Paliseth carried me ever deeper into Arachne Cavern. As we got deeper in, the amount of spiders we encountered only grew by the minute. From the initial head-sized spider, we began bumping into spiders the size of a small basin, to finally that of a large basin. Not only that, there were now monsters with the lower body of a spider and the upper body of Dark Elf following us.
These monsters were the Dryders I had heard about not too long. Being the monster that they were, they were naturally naked as well. Dryders had males and females, and no matter which gender they were, they were all above average in terms of appearance. Unfortunately, that only applied to their upper half…
For the most part, Dryders had a humanoid upper half except for their arms which were covered in a sturdy exoskeleton. Their hands were covered in the same exoskeleton that tapered out into a sharp claw reminiscent of a demon’s. Even in the relative darkness of the cave, I could see a dangerous glint off the tip of their claws, offering the glimpse of what fell fate would befall anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path.
In general, Dryders came out to be roughly two to three meters in height with the majority of that being due to their arachnid lower half. They had a variety of attack options available on top of their usual spider silk. Depending on their individual genes, they might even have some unique attacks.
For example, if the Dryder in question had the genes of a poisonous spider within him or her, any attack made would be laced with poison as well. Spiders with spiky carapaces would result in Dryders having the same characteristics as well. For these Dryders, the spikes would mostly manifest in their rear and came in at a shocking ten centimeters length and half a centimeter thickness.
These spikes weren’t particularly deadly on their own, but the sheer numbers available gave the Dryder a distinct advantage in battle. A Dryder activating this skill could easily cover an enemy’s field of vision in spikes. However, such an attack had a short duration as the Dryder only had so many spikes.
In essence, if such a Dryder suddenly turned his or her rear towards you, you could be sure that he was about to activate his ultimate weapon.
Other than the aforementioned two strains of Dryders, there were countless others as well but Paliseth did not go into further details. Instead, she ended up carrying to a horrific section of the cavern. As for what made this particular section so horrific, it was those spine-chilling cries in the air generated by the coupling of a monster spider and a female Dark elf.
As we got closer and closer to the source of this sound, the stench that assaulted my nose nearly left me retching in disgust. The scene itself was… graphic, to say the least… the kind that would forever haunt me in my dreams.
Furthermore, it had to be said the female vessels in this section were all mad. They had to be! They were either mad or twisted. Who knew if they were even able to reproduce at this point. Either way, they were either broken in the head or broken down there. Then there were those who had become soulless puppets, completely oblivious to the trauma around them.
Now that we had passed by that horrific breeding ground, the next area Paliseth carried me to could only be described as a cliff. Even though we were clearly in a giant cavernous system of tunnels, there was somehow a cliff-like formation that dropped off into a giant basin that contained nothing but a greyish mass of spider silk -disgusting.
“My dear, we’ve arrived.” She lowered me down onto the ground then smiled knowingly at me. Her slightly cold hands reached out to grasp my face and turned it till I had no choice but to face her. Staring right into my eyes, she said so in a teasing voice, “Such a beautiful little thing, if you weren’t so perfect, your big sister would have kept you to herself already.”
I curled my lips in annoyance. “I’d rather not. Compared to being your husband, I would much rather face a spider.”
“What do you mean husband? Your big sister is the husband in this relationship.”
“So does this count as Jezsere having contributed?” I said, ignoring her usual flirtatious teasing entirely.
“Are you worried that I would send her here?” At that point, she laughed heartily and said, “Don’t worry, I would never bear to send her here. That was just to scare her a little, it’s not my fault she’s like that…”
Naturally, I didn’t believe a word she said. After all, she had already cheated my innocent feelings once. Even so, what she said made sense as well -a tiger didn’t eat its own cubs. But these were the Dark Elves we were talking about… one couldn’t be too sure.
“My dear, I think you should be more worried about yourself.” Her voice turned icy cold at that point, following which I felt a shove on back and down I went. “Well, not like it matters now. The best has to be left for our goddess after all.”
The moment we reached cliffedge, I knew she was about to do something to me. The most likely scenario was that she pushed me off the cliff so that was what I prepared myself for. Honestly, even with my limbs and wings bound up, I still had a way to break free. At the same time that she pushed me off the cliff and I felt a sense of weightlessness, I wasn’t worried at all. This was all within my calculations.
Shadow Demon!
My shadow began to twist and turn into its own separate entity. The Shadow Demon’s first act was to transform its shadowy arm into a blade and slice apart the spider silk. Given that my Shadow Demon had merged with Shadowfang before, an Epic-grade weapon, it was only to be expected that it inherited that weapon’s sharpness, a fact that I only recently discovered.
No matter how strong Paliseth’s silk was, there was no way it could stand up to the sharpness of an Epic weapon.
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