The stone was obscured by a living, pulsing carpet of Sanguine Arachnids. Spider like monsters born for the sole purpose of serving their queen.
Their carapaces were a deep, violent crimson, textured like jagged obsidian and polished to a mirror sheen. Each of their eight legs was a multi-jointed scythe, serrated with ivory-colored hooks designed to latch into flesh, armor and never let go.
"Defensive circle! Shields out! Spears to the sky!" Antares's voice boomed, shattering the oppressive atmosphere.
The warriors reacted with the drilled precision of elite soldiers. They snapped into a circular formation, back-to-back, their spears angled outward like the quills of a cornered porcupine. In the center, the healers and the most exhausted scouts huddled, their eyes darting upward in terror.
The Arachnids didn't wait. With a collective, high-pitched chittering that sounded like metal scraping on metal, hundreds of them detached. They didn't just fall; they used their abdominal silk-jets to propel themselves downward like living projectiles.
"Brace!" Yanrid yelled, bracing his shoulder against his shield.
The first wave hit the formation with the force of a landslide. A massive red spider, its leg-span nearly six feet across, slammed directly onto Kolo, a veteran warrior of the Ashfang clan. The impact was sickening. The spider's serrated hooks found the gaps in Kolo's shoulder plates instantly.
"ARGH!" Kolo's scream was raw and guttural as the spider's weight pinned him to the floor.
Antares didn't hesitate. He saw the Arachnid's fangs dripping with a sickening paralytic neon-green venom hovering inches from Kolo's throat. Antares blurred, his Knight Force igniting like a furnace covering his body.
He crossed the ten-foot gap in a single, explosive stride.
Eos whistled through the air. The golden blade sliced through the spider's body with the ease of a hot knife through butter. A fountain of steaming, black-green ichor sprayed across the floor, but Antares didn't let up. He grabbed the dying creature's leg and swung its massive carcass like a flail, smashing two other leaping spiders out of the air.
"Healer, get him to the center! Now!" Antares roared, his face already splattered with spider blood.
The battle rapidly descended into a chaotic, bloody grind. The Sanguine Arachnids were relentless.
They didn't fear death; they only feared the hunger of their brood. They swarmed over the shields of the Antmen, their serrated legs sawing at the wooden and metal rims.
On the left flank, a group of three spiders coordinated their attack on a young soldier named Tarek.
One spider lunged low, its hooks dragging Tarek's shield down, while the other two leaped over his head to attack his unprotected back.
"Tarek, duck!" Yanrid shouted.
Yanrid didn't reach for a sword. He thrust his palms outward, and the very moisture in the humid cave air crystallized. Frost Lances, jagged pillars of enchanted ice erupted from the floor. They impaled the two leaping spiders mid-air, frozen solid in a macabre display of taxidermy.
But the third spider, the one holding Tarek's shield, managed to sink its fangs into the boy's thigh.
Tarek let out a strangled cry, his leg buckling as the venom began to liquefy his muscle tissue. "My leg... I can't feel my leg!"
"Hold your ground!" Yanrid commanded, stepping over Tarek and decapitating the spider with a flick of a frost-coated dagger. "If the circle breaks, we all die!"
The air in the chamber became thick with the smell of acrid stench of spider innards. Antares was the heart of the storm. He was no longer just a king; he was a force of nature. He moved between the soldiers, filling every gap that formed.
A spider tried to sneak through the shadows, crawling along the floor to reach the wounded.
Antares didn't even look. He drove Eos backward, the pommel smashing the spider's head into a pulp against the stone. In the same motion, he spun, the blade of Eos carving a 360-degree path of destruction that severed the legs of five Arachnids simultaneously.
"Is that all?!" Antares challenged, his red eyes glowing with a terrifying, predatory joy.
In the rear of the cavern, the twelve cocoons pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly light. Levi and Eli reached the wall, their twin daggers glowing with concentrated mana. They were surrounded by the three cocoons of Kael's sons and the nine other scouts.
"We have to be careful!" Eli shouted, parrying a strike from a spider that had dropped from a hidden crevice. "If we cut too deep, we'll hit them!"
"Just cut the damn silk!" Levi roared.
He plunged his dagger into the thick webbing holding the first cocoon. The silk hissed, resisting the blade as if it were alive. It wasn't just web; it was a mana-conductive resin that fed on the life force of those inside. Levi had to pump his own aura into the blade, heating it until it glowed white, before the silk finally parted.
The first of Kael's sons spilled out, limp and pale, his skin covered in a thin, translucent film.
"One down!" Levi yelled, catching the boy and passing him back toward the center of the squad.
"Eleven to go!"
But the Arachnids sensed their provisions being raided. The chittering grew into a deafening roar.
From the darkness at the back of the chamber, something much larger began to move.
It was The Brood Mother
The wall of the cave seemed to peel away as the Brood Mother revealed herself. She was a titan of crimson and violet, her abdomen bloated with thousands of unhatched eggs, her eight eyes the size of dinner plates and glowing with an ancient, malevolent intelligence.
