Chapter 57 – The Web Runner Queen
Yeah. He’d expected there’d be some enemies, but they’d all been weak so far.
So how was he supposed to know there’d be thousands of them gunning for him all at once? Had he been stupid when sending Atharost ahead? Had that been foolish? Would it even matter if the ifrit was here against odds like these?
His mind raced as his heart beat like a gatling gun. He could always unsummon Atharost and then resummon him – or would the ifrit be back before then? Would that be wasting time? He could try to fight – but he’d certainly die so that wasn’t an option. He could try to carry Vye, but then he’d be slowed down and would likely die himself. Vye likely weighed over 160 pounds, so doing that was foolhardy. Lue was likely the only one of them that could outrun these things, and Brody…
He might be able to take Brody.
The chittering wave was continuing to crash towards them through the trees, causing the ground to shake underneath the stampede of the incoming horde.
How was this even fair? Was this really something that they were supposed to be able to beat? Trey took another long look back the way Atharost had gone off, and sullenly admitted to himself that not everyone here could be saved. He’d have to make sacrifices… in order to save his own life.
“There… are thousands of incoming enemies…” Trey muttered, just loud enough for the rest of them to hear. Vye’s face went pale, and Lue peered out into the darkness while trying to contain her trembling hands that only got worse upon his words.
He let out a long exhale. “I’m taking the kid. If you two can follow, do your best… but I can’t wait here any longer. I’m sorry, but it’s now or never… try to keep up.”
With a quick signal to his two minions, Trey grabbed the little boy and turned around to sprint in the direction opposite the incoming swarm.
“WAIT!” Vye screamed out as Lue began to take off behind Trey and the others, not even giving the old man a backwards glance.
“PLEASE!” Vye cried out again with terror in his voice and trembling hands. He tried to get up, but his exhausted legs didn’t respond. Instead, he was only able to crawl and began to sob as he heard the incoming swarm grow nearer. “PLEASE COME BACK!”
Vye’s begging turned into horror-filled screams of anguish as the wave of eight-legged death trampled over him before tearing him apart, limb from limb. It only spurred Trey onwards faster, and a second later he noticed Rivia was beginning to fall behind too.
Cursing to himself, he began to unsummon Rivia – and calling out to her to let her know what he was doing, he gave her a nod of acknowledgement before she was dismissed to the nether realm thirty seconds later.
With Brody, screaming and frantic, as deadweight under his arm – Trey rushed through the swampy towards the beacon of light in the distance with Napoleon and Lue hot on his heels.
Trey called back in encouragement to the Chinese woman, looking over his shoulder as he ran. “COME ON! RUN FASTER!”
Lue was frantically pumping her legs, doing her best to keep up. “I’M COM-“
The woman abruptly stumbled and fell, slamming face-first into a low-lying log and knocking a tooth loose. She wasn’t able to see in the dark like Trey was, and had tripped over a small boulder protruding out of the marsh.
Trey winced, and nearly doubled back, when he heard Napoleon screaming at him from the front.
“RUN RUN MASTER! RUN RUN!”
The swarm was still incoming, and Lue had just knocked herself out. Cursing to himself and feeling a wave of guilt hit him hard in the gut, Trey turned back around and raced onwards at Napoleon’s encouragement. He just hoped he ran into Atharost on the way, or better yet - that the spiders would give up the chase. Somehow, he doubted that second option would ever really come to pass.
***
Trey hadn’t been fast enough. Despite his physically fit body, and despite the distance he’d leapt every time he’d shadowstepped, he’d failed. They’d been caught. They’d been run down, and Brody… that innocent little kid… Brody was dead.
A sea of flames bathed the landscape as Atharost let loose a firestorm while simultaneously surrounding Trey’s position against one of the larger swamp trees with walls of fire. Chaos chains flew out from interdimensional rifts to ravage the enemy arachnids by the dozens, and dozens more lay surrounding Trey at his feet. Talsh’Noc’Un hissed with pleasure as Trey withdrew it from one of the larger corpses easily twice Trey’s size, and yellow bile poured out of the huge wound resulting from the latest killing blow.
Trey had two large gashes along his left pectoral muscle, his face was covered in spider blood, and off to his left – Napoleon’s left hand was missing a claw.
