Chapter 741: The Spider Castle

Franky woke inside the wagon and stared at his hands. They were small and human. His scales were gone, and so was his tail. In their place, he had a body that was far too fragile, soft, and useless. A human hatchling.

[Choose your Class wisely...]

He shot upright.

“No, no!”

That was a mistake. Instead of relying on his long, perfect body, Franky found himself balancing on two ridiculous human legs. He stumbled, lost his footing, and crashed into the wagon bed.

“Easy, kid!” one of the humans said.

“Anything but this!” Franky screamed, staring down at himself in horror. “I turned into a rat!”

“What?!” Both humans reacted at once, completely baffled.

Franky looked toward the road outside. Even trapped in this pathetic body, he wasn’t stupid. As a magnificent serpent beast, he knew exactly how the world worked: bigger predators captured weaker beasts to hurt them, eat them, or play with them. Humans couldn’t be any different.

Franky jumped.

“Gods! Stop the wagon! The kid’s insane!”

He hit the ground hard and tumbled through the dirt. When he finally stopped, he instinctively tried to slither away, but his body wouldn’t glide. He had no scales, no tail, nothing useful, only arms and legs, crooked, worthless things that somehow passed for a body.

The man jumped down from the wagon and ran toward him. “Easy, kid. You’re safe. I’m taking you somewhere safe. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Franky lunged at his hand and bit him. He expected to feel his beautiful fangs pierce flesh and pump venom into the man. He expected the human to recoil, convulse, and collapse. None of that happened.

“Ow! What the hell?” The man shoved him away.

“No...” Franky’s eyes widened as he touched his mouth. “My beautiful fangs are gone!”

Then he realized something. Ridiculous as they were, human legs could run. So he did the only sensible thing possible. He ran.

“Damn it, kid, get back here!”

“I’m only going back to Human Luke’s rat burrow!”

“What are you talking about?”

Franky didn’t answer. He sprinted into the forest.

“Come back, Simon! Come back!”

“The kid ran that way!”

“Stopping the wagon here is suicide. We’re too close to the beast forest.”

“And you expect me to leave the kid behind?”

“I’m not getting myself killed for him.”

Their voices faded behind him, along with the creak of the wagon wheels. A few moments later, the wagon moved on. Franky kept running until the pain forced him to slow down. A strange cramp twisted in his stomach, and he pressed a hand against it without thinking. Something growled inside him.

Franky froze. “What was that?”

The growl came again, making him frown.

“Am I hungry?”

He looked down at his small hands and thin arms. He wore a shirt far too large for him, probably given to him by one of the humans while he’d been unconscious.

“What do I do now?”

No answer came, so he ran again.

“Rat Lillian! Rat Mother! Rat Father! Older Rat Brother!”

Franky shouted as he pushed through the forest, calling for them and desperately hoping to hear anything in return, a sound, a scent, a movement. Anything. But his senses weren’t working properly. The world felt muffled, distant, and wrong. He gradually slowed to a stop, panting.

“It’s dark...” he whispered.

Franky had never known darkness like this. Before, night had never been a problem. He could feel the world around him, sense the presence of other creatures, and know where to go, hunt, or hide. Now, trapped in this human body, it was as if someone had torn away half his senses. He was almost blind in the dark.

Then he realized he was about to say something he had never imagined speaking aloud.

“I’m... scared.”

Something wet ran from his eyes. Franky touched his face, confused and disgusted by the strange sensation. His body was wrong. His senses were wrong. He was alone. For some reason, Human Luke’s face appeared in his mind, along with a strange, urgent need to be near him. Franky didn’t understand it. He only knew that thinking about Luke somehow made being alone feel worse.

“I’m scared...” His voice cracked. “I want to go back to the human family’s burrow.”

No one answered.

***

[Kingdom Core area located. Good luck claiming it!]

“Looks like I’m here.”

