Chapter 44 Traitor

Chapter 44: The Traitor

"Hello, the feeling's not mutual," Victor smiled.

"D-Dark Elf?!" Roy trembled.

Perhaps some of the deeds committed by Victor's kind were particularly horrifying, which successfully shocked Roy, fresh from his narrow escape. He dared not speak or ask more, meekly trembling and cowering against the trunk like a quail.

After dealing with this spider nest, they continued on their way.

"Can you still walk on your own?" Sirius asked Roy.

"Um... not really. My legs are weak; I need more rest. When are you leaving? How do we get out of here? Preferably, the exit path shouldn't lead to that damned forest," Roy said.

"Unfortunately, every path here leads to the forest," Victor said.

"If you can't walk, stay here and rest. We'll come back for you after we finish our task," Sirius said.

"Stay here?!" Roy raised his voice. "What's the difference between that and feeding me to those monsters? I just barely survived! You have no sense of humanity; you're practically not even human!"

Unfortunately, apart from himself, none of those present were human.

"We never were," Xavier said.

"We're leaving now. We're pressed for time; we can't stay here long," Sirius didn't want to waste any more time. He handed the lantern back to Victor. "Let's go. The sooner we finish, the sooner we get out."

No one bothered with Roy. Gritting his teeth, he got up on his own and followed them into the mist barrier.

As they continued destroying spider nests, Roy huddled beside Sirius and gradually realized something was off about their actions. It didn't seem like they were here to collect spider venom; it was more like they were wiping out entire spider colonies.

But with his life still in their hands, he wisely kept his head down and stayed silent.

Perhaps because Sirius and the others had destroyed too many spider nests, more and more homeless spiders appeared. So, when they reached the next spider nest, they were surrounded by a large swarm of spiders.

Over ten, by rough estimate.

"Is that what adult White-Eyed Purple Spiders look like?! Why do they seem so strange to me?!" Sirius rolled away from several spider legs flung at him, ducking behind a tree trunk and shouting.

"Of course not!! I don't know how these damned things ended up like this either!!!" Victor agilely climbed a tree, also startled.

"They've mutated, evolving toward a humanoid form," Xavier said.

"Ahhhhhhhhh—" Roy's scream drowned out all other voices.

The swaying lantern faithfully illuminated the mutated spiders surrounding them. Each of these giant spiders was taller than them, their legs waving wildly. Where their heads with compound eyes should have been were now the naked upper torsos of humans.

To call them human wasn't entirely accurate either. The heads on the human torsos grafted onto the spider bodies still retained spider mouthparts, and where eyes should have been were several pairs of compound eyes covered in a white film.

They had no vision, relying on either smell or hearing to locate them.

"Throw it!" Victor shouted.

As soon as he spoke, the spiders charged in his direction.

Sirius and Xavier emerged from behind the cover of trees, simultaneously uncorking and throwing bottles of burning potion.

Victor scrambled away at top speed. The potion blossomed in mid-air like a flower, the sizzling sound of corrosion and the spiders' shrieks exploding simultaneously in the mist.

The burning potions weren't lethal, only used to crack open the spiders' hard exoskeletons. After all the burning potions were thrown, it was time for direct combat.

The spiders still held the upper hand. They could only fight while dodging, focusing mainly on chopping off those troublesome spider legs.

Sirius swung his sword, severing several spider legs. The spider, deprived of its leg-waving defense, abruptly retreated, its soft abdomen—now stripped of its exoskeleton by the burning potion—inevitably exposed.

It should have been a good opportunity, but sudden chaos erupted from behind.

"What are you doing?!" Victor's voice pierced through the spider swarm.

The spiders swarmed toward him, even the one facing Sirius ran off.

Separated by the spider swarm, it was impossible to see what was happening. Sirius had no choice but to run as well.

"Sorry! I'm doing this for your own good! You distract them; I'll go back and get help!" Roy's voice came from far away.

"Stop him! He stole the lantern!" Victor shouted.

"He did what?!" Sirius was greatly shocked.

But it was too late. They were too scattered by the spiders, and the flickering lantern light was already moving away from them.

The surroundings plunged into darkness. Without the lantern's light, their vision was reduced to less than half an arm's length in front of them.

But new light gradually began to emanate.

Sirius dodged a fierce stab from a spider leg, guided by the light coming from his own body.

"You two, what's the situation?" Victor's heart, which had been in his throat, settled halfway.

"Whew, okay. I didn't expect the light we got in the mushroom cavern to work here too," Sirius let out a sigh of relief.

"I have three spiders here. How are you two doing?" Xavier said.

