The Island with the tree manifestation of my Magical Aspect of Death grew in considerable size, now containing an even smaller tree with crimson blood red veins running inside it, reaching even the few branches where small glows of light form a few what I may call fruits, at least they resemble the faint shape of apples or pears. I try to pick one down, but when I do my hand passes through the ethereal shape. From my new memories I know that these are the talents so to speak that the vampire took from its victims, these talents and memories form into these fruit shapes on the tree.
I turn back and think if the fruit like shapes on the main tree represent the same or not. Probably not completely, or at least I have not noticed it yet. Well it does not matter currently, and will have time to figure it out. The more important part is that there are one more party that I may will have to compete with. Well at least now I also know about the Dark Elf Lich, the second in command of the Dragon if you will. Well and the Horde, but so far they seem to be just here to stand guard and do not allow anyone to enter the mountain to disturb the Dragon.
Which is good for me too, even though with how their relationship went, they may send in a group to eliminate the vampires, not knowing I already did it, especially after I took away the Lich’s undead minions. I guess there is no time to rest now, better to take down the spiders before the Horde or the Lich may attack me, maybe even at the same time.
I leave my Divine Space behind, getting a bit shaky still after exiting. A horde of empty eyes surrounding me in the Armory that was used as a makeshift throne room by the vampires, it is a weird experience that will take me time to get used to. For now I give them the mental command while standing up from the kneeling position I sat down in, and start following the undead after the two new undead mages and the four relatively well armored dwarven undeads surround me as my bodyguards…
…While it has been only a few days since we took the dwarven home, I kind of miss it after walking on for hours now, following the route twisting and turning at every now and then. At the least we are getting ever closer to their lair, webs decorating the dark malachite walls of this section, in some the remains of the barbaric armor of the Horde stuck with its wearer missing, already consumed by one of the spiders.
The growling and the screeching noises that come from a few meters ahead indicate that the battle has already started between my undead and the spiders. Just for safety measures I send one of the vampiric mages, the one on my right to be more exact, ahead as a one man reinforcement that will be more than enough to fasten up the battle at the entrance section of the spider’s lair.
The noises of the battle get lower and lower as we slowly catch up to the main force so to speak, entering through the torn web that was probably used as protection and a weird spider type gate. Dozens of spiders, varying in size, some just as small as a vermin, while others the size of cows and larger beasts lay on the dark dirt floor of the cave section, their bodies torn, their large arthropod legs broken or even pulled out in a violent manner, some of the undead chewing on them in a gruesome manner. But not for long, my negative matter fills the room, quickly entering into the corpses of the spiders, raising them easily shackling their primal souls to my will.
After the last of the fallen spiders risen up, I divide our forces putting the undead vampiric mages in the role of the leader, with currently them possessing the greatest power beside them. And while I plan to absorb one of the Arachnes, I still left the previous command of kill them all unchanged. I was thinking of keeping some of the spiders alive, but for now I don’t plan to take that risk in case they decide to not submit to me.
After the remaining undead form into groups around us I let them continue on, the two undead vampiric mages enter the pathways on the left and right while I march through the middle one that is slightly narrower making my group form into a long thin line with the four dwarven undead being in front and behind me in pairs leaving four small gaps on all sides. While there are a few holes dug by the spiders probably, I am not too afraid of surprise attacks. From what I know from the shared memory images and thoughts of the undead flies surveilling the Arachne I head towards, she mostly kept her troops, so to speak, near her waiting for us.
While the Arachnes are closer to intelligent beings, thanks to being part whatever the dark elves fused together with their giant spiders, they do not have a sense for tactics, besides basic ones found in the animal world, the same as me if I am being honest with myself.
Compared to the other two, we reach the section of the Arachne relatively fast, unlike with the undeads and the vampires, even though those two weren’t that enormous either. But while it took me at least half an hour to reach the Obelisk containing a small part the Lich’s soul, we get here in like maybe five or six minutes of marching, with my undead already engaging in a fight with some of the larger spiders the Arachne positioned at the entrance to her “room”.
Speaking of the Arachne its enormous spider body with the torso of a female moon elf with long straight hair flowing down like a waterfall covering her naked body protruding from the “head” of the giant spider that may be even bigger than an adult cow with the elves body covered in dark brownish chitin armor just under her ample breasts and the shoulders, her once probably slim soft elven pale snow white colored hands morphed into the same dark brownish like the spider part of her body, clawed hands, her mouth slightly open with annoyed look plastered on her quite gorgeous elven face revealing razor sharp teeth and an in human, almost snake like tongue, her eyes are blood reddish with a similar pupil structure and number like the spiders, she herself surrounded by three giant spiders the size of cows reaching the same length as her lower body with eight legs. And a chitin collar grown around her slim elven neck, most of it covered by her hair.
She cries out with an anger filled yell, ordering her children to retreat slowly backwards while she starts casting ice spells, aimed at the ground between my undead and her spiders, making my ravenous undead slip on it, some breaking their neck, slowing down the advance. A few of my undead ignore her spiders, and by leaping over landing on their heads, rush towards the Arachne who quickly crushes them as they make their last leap towards her aiming their open jaws at her chitin armor free parts of the torso. I give them a smaller command to stop and focus instead on the children of the Arachne.
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The few that were midway towards her standing atop and elevated mini hill stop and start attacking the spiders under their decaying and or skeletal foot tearing their arthropod limbs out and some even donating it back to them by stabbing it in their head with great force, piercing their chitinous exoskeleton at the first try, the dark blood of the spiders spritzing all over their grizzly rotten visages.
