Ch. 8: Double Revenge 6

Sataska ran. She ran like an Olympic sprinter at top speed without even a hint of exhaustion. She had just accomplished her objective of grabbing the attention of a group of arachnacosa. In fact, she was being tracked by the largest hunting group of arachnacosa she had seen of around two hundred.

Yet she did not mind. She believed in Rainier even though she barely knew him. Out of everyone in her life, Rainier, while a rude fellow, was quite possibly the most trustworthy person she had met.

Sataska roughly understood the plan Rainier proposed, though she failed to understand how that would help kill her mother. Still, she trusted that man for all his faults.

At this very moment, Sataska saw two arachnacosa cutting her escape route up ahead with crooked sabers drawn. Both slashed at her neck and legs respectively, but Sataska used her impeccable senses and instinct to jump and twirl in the air to doge between the two blades. As she did this, she swung her arms around with two chitin blades in her hands like dual daggers and hamstrung several legs on each arachnacosa.

The two spider creatures gnashed in pain and made a feeble attempt to keep standing up. Eventually they stood back up, they still had more legs after all, only to find that the evoant they tried to block off had ran off.

It was currently night time and Sataska was pacing herself, distracting the arachnacosas with every bit of ingenuity she could muster.

Sataska fought the chitin blades, her hands, feet, and even her jaws in order to beat down every arachnacosa that came her way. However, there were far too many in the way of numbers for Sataska to even hope to take on, she had to get to the oasis trap by tomorrow. The constant running and luring she would have to do would take all night, and Sataska was not confident she could make it without sleep.

Could she really be as strong as Rainier? Sataska had to be in order to survive the night.

“KASHAYEK!” An incensed shout from an arachnacosa somewhere behind Sataska could be heard. It seemed they just found the two arachnacosa Sataska had wounded.

Sataska pulled several chitin blades from her limbs and threw them randomly in the direction of the voice. It didn’t matter if they hit, she simply wanted to have them know where she was.

It seemed her tactic worked as she heard the rustle of bushes and plants, her antennae told her that arachnacosa were pursuing her in force. “So aggressive. Such vulgar vermin shouldn’t even be allowed in the same presence as a true queen!” Then looking thoughtful for a moment while running she whispered quietly to herself so no one could hear no matter how close they were. “Except for him…”

Although Sataska never noticed it, it was her base animal instincts that allowed her to live for so long. Certainly, if any normal person was doing the same as Sataska, they would quickly perish. She subconsciously relied on both luck and instincts to accomplish her mission.

Sataska ran, with all her might.

-----

While passing time, Rainier experimented with the mask. Despite how overpowered he thought it was, he actually found that it was a pain to activate its innate abilities.

Simply feelings of happiness or anger weren’t enough to bring out its power. He tried remembering his useless parents, upon thinking of them he felt a little sad and angry, but neither emotion triggered the mask’s magic. Even thinking of his few friends and the good moments he shared with them which once filled his hear with warmth failed to bring any of the mask’s power out.

“Huh, I guess memories from the past simply don’t draw out any strong emotions. I bet only the present will work.” Hypothesized Rainier as he stared into the mask’s eye sockets. “I suppose until I figure out how to activate its abilities, it could act as a face guard like a helmet. Kinda creepy looking though, like I’m some sort of thespian serial killer.”

Rainier then put the mask on, allowing the metal hooks to latch onto his head and keep the mask in place. On a side note, Rainier also tested the durability of the mask, finding it nigh impossible to even make a dent. It was perfect protection for Rainier’s face until he found a similarly unbreakable full helmet.

Rainier spent a few more hours of the evening hiding his supplies in the rock he made his camp in before. Why he did this was because when the next time the oasis trap closed its mouth his supplies wouldn’t fall down the pool where its throat was at.

Eventually night befell the area. Seeing that there was no more to do until the next day, Rainier created a camouflaged shelter out of dead branches and the webbing he could make to hold it together like glue.

