This thing was ugly. Even if one loved spiders and found them cool, the form in front of me was too uncanny to look at. Her silvery hair was greasy and matted. Despite its length, it couldn’t hide the countless unblinking eyes scattered with no rhyme or reason along her face. Her lower jaw had two large fangs akin to a spider. A long tongue with the texture of sandpaper draped down, covered with saliva. I wondered how she spoke to us with a mouth like that.

Despite a face even a mother couldn’t like, what caught my attention most was her ears. Despite her sickly pale skin, the long ears at the sides of her head were identical to every elf I have seen until now.

“You… You can’t be! How can a Fatlfilus be inside of the Mother?”

Elandris’s frantic shouting confirmed what I guessed. The thing in front of us was a Fallen Child. An elf that absorbed mana from other beings and corrupted as a result.

“Kekekekek! Your tree isn’t as smart as you think! You aren’t as smart as you think!”

The Fallen Child's voice was grating, filled with malice and arrogance as she spoke. Her eyes gleamed with a twisted sense of satisfaction, reveling in the chaos and fear she had sown.

"But... why?" Methild's voice wavered with confusion and disbelief. "How could you do this? What do you gain from harming the Mother Tree?"

Fatlfilus pierced the ground in front of her with her now-healed spider legs. The lower body hissed threateningly. Gökbörü popped his head and growled back.

“Mother Tree!”

She snarled as if she was talking about her hated enemy. Considering how highly other elves regarded Mother Tree it was weird.

“Don’t you see the shackles she puts on you? You need her to live! But look at me. By eating others, I broke my shackles! I don’t need her! We don’t need her!”

Spider's legs pierced the ground repeatedly as she chuckled to herself. She hugged her chest, giving herself gashes as her chitinous claws dug into her pale skin. I took a second to consider her words despite her apparent insanity. Elves needed Mother Tree to survive to adulthood. However, that had more to do with the elvish constitution rather than Mother Tree herself. My thoughts stopped as I noticed spiders creeping all around us.

“She is insane. Elandris. You chose. Killing your kin is not a pleasant thing, no matter how fall they have fallen. Either deal with the spiders or put her out of her misery.”

I stepped forward while tightening my grip on my spear. Our battle against corrupted beastkin flashed in my mind. The killing was not pleasant. But killing your own kind? It was a different kind of evil. I knew it because I did it many times. I could see the hesitation in Elandris’s eyes.

“Be merciful. Even if she is fallen from grace…”

I spun my spear as I let go of my shield. When its size increased, its weight also increased as well. While I could still lift it, it was not convenient.

“Lily. We will deal with her. Methild, Elandris. Do not let us get surrounded by the spiders.”

Lily approached the arachne with me. We didn’t need words to communicate. It wasn’t the first time we fought together, neither it would be the last.

“Man, Rachnera let herself go. Shame. She was my favorite girl.”

Lily’s words didn’t match with his movements as he disappeared before appearing in front of the arachne and striking the pitch black, naked legs of the spider half, causing a pitch black liquid to ooze as one of the legs flew into the air. Arachne screeched as the spider half hastily tried to retreat. I already anticipated her movements so I was ready to cut her escape route. I didn’t bother with dealing with spider legs and focused on the elven part that was mostly unarmored.

More specifically, I focused on already damaged parts. It looked like the spider fusion thing didn’t work perfectly and the parts where black chitin and pale skin fused looked rotten and necrotic.

“I agree that she is good. But she is half spider. That’s a no from me.”

I spoke nonchalantly as my spear opened a large opening on her chest. At this moment I could hear Methild and Elandris engaging with the spiders. Arachne screamed and let out a wave of energy that pushed us back.

“You bastards! You mortals! Do you think you could talk as if you are not facing me? You will pay for this! You will pay!”

She frantically waved her hands in the air. Waves of mana flew toward us. Infusing mana into my weapon, I parried them as I closed the distance.

(You resisted Mana Poisoning.)

They could inflict status effects without hitting us directly? Damn, that’s dangerous. Thankfully, I didn’t need to warn Lily. He didn’t bother parrying the mana waves.

With his quickness on his feet he darted around the arachne, his blades flashing with deadly precision as he targeted her vulnerable spots.

“What is your favorite girl then?”

He asked as he dodged a whip made out of mana with an agile flip in the air. At that moment I reached them and severed the arm holding the whip.

“The centaur. What was her name?”

Spider part tried to retaliate by biting me with its huge fangs dripping venom but with a single bark from Gökbörü, its fangs were trapped in ice.

“Centorea. And of course, you would like the one with the biggest boobs.”

The spider part broke the ice and got ice spears lodged in its eyes as the result.

“I love big boobs and I can’t lie.”

Arachne tried to release a cloud of purple gas but Lily blew it away with a single swing from his sword. My spear finally reached her neck. With a single, clean strike I severed her head from her body. Her body, littered with wounds fell down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“What about Morrigan? Her’s are medium isn’t it?”

