CHAPTER 39: THE PRINCESS OF THE BROOD

Caius stood planted beside Sereth, his grip tightening on the hilts of his twin short swords as the towering monstrosity cast a long, oppressive shadow over the blood-soaked cavern floor.

It was easily dwarfed by the twenty-foot behemoths Sereth had described, yet the sheer density of its aura made the air feel thick and heavy. But what caught Caius off guard wasn't the creature—it was Sereth.

The veteran warrior didn't look tense or desperate. If anything, the corner of his mouth twitched upward in faint amusement.

Sereth glanced sideways at the grizzled dark elf standing on Caius’s other flank—the old tavern keeper, his leather armor caked in dark arachne ichor and his white hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

"What's wrong, old friend?" Sereth called out over the receding echoes of the shriek. "Can't handle a few overgrown bugs anymore?"

The old assassin spat a glob of dark blood onto the stone and let out a harsh, gravelly chuckle. "You think these glorified ticks are easy to manage?"

"I think your old bones are singing loudly enough to wake the dead," Sereth deadpanned.

The grizzled elf barked a laugh, the sound dry as grinding stones.

Despite the fifteen-foot nightmare hissing before them and the carpet of twitching carcasses underfoot, the two veterans traded jabs as casually as if they were sitting by a hearth sharing a skin of wine. Caius found a strange, steadying comfort in it.

The old assassin’s dark, scarred eyes drifted from Sereth to Caius, narrowing as he took in the boy's stance, the quiet focus in his eyes, and the dark, wispy residue of the Black Flame clinging to his blades.

"Who's the whelp?" the old man muttered.

Sereth flicked a glance at Caius. "Cullum Macrae’s son. Caius. My ward."

The tavern keeper’s expression shifted instantly, a flicker of heavy, complicated recognition flashing across his weathered face. His gaze lingered on Caius's features before dropping to the swords. "Cullum’s blood runs deep in this one."

Caius kept his mouth shut, his focus locked forward.

The old assassin looked at Caius. "This will complicate things in the clans."

Sereth's expression became more serious. "Yeah. I know."

Sereth raised his sword, breaking the brief tension. "Let's focus first on killing the princess arachne."

Caius blinked, his eyes darting back to the towering monstrosity. "The princess?"

He looked up at the massive, fifteen-foot chitinous bulk, the eight thick, armored legs, and the sea of clicking horrors swarming its base. "That's not a Queen Mother?"

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Sereth let out a sharp, genuine laugh. "If that's a Queen Mother, then I'm a dwarf."

The grizzled assassin snorted, a sharp burst of laughter escaping him, followed instantly by a chorus of grim chuckles from the dark elf survivors forming the line behind them.

Caius stared at the creature, a bewildered smirk touching his lips. Fifteen feet of razor-sharp legs and venomous death was apparently just royalty-in-training down here.

The princess arachne seemed to sense the mockery. Its dozens of multifaceted eyes flared, and it let out another blistering, high-frequency shriek that vibrated straight through their teeth.

The laughter died instantly.

The monster lowered its massive upper torso, its front legs scraping viciously against the stone.

"Now," Sereth whispered.

The swarm erupted.

Dozens of elite arachne lunged forward in a chaotic, flesh-eating wave, while the princess advanced behind them, each of its heavy strides hammering the cavern floor like a falling anvil.

Sereth surged forward, his blue aura transforming him into a human-shaped storm. The old assassin moved in absolute sync with him, his saber sweeping wide while his reverse-grip dagger intercepted anything that tried to slip past their overlapping guards.

Caius braced to follow, stepping into the rhythm of the charge, when Sereth's voice cracked sharply over the din without him even turning around.

"Caius!"

Caius snapped his attention to the veteran.

"You're making the killing blow."

Caius’s breath hitched. "Me?"

"Yes," Sereth roared, his blade shearing clean through a charging brute's neck, sending a geyser of dark gore into the air. "Find its weakness!"

The old assassin lunged into the opening Sereth created, his dagger sliding home into a soft joint with brutal precision.

"Use everything you have in that one strike!" Sereth commanded.

The front line of the swarm crashed into them. The cavern dissolved into a whirlwind of steel, shrapnel, acid, and bone. Sereth and the old assassin carved a path with terrifying synchronization, opening a narrow, bloody corridor straight toward the advancing princess.

Caius didn't hesitate. He held his position just behind them for a fraction of a second, his eyes locking onto the towering arachne as it reared back.

The monster unleashed a dense, thick web of sticky, high-tensile silk aimed straight at the veterans. Sereth twisted away like smoke, while the old assassin’s saber flashed, slicing the incoming net to ribbons before it could glue them to the stone.

"Caius!" Sereth’s voice cut through the chaos like a blade. "Wait for the opening!"

Caius lowered his center of gravity, tightening both hands around his short swords.

The princess lunged, its massive front limbs descending like scythes.

Sereth and the old assassin met the charge head-on, throwing their combined weight and aura against the creature's massive left leg, forcing it off balance.

Through the chaos, Caius activated Far Sight.

The frantic movement of the battlefield melted away into stark, glowing lines. The mana cores of the surrounding lesser spiders flared like candles, but the princess’s core blazed like a miniature sun—vast, violently dense, and churning with raw energy.

He tracked the flow of its mana, searching for the micro-second lag where its armor shifted, where the defenses thinned.

Not yet... not yet...

Sereth roared, his blue aura flaring to blinding intensity as he drove his blade deep into the creature's shoulder joint, forcing the massive beast to violently twist its upper body.

The old assassin struck in unison, burying his dagger into a secondary joint to lock the beast's movement in place.

For a single, agonizingly brief heartbeat, the princess's armored plating parted over its primary mana cluster.

There.

Caius’s eyes narrowed into absolute slits.

His body dropped lower, his muscles coiling tight as spring steel. The Flow Step ignited beneath his boots.

Sereth caught the boy's movement out of the corner of his eye and bellowed the final command:

"Now!"

Caius vanished.