“Tomorrow will end it all…”

Or so Rainier thought.

“Sksss… Sksss… Sksssssssssss.”

‘Sooner than I expected, this is bad.’ Rainier jolted upwards and peered out his shelter as quietly as possible. He knew just how potent an evoant’s senses were, he had their antennae after all.

What Rainier saw was no less than seventy evoants. Four of them were standing out above all others which must have been the queen and her personal guard. Rainier saw the melted looking one and the bulky one on both sides of the queen. The third guard walked on four legs and had two arm like appendages arcing upwards and pointed down like scorpion tails. The third one looked nothing like his compatriots but an even more monstrous one.

And the queen herself was no less a thing of beauty. She was similar to Sataska in that she resembled a human though with an ant tail, antennae, and completely black eyes. Like some sort of ancient Amazonian, the queen had an obviously fit body that showed just barely enough muscle to not look too bulky. The queen was also quite voluptuous like an Amazonian, she wore brown cloth wraps to cover her body, but her outfit still left little to imagination. She stood tall and proud, haughtily looking down on her surroundings with an austere gaze.

Rainier slipped on Garavan’s Masque and placed his hand on the Razor of Envy. He wondered what kind of power he would gain if he killed all of them with the razor, just what kind of strength would he gain? The greedy die in Ademptis, much to Rainier’s misfortune. That opinion became fact when the human race became extinct, although Rainier did not know this.

‘No… I’ll definitely die if I come out now. I need to stall for at least an hour.’ Rainier attempted to devise various ways to keep the evoants here.

He could just there and now have the oasis trap chomp away, but Rainier wanted to try to wait and see if Sataska could make it here on time. If he made the oasis trap eat too soon, he could potentially put Sataska in danger and his plan would fail. There was no point in this plan if he didn’t accomplish his objective of getting the two insect races to fight each other and promptly get eaten by the oasis trap.

“BASTARD! SHOW YOUR PUNY SELF!” A frighteningly loud voice rung throughout the entire crater. That exact voice belonged to the evoant queen.

Like Sataska, the queen wasn’t hindered by the hissing lisp her brood had. Even so, it seemed the queen had the same arrogance in her voice like Sataska in triplicate. Rainier honestly wasn’t sure what exactly to do.

Should he show himself and begin the negotiations that he had no grounds on in the first place? Considering the pride and arrogance of the queen, Rainier doubted he would last very long. Then again, judging from Sataska’s words, she seemed to care an abnormal amount about her daughter.

Should he continue to hide? Rainier would definitely be found soon if the ants seriously began looking for him. Their antennae were far too sensitive to not find him in a matter of minutes.

Should he flee the scene? No, that’s what gutless people do.

Should he fight and most likely die? This would bring the same result as attempting to hide.

“I only have one option it seems…” Grumbled Rainier as he walked out of his hiding place with a confident stride. Even showing a hint of weakness would be fatal.

“YOU! Sataska… WHERE IS SHE?” The queen folded her arms and looked over to where Rainier was at. It looked like she was staring Rainier down despite the distance between the two. “I will flay you, quarter you, shred you, cut you… I will eat you ALIVE if Sataska has even a scratch on her.”

Rainier kept his distance, but he noticed several evoants attempting to encircle him and block off any escape attempts. “First off, let’s make a few things straight here. Your daughter is safe and sound… But she won’t be if things here don’t go my way. Have your brood head back behind you, if I see any of them get near… Well, I won’t be happy.”

“Tch.” The queen clicked her tongue in discontent and her antennae flinched. Apparently her antennae was the source of the telepathic signal she had with the rest of her brood aside from Sataska. “Well, GET ON WITH IT!”

“Christ, so impatient.” Rainier sighed and slightly shook his head in mock disbelief. While he felt he was becoming a little too cocky, it was somewhat fun to be the arrogant one. Pride against pride and all that.