But they were still alive. Between the two of them they’d killed insane amounts of the eight-legged bastards, and since Atharost’s arrival even more had died. Shrieking, cooking, dying spiders were everywhere – burning to death amidst the trees and shrubbery of the swamp they called home.
Trey regretfully glanced back to where Brody’s bloody body laying face-down in the mud. Firelight flickered across Trey’s glistening musculature, reflecting light off the various bodily fluids and swamp water staining his figure. The crackling of the flames put Trey into a shallow trance as he glumly walked over to the child’s corpse, and stared.
Napoleon watched him, curiously at first, and then grew glum as well as he hopped over the body of another enemy and tugged at Trey’s boot. “Not not your fault. It ok. It ok.”
Trey still held his gaze on Brody’s corpse, cringing with shame for not protecting the kid… and even mild amounts of despair. The little boy’s blood-soaked superhero T-shirt was shredded across the back where one of the spiders had attacked him.
“Trey Trey!”
He felt Napoleon tug at his boots again, and glanced down at the imp. The marshy patch of land they stood on still sloshed with dirty water, blood, and bile. “Yes?”
“We need go go!” Napoleon scowled up at Trey, then clutched at his missing finger to quench the bleeding. “We no stay stay! Others win win and that bad.”
The firestorm still raged about them, but they stood in a little island of sanity amidst the burning rage as Atharost over-head intercepted and absorbed any fire that was headed for Trey’s location.
Napoleon had a point. Despite Trey’s failures, Trey couldn’t just sit around and mope. He’d done his best to save Brody, and had tried to save the others too. He’d not put them in this situation, he’d actively tried to help them, so there was no reason to put the burden of guilt atop his own shoulders for failing.
He grimaced, and seconds later held out a hand to begin summoning Rivia. The pentagram of red light lit up along the ground, and 30 seconds later the culn priestess appeared. Upon exiting the nether realm with a flash of power, she took in her surroundings with a frown. Her eyes fell to the little boy, and she folded her arms with a shake of her head.
“You should have never tried to help-“
“Rivia.” Trey interrupted with a stone-cold glare. He came within an inch of her face, features calm but dangerous. “Don’t fucking finish that sentence.”
Rivia opened her mouth slightly to protest, but thought better about it and sighed. Folding her arms, she bowed her head in submission. “Very well. I’ll get to healing all of your wounds.”
She began chanting the rejuvenation miracle as Atharost came to land next to them, still engulfed with flames as he absorbed another comet of fire before it made impact where his comrades stood. Meanwhile he popped the cork off a mana potion, letting the blue liquid seep down his throat with a soothing texture.
“The beacon of light-“ Atharost motioned towards the prominent tower of light that shot skywards from the ground not far off. “-Is not far away. There is a large tunnel there, leading underground. Other Earthborn have already gone through… we must hurry.”
A thunderous explosion shook the ground not far off as two of the high-velocity flaming balls of fire exploded – taking out a boulder and two trees in a couple shower of wood and stone. The cloud of fire overhead cast an orange glow over the landscape, and the heat of their surroundings only grew as more of the plant-life withered into ash.
Trey gave a grunt of acknowledgement, nodding in thanks to Rivia for her healing and began to walk towards the beacon in the near-distance. “Very well.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned back around to see Atharost’s grim expression deepen into an even further frown. “I hope you will not falter, if the time comes to kill your own.”
Trey’s eyebrows raised in confusion, before he understood what the ifrit meant. Chuckling slightly Trey gave him a confirmatory grin. “Ah. Just because they are Earthborn does not make them my own. I will not falter. Whoever gets in our way, dies.”
Trey turned around fully to face his three minions with a look of steely resolve. “We’re getting back to the others. Back to Ashe, Izumi and Jason. I won’t abandon my friends, even if it means killing the people here to do it.”
***
They’d finally reached the beacon of light. It was as if they’d passed almost through a semi-solid wall of brilliance as they came into a clearing in the swamp, where a tunnel many yards across lead further down into the earth before growing even wider. Trey couldn’t see into it too far, because there was a curving bend in the passage, but the numerous corpses of both web runners and Earthborn signified that battle had recently taken place here.
If he had to guess, based on how the bodies weren’t cocooned, the Earthborn had won and left their dead behind.
That was bad news for him, and his heartrate picked up after realizing he was far from the first one here.
