“Watch out!”

“Agh! Curse this bug’s ancestors!” angrily swore one of Ani’s warriors as he barely avoided the creature’s charge. Even though he had thrown himself to the side at the last moment, the creature’s proboscis still left a bloody gouge on his left upper arm.

Although barely a minute had passed since the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] cast off its shell and turned into the flying menace it had become, most of the group were already sporting injuries of some sort from its rapid charges, while Mel-Ivas was busy trying to undo the damage it had done. The creature’s speed was truly worrisome, and made retaliation nearly impossible.

At the moment, the only people amongst the group who could even come close to keeping up with the beast were Esperanza and Dali. Ani, several of her more physically focused warriors, Tiesya, and Val-Kas’j technically had more Body stats that should have allowed them to be faster than those two, but unlike them, Esperanza and Dali had methods that more than made up for their lower stats.

In Esperanza’s case, it was her ability to freely shapeshift, which allowed her to propel herself in all sorts of direction practically at will while she made use of every protrusion in the area as a handhold. She also stretched her form so that it could cover more area, as focused penetrative strikes like what the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] focused on in its true form were the things she feared the least.

Dali made use of his spatial skills instead and blinked from one portal to another, greatly reducing the distance he needed to traverse. The [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] noted how they kept pursuing it closely, and even in its compromised state, recognized the danger they posed. It no longer had a tough exoskeleton to protect itself, with its speed and agility as its only lifeline.

As such, it had to pay close attention to counterattacks and other dangers. It was one reason why the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] had failed to kill anyone from the group. The others always managed to impose some hazards into its flight path that bought time for its target to escape. Even though it might have been able to kill some of them had it chased its targets more closely, doing so would have required slowing down, which was far too risky with Esperanza and Dali closely tailing its every move.

Had there been an exit from the room, it would have taken the opportunity to escape instead of fighting within the chamber. Unfortunately, the only exit to the place had collapsed during the previous round of fighting when it still had its carapace around it. At the time the creature had not paid much attention to it, as it thought that the collapse would prevent its prey from escaping, while digging a path out was easy enough to do.

Now that complacence bit it in the rear end as it was the one trapped with its foes with no way out unless it could kill all of them.

The [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] whizzed past Ani and nicked a small wound on her cheek – the fourth-tier warrior too alert and quick for it to do more than that – before it was forced to weave around strikes from Val-Kas’j and Tiesya. Dali suddenly appeared from another portal as it weaved around the blades and lunged at the monster from the side.

It was only by the barest margin that the beast managed to avoid Dali’s pounce, his claws leaving three scratch marks on the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s side that oozed some ichor. Before the creature could even metaphorically sigh in relief, a pair of fleshy tentacles interposed themselves in the path it was heading towards and forced it to make another detour.

Both of Esperanza’s tenebrous limbs chased after the creature even as she hurled her main body in the direction the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] was headed towards. The creature flew slightly slower than before – Dali’s strike had nicked one of its wings too and the damage reduced its agility – so it was the best chance they had so far to corner and kill it once and for all.

By happenstance, the creature’s detour took it towards Dai’vasy. The young mage had a hard time tracking the swift monster, but she could get a general idea of the direction it was headed towards by watching Esperanza’s limbs, so she took the opportunity to call upon her magical skills and enacted a working. Under her call, a pane of solid ice appeared before the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s path, with several more closing off the other directions it could have turned towards.

As it was, the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] pierced through the pane of ice before it – the creature having noticed that the other paths were sealed already – without too much trouble, as Dai’vasy’s magic couldn’t stand up to the force it could bring to bear. However, the impact still slowed it down slightly, not by much, but the disruption was all it took for Esperanza to finally catch up to it.

Stolen story; please report.

Before the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] could react, one of Esperanza’s tentacular limbs – tipped with a hook of bone – pierced its backside and killed its momentum, the remaining inertia causing part of its flesh to tear apart around the hook.

The next moment, Dali appeared out of another portal and bit hard on the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s proboscis, preventing the creature from using them to cut itself loose from Esperanza’s grasp. While Dali might not weigh that much – maybe only around forty to fifty pounds – compared to most of the others, that much weight was still enough to keep the beast from moving its proboscis freely.

Then Esperanza’s other arm similarly pierced into the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s body, followed by her main body’s arrival whereupon she wrapped herself around the monster and prevented it from moving. Unable to maintain its flight, the creature fell like a rock towards the floor, weighed down by Esperanza and Dali, who did not let go even on impact with the ground.