“My offer is simple. Leave me alone. I will be living in the area from this crater down to Outpost Roseir. As long as if you can have your brood recognize me, they will not attack me.” Rainier spoke authoritatively, not giving an inch in diplomatic ground.

Still, despite the raw firmness from Rainier’s voice, the evoant queen was not daunted. “Fine. Now where is my daughter? I presume she is safe lest you will be risking your life and all the pain I will be giving you.”

“She’ll be here soon. And with it being painfully obvious that you were going to kill me as soon as you had your daughter considering the forces you brought here, you WILL wait on the other side of the crater. Even if you do capture me to torture, it’s a simple matter of killing myself to avoid the pain. You’ll lose your daughter and you’ll lose the target of your revenge, that won’t be fun will it?” Rainier would never have dreamed of saying anything like this in the past, it was both too self-destructive and conceited for him to even consider.

Rainier could see the evoant queen gnash her teeth and attempt to stare him down ruefully. “I won’t be waiting forever.” Despite the calm tone, the queen was bristling with fury. She wanted nothing more than to kill the one that was keeping her daughter away from her.

-----

An hour passed and darkness took over the sky.

The night sky of this world was truly beautiful. Rainier could see the odd moon of Ademptis with its rings of ice and dust. It resembled an atom with its odd arrangement of rings. Of course one couldn’t fail to mention the second moon which actually seemed to be a moon of Ademptis’ moon orbiting in synch with the rings.

Rainier thought about how nice it would be to have a decent life. A calm one where he could look at the stars each night without having to worry about constant threats. Back on earth, Rainier often mused that he was born too early or late to explore anything undiscovered. Yet on Ademptis he had plenty of chances to do this, explore the unexplored and make new discoveries at any turn. Peaceful or frantic, what kind of life did Rainier want to make on Ademptis? For the former, he would need to eliminate any and all enemies, in this case the evoants and arachnacosa. For the latter, he would need to find a way off the Roseir Plateau, but who knew how dangerous that was and how dangerous the lower area was.

‘First let’s resolve this. That queen’s getting ancy.’

The evoant queen had not once diverted her gaze from Rainier, not a single second from this hour had her attention been on anything but Rainier. Her personal guard was included in the impenetrable gazing party. As for the rest of the sixty to seventy evoants, they were patrolling their half of the crater.

‘It’s good that they don’t realize they are standing in a monsters mouth that could eat them alive in one gulp.’

Rainier still didn’t have a grasp on time in Ademptis. As it was a different world, the days could be longer or shorter and who knew how long a single year would be? Even so, he knew that enough time had passed to sufficiently piss off the evoant queen.

‘How can I stall for more time? It’s unlikely, but under the small chance Sataska arrives early I may survive this bad situation.’ Rainier rubbed the mask’s chin, forgetting that he even had it on in the first place. Rainier would love to make use of the mask’s magic, but emotions were not things easily tapped into. It wasn’t like Rainier could bite his tongue to incite anger or suddenly slap his face for surprise.

Perhaps he understood that such mysterious items were not so easy to manipulate or perhaps Rainier didn’t want to put himself in potential danger. Really, it was just that Rainier felt it would be too troublesome to break the mask’s annoying restrictions.

“Jeez, too much thinking, too little action. I’m going insane here from trying to think too much.” Rainier stood up. He had noticed that the evoant queen was just about fed up with waiting. If he tried to ply more honeyed words, he would undoubtedly be attacked by the large quantity of evoants and would assuredly die.

“I’ve waited too long. Sataska, WHERE IS SHE?” Shouted the evoant queen while sticking to her half of the oasis trap crater. “I shan’t wait anymore. I will wring out my daughter’s location from your throat and then RIP IT OPEN!”

“Well shit…” Rainier no longer had any time to mull over his choices. He made the mistake of thinking too much and acting too little and the price he would have to pay is potential dismemberment and death.

Not that Rainier would allow such actions be done to him without a fight.

Evoants were already more than halfway to his position. They were frighteningly fast as always. Still, Rainier was fast too, especially his legs.