Try gave a last glance back at the fire storm raging in the heavens above not far off, then turned back to the tunnel – and began to run. He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
The tunnel branched out into separate paths numerous times, and Trey found himself cursing his luck as he came to dead end after dead end. Some of them had more bodies, others had broken egg sacks, and still more had emptied treasure chests.
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He continued to run, sprinting the entire way and downing a couple of the stamina potions they’d taken off Tyler’s corpse earlier that day. The green liquid was vile in taste, but it gave him the needed energy to keep moving without keeling over from exhaustion – and god knew he was already exhausted from the exertion of his fights that day.
“Damn it…” Trey swore again as he turned another corner to find nothing but a rock wall. “This is bullshit!”
A distant crash from down a separate passage caught his attention, along with the faint screams of people as an explosion shook the ground.
That sounded promising, and a light of hope sparked within Trey’s mind. He turned and rushed that way, with Napoleon streaking ahead only to be called back. “Napoleon! I want you sticking with Rivia – during these fights you’re assigned to keep her protected unless you absolutely think I need help. No matter what happens, she cannot die. She’s our primary source of healing other than the potions, and we only have a couple potions left. If she dies, we all die.”
Napoleon scooted to a stop, and his large ears went flat against his head. “Yes yes. I agree. I keep Rivia safe safe!”
The imp scurried back and clambered up Rivia’s panting figure with ease, perching atop her shoulder as she continued to run and maintaining balance rather easily. “Onwards, mount!”
Rivia shot him a glare, but they all continued down the hall towards the sound of battle without any interceptions.
Trey vaulted over three more spiders but came to a stop and did a double-take after looking them over. These spiders were far larger than the others – each of them larger than a horse, with purple thicker skin and spikes adorning their backs. However, the thing that caught Trey’s attention most… was the dead fire-mage pinned underneath the last of them.
It was Ruby, the plump woman who’d tried recruiting Trey at the beginning of the tournament. Her throat was ripped out, and she had a dead open-eyed stare that looked off into nothingness. Trey couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made the wrong choice. His entire party had died even despite his best efforts… even Brody had died, and if he’d gone with a better group – maybe Ruby would still be alive.
He’d remember this the next time he was dragged into a shitshow like this. If another ‘tournament’ ever came up, he would take the group with the best odds. His bleeding-heart mentality had landed him nowhere – except for maybe losing the chance to get back home himself.
What a fucking idiot he’d been.
Another crash and series of chittering echoed down the hall, bringing him back to reality. He returned to his course of action, and another few turns down the hall finally led him to the source of the commotion.
Exiting the tunnel into a vast cavernous room, he finally saw it – the pyramid he’d been looking for. It was just as the illusions had depicted it, with Mayan-style architecture and a flat top. There were four large entrances at the bottom as well, with a stone staircase on any of the four sides leading upwards. And there, at the very peak of the pyramid, was a large glowing pedestal that illuminated the cave with a myriad of purple and red lights.
Along these stone steps and all along the top of the pyramid were somewhere around 25-30 Earthborn, all fighting as one against an onslaught of web runners as the spiders poured out from the bottom entrances of the pyramid. Apparently the Earthborn had all teamed up, at least temporarily, to fight off the army of arachnids – and they were even winning…
Flashes of lightning, flame and arcane energy tore through the creatures as rapidly as they came while the Earthborn made their way to the top of the pyramid. The frontline fighters, about seven people who wore different variations of armor, shields and weapons, took the brunt of the attack while being healed by a priest and some sort of shaman in the backlines.
Trey muttered to himself as the took the battle in. It was a solid effort, and Trey was even a little proud at how the people from his home-world were performing after seeing so many of them die tragic deaths in a rather pathetic display of competency. But these people… these people legitimately had a chance.
However… he still couldn’t allow them to win. He turned back to his minions, or at least he started to, before a roar echoed out from the pyramid’s base. It shook the entire cave, and the remaining swarm of web-runners went into a frenzy as they desperately tried to kill the invaders. Trey froze, stunned at how loud the roar had been… and watched in stupefied amazement as a creature began to emerge from the nearest pyramid’s entrance.
Stone cracked and blew off the side off the base of the pyramid as an absolutely gigantic, hairy, arachnid limb slammed into the cave floor beneath. It was bright white in color, with red dots littering the dorsal surface that flickered with mana.