Everybody else reacted swiftly.

Ani was the first to arrive, on account of being the highest leveled out of the group with the highest Body stat as well. The half-breed warrior woman swiftly lunged towards the fallen beast and stabbed through it with her spear even as Esperanza slightly unraveled her grip to allow the others to strike at the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] together.

Needless to say, the end result was tragic. Unable to fly away or defend itself, the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] was torn apart by the group without any mercy. As they still remembered how the creature had cast off its exoskeleton earlier, they even dismembered it just to make sure that it didn’t have another form hidden up its sleeve.

To finish the deal, Gordy even tore off the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign]’s head and ate it while chewing thoroughly.

Only then did the group allow themselves to sit down and rest after the short, but grueling battle. They weren’t too worried about the collapsed exit. The collapse was a minor one and it’d only take a few minutes to clear a way out at most, so they decided to rest and regain their energy first. Mel-Ivas and the few subordinates of Belug-ur’ani who had healing skills worked on their injuries while they rested, and in fifteen minutes the group was once more fit to fight, without any injuries left behind.

Of course, every one of them were still feeling the ache that was left behind after magical healing, but it was not something that would affect their fighting capabilities at that moment. The physically stronger members of the group cleared a path through the collapsed exit within ten minutes, and they left the chamber behind them.

As they walked out of the queen’s lair, all of them took a deep breath of fresh air and sighed in relief. While there was decent ventilation in the lair, the air within was quite stale and unpleasant, which wasn’t too surprising given its mostly enclosed nature. It was a minor, yet bothersome thing to have to deal with while fighting though.

From there, the group proceeded as they had planned. The Progenies wanted to rework their weapons and armor into something more suitable for their current power, as they had outgrown their current equipment. Fortunately, they weren’t lacking material for such an upgrade. The group had naturally kept the best weaponized limbs and undamaged pieces of carapace from all the arachnoids they slaughtered for that purpose.

That naturally included the [Immature Arachnoid Sovereign] as well, whose entire exoskeleton had been divided up and carried on the backs of several people. Given the size and shape of the pieces, it was unlikely that everyone would be able to be equipped with it, but at least a few of their best fighters could enjoy that luxury.

The group retraced their steps until they reached the headstone once more. There they gave another prayer to their departed friends – although they knew that Esperanza held their souls within her, it was an old habit – before they dug up the grave and carefully brought out the remains within. As it had been over a month since their burial and the bodies were unprotected from insects and the like, all that remained were their bones.

As they traveled back to Agur-Bas, the Progenies insisted on carrying the remains of their late friends on their own backs. The group made good progress – naturally taking care not to accidentally trespass into the dinosaur-like creature’s territory – and was blessed with a relatively uneventful journey back. Where Esperanza’s group took two weeks to reach Agur-Bas from the gravesite the first time round, this time they only took a little over a week to do so.

Once they reached the hidden city, the Progenies – together with Esperanza and the rest, as well as the children who had found new families there – went together to the section of town used as a cemetery. There they carefully interred the bones of their late friends, with the priests of the Deities of Yore from the city’s temple consecrating the burial.

It was a formal, somber occasion that the group mostly spent in silence. After the burial ceremony ended, The Progenies and the other children offered more prayers to the new graves. The children left first, leaving Esperanza, the [Progenies of Yore], and Iryl behind as the last people in the cemetery at that time.

There the Progenies and Iryl once again reaffirmed their resolution that they would complete the mission Esperanza had been given by the Deities of Yore, at whatever cost. It was both an act of retribution against the current world that forced them into their situation, as well as a hope that the future world would be a better one where others wouldn’t have to go through what they had.

Every one of them knew by then that the mission Esperanza had been given was to destroy the world they were on, and that its completion would also mean their end, but none of the young Progenies had any doubt in their mind then they made their resolution and swore an oath in the name of the Deities of Yore that they believed in and had granted them their powers.

There was a saying that difficult times often created great men, and Esperanza couldn’t help but think of it when she looked at the youths before her. She knew all too well that despite their forced physical maturation they were still children that were no more than six to twelve years of age. To see their resolute decision was something that impressed her, yet at the same time she wished that there could be a world where such children didn’t have to be that resolute in the first place.

Had there not been a need for them to wait while the crafters in the nearby underwater villages worked on their equipment, Esperanza thought that the Progenies would likely have set off in the pursuit of their Deities’ mission already.