Rainier lunged forward and slammed his left foot on the ground, launching him into the air at a low angle like a baseball. The sheer force from his jump caused the mass of air before him caused Rainier to unintentionally front flip. Rainier was still not entirely used to his powerful legs.

One evoant used its comrades as a jumping platform, leaping onto their outstretched hands. The two evoants holding the one in their hands shot their arms powerfully forwards, launching the evoant at Rainier.

Just noticing this, Rainier rolled along the ground, scratching his skin in several places against rocks and slashed with the razor right when the evoant got too close. The strike hit, cutting the evoant under its upper left joint. In fact, the momentum from the evoant in the air nearly caused Rainier’s slash to cleave through the arm.

Rainier recovered and righted himself in a bestial crouching stance. He had the razor in reverse grip just before his eyes and his other arm below ready to receive any attacks.

Yet peculiarly, there were no more evoants coming at Rainier. In fact he saw the three queensguard conversing with their queen via the silent telepathy they all shared. Well, that was what Rainier assumed since he heard only silence.

Then after several tense minutes, Rainier saw the evoant with the melted chitin stride forward among the vast group.

“Sssksss.” “Ssssssssks.” “Skissssss.” “Ssskssks.” “Sksss.” Rainier was unnerved by the relentless chittering of evoants that began popping up all around the crowd. He wasn’t scared, he refused to be so.

“Ah, I get it. You want a duel.” Rainier now understood. In fact he was greatly relieved. This was the perfect chance to stall for time.

“Skssss, kill you… I will, sksss… Kill you for my, Sksss… Queen.” The melted one stopped right when he was at least twelve meters away from Rainier. “Pakssa is mine… Your, sksss… Name?”

With some surprise, Rainier quickly answered as he saw no reason not to. “Rainier Forrester, the guy who’s soon going to kick your ass.”

-----

“I recognize this place. This chasm, I have to jump across and the crater with Rainier should be on the other side… I think.”

Sataska had so far managed to stay one step ahead of the arachnacosa with a mixture of intuition, instinct, luck, and of course idiocy. Though with the very latter due to her inability to stay on track with what she was thinking.

“I wonder if I do this successfully… Will Rainier praise me?” The entire time she was running, her mind was running wild with delusional fantasies.

Normally anything caught not thinking with survival on the mind in Ademptis would die in twelve steps. Yet somehow Sataska managed to sashay through the dense mixture of forest and plains with an enthusiasm not seen by Roseir Plateau in a very long time.

Sataska jumped across the chasm. Although her legs were not as strong as Rainier, she was still an evoant with bodies bred to be superior to the race they were based on, humans in this case.

“Uh oh…” Sataska looked behind her to see a thick bridge made of arachnacosa webbing sticking the side of the chasm Sataska had leapt on.

Already the spider monsters had created a suitable bridge for them to charge across. Although the web bridge looked thin and ready to break, the arachnacosa surged forward as if their weight meant nothing. Tightly woven webbing from an arachnacosa was like a thin metal cable; it could even negate a strong axe slash.

Sataska no longer paid attention to what was behind her. Every second she spent focusing on what was behind her was one less second she spent on escaping. Her clothes were close to becoming tatters and red marks could be seen all over the bare parts of her skin.

“SHAKESSSHHH!” A hissing scream from one of the arachnacosa, presumably the group’s officer cried out in frustration.

These past few days and weeks, they were getting increasingly frustrated over the numerous losses to a mysterious menace on their borders. When they found out it was only one creature, once they were not familiar with, they were wary and thus decided to attack in force. However, this was not the only threat they faced. When the officer saw the young evoant queen by herself, this was a perfect chance to rid themselves of another enemy.

Yet it was clear she was far too wily to simply be chased down and caught.

-----

Rainier pivoted and sidestepped in order to dodge Pakssa’s lunge. So far he had seen no weakness or quirk of the queensguard evoant that he could take advantage of. Pakssa was clearly stronger in every way than Rainier.

