I had no idea for how long the Arachne brood mother would remain tangled up, but honestly with the state of mind I was in I don’t think I care. Dying was…. Weird, I can’t exactly put my hand on it, but I felt different, an emptiness that I could not put my hands on was growing deep in my very being, and I couldn’t tell what it was. I looked up as we crossed a small creek, moving past two massive oak trees that had carvings on it that at the moment I couldn’t read. Or rather I didn’t understand one bit, the language was unfamiliar to me and doesn’t seem to be in any elven script ancient or modern that we’ve been taught to identify and read.

The hill was shaped like a donut, or it would have been a hill if I didn’t quickly recognize the uneven edges and symmetrical corners. This wasn’t some natural occurring hill, but rather architecture of some sort. It had similarities to Mesopotamian or Aztec temples with a set of stairs going all the way up to the opening that we had noticed on the beach of the island. Kaixuan did not stand on ceremony as he ran for the stairs, dragging me along with much more ease than would have been possible for him a few days ago.

But through it all I just watched it all with an impassive gaze, it was as if I was here and at the same time I was not. It was akin to that feeling where you were half asleep and knew you could just make a conscious effort to get up and you just couldn’t find the will to do so. I was a spectator in my own body, or at least I was until Kaixuan crossed the final steps and came into an alcove that was the opening of a cave with two massive doors closed shut behind it. Everyone else was there, and their looks of shocks unregistered by me until Kaixuan threw me to the ground roughly and bent down to lift me up whilst holding my shoulders, shaking me a little too roughly for my taste.

“Oww!”

“Samson! Talk to me! Are you okay! H-how! I-we saw you die! All of us! How are you alive!” for me everything was a bit too loud, it was as if after my resurrection everything had been grayscale and the sounds had been subdued. But now they were all rushing back in full force and I was getting a bit overwhelmed by it all. I raised a hand and placed it on Kaixuan’s mouth.

“If you would let me catch my breath I’ll explain, but before that I don’t suppose any one of you have any extra clothes to lend me?” luckily for me Salma still had her bag pack with her with an extra set battlesuit, which surprised me seeing as we were all only ever issued one for the entirety of our military service.

“What! I have connections okay, and I wanted to modify this one to make it more fashionable. And fashionable it was, as it had blue highlights on the sides, inner thighs, with a blue collar that spread a band to the back, glowing in the dimly lit cave. It was a work of art, and I could tell it took a lot for Salma to pull this out and give it to me, because frankly speaking it would have cost a small fortune to not only have an extra battlesuit, but modify it like this.

“I don’t regret giving it to you Sam, so stop looking at me like that, if anything I wish I could give you more. You saved my life, and in return we got you killed. All we’ve done was look down on you and fuck up, and yet you-you!” to say I was confused was an understatement, why was she crying, is she supposed to be crying. Kaixuan walked up to me and placed an arm on my shoulder, I looked up at him seeing as he quite a little bit taller than the rest of us.

“Are you okay?”

I shuddered, the question was a simple one, yet it seemed to haunt me, the fact that I really couldn’t answer it got to me in more ways than one. Was I okay, heck no I wasn’t, I didn’t feel okay yet; I had absolutely no idea what was wrong with me, everything just hurts.

“Heal me! Heal me please! I’m dying!” Malkova pushed Kaixuan out of the way, her eyes manic and frantic as she too grabbed my shoulders. Her knees seemed weak, a little crooked as they too were broken, yet she was still walking. For all intents and purposes she should be dead ten times over, but she had a Miracle similar to mine, and with Hades being her God, death was a close friend, but yet it wasn’t something she would be able to conquer at all, not one bit. But in regards to healing her, I didn’t feel like it.

By this point both her and her brother have been established as grade A jerks. The battlefield had brought out their true nature and it was hideously ugly. And I’ve been on the receiving end of their ugly personality, until recently when it was spread to the others, I saved Andrej’s life and expected him to do the same for the others, but he had abandoned Salma to die, just to chase after his sister who wasn’t really hurt…. I don’t understand how close the two are, but obviously they only care about themselves.

*Bang! *

Salma crumpled to the ground, a hole in her stomach from a gunshot wound. Before the rest of us could register what had just happened, Andrej had placed his booted feet on her neck and was pointing his rifle straight at her head. the look on his face didn’t look like one that was ready to broker any sort of deal, there was no room for negotiation as he obviously crossed a bridge that he couldn’t come back from, he was a man with a mission, and he would do whatever the fuck it takes to achieved it.

“Andrej what the fuck are you doing!” Tobias yelled out at him in shock as everyone else picked up their guns and pointed it at him. But Andrej did not even budge, he pushed down tighter forcing Salma to choke as he kept his gaze focused on mine, before deciding to speak.

“Didn’t you sacrifice your life to save Salma, well here is a conundrum isn’t it. She’ll bleed out in a few minutes, she has just about as much time as my sister before she too dies for good. A situation you seem to have developed a method to actually escape. Sammy I don’t actually care how the fuck it is that you are alive, what I do know is that if you don’t heal my sister within the next 5 seconds I’ll put a bullet in Salma’s pretty head. didn’t you used to have a crush on her during our first year, believe me it would be quite a sight to see, the look on your face when she dies.

And don’t think for one second that I have no way to fight back should I lose my bargaining chip, I’m a fucking Technomancer and you are all pointing guns at my face. Dealing with you all would be a piece of cake compared to what you all can do to me. And no funny business Kaixuan, sure your guns are special, but do you think your bullet will get to me before Salma’s pretty brains are splattered all over the floor huh? Do you really want to take that risk? Plus, I believe we’re all facing a fucking crisis, we need every hand on deck if we want to survive that monstrosity out there, so Sammy Boy; the ball’s in your court.”

