Rune jumped into the gap he had made beneath the matriarch, the broken bodies of injured spiders piled up forming a weak barricade, but it was enough to buy him a moment.
He moved.
Rune cut into one of her legs, axes carving away chunks of crystal. Before he could follow through, the limb lifted off the ground and slammed back down.
The impact sent a violent shockwave through the chamber.
Rune leapt back, boots skidding across stone as the air itself buckled from the force. He steadied himself and looked up.
Something was wrong.
The queen had not shifted her body. She had not turned toward him. She had not even adjusted her posture. She had simply raised her leg and brought it down again.
His eyes followed the crystal webs stretching from her massive form to the walls of the chamber.
They were anchoring her in place. But that was not all.
Rune watched as energy raced along the webs, flowing directly into her body. The damage he had just inflicted began to close, crystal growing and sealing the wound, rebuilding the leg piece by piece.
'So that is how it is.'
Rune pressed the attack.
Triple Judgement carved into her leg in a clean sequence. Turning of the Sky followed, slashes biting across crystal hide as he landed. He switched tactics again, driving normal strikes infused with shadow, letting it gnaw at her structure from within.
It was not enough.
Each blow did less damage than it should have. The matriarch's crystal body was denser, harder, built on an entirely different level than the smaller spiders he had fought before.
And every time he damaged her, it vanished.
Energy raced through the webs again, light flickering as the wounds sealed. Even the shadow corrosion was stripped away, erased as if it had never been there.
"Another monster with too much healing. I hate this floor."
The smaller spiders finally pushed through the wall of broken bodies left by the explosion, crawling over one another as they flooded toward him.
Shadow Step carried Rune back up onto a nearby ledge, giving him space to breathe and reassess as the swarm poured into the space he had just abandoned.
"I guess I go for the webs. It is my only option, even if it lets her move freely."
There were 16 braided strands anchoring her to the walls.
Rune leapt from the ledge, axes already drawing in shadow as he fell. He brought them down on one of the webs as he fell to the ground.
He had expected resistance. Instead, the blades passed through it cleanly.
The shadow cut through the crystal braid as if it were soft silk, the web severing with a sharp crack before unraveling entirely.
Rune stopped for half a breath, looking up at the remaining strands. Coming to a simple conclusion on how this chamber worked.
The crystal webs were conduits for element. And shadow devoured element.
That made them perfect targets for him.
When he landed, Rune crushed a couple of smaller spiders beneath his boots, their bodies shattering as he came down.
"This armor is made of web. It can conduct element too, right?" He exhaled slowly. "Time to try something stupid again."
He fed light into his feet, energy racing through the armor's weave. Then he released it all at once.
The blast threw him upward. Rune shot into the air, uncontrolled, before slamming back down and rolling across the stone until he came to a stop near one of the chamber walls.
He groaned. "Okay. That is going to take some getting used to."
It took four more attempts before he could control the direction properly. Too much force. Too little. Adjust, again and again.
Then it clicked.
With explosive jumps paired with Shadow Step, Rune moved through the chamber freely. One by one, he severed the remaining webs with ease, shadow slicing cleanly through each glowing braid.
Every time another strand snapped, the spider matriarch let out a piercing screech, the sound raw and panicked, like something being cut off from the world it depended on.
Fully disconnected from the chamber, the queen moved slowly at first, adjusting to motion on her own.
Rune's attention flicked to the smaller spiders. They were slowing.
The light within their bodies pulsed weaker and weaker until it stopped entirely. When that inner glow went out, every one of them collapsed at once, hitting the stone in a scattered heap.
Rune understood immediately.
The queen had been feeding them. A constant stream of energy, sustaining hundreds of lesser bodies at once. And now that flow was gone.
He looked back to her as she turned, all of her eyes fixing on him. The weight of her focus pressed down on the chamber, raw and unmistakable.
Anger.
"So now I have to deal with a pissed off spider queen who is no longer fueling hundreds of spiders, is at full energy, and can move freely," Rune let out a sigh. "Great."
The spider queen came in fast.
Far faster than something of her size should have been able to move.
One of her column thick legs crashed down where Rune had been standing. He jumped back just in time.
The moment his feet touched the ground, another leg twisted in midair and slammed down at his landing point, forcing him to leap back again.
Then another.
And another.
There was no pause. No space to breathe. No time to think.
Rune managed to land a few strikes through the assault. This time, the damage stayed.
Disconnected from the chamber, the matriarch could no longer heal.
Legs kept crashing down from above, stone shattering with every impact as the queen pressed him relentlessly, driving him backward step by step.
He did not realize what she was doing with her attacks until his back hit stone.
Each forced step had been deliberate, guiding him, driving him toward the wall. Before he could shift away, the queen pulled her head back and unleashed a massive cluster of web.
There was nowhere to move.
It slammed into him head on, wrapping his entire body in crystal strands and pinning him hard against the chamber wall.
The last two times Rune had been caught in webs, it had only taken part of his body. He had been able to burn his way free.
This time was different.
The crystal strands wrapped him completely, locking his arms, his legs, his torso. He could barely move at all, fingers twitching uselessly as the webbing tightened against the wall.
Fully restrained, Rune stared forward as the matriarch loomed in front of him.