The Twelfth Floor of the dungeon was unlike the ones before. Here, the webs no longer hung loosely across corners—they formed dense veils between stone pillars, and the humidity in the air carried a venomous sweetness. The tunnels narrowed, not from collapse, but by design, woven with layered silk that absorbed sound and heat. Even the air felt wrong—charged, like the breath of something patient, waiting.
These were no longer crude spider beasts. They were killers raised in a matriarch's image—methodical, clever, and cruel.
Aiki's eyes narrowed as she blasted the head off a Venomfang, a lean, jet-black arachnid with a glossy carapace that shimmered green at the joints. Its mandibles dripped with thick, hissing venom that ate into stone, and its movements were unnervingly fluid—like a shadow with too many legs. Sent to intercept them, it had leapt down in silence—but she was faster. Her magic reduced it to twitching chitin, smoke rising from the burned venom.
The cave tunnels were dark and winding, their walls pressed close and slick with dew, the air so thin it almost whistled when they galloped. Aiki's horse splashed through the muddy waters that coated the floor, and her armor shimmered faintly with an inner light—a divine radiance that let her and her small war-party see what horrors lay ahead.
"Wait up, Aiki-sama," Lunaria called, breathless and trailing behind. She stumbled over a root-like bundle of old webs, struggling not to lose sight of Aiki's glow ahead. Her horse thrashed in protest at the terrain, but she coaxed it forward with sheer determination.
Her usually brave companion was now little more than a cowering mare—its sudden, instinctive fear of spiders turning it into a liability. Its movements were so erratic that it had already thrown Lunaria off once, refusing to let her mount again. Even the brush of her hair against its flank sent it into a frenzy of bucking and kicking.
Forced to run alongside it instead of riding, Lunaria shouted through clenched teeth, "Patricia, calm down already!" But the mare's paranoia only worsened, slowing them both down as the tunnels grew darker and the chittering sounds ahead grew louder.
Behind Lunaria rode twenty knights, their polished armor dulled with dirt and silk, and five wizards, robes marked with charms against poison. Each had been hand-picked for this mission—Aiki's surprise raid into the lower tunnels while the bulk of the army besieged the ants and other creatures rushing above. This was deeper than Aiki had covered with her spell previously. This was enemy domain.
Aiki turned briefly to see Lunaria casting a spell that shimmered with pale green light—removing the exhaustion from their mounts, allowing the pace to continue.
"Let's keep moving inwards," Aiki ordered, voice firm but steady, then turned back to face the dark ahead. A familiar scuttling scratched at the edges of hearing.
Expecting yet another spider, she raised her hand and conjured a massive fireball—larger than before, hotter than it needed to be. It shot out like a comet, filling the tunnel with brief, brilliant light.
But what the fire met was not a spider.
Instead, two Spinner Twins dropped from above—mirror-perfect creatures of silk and exoskeletons, joined by a thin thread of web that stretched between their abdomens. Their limbs were longer than a giant's spear, and their carapaces bore markings like tribal tattoos—identical to each other. As the fire struck, one twin threw up a shield of webbing, while the other launched a bolt of silk to redirect the spell toward the ceiling. Their synchronized movement wasn't just uncanny—it was impossible for unbound creatures. They moved like thoughts in one mind.
Aiki instinctively stopped her horse as she caught a glimpse of the creature. A boss monster? she thought, eyeing the pair of spiders.
Their bodies exuded an aura far thicker than any previous spiders seen on this floor. They were larger too—dwarfing their horses, standing taller than six war horses stacked on top of each other.
"Ambush!" shouted one of the knights, raising his shield, as another set of twins lunged from the shadows. The two spinners that had dropped at the rear shot out bullets of acidic venom—five purple and green spurts of speeding poisonous liquid tore through the cave at almost supersonic speed—and despite this, his shield not only moved to block each shot, he maneuvered it in such a way it held each droplet perfectly. His muscles bulged as he flicked his shield backward, returning fire with their own attack.
Tearing through their heads in an instant, the poison burned through their bodies, leaving the Spinner Twins as smoldering husks—collapsed in twisted heaps of limbs and silk.