I looked at Lily with tired eyes. Not that I was physically tired. Arachne could have posed some danger if I was alone but even then it was too weak to tire me out. What tired me out was Lily.

“Respect her for a second.”

Even though I basically chatted with Lily during our fight, I still wanted to show respect to the death. I guess it was being a hypocrite but a part of me wanted that.

“I can’t say I respect her. Beastkin were corrupted against their will but she seemed like she wanted this.”

Lily shrugged his shoulders. I didn’t argue with him. Methild and Elandris soon reached to us.

“They ran away the moment she died. We thought that it wasn’t worth chasing after them for now.”

Elandris explained. I nodded. As we stood amidst the aftermath of the battle, I couldn't help but feel a sense of unease lingering in the air.

"Even if she embraced her corruption willingly, it's still a tragedy," Methild murmured, her voice heavy with sorrow. "To see one of our kind falls so far... it's heartbreaking."

I took a step back to give Methild and Elandris the space they needed. Perhaps it was due to their long and sheltered lives, they seemed to be reacting negatively to death than us. Guess death was harder to accept when you could live for centuries.

Methild kneeled close to the corpse of the arachne. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to cover up the body or something else but a silent scream rang inside my head at that moment.

I haven’t seen the notification of her soul being collected to Requiem for Unfinished Dreams.

My body moved before my mind could fully process the situation. My muscles tensed as I grabbed Methild by her clothes to get her from the range of the creature’s huge fangs while I thrust my spear to its head. While I aimed for eyes of it, from the edge of my vision I saw Elandris pull back his arrow. He must also noticed that something was a miss.

Before my spear could pierce the thick carapace of the spider part, it jumped high in the air, startling everyone and causing my spear to pierce the ground as I missed her.

“What the flying spiders!”

Lily shouted as Elandris released his arrows, hitting the airborne creature. The arrows stuck on its large body yet they couldn’t stop her as she landed and ran away with her 8 legs.

"Damn it!"

I growled as I pulled my spear from the ground. Gritting my teeth in frustration, I cursed myself for letting my guard down. The Fallen Child had deceived us, playing dead to catch us off guard. And now, she was escaping, slipping away into the darkness once more.

“What the fuck was that? She can survive without her head?”

Lily cursed as he helped Methild get up. I was quite rough with her when I grabbed her, basically throwing her behind as I attacked the spider.

“Should we chase after her?”

Elandris asked me.

“No. We don’t know what is in this space. Carelessly going on wild goose chases is too dangerous. She could very well lead us to a trap and she isn’t our first priority.”

I lifted up my shield which returned back to its original size.

“It is okay. The marker I put will last for some time.”

Methild dusted herself and pointed to the arrow shining and pointing somewhere in the darkness. I took a glance towards it and moved the humanoid-elfoid?- head we severed. With a quick strike, I split the skull into two and looked at what it held.

“She had two brains.”

I shared my newfound knowledge as I lifted the squishy grey matter in the air with the tip of my spear.

“Damn. She got us good. It looks pretty normal.”

Lily walked beside me and looked at the brain tissue.

“That’s two more than you, Lily.”

Lily chuckled at my remark, a grin spreading across his face despite the tension of the situation.

“All the materials needed for my brain went somewhere else.”

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at his comment.

“How will we proceed?”

Elandris asked once again. I wasn’t sure why everyone assumed I was the leader all the time. I sighed.

“She will heal. She regenerated her legs when we cut them so it is safe to assume she can regenerate her head. We can go and hunt her while she is weakened but we don’t know if she set up traps or anything. She also has her spider army and most importantly, I doubt that she is alone. Elandris, Methild, I am sorry to say this but I am pretty sure there is at least one more Fallen. She was too impulsive and erratic to smuggle a literal dragon inside of the Mother Tree not to mention she wasn’t that strong.”

Elandris and Methild exchanged concerned glances, understanding the gravity of the situation. The presence of another Fallen Child meant that their already perilous situation had become even more precarious.

“Let’s say that we ignored her and focused on killing Nidhogg. What if she attacks us in the middle of combat? Or after we killed the Nidhogg and got tired? Not getting rid of her can cause problems.”

Methild said, her voice tinged with worry.

“She could see clearly in this darkness and she must have spent a lot of time here before we arrived. If we were to chase after her she can easily lead us to more monsters or hunt us while we try to hunt her.”

Elandris added.

“We have a way of knowing her position but we do not know where the Nidhogg is. I think our best bet is to move slowly, get rid of her then search for Nidhogg. I don’t want to get hit by a spider missile while facing down a dragon.”

Lily pointed to the marker slowly changing where it was pointing. I nodded in agreement as I listened to their insights. They were right. If we knew where Nidhogg was things could been different but we didn’t.

"Alright," I said, my tone firm. "We can't let her roam free while we deal with Nidhogg. Nor we can split into teams. We will chase after the fallen while watching each other's backs. Be vigilant.”