She didn't skitter; she thundered. Each step of her massive legs cracked the stone floor. She let out a sonic screech that vibrated the very air, causing several Antmen to drop their weapons and clutch their bleeding ears.
"Your Majesty! The Queen is out!" Yanrid warned, his face pale as he realized the scale of the beast.
The Brood Mother lunged at the center of the formation. She didn't use fangs; she used her weight. She slammed into the shield wall, sending four veteran warriors flying like ragdolls across the room.
She was headed straight for the wounded in the back.
"Not on my watch," Antares hissed.
He ignited his Knight Force to its absolute limit. His aura didn't just glow; it roared, a column of crimson flame that illuminated the entire cavern. He didn't run at the Queen; he launched himself.
He met her mid-charge. Eos collided with the Queen's front scythe-leg with a sound like two mountains crashing together. The shockwave blew out the torches of the nearby soldiers, leaving them in a world of strobing red light and darkness.
Antares was pushed back, his boots carving deep furrows into the stone floor. The Queen was heavy, impossibly heavy. with his antennas Antares saw Her, mana was a dark, suffocating weight that pressed against his lungs.
"You are a calamity!" Antares growled, his muscles bulging until his leather sleeves began to tear.
He twisted his body, using the Queen's own momentum against her. He stepped inside her reach, Eos held in a reverse grip. He drove the blade upward into the soft, unprotected joint where her leg met her thorax.
A geyser of hot, acidic blood erupted, drenching Antares from head to toe. It burned his skin, but he ignored the pain. He twisted the blade, widening the wound, and then fired a Mana Burst directly into the opening.
The explosion rocked the Queen, forcing her to stumble back. She shrieked in agony, her massive legs flailing wildly. One leg caught Antares in the ribs, sending him tumbling across the resin floor.
"Sire!" Yanrid cried out.
Antares coughed, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. He looked up to see the Queen preparing to stomp on the cocoons where Levi and Eli were still working.
"Levi! Eli! MOVE!"
The twins dove out of the way just as the Queen's leg smashed into the spot they had been standing a second before. The impact shattered the stone, sending shards of rock flying like shrapnel.
Antares was back on his feet in an instant. He didn't have time for a tactical approach. He needed to end this.
"Yanrid! make an Ice Path! Do it now!"
Yanrid understood the plan instantly. He poured every remaining drop of his mana into the ground. A twenty-foot wide, hundred-foot long strip of black stone was instantly coated in a layer of jagged, frictionless Ever-Frost.
Antares sprinted. On any other surface, he would have been fast; on the frost-path, he was a blur. He gained incredible velocity, his wings snapping open to provide stabilization. He wasn't just running; he was a living projectile.
The Brood Mother saw him coming and lowered her head, her fangs dripping with a concentrated, black venom. She prepared to impale him.
Antares didn't dodge. At the last possible millisecond, he used his wings to perform a violent, mid-air corkscrew. He soared over her fangs, his body spinning like a drill.
As he reached the apex of his jump, he brought Eos down with both hands.
"DIE!"
The golden blade didn't just cut; it vanished into the Queen's skull. The force of the impact was so great that Antares's feet hit her head a split second later, driving the blade even deeper. Eos pierced through the brain, through the throat, and buried its tip into the stone floor beneath her.
The Brood Mother's body went rigid. Her eight eyes flickered once, twice, and then went dark. The massive creature collapsed, her legs folding under her like a house of cards.
The remaining spiders, suddenly deprived of the Queen's psychic will, went into a frenzy. They began to devour each other or fled into the dark crevices of the Godwall, their collective consciousness shattered.
The chamber fell into a heavy, ringing silence.
Antares stood atop the Queen's head, his chest heaving, his body a map of cuts, burns, and bruises. He looked like a demon born of the mountain—covered in gore, his red eyes the only source of light in the settling dust.
"Status," Antares rasped.
"We have them all, Sire," Levi said, his voice shaky. "Twelve survivors. Three sons of Lord Kael, nine scouts. All alive, but barely."
"And our men?"
Yanrid walked through the gore, checking the soldiers. "Kolo is stable, but his shoulder is ruined. Tarek will lose the leg if the healers don't get him to the settlement within the day. Everyone else has minor wounds."
Antares jumped down from the Queen's carcass, his boots splashing in the lake of blood. He walked over to the unconscious Kael's sons. He looked at their small, pale faces and then at his battered squad.
"We didn't lose a single man," Antares whispered, a fierce pride blooming in his chest.
He turned toward the exit. The mountain was still there, the wind still howling outside, but the Godwall felt smaller now.
"For now we rest" Antares ordered, his voice regaining its kingly authority. "We make way for the camp as soon as everyone is stable. And heaven help anything that tries to stop us."
The mission is a total success, but the return journey will be the final test.