"Yes, that's exactly right. I wanted you here so I could drain you dry and devour you whole when there's nothing left,"
she said as she crawled in the snow closer to him, all while looking at the horrified look on his face and trying not to burst out laughing.
But ultimately she failed; it was just too funny
Haahaa
"You should see the look on your face; it's… It's so stupid."
Azrael could only look at her laughing at his expansive "Whatever, I already knew you were joking; I was just playing along."
"Yeah, whatever you say, Az, just keep telling yourself that."
"Anyway let's go; we still have one floor to go before we have to fight the boss." She said while catching her breath and standing up.
"Alright let's go"
And so they continued their battle through the dungeon, killing spider after spider
Until they reached floor sixty, where, unlike floor 50, it was filled with wolves and the boss. As soon as they entered floor sixty, the first thing they saw was a giant spider eating a smaller one.
Ding!!!
[New Entity Scanned]
Classification:Mana Beast (floor boss)
Subject Identified: [skadi's Brood]
Mana Core: two star Feral (Dark Gray)
Threat Level: D
Description: dressed in frost and fangs. It was meant to be a queen, a pale reflection of Skadi's brood-mothers, but what crawled out of the dungeon's womb was only a mistake. Her armor is crude where theirs was flawless, her silk too clumsy to be beautiful, her hunger too desperate to inspire fear. Even her swarm follows her out of instinct, not reverence. She devours her own brood not from dominance, but from starvation.
"To call her a matron is generous. She is no more than a starving echo mocking the throne she was too feeble to claim."
The creature was huge, a spider the size of a cottage.
Its body was plated with jagged shards of ice that jutted from its joints like natural armor.
Its fur was a sickly gray, thick and matted, with patches frozen stiff from the cold. Where the fur parted at the joints, strands of clear-blue silk gleamed faintly, almost like veins of crystal running beneath its skin.
Its eyes, eight of them, burned with a cold, unnatural glow.
Frost spilled from her mouth every time she hissed, coating the ground in a thin sheet of ice that cracked under her shifting weight.
Each step left long, needle-sharp tracks in the snow, as if the ground itself recoiled from her touch.
But the most grotesque detail came when one of the smaller spiders, the vermin that skittered around her like a living carpet, strayed too close.
Without hesitation, her mandibles snapped forward. She seized the broodling, dragging it into her jaws.
Bones crunched, silk ripped, and a thick, dark ichor spilled down her fangs, freezing mid-drip into brittle black icicles.
She devoured the lesser one alive, the shrieks of its legs twitching muffled as they broke apart in her maw.
Her swollen abdomen pulsed faintly with movement, as if something inside was writhing half-formed spawn, waiting for the warmth of death to be released.
From time to time, strands of silk trailed from her spinnerets, hanging like deadly icicles in the storm.
They glittered faintly blue before vanishing against the snow, waiting for prey too blind to see their trap.
When it lifted it's head it steered ahead looking at them as if it sensed their arrival, steaming venom dripped from its fangs, hissing where it touched the ice.
As it saw them it let out a painful Shrek alerting all the other spiders to them.
Azrael froze, his grip tightening on his spear as the monstrous spider raised its head. The cavern seemed to shrink under its shadow, the frost crawling outward from its steps.
Olivia's lips curled into a grin despite the chill in the air. "Well… You think we can eat this one too?" she whispered, her voice sharp but playful, as if she were taunting death itself.
"Why not, if we had something to carry it in, it could feed us the rest of the way Azrael replied, his amber eyes never leaving the creature.
His heart pounded in his chest, but his body was already shifting into a stance, instinct taking over.
"That thing's the size of a damned house."
The spider let out a piercing shriek, so loud the walls of ice trembled. From every tunnel, smaller spiders began to spill forth skittering, chittering, a living tide of legs and fangs.
Olivia's smile widened, her fangs flashing in the blue light of the mana stones in the walls behind them.
she darted forward, snow crunching beneath her boots as her shadow sword flashed.
Azrael cursed under his breath before taking off right behind her, "So you just going to leave me behind liv?"
The monstrous spider lowered itself, venom dripping in long steaming ropes from its fangs.
Its eight burning eyes locked onto them both as the brood around it surged like a wave.
The dungeon floor erupted into chaos.
The smaller brood rushed first, a wall of skittering legs and chittering fangs. They came in dozens, their bodies no larger than hounds, yet in numbers enough to blot out the snow-dim light.
Azrael exhaled sharply, raising his spear in one smooth motion.
The first spider leapt. He met it mid-air, cleaving down with brutal efficiency.
Its body split apart, blood spraying across the frozen ground in a black arc. He pivoted, striking low, severing the legs of another that tried to flank him.
"I would never leave you, Az!" Olivia called, her voice carrying above the shrieks.
She darted through the chaos, a blur against the snow. Her sword gleamed black as she carved through the swarm with a dancer's grace.
Each movement was precise, elegant yet savagely efficient.
She spun past one spider, plunging her blade into its thorax before twisting it free in a spray of frost-tainted blood.
Another lunged at her blind side, only to be met with a backhand slash that opened it from mandibles to abdomen.
Azrael grunted, driving his boot into the face of another spider before impaling it against the ground. "yeah, you wouldn't leave your food behind would you."
Olivia laughed, her fangs bared as she kicked off the snow, landing lightly atop a spider's back.
With a savage thrust, she buried her sword into its eyes, riding it down as it convulsed before collapsing under her.
The brood shrieked and hissed, their cries echoing through the cavern as more poured in from the shadows.
But still, they slaughtered them.
Azrael cut a relentless path, every strike fueled by precision and savagery. Delighting the kill.
Olivia moved in sharp contrast, precise, elegant. Where he brought chaos, she brought discipline, and together they carved through the horde like fire through dry grass.
Yet, as the bodies piled, the ground itself seemed to rumble.
The giant spider had not moved. It simply watched, its eight burning eyes locked onto them, venom steaming from its fangs.
The lesser brood scuttled around it like offerings to a god, hurling themselves at the intruders.
And then, with a sound like cracking ice, the colossal creature shifted its weight. Floor shuddered as its legs dug deep into the snow, frost exploding outward with every step.