CHAPTER 36: THE QUEEN BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN

For several days, the four dark elves tracked Sereth and his human ward through the outer labyrinths, keeping their distance precisely as ordered.

Their initial mission to cull the feral nests had been shelved the moment the captain learned of Sereth's return. Now, they had only one job: follow, observe, and stay out of sight.

At first, Isilra had expected the assignment to be tedious. She was wrong.

The arachne were a constant presence, but whenever a large specimen crossed their path, Caius didn't rush in with his shortswords. Instead, he would pause, pull his warbow from his shoulder with calm deliberation, and wait.

He never seemed hurried. Whether a spider was scaling a distant wall or creeping out from the shadows, Caius tracked it through his sights.

Release.

One arrow. One kill.

The first time it happened, Isilra assumed the creature had simply been careless. By the fifth time, she stopped calling it luck. These weren't small pests; they were massive beasts that a lone warrior would usually approach with extreme caution. Yet Caius picked them off from a distance with terrifying precision.

Even when a spider realized it was being hunted and tried to bolt around a stone pillar, Caius simply waited. The moment it reappeared, the bowstring snapped. The shaft crossed the chamber, dropping the monster dead before it could take three more strides.

The younger swordsman slowly lowered his bow, staring in disbelief. "One shot."

The older veteran nodded grimly, saying nothing.

The human boy didn't aim for the heavy armor plating; he always found the precise angle needed to pierce the creature's weak points from afar. Isilra watched his eyes closely during every shot, searching for traces of magical enhancement or spellcasting. There was nothing. Just unnatural, razor-sharp perception.

Sereth never offered a word of praise or instruction. He simply let the boy work.

They had been tailing the pair for nearly a week when Caius finally noticed them.

As they moved through a long, dim corridor, Caius glanced back over his shoulder. The passage behind them was empty—just black stone and shadow. But something in the air felt off.

He dropped back beside Sereth, lowering his voice. "They're still following us."

Sereth didn't break stride. "Ignore them."

Caius glanced back again. "They're not even trying to hide it anymore."

"They were ordered to observe us."

Caius blinked. "You knew?"

Sereth offered a faint, dry smile. "Of course."

"Should we be worried?"

"No," Sereth replied smoothly. "They've been strictly instructed not to approach."

Caius nodded, letting the matter drop.

A few steps back, the four dark elves heard the exchange. Isilra felt a brief flush of embarrassment; they had convinced themselves they were completely hidden, yet Sereth had known from day one, and the human had spotted them too.

Hours later, Sereth pulled aside into a shallow, secluded alcove off the main passage to rest. A narrow stream trickled down one wall, and faint, pleasant warmth radiated from cracks in the stone floor.

Caius unslung his pack, pulling out the harvest from their latest arachne kill. He carefully trimmed the meat, skewering a few choice cuts over a makeshift camp fire. The rich, savory aroma quickly filled the small chamber.

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Sereth watched him for a moment before standing up. He walked to the mouth of the cavern, staring out into the dark tunnel where the trailing squad was lurking.

Raising a hand, Sereth traced a series of swift runes in the air.

A shimmering wave of mana rippled across the cave entrance. The surrounding stone twisted and folded, seamlessly blending until the opening vanished entirely behind an illusion of solid rock. From the outside, the alcove no longer existed, and even the sounds from within were muffled into absolute silence.

Sereth lowered his hand and walked back to the fire.

Caius looked toward the now-invisible exit. "Can they see us?"

"Not anymore."

"And they won't see what I'm doing?"

"No," Sereth said, his expression turning serious. "Which is why I sealed it."

Caius understood and turned back to tend the meat. When it finished browning, he pulled a piece off the skewer and took a tentative bite.

His eyes widened slightly. "This is actually really good."

Sereth raised an eyebrow. "You've eaten arachne meat before?"

"No. But..." Caius chewed thoughtfully. "It tastes almost exactly like lobster."