Luke stepped through the trees and stopped at the edge of a massive clearing. Ahead of him, the skeletons of ancient stone structures rose among moss, cracks, and shadows, the remains of something that had once mattered. Ruins covered the clearing, but they weren’t what caught his attention.

“Spiders.”

A lot of spiders.

Creatures the size of cars prowled through the clearing, their long, narrow legs scraping across broken stone. Torn cocoons hung between shattered pillars, while rotting beast carcasses lay trapped in thick webs. Some had already split open, while others remained shapeless bundles that swayed slowly in the wind.

Luke leaped into a tree and settled on a thick branch, surveying the area from above. There was a castle below. It wasn’t an intact one, but a ruined fortress claimed by time, webs, and creatures that clearly didn’t welcome visitors.

“The universe has to be screwing with me. Of course the Kingdom Core had to be here.”

“A haunted castle, Luke? It suits you,” Artemis said.

Luke didn’t answer right away. His gaze swept over every broken tower, collapsed wall, and movement from the spiders below. Kingdom Cores appeared in strategic locations, usually important landmarks within a region. In Luke’s old world, nations had defined their territory through borders, maps, and treaties. None of that mattered anymore. A territory’s true borders were defined by its Kingdom Core, not by paperwork, armies, or tradition, but by the System itself.

“And now there’ll be a lot more of them scattered around the world,” he muttered.

Before Event 51, only a small handful of Kingdom Cores had been claimed. Very few had existed by design, but the Integration had changed that. More Cores would appear, along with those already lost across the other worlds before the merger.

“My planet was part of the final group integrated into New Earth, along with the others I saw at the beginning of the event. Even if I’m still on Earth, there’s a good chance I’m on the wrong continent.”

If Luke, who had been in Maine before the event, had been sent here, he couldn’t help wondering where his family had ended up. Hopefully, only the people sent to Stage 3 had been scattered like this. The answer he was looking for might be here, inside the Kingdom Core. Once he had seen enough, Luke moved. Fast. The spiders began to notice him, but they were already too late. He sliced through the webs in his path, vaulted over the first creature, and buried a kukri in its skull.

[You have slain a Shadowback Leaping Spider - Lvl 61]

[+24 Soul Energy absorbed]

His second kukri flew the instant another spider turned.

[You have slain a Shadowback Leaping Spider - Lvl 61]

[+24 Soul Energy absorbed]

Luke activated [Perception Sphere] and tore through the clearing like a living shadow. Balls of webbing whistled past him. Some splattered against stone, while others tore through the space his body had occupied only a second earlier. He dodged, cut, and kept moving. Legs came off, and the creatures collapsed beneath their own weight. Luke finished them before they could recover.

By the time more spiders arrived, all they found were corpses. The next wave stopped charging blindly. Instead, they spread out and skittered around the ruins, trying to surround him. Then Luke stepped from a shadow and killed another one.

[You have slain a Shadowback Leaping Spider - Lvl 68]

[+27 Soul Energy absorbed]

He sank back into the darkness. One spider turned just in time to see its companion’s body collapse. In that same instant, Luke appeared beneath it, tore open its abdomen, and finished it off. A strand of webbing snapped taut and yanked another spider backward, but Luke had already vanished. He reappeared from the shadow of a broken pillar and killed that one too.

As more spiders poured in, Luke slipped through the ruins, raced down narrow passages, vanished into the shadows, and struck again. One by one, he killed them before they could even understand where death was coming from.

When most of them were dead, Luke stopped and looked toward the castle.

“All right. Now I just have to deal with whatever’s inside.”

Kingdom Cores radiated enormous amounts of mana, drawing powerful creatures that hungered for it. That meant something dangerous was inside, something big enough to keep even those spiders away.

Luke headed in. He slipped through a break in the wall, mapping the corridors as he searched for the Core.