In a sense, you could consider the difference between the two a matter of genetics. The evoant species evolves upon the weakness of the race their queen mated with, in this case, a human from long ago.

And the queensguard were the pinnacle of those genetics as they were created precisely for the protection of their queen and following through with her orders. Although one had died due to mainly luck, it was certain that luck would not follow through a second time in a drawn out fight between Rainier and Pakssa.

Rainier had been working on a thick glob of acid in his mouth, waiting for the perfect moment to spit it at Pakssa. He narrowly deflected one of the evoant’s flailing arms just before it slammed into the side of his head. If it connected, he surely would have died, or at the very least dented his skull.

If Rainier took even a single attack, it would mark game over for his life.

“And I’m going to fucking survive you damn ugly ant!”

Rainier kicked with a powerful leg at Pakssa’s left knee. Though he didn’t wound the evoant with its thick glossy chitin plating, he at least managed to make the ant stumble. Rainier then aimed his mouth under one of the ant’s joints, specifically under its right elbow, and spat the highly hazardous acid glob he created in his mouth.

“Sssksss… Do you think, sksssss… That will affect me? Sskssss…” Indeed, despite that these evoant’s weak points were around their joints, it seemed that Rainier’s acid spit had no effect on Pakssa.

“What the hell? You’re a damn tank!” Although as he said this, Rainier was somewhat certain he had figured out Pakssa’s unique trait.

In order to confirm his suspicions, Rainier quickly followed up with several weaker shots of acid on various spots of Pakssa’s body who just stood there and ignored the nuisance.

Pakssa’s unique body shape, which resembled an ice cream cone left out in the sun, had the special property of resistance.

There were four queensquards belonging to Sataska’s mother.

Skaren could pull out extremely sharp chitin like blades from his body and use them in combat. These blades could cut through many objects, easily rending bone and stone alike.

Pakssa’s natural chitin like armor was not only extremely resistant to weaponry, but also seemed to be resistant to things like acids and poisons. It was like wearing heavy plate armor, but that armor taking the place of your skin thus allowing the same mobility.

For the remaining two, there was Ksske. He was the only evoant among their group that could use magic. And due to his species’ nature, he was extraordinarily potent with magic than the average human wielder.

The fourth was Nise, the large burly evoant Rainier had seen with Pakssa before. He, as his body type suggested, was extremely strong, more so than twenty normal evoants put together. His fists could make dents in not only Pakssa’s armor, but fracture boulders at his size.

Getting hit even once would obliterate Rainier’s insides.

Rainier relied on his legs to keep steady and jump around his surroundings. Slowly but surely he gained confidence in himself to keep up with Pakssa’s speed. If one applied a numerical value to another’s speed or strength like a video game, Pakssa would be higher in both aspects. However, Rainier proved to be wily enough to erase that difference.

Pakssa, on the other hand, was getting more and more frustrated in his inability to kill the arrogant human before him. If he could lay a single hand on the human, he could apply a strong grip and rip him to shreds. He was putting all the thoughts in his mind towards the singular purpose of killing.

And as a result, he never noticed the trap Rainier was about to set off.

“!!!” Pakssa suddenly began facing the ground as he began falling down. He had tripped, or more accurately, been entwined by Rainier’s spider webbing.

Despite how strong the material was, anyone could destroy it provided the thread was thin enough or their arms were strong enough. However this webbing was far stronger than the threads any spider Rainier was familiar with could weave. It was also quite sticky, evidenced by the two balls of web sticking to two rocks jutting out from the ground. Connected to the balls was a deceivingly thin web strand which caused Pakssa to trip and fall.

‘Is that…?’ Rainier saw a mottled chip in Pakssa’s chitin armor on the back of his neck. Seeing the chance, Rainier took it and jumped onto Pakssa’s large figure as he pushed himself back up.

