Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 1985: Terror

The queen’s fangs opened wide enough to take Andre’s shield between them. A wad of chewed leather fell from the joint of her mouth and struck the floor beside his foot.

He recoiled from it, catching sight of the boot buckle still attached.

Quinlan closed his hand around [Soul Reaper]’s hilt. The little spiders on the road had given him no idea there would be a thing like this waiting below them.

Wet folds worked inside a slit behind the queen’s fangs. Her clicking slowed, grinding around the sound that forced its way out.

"Mine."

Marielle stared at the moving slit.

"It talks?"

The queen struck the doorway with her foreleg. Kaelira pulled back as the hooked tip gouged through the jamb, ripping out a block where her head had been.

"Mine!"

Her shriek sent the smaller bodies inside the feeding pockets scrambling over one another. Outside, legs began rattling against the gallery walls from both directions.

Blossom turned toward the way they’d come.

"More behind us!"

"[Protective Shield]!"

Aurora planted her staff on the paving, raising a barrier across the chamber entrance as the spiders outside sent silk lashing through the gallery. Threads slapped against its surface, trembling under the weight of things climbing along them.

The queen caught the webbing beneath her forelegs and wrenched it toward herself.

Inside the chamber, the strands joining the feeding sacs snapped taut. Swollen knots behind the captives squeezed shut, spraying a yellowish mist between the hanging bodies.

A bitter smell caught in Quinlan’s nose.

"Cover your mouths!" Aurora shouted.

Serika covered her own mouth, then caught Celia around the waist as the girl began coughing and lost her grip on the brawler’s arm.

"[Gust]."

Quinlan gathered the mist into a tight, spinning current above their heads. Aurora opened a gap at the top of her barrier, and he drove the poisoned air over the couple and into the queen’s face.

Aurora closed the gap and repeated her incantation, sealing the leaking sacs beneath separate shells of ice-packed light.

Celia went limp in Serika’s arms, unconscious from the mist she’d breathed in. Serika lowered her to the paving, supporting her head. "It’s better if she sleeps for this one."

"Yep." Sera came over and crouched beside Celia to check her breathing. "She’ll live."

Keeping her light blade in hand, the elf turned back toward the doorway. Quinlan hadn’t taken his eyes off the queen.

The creature was dragging her fangs across Aurora’s barrier, making the light ripple beneath their points.

"Sssleep..."

The word rasped between bursts of clicking. Drool threaded from her mouth as she stretched toward the limp girl behind the fighters.

Marielle’s chant rose to a scream as she levelled her staff at the queen.

"[Greater Fireball]!"

Fire slammed into the queen’s face, filling the gallery with a roar. Andre hauled his wife clear of the billowing heat while she kept her staff raised, staring into the flames.

"Burn, you disgusting freak! Killing you will become my legend!"

The queen thrust her head out through the fire.

"Fuck! Andre!! Hurry, do something!"

Andre threw himself sideways with Marielle as her fangs snapped shut where they’d been standing. A charred sheet of silk fell from the creature’s unmarked face.

Marielle hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath out of her.

"It didn’t... My spell didn’t..."

Andre dragged her upright. She had poured enough mana into that cast to burn through the creatures on the road, and the queen hadn’t even lost an eye.

It was still reaching for them.

Behind Marielle, something heavy struck Aurora’s barrier.

Andre wheeled toward the sound from his place beside Marielle in the gallery. A spider twice the size of the creatures on the road clung to the wall by the chamber entrance, dragging a hooked leg across Aurora’s shield of light.

"Back into the chamber!" he shouted.

"[Shield Reinforcement]!"

Andre met the spider’s strike with his shield. Its silver sheen shattered beneath the hooked leg, and the metal folded around it.

Andre screamed as the impact drove him to one knee. His sword scraped across the creature’s shell, carving a shallow white line.

"[Flame Lance]!" Marielle cried, driving another spell into its open mouth.

This spider kept coming.

"Move!" Andre roared at his wife.

He dragged his ruined shield sideways, taking the leg with it long enough for her to stumble clear. The spider tore the metal from his arm and flung it down the gallery.

Quinlan drew his saber as Aurora opened a gap for Kaelira to step into the doorway.

"[Runeweaver’s Armory]."

Runes shone across the smith’s armour as her spell reinforced it. Her shoulder caught Andre and shoved him behind her, while her weapon knocked the descending hook away from Marielle’s head.

"Inside," the smith said through clenched teeth.

The couple scrambled past her. Aurora’s barrier closed across the entrance, and the giant spider struck it hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling.

Marielle stared at the hooked limb pressed against the shield of light.

"What the fuck is that thing?"

"Hers," Andre panted.

More bodies moved outside. The scrape of their legs filled the gallery, with deeper impacts travelling through the floor as the queen shifted her weight.

Marielle turned toward the chamber’s rear wall. She ran her fingers across the blocks, searching for an opening, then looked at the narrow doorway crowded with hungry eyes.

The room had only one doorway. Andre’s map offered no second exit, and the creature that had destroyed his shield was standing between them and the stairs.

"We have to break through," she said.

Across the room, Marielle was chanting again. The head of her staff shook as she forced more mana into it, filling the chamber with an orange glare.

"Drop the barrier when I say!"

"There could be people in those other rooms," Aurora replied.

"Who cares? We’re about to die!"

Her voice broke on the last word. She looked at Andre, waiting for him to deny it, but her husband was struggling to lift the arm that had held his shield.

The queen lowered her mouth toward the doorway again, her fangs scraping down its broken edges.

"That one..."

The slit behind her fangs worked around a grinding hiss.

"Mouth first."

Marielle’s spell faltered.

The creature was looking straight at her.

"Tasty...."

Its mouthparts opened, strands of saliva stretching between the plates, and she could see scraps of cloth caught among the teeth.

Her precious robe brushed the backs of her legs. She clutched the staff against her chest and backed into the wall, unable to look away from the mouth that had chosen her.

She was going to be wrapped up in this room. Those little things would drink from her while she waited for something larger to get hungry.

"Andre..."

He stepped in front of her with his sword in his good hand.

Quinlan glanced at Aurora’s barrier, then at the women gathered around him.

"Well, girls. It’s been fun, but I’m kinda done pretending. Shall we take the masks off?"

"What the fuck are you talking about, you sad delirious fuck?!" Marielle screamed.

Ayame drew her katana with a smile that showed her teeth.

"Finally."

Quinlan walked past the couple toward the doorway, [Soul Reaper] hovering at his side. Aurora parted the centre of her barrier as he reached the threshold, keeping the rest of the entrance shielded.

The queen’s eyes followed him.

Her mouth opened, strings of drool stretching between the fangs as she lowered her head toward the gap. The clicking quickened until it rattled against his helmet.

"Come... closer."

"Sure." He took another step.

Her foreleg struck through the opening with enough force to rip the remaining stone lintel from the wall.

"This fucking retard is going to kill us all!" Marielle screamed as the hooked tip plunged toward his chest.

Quinlan lifted his free hand, raising rock from the gallery floor beneath the descending limb.

The queen smashed through its upper edge, spraying broken slabs against Aurora’s barrier, but the rest closed around her leg and stopped the hook just short of his armour.

She drove her weight against it.

The paving buckled beneath her supporting limbs. A crack split the gallery wall from floor to ceiling as she tried to force the trapped hook forward, close enough to scrape black metal.

Quinlan watched her strain, then slowly raised his head.

"What an adorable little spider you are."

His red eyes blazed through the helmet’s narrow openings, casting crimson light across the wet plates of her face.

The queen met his gaze and shuddered.