But it wasn't the end.
The scuttling returned—louder this time, a dreadful symphony of thousands. The walls trembled faintly, and from both ends of the tunnel, shadows moved. The spider horde was closing in.
Aiki's expression hardened. She lifted her wand, and her voice rang out like a chime against the dark:
"Eleventh Tier, Lightning Magic: Twin Dragon Stream."
The air cracked. Magic circles spun to life in front of her wand—concentric rings of glowing runes humming with restrained fury. A sphere of concentrated electricity condensed at the center, writhing with arcs of lightning seeking escape.
Then it detonated.
The lightning split into two streams, one screaming forward down the tunnel, the other whipping around and roaring past her allies at the rear.
The front stream struck the approaching spiders head-on, a serpent of blue-white energy. It twisted and forked as it tore down the passage, incinerating everything in its path. Spinner Twins, Web-Crawlers, and even the thick silk lining the walls were turned to ash in an instant, the blast burning so hot the tunnel's damp air evaporated with a hiss.
In the rear, the second stream of lightning surged past Lunaria and the knights like a divine lash. The darkness behind them lit up with strobing flashes as spider after spider was reduced to twitching charred husks, their legs curling inward mid-scream. The very ground shook under the force of the discharge.
The twin bolts met no resistance.
Silence followed. Smoke drifted down both ends of the tunnel, curling lazily like the breath of a dead god. The tunnel ahead glowed faintly with residual sparks—bodies of spiders still flickering with arcs of unstable energy. Behind, only steaming corpses remained, their exoskeletons cracked and blackened.
Aiki lowered her wand, her face unreadable in the glow of the devastation.
Then—
Skrrrck… skrrrck… skrrrk.
The sound began faint—like bones grinding together. Then it multiplied. From the walls, from the ceiling, from beneath the very floor—the sound of thousands of limbs twitching back to life filled the tunnel.
The Spinner Twins twitched. Their smoldering husks jerked, spasmed—legs cracking and straightening. Further down, the ones that had been electrocuted began to move again, their charred shells flaking away to reveal glistening new skin, pale and reformed. The smell of burning silk turned sweet and rotten as one by one, the spiders revived and resumed their march.
Then came the bats.
The ceiling burst open above them—thousands of black-winged creatures poured out like spilled ink, shrieking in ultrasonic fury. They flew at impossible speed, a cloud of wings and fangs that dove on anything warm-blooded. Horses reared, soldiers raised their shields, spells cracked through the air—but the swarm was overwhelming, biting, clawing, latching onto anything exposed.
And at the heart of it all… the earth trembled.
From the cracked ceiling above the horde, a figure descended—gracefully, unnaturally, as though gravity bowed to them. A tall, slender shape cloaked in swarming bats, their body untouched by dirt or chaos. As the swarm parted around them, the glow of the wizards' spells caught on long, flowing blond hair, impossibly pale skin, and eyes like molten garnets—a predator's gaze.
The temperature dropped. Even the spiders faltered in their stride.
The figure smiled
.
—
Above ground, the tides of battle had shifted—not toward the heroes' cavalry, nor the ant soldiers of the dungeon nestled below. Instead, a new faction had bared its fangs.
Toward the far eastern side of the town, an attack tower pulsed with a brilliant, unnatural light. Hundreds of thousands of vibrant mana strands writhed like serpents through the air, weaving their way into the ants that had gathered below.
Then—something changed.
An invisible will took root in their minds, threading through their instincts, overriding whatever loyalty or programming they once followed. Mana surged into their limbs. Their carapaces bulged and cracked with glowing fractures as runes appeared—glyphs bathed in pinkish-red and pale whitish-blue light—etched into their armored bodies by something far more powerful.
Their mandibles parted wide.
And then they breathed.
Gouts of unnatural flame, arcing ice, and raw magical energy tore through the battlefield. One ant exhaled a stream of crimson fire, incinerating a cluster of its own kin in a single sweep. Another released a blast of frozen mist that crystallized a squad of human soldiers mid-charge, their bodies shattering as they fell.