The interior was a disaster, filled with cracked walls, fallen stones, rotting tapestries, the stench of death, and webs everywhere. Some wings were flooded with foul-smelling liquid, and Luke chose to believe it was spider excrement. From several spiders. Or one spider, which would be worse.

Large beast carcasses were scattered throughout the castle as well. Some were stuck to the walls, while others had been discarded on the floor. That meant the creature inside went out to hunt, or the other spiders brought food to it.

“Of course it’s in the throne room,” he muttered.

The chamber was vast, tall, and nearly unrecognizable beneath layers of webbing. The ancient throne was barely visible at the far end, swallowed by thick strands covering the walls, ceiling, and pillars. Within that white mass, a pink glow pulsed softly.

Found you.

The Kingdom Core was there. Luke took one step forward, but before he could get any closer, the webs shifted. One strand moved, then another. A moment later, every web in the chamber began vibrating like strings plucked by invisible hands. Something scraped across the ceiling.

Then it shot toward him. Luke barely had time to raise his arm.

“Oh, fuck!”

A massive spider appeared in front of him. It was white, covered in strands of webbing, and so perfectly camouflaged that it looked as though the room itself had given birth to it. It was silent and impossibly fast. One fang raked across Luke’s arm. Venom burned through his skin before he could pull away, but he ripped his arm back and narrowly escaped being grabbed.

“Shit! That burns!”

His entire arm felt as if it were on fire. The spider leaped at him with its legs spread wide, ready to pin him down. Luke rolled aside, and one of the creature’s legs struck a thick strand of webbing. The sound echoed through the chamber like a warped harp. The webs answered. Threads moved from every direction, trying to block Luke’s path, while the doors slammed shut behind him.

“No windows, and every exit is sealed under layers of webbing.”

The spider drooled, scooping up the thick saliva with two of its legs and mixing it with strands of silk. A barbed web harpoon took shape before shooting toward Luke. He ran, and the spider followed. Luke drew a knife from its sheath and cut through the strands in his path. With a hard shove, he forced the door open just enough to squeeze through, then sprinted down the castle corridors.

Behind him, the double doors exploded outward as the spider smashed through them. Even though it was far too large for the narrow halls, it moved with absurd speed.

“Too fat for the hallway, huh?”

A blast of webbing sealed the side door before he reached it. The next corridor closed as well. By the third, Luke understood. It was guiding him, herding him through the maze.

Then he spotted a hole in the ceiling. He leaped for the opening, caught a broken ledge, and started climbing. Before he could pull himself up, the spider jumped after him and caught his leg. Its fangs sank in. Luke screamed and kicked the creature in the head with everything he had. It happened fast. His foot came off.

Clenching his teeth, he hauled himself upward and managed to reach the next floor.

“Go fuck yourself!”

The spider tried to squeeze through the hole, but its body was too large. It thrashed, its legs scraping against stone, while Luke dragged himself away. Blood poured from his wounded leg.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

For a second, he thought he might at least be safe up there.

Then he saw it.

Ahead of him, the spider crawled through a massive hole in the wall. Smaller spiders followed behind it, skittering along the walls and ceiling.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Luke clenched his jaw and raised two knives. “Come on, you son of a—”

The spider hit him before he could finish. It was too fast. Luke moved a fraction too late. Its fangs pierced him again, and its legs lifted him into the air as he screamed. Then the creature bit violently into his torso.

“Get the fuck off me!”

He screamed as the spider tore into him.

Then his screams turned into laughter.

“I’m just a golem, dumbass.”

Down in the castle courtyard, the real Luke smiled. He held a knife in one hand, then threw it.

[Meteor Shot activated]

In midair, the blade transformed into a small meteor. Flames wrapped around the steel as it crossed the distance at brutal speed and slammed into the spider with an explosive crash.

The creature was blasted out of the castle.

Luke watched its body plummet, its ruined legs flailing in different directions. It slammed into the ground, part of its body crushed by the meteor’s impact.