Of course it is, way to put me on the spot about this, but there was no debate to be had. He didn’t have to go this far, I was still going to heal the bitch. We were soldiers and with the current situation in front of us we, I had to be practical. We need the asshole siblings to be able to survive, every advantage we had would go a long way in making sure we got through this bloody dungeon. I shifted my gaze from Andrej and turned to look at Malkova, she really was a pitiful sight and for some reason seeing her like this was…. Enjoyable. I moved closer to her and then whispered in her ears.

“Never forget this day Malkova, etch it deep in your disgusting black heart and know that one day soon, eventually, in one way or the other a shit fest would be coming the way of you and your bastard brother. And I’ll be there, to either be the reason it happens, or watch once again as you pitifully beg for your worthless life, and as you do so, I’d watch Malkova and I’d laugh, and dance and piss over your living corpse and drink from your brother’s fucking skull, and then I’ll heal you and the break you down, over and over again until you beg for death, and then and only then will I let you croak like the animals you both are.”

“Whoa! Sam, why so dark man?” Ricardo asked in shock about how twisted and dark my words were, but he was not the only one. I didn’t think it possible that such words could come out of my mouth, and even more so was the fact that I meant every word of it. I wasn’t trying to scare her or anything, I really had the conviction and intention to do everything that I just told her I was going to do and even more than what I had just said. Right now, in this moment, I couldn’t recognize myself, not even a little bit; what was wrong with me?

“Aurora!”

I had cast the spell absent mindedly, but it was enough as a stream of multicolored lights shot out of my hands into Malkova’s body, and then it lept, jumping onto Tobias who was closer, then Nguyen and the other, bouncing from one individual to the other till it reaches Salma, who had the bullet pushed out of her, before Andrej. The light made six rotations before everyone was full healed, before quietly dissipating and leaving all of us staring at each other. No one knew what to do next, with everything that had just happened, it was obvious that whatever dynamic that held this team together was pretty much fucked up thanks to Andrej and Malkova’s extreme actions.

I ignored everything as I went forwards to help Salma back up to her feet. She smiled in thanks before turning around to face Andrej, and not to the shock or surprise of anyone around she gave him a well-deserved punch in the nose. Breaking it with her superior strength as Andrej took a few steps back. Salma choked back tears as she looked at him and asked.

“Why? I thought- I thought we….”

“You thought we what? Huh? Don’t kid yourself Salma. Just because I fucked you a few times doesn’t mean you’re my girlfriend or some great love, or one of those stupid shit about romance and true love you’ve been spouting recently. This is war, I don’t have time for things like love, and frankly speaking while you’re a good fuck, you’re not the best I’ve had, in fact if I should be honest, you were a little boring. I mean who wants to bang a chick who would just lay back and let the man do all the work. You’re tight though, which is cool, real cool, means you weren’t lying when you told me you were a virgin, makes the experience all so much sweeter, are my right?

But ultimately between your worthless life and that of my sister, I’ll choose my sister over you any day any time. And if using you as a bargaining chip is what it takes to get what I want then, believe me when I say I would use you. if I should make it simpler, then let my actions be the manner with which I call things off, we just aren’t compatible kitten, you were a good fuck, but that’s it, nothing more.”

Wow, that just blew all of our expectations out of the water. Nguyen and Tobias had struggled to keep their own relationship a secret yet we all still found out about it. But yet Andrej and Salma having been hitting the sack, and quite hard from the look of it. But in the end she was just a pass time. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I didn’t understand why, but I felt disconnected from this particular issue as I laughed out loud drawing all attention to myself as I said to him.

“You really are a bastard aren’t you, well you should….”

“Lion Strike!”

I turned around swiftly, smashing my mana clad fist into the head of the spider that just jumped at me. It exploded in a shower of guts as I ran towards the entrance of the temple and looked down the stairs to see that hundreds if not thousands of dog sized spiders were climbing up and heading in our direction. We would be having our hands full in a few seconds.

“What the hell is that!” Laurent asked as he took a step besides me with Kaixuan on the other side. The others quickly filled the entrance, even Salma who just had her heart broken.

“That’s probably the Spawn Broodlings skill of the Arachne Broodmother. It’s cute, she sent her kids after us Hehehehe.”

“I don’t see anything funny about this Samson.” Kimberly said to me with an annoyed tone in her voice, but I only shook my head as I turned to her.

“There’s a lot of them down there Kim, which means enough to go around to actually get you all to level ten if not more. That spider is stupid, we can get strong enough here, strong enough to kill that bitch. Because I don’t think the gates behind us will open without us beating her, the elven bones littered in front of it should be proof that we’re not the first to get here, we need to kill the Cymerian Arachne Broodmother before we can advance.” I said to them as they all turned quickly to see truly there was almost a dozen skeletons on the ground, their bones bleached white with time.

“Can we beat them all Sam, we might die and the elves failed, what can we possibly do against all of this.” Amina asked with a pensive look on her face, guess everything she has seen today has shaken her in more ways than one.

“No one is dying here today Amina, and I’ve died enough times already to add any extra time to that list. As for beating them when the elves had failed, did it perhaps cross your mind that the elves failed because they were perhaps…. Elves? We’re humans. We don’t fail, we don’t give up, and we’re the most dangerous creatures in all of existence, we will win…. Or we die!”