench.
A blind spot. A sliver of vulnerability in the face of overwhelming horror.
That was all he needed.
He darted forward, a desperate gamble, his sword a silver flash in the oppressive darkness. The tendons in the spider's monstrous legs were thick, nearly impervious, but nearly wasn't enough. He cut, fueled by adrenaline and desperation. Again. And again. And again. A butcher working on a carcass so grotesque it defied comprehension.
It spasmed, its legs buckling, its massive body teetering.
And then—the whispering started.
Not from the spider, not this time.
From behind.
A chittering tide, a writhing, shifting ocean of legs and eyes and teeth. A sound that scraped against his sanity, a chorus of hunger and malice.
Thousands.
He always died here. This was the crux, the turning point where hope died and despair reigned. This was the moment he had relived eighty-seven times before.
The swarm charged, a living wave of chitin and hunger.
Tiny fangs, needle-like legs, wet, clicking mouths. A million tiny instruments of torture, each designed to inflict maximum pain.
They ripped into him, a feeding frenzy of unimaginable horror.
He slashed, hacked, tore through their bodies, his sword carving arterial fountains into the swarm. But for each he killed, three more took their place. He could feel them crawling on him, slipping beneath his armor, digging into his skin, their fangs finding purchase in his flesh.
His rune burned bright, his veins turned to fire, but his body—his human body—was reaching its breaking point. He was drowning in a sea of spiders, his strength failing, his will crumbling.
And then—
THWIP.
An arrow, impossibly fast, zipped through the air, impaling a spider mid-lunge. A single act of defiance against the encroaching darkness.
From the shadows—Eliza.
"Goddammit!" she snarled, reloading with a speed born of desperation, her muscles coiling with frantic energy. "How long was I out fo—" She froze, her eyes widening in horror, her face paling in the flickering light.
She had seen it. The true scale of the horror.
The monstrosity looming over Edwin, dripping venom from mandibles the size of scythes. A god of nightmares about to deliver its final judgment.
"Eliza!" Edwin's voice was ragged, hoarse, barely a whisper above the chittering swarm. "The small ones! I'll kill this bastard!"
He pushed the [Rune of Enhancement] to its absolute breaking point, channeling every last drop of his energy into a final, desperate act. His muscles screamed in protest, his bones groaned under the strain. It felt like something inside him was tearing apart, his very essence unraveling, but he didn't care. He wouldn't let it end like this.
He ran, fueled by a desperate, burning defiance.
A blur. A shadow. A living weapon forged in the heart of despair.
He leapt, twisting midair, his sword positioned perfectly for a downward thrust. A final, desperate prayer aimed straight at the heart of the nightmare. Straight into the monster's largest eye.
The blade sank in, burying itself to the hilt.
A new scream, even more terrible than the last.
A dying demon's wail, echoing through the cavern, shaking the very foundations of the world.
The spider convulsed violently, its legs thundering against the floor, each impact a small earthquake. It reached up, launching a storm of needle-thin hairs—a final act of spite—but Edwin moved, guided by instinct and desperation. Let them strike its own bleeding, ruined face.
It shuddered, its massive body trembling, its lifeblood gushing out in torrents.
Edwin did not hesitate. He wouldn't give it a chance to recover, wouldn't allow it a moment to breathe.
He stabbed.
Again.
And again.
And again and again and again and again and again and—
He stabbed until the area of damage was twisted canvas of blood,veins,keratin and flesh.
The spider collapsed, its weight shaking the cavern.
A twitching, spasming, slaughtered thing, a monument to his desperate struggle.
[Quest Cleared]
[Points are being given]
[Rewards are being taken]
Edwin was in too much of a daze to pay attention to those words.
Eliza let out a breath, the air whistling through her teeth. Relief washed over her, but it was fleeting, a momentary reprieve in the face of overwhelming dread.
"Holy shit..."
Because beyond the fallen monster, beyond the carnage and the ichor, lay something even more terrifying.
An army.
Spiders, some as large as houses, their eyes glowing with malevolent intelligence, others smaller but faster, a seething mass of chitin and fangs. They swarmed toward them like a cursed flood, a living nightmare given form.
Panic seized her, a cold fist squeezing her heart. She grabbed Edwin—his body limp, overtaxed, spent, a broken doll in her arms—and ran.
The cavern blurred around her, a chaotic jumble of shadows and shapes. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her wounds screamed with every step, her vision fading at the edges.
She had to find a way out. Had to escape this hellish place.
She found a gap, a narrow fissure in the rock.
Small. Tight. Claustrophobic. A space that offered no comfort, only the promise of escape.
She shoved Edwin through, ignoring his groan of pain. Followed, crawling blindly in the pitch-black tunnel, her hands scraping against rough stone, feeling things skitter past her fingers, things she prayed weren't real.
She had been bitten quite a few times so she was filled with a relatively large amount of poison.
Her head injury was also not fully healed and she was pushing Edwin's body along with her.
But she still persevered.
And then—
Light.
The Valley of Thorns.
She staggered forward, her legs trembling, threatening to give way beneath her.
Her head spun, the world tilting on its axis.
A merchant, passing by on the road, stared in horror, his face a mask of disbelief and revulsion.
"Oh my god! Are you two—"
Eliza collapsed, her body finally giving out, her strength utterly depleted.
Darkness claimed her, a welcome oblivion after the horrors she had witnessed.
End of Chapter