On the other hand the ice that slowed down my undead is now a puddle of water thanks to the efforts and heat spells of the two ape-like goblin shamans making the advancement pick up its space once again, zombies and skeletons swarming the less than a hundred spiders of varying sizes, tearing and ripping them to pieces, except for the undead basilisks including a few of the children that was raised a few days ago now, killing the spiders with their deadly gaze, even the children’s proving deadly to the spiders, a weird weakness I must say.
With the rapid decline of their numbers, it is time to finish off the Arachne. A thin, tendril like shadow with a faint crimson red glow slips towards the elevated location of her, passing through under the foot of the spiders and the undead ignoring their fight. It connects with the shadow of the Arachne, tendrils coming out from it, two more shooting out from the shadow under her wrapping and holding her head and neck, while the others secure her spider legs and then I yank her towards me, my hand lifted up, my palm connecting to her chitin covered abdomen the world slowing down around us, turning into the endless void, her figure turning into an ethereal outline of a bluish glowing mass of energy, my hand hardly visible with it being the same pitch black darkness with a faint outline, the only way I know it exists is the feeling of it.
The usual pain assaults my being that is so overpowering not even a scream could escape my mouth, the ethereal figure of the Arachne slowly melding into my palm, sucked into it slowly, her memories including a scene in some great temple hall with a perverted and at the same time enigmatic design, enormous glass windows in all shades of red and purple depicting demonic figures reaching from the bottom to the high ceiling, feeling the dull end of a cold metallic staff holding me down to the dark floor lit by the light of the torches and magical stones filled lamps, yet my vision is low with me being the spider still, watching the hapless moon elf tied and held down by two dark elves in ceremonial robes with wicked design of theirs, her screams muffled by a dark silken cloth covering her mouth, tears flowing down from her bluish moon silver eyes, her snow white skin emanating an ethereal moon silver glow.
Then the one dark elf wearing a mask with the resemblance of a sinister, yet weirdly attractive elven face, and I get closer to the moon elf, feeling a weird hunger. But she is not my food, I know that from the four dark elves in the ceremonial robes chant that started after I got released, the ground under us now covered in glowing demonic runes, and as I stand over the scared moon elf no longer held down by the two, our flesh and skin joins together with a pain that makes us both scream, that stops after I gain a second, higher vision.
Then the memory fades and the next one comes, with me standing on the balcony of a spire tower connecting with both the floor and the ceiling of the Upper-Bottom Layer of the mountain, surrounded by dark elves, some wearing armored robes, while the other wear their distinctive armor both with demonic motifs, watching into the distance that I somehow recognize as the entrance to this layer. There is a fear and tension filled silence among the group that goes on for minutes, then in the next moment a thunderous roar of the underground wall of the entrance exploding resonates through the whole vast section, followed by three enormous balls of dark hellfire hitting the spire tower, breaking it in two. The screams of the dark elves mixes in with the crumbling of the tower as they fall down with the balcony no longer providing footing as it falls towards the cities building on the bottom surrounding the now destroyed spire tower. For some reason I feel calm, knowing well that I will survive this as I am falling towards the pointy rooftops of the relatively tall dark elven houses, quickly shooting some of my web out to the partly destroyed outer walls of the spire tower, holding myself in the air, and my dark elven tamer whose long platinum white hair flows down towards the houses. He screams to me to hold on and lower us, but another smaller yet still large ball of flame hits the remaining middle part of the tower, also engulfing the dark elf, only leaving behind his right hand that I was holding. I quickly let it go as its burns into ashes and watch it disperse in the air.
I quickly lower myself to the streets of the city, evading the falling down burning rubble of the spire tower crushing several dark elves including children and women. I manage to get through the gate, trampling over several guards who try to stop me, and even some citizens myself. But in the end me and two other Arachnes, one with a dark elven top the other with a moon elf top like me. We watch as the Dragon with its enormous body flies through the gap of the destroyed spire tower above the burning city, two of its six enormous curving horns scraping the ceiling, making further chunks fall onto the now silent glowing city as it disappears in the distance.
The next few memories are just us traversing the pathways of the upper layer, hunting the local fauna and reproducing smaller spiders that with each passing vision of memory grow bigger and bigger, until we reach our current home that I assaulted, a group of dwarves hitting the walls decorated with dark grayish nodes with their pickaxes, one screaming in terror as one of my bigger children attacks him, quickly ending the life of the dwarf with one of its legs puncturing its head, destroying it practically.
After taking the place, the mine over with a few of the dwarves captured as our food the vision of memories slowly fade, and now I am back surrounded by my undead, their decaying bodies covered in the dark blood of the spiders. I look down and notice that my legs and arms are now a mix of scales and chitin with a dark bluish gray skin color that extends to my torso that is still the same snow whitish color, my vision too extended a little bit and I accidently cut my tongue with my razor sharp teeth with two fangs in the middle extending a bit more than the others.
After the last of the spiders raise up, restoring the numbers that we have lost during this little battle I head towards the entrance section to meet up with the other two groups that I already know have finished victoriously with some significant losses to our forces…
Post Chapter Notes:
Arachne:
A partly demonic creature created by Dark Elven rituals passed down to them by Bael and Lilith two of their patron demonic gods of the Abyss. While they are a fusion, technically both recipients die and their souls mash together into a new being, with usually the Spider’s soul being the dominant one, taking the properties from the victim. Most often the dark elves resort to using slaves of their own, either captured from their local enemies or dark elves who committed a crime against their communities or if they are designated undesirables.
The Arachnes are mainly serve as their war beasts, while according to some who managed to escape from them, they are kept as sex slaves, mostly by those who have a high devotion towards Bael or Lilith.
Because of their demonic nature, they are well versed in the perverted demonic aspect of magic, The Aspect of Abyss beside the ones they are taking from the intelligent humanoid the spider is fused with.