“Holy fuck.”
Two more limbs extended beyond the entrance, and then they pulled – bringing the rest of the creature’s body into full view.
WARNING
WARNING
WARNING
BOSS FIGHT HAS BEEN INITIATED. LIVARIA, QUEEN OF THE WEB RUNNERS, HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED AS A BOSS RATED ENEMY RELATIVE TO YOUR PARTY’S SKILL LEVEL. KILLING LIVARIA WILL RESULT IN A HEROIC TRAIT FOR ALL SURVIVORS. PREPARE YOURSELF.
Livaria, Queen of the Web Runners’ status page basics:
* Name: Livaria, Queen of the Web Runners
* Maximums: 1844 HP, 702 MP, 1550 SP, 1/1 DP
* Race: Web Runner Queen, Greater Spree
* Level 299
* Class: Hive Queen
* Nature attribute
* Traits: Armored, Predatory, Acid Glands, Bestial Might, Uncompromising, Hive Mind Matriarch, Soundproof, Sticky Webbing
* Power Rating: 854
The enormous white spider glistened, little red jewels all across its carapace radiating mana as it whirled around with absurd speed for a creature of that size – and eyed the Earthborn group heading up the pyramid. Nothing particularly special about this spider stood out other than the size, radiating mana, and beauty of it, but that was still enough to intimidate the living hell out of everyone else there.
The other web runners – literally all of them – immediately broke ranks and ran to get out of their queen’s way. In the next instant, and before any of the panicking Earthborn had time to prepare a defense, the queen came for them.
It lunged across the pyramid with insane speed and tore through the front ranks, scattering the front line fighters with ease as some of the armored warriors were tossed into the air to bounce down the steps. Lightning collided with the creature, taking off a small amount of its HP to piss it off. It turned with a screech and leapt onto the mage who’d attacked it, ripping open his rib cage as he screamed while the other Earthborn converged with attacks of their own to try and save the man.
“TAKE OUT THE LEGS!” yelled one of the warriors as he sunk a battle axe deep into a backside chitin leg of the enormous spider queen. “THE LEGS!”
Yellow blood poured out of the wound and it whirled, this time focusing on the warrior as flame and spears collided with its side. A rogue hopped atop the creature and began stabbing at its head, only to be shaken off as it charged the axe-wielder. It struck out with a spiked leg, denting the man’s breastplate and causing him to spew out blood from his mouth – but it didn’t impale him entirely. The armor somewhat held, even though the man was incapacitated against the stone pyramid’s steps.
The other Earthborn, namely the rangers and remaining mages, continued to fire while making it to the pyramid’s top as the queen killed one after another of the close-range fighters. Blood sprayed, arrows whistled by to cut into or bounce off thick carapace, and screams combined with screeches of the spider as it tore into them.
A particularly heavy-hitting fire blast caught the spider off guard, causing it to let out a roar before whirling. The little red lights all along its jeweled body began to glow green, and then in a flurry of power a beam shot out at the fire mage atop the pyramid’s peak.
The green blast of energy ripped into him, and he only had a single second to scream before his body withered, morphed, and then blossomed into flowers as he turned into some sort of human-shaped plant.
A young blonde priestess, wearing a white robe and carrying a gnarled wooden staff, tried her best to heal the mage before he completely morphed – but she utterly failed. Swearing profusely and scrambling backwards across the flat stone top of the pyramid, she watched in horror as her comrades were eaten, impaled, crushed, and morphed into people-shaped-plants in front of her eyes. One even died in a spray of acid that the queen shot out of its mouth, and due to her drained mana stores – she was unable to do much about any of it.
She was going to die here.
The queen crushed another man, ripped off his head with a shriek of delight and promptly crunched away at the skull – devouring it within seconds. It took a moment to spray acid at a fleeing rogue who tried to run, melting the man’s skin off his muscles with the equivalent of a spider’s chuckle, and glanced over to where the priestess sat stupefied.
It was injured, with many wounds, arrows, scorch marks, and mars riddling its body, but the spider queen was nowhere close to being beaten… and as she looked around, the priestess realized that she was the very last one not dead, dying, or running away.
Quivering and clutching her gnarled staff more tightly, holding it out in front of her as if to ward the huge monster off, she screamed as it lunged for her. She couldn’t drag her gaze away… she knew death was coming for her, but it was like watching a train wreck. Despite how horrible it was, she just kept on watching.