Sereth let out a quiet, amused chuckle. "You find the strangest things to appreciate."

As they ate, Caius stared into the flickering flames, recalling the sheer size of the creatures they'd fought. "Are there ones even bigger than the ones we've been hunting?"

Sereth's demeanor shifted, turning heavier. "There are."

"How big?"

"The largest aren't ordinary ferals," Sereth said quietly. "They're called Queen Mothers."

Caius paused, a piece of meat halfway to his mouth. "Queen Mother?"

"The biggest ones can stand nearly twenty feet tall at their peak," Sereth answered, his gaze drifting toward the hidden entrance. "And they aren't dangerous just because of their size."

"What makes them dangerous?"

"How many elite warriors would it take to kill one?" Caius asked.

Sereth was silent for a long moment, his expression grave. "A single Queen Mother requires at least a hundred elite dark elf fighters. And even then, casualties are guaranteed."

Caius narrowed his eyes. "Because of her web?"

"Not just her web. Her brood," Sereth explained. "A standard Queen Mother is rarely found with fewer than fifty elite arachne guards shielding her. For the higher-tiered ones, you'd be lucky to face only a hundred guards crawling over each other to form a living wall around her."

Caius frowned, processing the tactical nightmare. "So a hundred elite guards plus the queen herself."

"And those are just the Queen Mothers," Sereth added, his tone darkening slightly as he looked back toward the fire. "In the deepest, most forbidden layers of the inner territories, there are darker rumors. The clans speak of arachne humanoids—creatures they call Emperors. They possess terrifying intelligence and can command entire swarms of the hive as a unified army. But those entities dwell deep within the innermost zones, far beyond where any ordinary patrol dares to tread."

The weight of Sereth's words hung heavily in the chamber. Caius thought back to the smaller spiders he'd been picking off with single arrows. If those were merely the baseline of the species, and the Queen Mothers required entire armies to dislodge, it was easy to see why the dark elves treated the depths as a waking nightmare.

"How many of them are down here?" Caius asked.

"Enough."

Sereth motioned toward the pile of harvested spider cores sitting near Caius's pack. "You have enough materials for now. Take them out and refine your energy."

Caius nodded, setting his food aside. He cleared a flat section of stone, crossed his legs, and settled into a meditative posture. Closing his eyes, he turned his focus inward.

Deep within his lower abdomen rested the Black Core—a dense, absolute sphere of dark energy that seemed to devour the surrounding mana.

Caius reached out mentally, drawing upon the energy of one of the harvested arachne cores. He pulled the foreign mana into his system, spinning his own energy around it at breakneck speed. The opposing forces collided, generating intense friction until a spark caught.

The Black Flame ignited.

It burned pure black within the circulating currents, incinerating everything impure: the beast's residual instincts, wild wills, and elemental impurities. All of it was burned away to ash, leaving behind only refined, usable energy.

Caius guided the purified current into his Black Core. The dark sphere absorbed it, its density tightening and its capacity expanding slightly.

Again.

He pulled another core into his circulation. The Black Flame flared, stripping away the dregs. The process was grueling, sending sharp waves of strain through his meridians, but Caius didn't waver.

Even with dozens of cores processed, when he checked the inner space of the Black Core, he couldn't help a faint frown. It had grown denser and heavier, but the dark sphere still held vast oceans of empty space. There was still a long way to go.

He kept refining, feeding the fire.

Outside the hidden alcove, the four dark elves stood in the empty corridor.

Isilra stared at the stretch of solid stone where the cavern entrance had been just moments ago. There was nothing left to see—just normal, weathered rock face. She couldn't track Sereth or the human anymore.

The older swordsman looked over at her, raising a silent question.

Isilra shook her head slightly. The captain's orders were absolute: Follow. Observe. Do not approach.

If Senior Sereth wanted to throw up a concealment ward and block their view, they would simply have to wait until he dropped it.

Inside the hidden chamber, the Black Flame continued to burn, while Sereth kept watch in the quiet dark.