He walked toward it, whistling, with a kukri in each hand.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t like the meal I made for you?”

Before the spider could try anything, Luke activated [Crimson Fang] and buried a kukri in its head.

“I just didn’t want to wreck my own castle.”

[You have slain an Ivory Leaping Spider - Lvl 134]

[+54 Soul Energy absorbed]

Your class [Shadow Phantom Reaper] has reached Level 117! (+30 Lethality, +24 Agility, +23 Perception, +22 Intelligence, +18 Wisdom, +13 Willpower, +10 Dexterity, +20 Free Points)

Above him, the smaller spiders froze in place, as though they couldn’t understand what had just happened. Luke leaped upward, his [Cloak of the Arcane Witch] carrying him into the air, and stared them down.

[Horns of the Demon of Darkness activated]

[Despair Aura I activated]

“Now I just have to wipe out the rest of the infestation.”

So he did.

He killed every last spider, moving quickly and relentlessly. They fled, trembled, and tried to hide inside their own webs, but Luke didn’t stop until the entire castle had fallen silent. At last, he walked calmly through the corridors again, as though he were inspecting a newly purchased property.

“Got to test two skills, too: [Arcane Witch Golem] and [Meteor Shot].”

Back in the web-choked throne room, Luke used [Shadow Ball] to burn through the dense layers of silk. Dark flames slowly consumed the filthy white mass, revealing what lay at the center of the chamber. A massive Core floated there. Its color hovered somewhere between purple and lilac, caught between darkness and light. It radiated mana so intensely that Luke could feel the pressure against his skin, as though the air around it had grown heavier.

“An artifact created by the system, capable of building an entire kingdom,” he murmured. “It really is as beautiful as they said. Almost hypnotic.”

Only someone with a High Nobility title, meaning someone ranked above Marquis, could claim a Kingdom Core, which meant plenty of Event winners would never qualify.

There were only two paths to the higher ranks: awakening a lesser noble title by killing someone who held a superior one and then evolving it by hunting other nobles, or inheriting one through a royal lineage, passed from father to son. Luke had taken the second path through Azazel.

“With a single touch, the system will recognize me as king.”

He touched the Core.

[Claiming Kingdom Core...]

“Perfect. A haunted castle. Now you just need the pretty maids,” Artemis said.

“I’m only doing this to access that special quest. That’s it.”

During the tutorial, Luke had killed the Beast Lord and the Midnight King. Either victory could have awakened a nobility title, but that hadn’t happened for one simple reason.

He already had one.

[Recognizing Nobility Title: Dark Lord]

[Recognizing Dark Lord: Luke Moon]

The interface flashed.

[Kings of the New Era Quest unlocked!]

“That’s what I wanted.”

This was how he would learn the location of the gathering the Reaper King had mentionedn the place where his mother would be.

“Now I’ll find a way off this continent. Only a king can learn where that special structure is,” he told Artemis.

[Crowning individual Luke Moon...]

[Transferring authority over the territory to Luke Moon...]

A faint pain flickered through Luke’s skull as he felt a connection forming with the Kingdom Core. It wasn’t merely an interface. It was as though the territory itself had begun breathing inside him. He felt the forest, the rivers, the mountains, and the valley. The Core’s invisible borders unfolded in his mind, carrying knowledge and authority with them.

[Awakening Kingdom System...]

Without warning, the Relic began to burn against Luke’s finger. He frowned and stared down at the ring.

[The Dark Lord’s Relic is synchronizing with the Kingdom Core...]

Synchronizing?

Black particles swirled around the ring. With no better option, Luke reached out and placed his hand against the Kingdom Core. The connection stabilized instantly.

[Your Dark Lord title is strengthening the Kingdom Core...]

[The Kingdom Core has awakened the Skill: Dark Lord’s Army]

A new interface opened in front of him.

Luke read it once, then again.

“So that’s what the Dark Lord title was really for.”