Rainier latched on as tightly as possible in order not to be shaken off like a bull rider. He then stabbed several times with the razor in that chink, loosening up loose chunks of chitin inside. It was like picking at a scab on one’s skin, though the scab in this case was a thick armor with a disfigured surface on the nape of the neck.

Pakssa screeched in pain and wildly thrashed about. He slammed Rainier on his back against a smooth boulder. Rainier grit his teeth as pain vibrated throughout his body. He erased the pain in his mind and focused on opening up the wound. If Rainier couldn’t hurt anywhere on the outside of Pakssa’s body, then the only logical way to wound him was from the inside out.

“SKSSSSS! OFF ME! SKSSSSSKSSS!”

Rainier was thankful that the thickness of Pakssa’s chitin armor would allow him to bend his arms behind himself and grab whatever was on his back.

Eventually, Rainier’s body was too bruised to keep holding on to Pakssa and he was thrown off. Rainier rolled against the ground, receiving several more scratches and bruises before crashing into a dense foliage bush.

“Bassstard. Sksss…” Pakssa began walking menacingly towards Rainier. He was coming in for the kill.

And unfortunately for Rainier, he was too battered to offer any decent resistance.

Yet there was no need to resist since all the damage Rainier needed to incur on Pakssa had been done.

“SsssSSSK-! SSSSKSKSSSS! SSSKSSSS!”

Pakssa doubled over in pain and howled madly. He clawed at the dirt, balling up dust in his grubby hands. He kicked and struggled, destroying rocks and deforming the land around him. A strange bubbling steaming sound could be heard while an ominous smoke began rising from Pakssa.

“Oh good, I was right.”

Rainier had spat a concentrated dose of his acid in into the mangled wound on Pakssa’s neck. Then the acid began dissolving Pakssa’s insides into a mushy stew. And the fact that Pakssa’s outside armor plating resisted the acid at first meant that the acid could also not escape the shell. Pakssa was literally turning into a cooking pot using his flesh and toxic acid.

Rainier never flinched at the gruesome sight of Pakssa being melted inside out. He even smirked a little bit. “Heh, serves that shitty ant right. Though I doubt the other ones will sit still. At least I took one of them with me.”

“You… YOU INSIGNIFICANT MONGREL!” Spouted the evoant queen while pointing a resolute finger at Rainier. “ALL OF YOU! BRING HIM TO ME… I will play with him until I have my fill and then finish him off.”

Rainier clawed at the ground in a weak attempt to crawl to safety. He knew it was a futile attempt to escape, but he didn’t want to endure that ant’s version of torture. No doubt she had some very sadistic ways of keeping him alive while experiencing extreme pain. And then when she was done with him? Of course Rainier would probably be used as food for the endless hunger of evoants.

“I don’t want to die… I need to survive.” Rainier pleaded with whatever gods existed in Ademptis, which he was sure that there was. “Fine, yes, I got too arrogant. I managed to kill a few ants and spiders and yes, that doesn’t mean I’m a combat master or even an apprentice! Just because I lived this long was due to luck, I realize this! Just LET ME BLOODY SURVIVE!”

Yet prayers rarely ever come true.

In the end, Rainier’s pleas for mercy to nothingness resulted in exactly that: nothing.

…

“Maybe, just MAYBE I might be even a sliver lenient in your punishment if you tell me where my daughter is. After that, you can beg and kneel, asking for forgiveness that your measly self even thought to take something of mine.”

Rainier looked into the evoant queen’s dominating eyes.

He hated the fact the she had her foot on his shoulder so that she could look down on him. He hated that his plan had a lack of basis and thought put into it and the fact that he was confident enough that it would succeed. He hated Sataska for not coming in time, even though it was obviously too soon for that to happen.

However, Rainier was determined to have the last laugh. He spat at the queen’s face, though the acid was knocked out of the sky by one of her queensguard, the burly one named Nise.

“Up your own ass.” Rainier smiled and narrowed his eyes defiantly. He truly lost interest in groveling for his life.

