NOVEL NEXT chapter 53
Yang Yi put all distractions out of his mind and focused on the enemy before him.
It was the Spider Queen, back from her little poison-induced nap. Two of her front legs were gone, but it didn't seem to slow her down much. She could still scuttle just fine on the remaining six.
"Should have just ripped all her goddamn legs off," Yang Yi thought, a flicker of regret in his heart.
"See how she likes crawling then." He made a mental note: next time he ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) sees a monster playing dead, make sure it's actually dead. And dismembered. For good measure.
The two of them faced off, a good twenty meters of rubble-strewn cavern between them. The situation was not, to put it mildly, in his favor. His flintlock was on cooldown. His only weapon was the [Sea Serpent's Tooth].
Suddenly, the Spider Queen's shriveled, lopsided head let out a piercing shriek, and she charged, moving with the speed and weight of a battle tank. Her balance seemed a little off, probably on account of the missing legs.
Yang Yi turned and ran, simultaneously chugging the red potion. It went down like liquid magma.
[You have consumed an Unknown Potion]
[Your body feels feverish and you begin to sweat profusely. Strength +1, Agility +1, Constitution +1, Perception +1, Sanity -20. Duration: 15 minutes.]
The potion's information was finally revealed.
[Name: Scarlet Potion]
[Type: Consumable/Potion/Unique]
[Quality: Fine]
[Description: An original creation of the witch Suna. Brewed from the eyeballs of a Hammerhead Devil Shark, a Human-Headed Octopus, a Hand-Shaped Starfish, an Abdominal-Flexing Lobster, and an Eyeball Octopus. Tastes like burning. Do not consume water while under its effects. Increases all stats except Spirit by 1, causes fever and sweating, and reddens the skin for fifteen minutes, after which severe dehydration will occur. PS: Stats cannot exceed the limits of a mortal.]
Yang Yi's Sanity was now at a rock-bottom 1. He was in a state of frenzied madness. Combined with the potion's effects, his stats were through the roof.
Strength: 5+2+1
Spirit: 8+1-2
Agility: 5+1+1+1
Constitution: 5+1+1
Perception: 5+1+2
(Frenzied state: Strength +2, Agility +1, Constitution +1. Pirate Clothes: Agility +1.)
His Strength, Agility, and Perception were all at 8. He felt impossibly light, like he could fly. He ducked and weaved through the shattered remains of the giant statue, using the debris for cover. The Spider Queen, with her massive size, couldn't follow him through the narrow gaps.
"I have to kill her before this potion wears off."
His eyes were cold and focused. He spotted an intact spider egg, snatched it up, fed it to his stomach pouch, and retrieved the [Silk Gland] and a bottle of [Spider-Bane Potion]. This act, of course, royally pissed off the Queen. She let out a piercing shriek and charged, no longer bothering to avoid the smaller obstacles, simply smashing through them.
This was exactly what he wanted. He stood under a massive, precariously balanced slab of rock, waiting.
CRASH!!!
The Queen slammed into the rock pile, sending up a huge cloud of dust and debris. But she didn't hit him. Instead, a lithe, black-clad figure descended from above on a strand of silk, landing squarely on her back.
At the last second, Yang Yi had used the [Silk Gland] to shoot a line to the top of the rock and scramble up. As the Queen was reeling from the impact, he'd jumped. The whole sequence was a masterpiece of fluid, acrobatic motion. This was the power of his third eye. His perception of distance and balance was now borderline superhuman. He was basically Spider-Man.
He landed on her back, scrambled up to her head, grabbed the humanoid torso's head, and with a single, clean slice of the [Sea Serpent's Tooth], lopped it off. A torrent of dark red blood erupted from the stump. The wound sizzled and bubbled, the fire poison from the blade doing its work. He'd even coated the blade in [Spider-Bane Potion]. Double the poison, double the fun.
The Queen, grievously wounded, let out another shriek. But this time, it came from below. From her other head. The spider one.
The enraged Queen thrashed wildly, throwing him off her back. He slammed into a pile of rocks, the impact forcing the air from his lungs. He tasted blood. But he didn't take his eyes off her. He scrambled to his feet, narrowly dodging a gob of sticky web.
"This thing is a bitch to kill." He'd tried stabbing her main spider head, but its carapace was too thick. He had to go for the weak spots. Her eyes. All six of them. He gathered up a few small rocks, used his silk to bind them to the hilt of his sword, and created a makeshift flail. He then stepped out from behind cover and let it fly.
Thanks to his third eye, he was a perfect shot. The makeshift meteor hammer slammed directly into one of the Queen's large eyes. She staggered back, stunned. He didn't press his advantage. He reeled the weapon back in and melted back into the shadows.
"SKREEE!!!" The Queen was going berserk.
The two of them engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse. He was small, fast, and unpredictable. She was a giant, wounded, and increasingly blind tank. He popped in and out of cover, taking potshots with his flail, systematically destroying her eyes. One by one, they popped like overripe grapes.
Soon, she was stumbling around, crashing into things, her movements clumsy and slow. But he was also running on fumes. His stamina was almost gone.
One last, desperate throw. It connected, shattering her last remaining compound eye. She had only one eye left. And then, as if spurred by desperation, she did something unexpected. She shot a thick strand of webbing to the ceiling, a good forty meters up, and started to climb. And then, she started crawling upside down, defying gravity.
Yang Yi was dumbfounded. His silk gland was almost empty. He had enough for one last shot.
Yang Yi stood in the heart of the cavern, a small, defiant figure in a graveyard of his own making. The air was thick with the dust of shattered stone and the coppery tang of spider blood. Before him, the Queen writhed, a grotesque monument to his desperate, brutal victory. He had done it. He had killed a god. Or, at least, something that thought it was.
But it had cost him. The last of the [Scarlet Potion]’s fire had burned out, leaving him feeling hollowed out, scoured. His body was a roadmap of pain, a symphony of aching muscles and screaming nerve endings. His Sanity, which had been dancing on the edge of a cliff, had finally taken a nosedive. The world had gone… wobbly.
He stumbled over to the Queen's corpse, the great, hairy bulk of it still radiating a faint, residual heat. He had to find the source. The reason for all this. The heart of the curse.
He found it nestled within the Queen’s abdomen, a pulsating, black, and utterly alien organ. It was the source of the spiders, the heart of the hive. And it was still alive. It beat with a slow, sickly rhythm, a dark and terrible heart.
He raised the [Sea Serpent’s Tooth]. His hands were shaking, not from fear, but from sheer, bone-deep exhaustion. He didn’t have the strength for a grand, heroic finishing blow. So he just… let it fall. The blade, still coated in a cocktail of poisons, sank into the pulsating organ with a wet, final squelch.
The organ convulsed. A wave of black, foul-smelling energy washed over him. It was a dying curse, a final "fuck you" from beyond the grave. And as it hit him, he felt something inside him break. The Spider's Kiss, the parasitic curse that had been his constant companion, his tormentor, and, in a strange way, his power… it shattered.
[The source of the Spider's Kiss has been destroyed.]
[The curse has been lifted.]
[Your link to the spiders has been severed. You can no longer understand their language.]
[A new power awakens in its place…]
And then, the world went black.