Halfway through the air, something collided with the monstrosity in an explosion of black lightning and crimson flames to send it hurtling off to the side. The queen belched yellow blood and acid as it rocketed into the glowing pedestal, shaking the pyramid as it made impact in a shower of stone and debris.
Trey landed from the point he’d shadow-stepped to, grinning with the notification that popped up.
“Your hidden attack was a critical strike, +71% damage.”
Before the gigantic spider could react, Rivia cast a pestilence miracle from the opposite side of the pyramid’s top – afflicting the creature with rot that began to spread from various points across its body. Napoleon cast a burden curse to slow its movements from atop Rivia’s shoulders, and Atharost rained hell from above with torrents of flame. Trey followed all of his minions up with eight different chaos chains that wrapped around the disoriented queen’s eight different legs from different angles – damaging the creature over time as they searing into its flesh. It cost him a good majority of his mana, but the chains pulled tight and restrained the creature just as it tried to get up.
It roared in anger and pain, rocking the cave with its echo as the attacks struggling to get out for a good three seconds of straight damage before it grew frantic and sprayed acid everywhere.
Some of the acid ignited, causing itself even more damage, but much of it latched onto the chaos chains binding it. The chains dissolved, and in an instant – the queen, still lit aflame and necrosing over various patches across its body, rushed Trey like a creature spawned to represent hell itself. It was crazed, roaring and spitting acid as green bouts of mana rocketed out of the intact jewels across its body.
Trey’d seen what those lights could do, and took no time in dashing to the pyramid’s edge and using the stone stairs as a means of escape from line of sight.
It crashed onwards, hellbent on causing the object of its agony a gory death. However, when Atharost cast another fireblast and seared two of its eyes – the creature let out a hiss and immediately turned to the ifrit. Raising its abdomen and aiming, it fired a thick silky webbing that rocketed towards the ifrit – ensnaring the demon instantaneously.
Atharost reared back, blooming into even more intense flames that shredded the webbing and let him break free – only to have another strand latch onto him and pull him down. This process was repeated twice more, where Athrost would burn through the webbing as the spider raged at him with chittering fangs to drag him down to earth – when Trey stuck again from behind.
Talsh’Noc’Un went straight through the spider’s back left leg – cleanly breaking it off with a loud *THWACK*. The spider whirled, its amputated stump spraying yellow, pus-colored blood everywhere. Catching sight of the man again, the creature began to glow a bright red – and in that instant, it disappeared.
Trey had no idea the queen had teleported behind him until he felt the impact. The spider queen’s two spiked front legs slammed into his back, pinning him to the ground. The attack would have immediately killed him, if Rivia hadn’t cast an ‘Immortal’s infernal blessing’ right as the strike hit home. The orange light bathed Trey’s body over, making him 100% immune from harm over the next couple seconds, but it’d been cast a little too late to avoid all damage.
The queen’s legs were still in three inches deep each, cracking ribs and drawing blood before he’d been slammed face first into the ground. Still, upon seeing its prey not dead yet – it only made the creature angrier. The queen howled and continued to slam its spiked legs down into Trey’s body – taking another blast of flames from Atharost just as Trey turned his head to unleash crimson hellfire directly into the creature’s roaring mouth.
The queen squealed, shocked at the counter attack and reeled back again as Napoleon slammed into its smoldering face. The imp tore into its face, clawing out one of its eyes before the queen teleported away with another shimmer of red energy.
“NAPOLEON!” Trey yelled, grimacing at the wounds along his back and his broken ribs – but now frantic upon seeing where the queen had teleported to. “I TOLD YOU TO STAY WITH RIVIA!!!”
The enormous spider - though severely damaged with innumerable burns, wounds, and a spreading necrosis that’d caused part of its abdomen to fall off - was certainly not done. It hissed, two inches away from Rivia’s face as the demoness turned rigid with fear.
She looked to Trey, and right before the blow struck – she was able to scream out one word: “TREY!”
The queen sprayed her with acid, enveloping Rivia’s body in a shower of green liquid that burned the young culn woman alive. It melted her face off first, and then her arms and breasts – eating away her flesh as the demoness withered and died.
“Your minion Rivia has died.”