The evoant queen kept a blank expression. “You honestly don’t care what happens to you?”

“Not one ever fricken’ bit, you damn ANT!”

“Humph, it just got less fun torturing you. Well, not that that will let you out of your punishment.” The evoant queen then nimbly kicked Rainier in his cheek before striding off presumably in the direction of her nest. “Bring him with me.”

“Itome, that feeling, that sound…” The other queensguard named Ksske who surprisingly could speak normally like the queen cocked his head to the side as he saw something in his peripheral vision.

“…” The evoant queen shook angrily. “Arachnacosa. Perhaps this worthless insect was in league with them?”

“Unlikely, but I wouldn’t rule it out.” Ksske spoke with an air of caution.

“Ssssks. Ssssataska is with them.” Nise revealed something that shocked everyone, Rainier included.

“My… My daughter is with them? She must either be fleeing or is captured. I knew it was too dangerous for her, I will have to bind her more securely when I reacquire her.” The evoant queen turned to face her entire brood of evoants who all gazed upon their mother. The evoant queen simply flicked her head to her side and the entire brood instantly tore loose.

Rainier too could now feel the presence of multiple running beings to the southwest. Apparently the information he gathered was less due to his antennae not being fully developed like normal born evoants.

“Haha… Amazing, that idiot actually pulled through.”

Although he was injured and could barely walk before, Rainier felt a rush of intense adrenaline enter his system. He ignored all the pain in his body and burst from the grip of an evoant that stayed behind to keep hold him. Rainier slashed behind the ant’s knees, making the ant crumple to the ground like a marionette with cut strings. Not wasting anytime to finish the ant off, Rainier began running in the opposite direction where the large force of evoants headed to collide with the arachnacosa.

Before long, Rainier could hear the sounds of combat and cries of pain of both sides. He glanced behind him to see an all out charging of armies descend into a free for all madness.

Taking shelter next to a dead tree, Rainier slumped against the trunk to regain his breath and soothe his wounds.

Evoants jumped all around while lunging, clawing, and biting mindlessly at various arachnacosa. The two queensguard entered the fray, utterly decimating any foe unlucky enough to cross paths with them. Although the evoants were clearly outnumbered, they were showing an admirable effort in the battle, killing many arachnacosa that challenged them.

However, the arachnacosa were not without their own heroes. Several of the spider monsters were showing a clear display of amazing skill in their chosen weapons. They didn’t even need to aim for under the joints more than half the time, cleaving through the chitin with powerful blows. Also, the arachnacosa were showing a clear advantage in tactics as they employed encircling maneuvers using their superior numbers to finish off several evoants.

At one point, Rainier saw Nise punch one of the arachnacosa into one of its leaders, killing both with the impact. And on the other side, despite Ksske displaying an unusual aptitude for magic, shooting rudimentary fireballs at his opponents, it was clear that his knowledge in the arcane was not enough and was eventually swarmed and finished off.

“Neither side is relenting despite numerous casualties on both sides. Though one or the other will retreat soon at this rate. I can’t have that, I’ll have to do that soon, yet I can’t until I find Sataska…” Rainier carefully searched everywhere in his view. Waldo could eat his heart out if Sataska was this good at camouflage.

“Right here!” The nigh visually perfect Sataska jumped and landed nearby Rainier with a smile on her face.

“Huh, so you actually pulled it off? Well I wasn’t expecting much near the end.”

Though his words were harsh, Rainier was greatly relieved by Sataska’s timing.

“I’m not that useless! I am more than capable at doing anything you ask!” It seemed Sataska didn’t realize how suggestive her sentence just now was. “In any case, how exactly are you going to kill all of them in this crater? Don’t tell me this creature is going to-”

The side of Rainier’s mouth curled into a smile. “Hold on this this tree, girl! It’s time for a great feast!”

Rainier kicked the ground and yelled, “SWALLOW THEM ALL!”

And the oasis trap began closing its maw, threatening to swallow everything inside the crater alive.