"I'm okay. I have four here... no, three now," Sirius drove his knife into a spider's abdomen, slicing it in two.

"Hmm... I can't see clearly, but I'm managing," Victor said.

They fought the spiders while moving closer, trying to stay together to avoid getting lost in the mist.

Spider limbs littered the ground. Their strength was constantly draining. Sirius clearly felt each swing of his sword becoming heavier, while the spiders descended into a final frenzy.

The spiders' green blood greatly enraged them. The three of them were now back-to-back, barely able to withstand the relentless assault of spider legs from all directions.

"Damn it! We need to scatter! They're about to spit venom!" Victor's face paled as he saw the spiders' writhing abdomens.

Several large globs of purple venom slammed toward the spot where they had just been standing.

Three figures rapidly scattered.

Sirius dodged the venom but crashed into a cluster of spider legs. It was hard to block spider legs coming from all sides with just one sword.

This is bad.

Sirius swung his sword with one hand and protected his head with the other, only praying the wounds wouldn't be too deep and that he'd have a chance to use a healing potion.

"Sirius!" Xavier anxiously called his name. "Duck!"

Sirius's body reacted faster than his mind. He ducked his head before the words even finished.

Something came whistling through the air. The spider instinctively raised all its legs to stab.

A spider leg speared the quiver, letting Sirius roll clear.

After the chaotic fight, the last spider was run through by Victor's sword, and they finally had a chance to catch their breath.

"How are you all doing?" Sirius poured healing potion on his arm, from a scratch he hadn't dodged in time.

"Not bad, just a wound on the leg, not fatal," Xavier was also pouring potion.

"Arms and legs are all intact, the duck got away, the lantern's gone, but at least we're all in one piece," Victor gritted his teeth. "Don't let me catch that guy; he deserves to be thrown into the swamp to feed the crocodiles."

He was the least injured, with only some scrapes, but the angriest.

To fight the spiders, he'd slung the lantern on his pack behind him. Unexpectedly, Roy had been watching and snatched it during the chaos of the fight.

"Here, use this to wrap your wound," Sirius tore off half of his torn sleeve and handed it to Xavier. "For now, just do this. We'll deal with it properly when we get back."

The healing potion couldn't heal the wound without a trace; it only forcibly stopped the bleeding and closed the tear. It still needed to be tightly bandaged to prevent it from reopening.

"How's your wound? Let me see," Xavier took the cloth strip with one hand and put a hand on Sirius's shoulder with the other.

"It's fine, just a scratch. The scab is a bit itchy," Sirius waved his hand dismissively. The blood scab on his arm twisted like a centipede, but he wasn't too bothered by it.

"That's good. You should wrap your wound too," Xavier's eyes remained fixed on the wound.

He only looked away when Sirius started wrapping it.

"One good news and one bad news," Victor said. "Which do you want to hear first?"

"There's actually good news?" Sirius asked, surprised.

"The fact that we're all still here is already good news," Xavier said.

"Then let's hear the bad news first," Victor said. "We're going to be trapped in the fog. Without the lantern, we'll just go in circles here, and we only have three days' worth of food left."

"Not too bad. What's the good news?" Sirius asked.

"The good news is that we can call for backup. Before we set out, Melissa had already considered the possibility that the lantern might get broken and gave me a runestone to call her. Although she originally intended to give me another lantern, in case both got broken..." Victor didn't finish his sentence.

"So we're not completely lost. As long as we can hold out until Melissa meets up with us, we can get out," Sirius said.

"That is indeed good news," Xavier nodded. "So what do we do now? The trouble here isn't completely resolved yet."

"Keep wandering around here, clearing out as many spider nests and spiders as we can. Are you both still up for it?" Victor asked.

"I'm okay," Sirius said. "I can fight. If I can't win, I'll run. There are too many spider eggs here. If we come back later, a new batch will have hatched."

"I can too, nothing serious," Xavier said.

"Too bad about your quiver. When we get back, I'll make you one," Sirius sighed.

"Okay," Xavier smiled.

After a series of fierce battles, their luck peaked. They destroyed several spider nests, and the spiders they encountered were either alone or in small, scattered groups, much easier to deal with than a swarm.

Exhausted, they finally found a random spot to camp and wait for Melissa's rescue.

Sirius couldn't help but worry: "Is Melissa coming here alone to find us? What if she runs into as many spiders as we did?"

Victor shook his head and gave him a profound look. "Friend, you have no idea about her power. It's when she's not with us that she can truly shine."

Sirius was puzzled, but Victor refused to say more, leaving him to wonder curiously on his own.

-----------------------

Author's Note: Good night, good night [Calico Cat]