The enchanted ants turned on everything in sight—man and bug alike. Their eyes glowed with alien purpose, and their movements were no longer erratic and instinctual—they were coordinated, sharp, deliberate.
Their attacks were swift—each blow holding enough power to obliterate an opponent's core in a single strike. They fought not for strategic victory, but for slaughter. One such ant came under siege by a group of magic users. Despite their barrage, it climbed steadily up the tower wall, its body glowing with layered defensive shields. Halfway up, its shell lit with a sequence of violet magic circles.
And then—
BOOOOOOM!!!
It detonated in a violent explosion, a wave of destruction that stretched outward into a blinding cloud large enough to engulf an entire football field. Thousands died in an instant—including other 'charmed' ants—leaving behind a massive crater and tearing open the tunnels beneath, allowing even more ants to scurry out onto the battlefield.
But they, too, weren't spared.
BOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOM!!! BOOOOOOM!!!
Explosions sounded one after another—violent, heated, and uncaring—as more tendrils of light shot into the surfacing ants and forced them to detonate. The earth rumbled. Dozens of eruptions rocked the eastern quadrant, turning the already ruined town into a blizzard of debris, molten rock, blazing embers, and floating ash.
FLASH!!!
A beam of silver light shot out from the lone attack tower—one that had somehow escaped the violet flames. Its walls shimmered with layered barriers and twisting tendrils as a brown-haired figure appeared within the beam. He had light brown eyes, pale skin, and a wide smile on his face, his figure visible to all who looked toward the devastation.
"This—" a blonde-haired girl muttered, frozen in place with her group atop a shattered rooftop. Her heart pounded like thunder in her chest, mirrored in the shocked silence behind her.
Their feet refused to move.
"Hello, humans. My name is… irrelevant, to scum such as yourselves," the figure declared, his voice filled with venomous scorn. He pulled back his silver hood—an elven crest stitched into the fabric's left side—revealing cut ears that had once been proud and pointed.
"All you need to know is that your reckoning has arrived! The Order of the Pale Bloom has come to deliver a blade to all you white-bellied swine! THIS IS JUST THE START! MEN, CHILDREN, AND WOMEN—WE SHALL ERADICATE ALL WHO HAVE WRONGED US!!"
"HAIL THE ORDER!!" he roared, raising a dagger high into the air before plunging it into his own abdomen. Without hesitation, he gripped the hilt with both hands and ripped it upward. The sickening sound of tearing flesh echoed out, followed by a wet hiss as the blade emerged again.
"HAIL THE ORDER!!!"
Time seemed to slow. The world held its breath. Then, he drove the dagger into his heart—triggering a wave of mana like none before. The beam above him turned a deep, unnatural purple.
"No… something isn't right—Abandon the rescue!" the blonde girl shouted, her instincts screaming. She turned on her heel to flee, the others following.
But then—
"Where do you think you're all going~?" a voice cooed.
Malrik—or rather, the silver-cloaked elf—materialized before them with a smirk. His long brown hair flowed in the air, a dagger still embedded in his chest like a grotesque decoration.
"Didn't you come all this way to get this one back?" he said, voice laced with sadistic glee, before tossing a severed head at their feet.
Their eyes widened.
It was Eleryn's severed head.
Her eyes were rolled back, frozen in a final expression of terror. Tear stains streaked her bruised cheeks. Her nose was crooked, lips bloodied, her mouth agape—several teeth missing.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Her face, her mouth, even the freshly cut ends of her hair—still damp from the moment of decapitation—were all splattered in a thick, sticky white substance. The smell alone told them exactly what it was.
There was no room left for doubt. No mercy in pretending otherwise.
A wave of rage pulsed through them—sudden, unrelenting. Their wands rose as if by instinct, spells igniting in blooms of red, green, and blue.
But they were too late.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion covered half the town—a cascading wall of violet fire and mana that erased everything in its path. Buildings vaporized. Streets were reduced to molten veins of glowing rock. Screams were silenced before they could even finish.
And above it all, ashes rained like snow, covering the earth in the wake of war.