The air was a thick broth of acrid smoke, stabbing heat, and a palpable hatred that made my skin crawl. From my hiding spot, a hollow between the twisted roots of an ancient tree, I watched the cataclysm.
The Devourer Queen was a whirlwind of pain and fury. Her screams were no longer just sound; they were waves of force that made the air vibrate, shaking down showers of dead leaves and ash. She razed what remained of her eggs with blind rage, her sharp legs shattering the charred shells, her female torso writhing in agony.
The flames from the oil had clung to some segments of her chitinous body, licking it with orange tongues, but she seemed not to feel them. Physical pain was a trifle compared to the devastation of her lineage.
There is nothing worse than a mother's fury, I thought, terror squeezing my throat like a fist. If she found me, she wouldn't kill me quickly. She'd tear me limb from limb while forcing me to watch.
But in the midst of the panic, a spark of cold, desperate lucidity arose.
The same kind of biology that reminded me of her aversion to dryness now brought me another concept, a textbook image: a rhinoceros beetle, its impenetrable shell… and its soft interior.
Internal combustion, I thought with a grim smile. The exterior can be a fortress, but inside, everything is vulnerable.
My gaze fixed on the white spear I clutched tightly. Then, on the nearly empty leather bag hanging from my belt.
There was perhaps a thimbleful of the flammable liquid left, that putrid brew that burned with such voracity. And something more: the instructor, talking about poisoned baits for pests, had mentioned in passing certain fungal-based oils that, besides being combustible, had neurotoxic properties, which spread with movement…
An idea took shape, reckless, almost suicidal.
But it was the only one I could execute right now.
I couldn't hurt her from the outside. Her armor was too thick, and I was too weak. I had to take the fire inside.
With slow movements, trembling now not only from fear but from a feverish concentration, I unhooked the bag. The roar of the beast and the crackle of the fire covered any small sound I might make.
With great care, I poured the last dregs of the sticky liquid onto the spearhead, soaking the white blade until it shone with a sinister gleam. The smell made my eyes burn.
All on luck, I thought, mentally invoking the attribute that had brought me to this hell. Let it guide my arm. Let it give me one chance.
Peeking out just slightly from my hideout, I searched for a target. Not on the shiny black carapace, but at the joints. Where one segment met another.
Where the pale female torso emerged from the centipede horror. There, in that monstrous transition, was a fold, an area of thinner, almost membranous skin, without the chitinous protection.
The Queen had her back to me at that moment, thrashing the ground with her rear, focused on her pain. It was now or never.
I stood up. The world fell silent for a fraction of a second. Only the spear in my hand, the distant, pulsating target, and the silent prayer to my [Luck] existed. I took a deep breath, pulled my arm back with all the weight of my child's body, and threw.
The white spear, stained with flammable poison, cut through the smoke-filled air like a pale lightning bolt. It made no sound. It flew in a tense, precise arc, propelled by a fear and a hope that transcended physical strength.
Thuck.
The sound was dry, almost insignificant amid the din.
But I saw it.
The tip sank deep into that vulnerable fold, at the junction between the marble beauty and the chitinous nightmare, right where the torso met the first monstrous segment.
The queen tensed suddenly, a sudden spasm that made her arch. A new cry, this time of surprise and a sharp, different kind of pain, escaped her lips.
She turned her head, her abyssal red eyes scanning frantically, but the spear, with its white shaft, almost blended with the smoke and the pale color of her own skin at that point. She didn't see me. She didn't locate the projectile immediately.
And then, she began to move with more fury, searching for the invisible assailant. Every convulsion, every violent twist, every slam of her legs against the ground, made the spear move in her flesh, pumping the thick, combustible poison deeper into her system, distributing it through internal tissues, mixing it with her hemolymph.
It was a matter of seconds.
The flames already licking her exterior found, in her frenzy, the trail of oil dripping from the wound, or perhaps, by some cruel design of chemistry and my luck, a stray spark jumped there.
There was no explosion. There was an ignition from within.
A sudden orange glow lit up from inside the queen's pale torso, as if she had swallowed a red-hot ember.
She stopped dead, completely rigid. A guttural, bubbling, horrendous sound erupted from her throat.
From her eyes, nose, and mouth, opened in a silent scream of agony, came not blood, but a dark, dense smoke, followed by an internal glow that intensified.
Internal combustion.
The fire, fed by the flammable poison and the soft tissues, was consuming her from her entrails.
Her outer shell was intact, but inside she was a furnace. I saw how the marble skin bulged and cracked, glowing with a terrible heat from within. How her movements became spasmodic, uncoordinated. How the roar turned into a muffled moan, choked by the flames burning her lungs and other organs I couldn't even imagine.
She collapsed, not with the crash of a monster, but with the dead weight of a mountain. Her legs contracted one last time before falling still.
The internal glow faded, leaving only black, fetid smoke seeping from the cracks in her form. The perverse beauty of her upper half was now deformed, charred from within, a grotesque mask of its former splendor.
The clearing fell into a sudden, oppressive silence, broken only by the residual crackle of the burnt eggs.
From my hiding place, not daring to breathe, I watched the motionless body of the cursed devil.
The voice in my head, which had fallen silent during the chaos, whispered one last time, with an even deeper coldness:
[You have eliminated a Cursed Devil, Devourer Queen]
The voice, now familiar in its icy intrusion, resonated in the silence of my skull with a different weight.
It wasn't the repetitive whisper counting eggs.
This time it was a solemn, final declaration, laden with a significance that made the residual air, thick with ash and the smell of burnt flesh, feel even heavier.
Cursed Devil.
The words etched themselves into my mind. It was no longer a "Great Beast." It was something more. Something with a name that evoked corruption, deep-rooted evil, a threat of a higher order. And I had killed it. Not a hero, not a warrior. A lost child with some rotten oil and a memory from biology class.
The body of the Devourer Queen lay like a monument to ruin. The internal fire had burned out, leaving her outer carapace blackened and smoldering, with dark cracks where the fury of the flames that devoured her from within had escaped.
Her female torso, once the pinnacle of spectral beauty, was now a misshapen sculpture of charcoal and cracked skin, with the white spear still embedded like a mute standard of her defeat.
The silence she left behind was deep, almost tangible, after the thunder of her agony.
[You have received a Memory]
[You have received a Memory]
[You have received...]
The voice of the spell continued to repeat that I had obtained memory after memory, until finally, after a while, it stopped.
[Awaken, Ariel. Your nightmare has ended.]
[Prepare for the evaluation...]