NOVEL NEXT B1.CH14: Spider Queen
Usually, I would be all for hunting monsters, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw my heart being ripped out of my chest and eaten raw by a behemoth of a demon. I stayed as close to Naomi as possible, my eyes searching relentlessly. Stretching them nice and wide didn’t give me any advantage, but I did it anyway, until I saw a thick bush of green rattling in the background. “There,” I pointed out, Naomi changing her path toward the direction I was pointing. As we neared the bush, I suddenly felt a cold gust of air. Naomi stopped in her tracks and cocked her head, analyzing. She raised a finger to her lips, signaling for me to stay quiet. Instantly my mouth went dry, and I swallowed hard against the lump rising in my throat. I could hear the soft rustling of leaves, the wind carrying the soft whispers of the chuckling again. But beyond that, I began hearing actual words….
“Hush, little baby, don’t you cry. Mama’s gonna’ sing you a lullaby….” The feminine voice sounded downright demonic; it was making the hairs on my neck stand on their ends. “Don’t worry, I will take care of you, precious…”
Naomi drew close, and my steps were right behind her. When she drew the foliage of the bush back, I didn’t know what to expect, but what I saw scarred me to the bone….
I held my breath, feeling my face grow cold and pale. There was a spider monster woman cradling something bloody in her arms, rocking it back and forth as she continued to hum.
Please tell me that’s a fucking doll….
Its eyes were gouged out with maggots swarming in its mouth. The side of its head was bashed up, and its skin was so gruesome looking that it looked like it’d died days ago. I couldn’t tell if that was a baby girl or boy because the infant body was coated in so much blood. My feet backed away and to my regret, I stepped on a twig, the monster immediately jerking her head to us.
“Trespassers?!” she cried. “How dare you step into my nursery!” She swung at me, dropping the baby and sending me crashing into a tree. My body bulldozed it down, the back of my head stopping my fall when it thumped against a giant uproot. I quickly picked myself up, grunting and scratching my head. When I got on one knee, I saw Naomi dodging spindling webs shooting from that naked monster woman’s fingers, turning the forest into a webbed obstacle course.
The spider monster was a humanoid top half, her long black hair doing nothing to cover her indecency. She was heavy, about eight feet tall, with an enormous spider bottom half. She had six red and black eyes on that head of hers, with furry spider legs and a large spider abdomen. Her sharp black shiny claws to each one of those eight legs were long, their heavy steps not slowing down her speed. She stayed on top of Naomi, who started to resort to leaping off tree branches to evade her. I gave her a quick scan and realized that she was a category B threat.
The spider creature screeched, her fury relentless as Naomi continued to avoid her attacks. “You stay away from my baby!” she cried, flinging jets of sticky webbing at Naomi. Until I rushed her down, serving her with a sharp flying kick.
I thought I’d gotten her for sure, but she blocked my move with one of her legs. Unpredictably, the leg she used to block my attack was reinforced with some type of hardening ability, my kick flying against a stone-looking armor. It cracked, but it didn’t shatter. The skill took me by surprise, the spider capitalizing on my stupor by swinging at me again.
She had tricks, and I had treats. When her leg came at me, I caught it and took her for a spin. Getting her weight off the ground was the hard part, Naomi looking at me like I was nuts. To be honest, I didn’t think I was strong enough to lift her either, but when I gave her the Bowser tail treatment, she hollered, right until I tossed her into a nearby riverbank.
She fell with a ground-shaking splash, the river erupting as soon as her body landed. I didn’t skip a beat, rushing her down again to finish the job, but when I reached the bank, she had the tail of her abdomen in the air, a green sticky paste shooting out of it at me.
It came at me quickly, and it was too late to dodge it. That shit flew right into my eyes, making me take a step back as I tried to scrape it off. Before my fingers could cup the sticky paste off of me, it hardened like a rock and fused my eyelids together, instantly blinding me. Naomi signaled me to run with her voice, the spider queen on the move again. I heard and felt the spray of water in front of me, the spider leaping out of the water. She must have flown over me as I felt droplets of water tap my clothes. With her above me, I was at a disadvantage, forcing my mind to work through the pain and disorientation to locate her. But before I knew it, the monster began bolting me down with layers and layers of sticky web nets.
Shot after shot she went, each blow inching me lower to the ground. She hissed satisfyingly when my body finally went down. I felt like a caterpillar in a cocoon, the mesh so airtight that I couldn’t budge. Suddenly, I felt the weight of her over me, making my body even stiffer. I gritted my teeth, trying to break free from the restraints, but I was distracted with the stinging that started to cut through my eyes.
Crap, my physical invulnerability had limitations! Only my skin was resistant—everything else was free game.
“Food for my babies!” she tweeted. “A nice and bulky meal, too! Plenty of muscle to sink my fangs into! I can’t wait to rip you apart and feed you to my nest!”
“Get off of him!” Naomi shouted, a powerful wind suddenly sweeping over me. Just like that, I felt the spider bitch fling off of me, Naomi hitting her with something big and strong. After hearing the impact of her fall, I assumed it was the tree I’d smashed into, Naomi using it like a fucking bat to crush her.
One by one, strings of web began to snap off of me. I sensed Naomi close working them off, freeing my hand in the process. I helped her peel the rest of it off before she locked her fingers along the hunk of hardened paste over my eyes.
“Hey, hey, careful with that!” I warned her. “Before you rip off my eyebrows!”
“It’s not coming off.”
“No kidding. And this shit is burning my eyes.”
“It could be venomous.”
“She shot it out of her ass.”
She paused. “…What else could it be?”
My breath hitched. “Naomi, this isn’t the time to joke around like that!”
“You spoiled brats!” I whipped my head in the direction of the screech, before I heard the shadow walker and her eight long legs skittering over the earth with hot fury. She hissed, more spit flying our direction. With Naomi’s help, I was able to escape, Naomi jumping one way, and throwing me the other. I felt a slight shift in power, an aura I was familiar with moving through the air. It had Naomi’s signature written all over it, and I knew she was using her telekinetic ability again. Though, judging by the sudden stalemate, I’d say her target didn’t budge.
The spider queen laughed mockingly, and admitted, “Your telekinetic powers cannot work on me. Transmittal immunity, a real deal breaker for you, darling. Try again.” Without warning, she opened her big mouth and screeched! I wasn’t ready, my ear drums damn near popping out of my skull. I tossed my hands over my head and ran off as far as I could from the source while bearing in mind my surroundings. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst of it when I heard Naomi mention spots on the ground pitting in.
“Rise my children! Defend your mother at all costs!”
