Threads of the Soul

Chapter 439 - 439: Beautiful Web

To the side of the chaotic, blood soaked battle within the tunnels of the hive, the Spider-woman sat atop an egg sack. Her flowing dress draped over her many legs, hiding them from view, as she sat like some kind of delicate victorian flower that was unbothered by the death and destruction happening all around her.A coy smile was plastered across her ruby red, pillowy lips. The lips that acted as a diversion to hide the real, monstrous mouth she had beneath and would split her cheeks when it fully opened.

But that smile wasn't a disguise, it was genuinely how she felt. Countless of the attacking insects were frozen around her. They surrounded her like docile pets, some of them even bowing their heads to her like she was their queen.

One of the smaller ones sat next to her, as the Spider-woman gently dragged a monstrous, jagged finger down its back like she was petting a dog instead of a killer insect.

This sight was disconcerting on its own. Inspiring thoughts that she was a traitor and had led them into a trap, or that she was enjoying watching them die while she used her ability to control the insects and build herself an army to take home.

But whether these were true or not, Corvus was confused and concerned the most because he knew something that the others did not.

The insects surrounding her were not frozen by some kind of mind controlling ability. Instead, hundreds of nigh invisible silk threads were wrapped around their bodies. She had cocooned them in place, forcing their bodies into a position that she wanted them to be.

If one looked close enough, they would notice the slight tremors and struggle that the trapped bugs were giving as they strained against their impossibly strong bindings to no avail. If you knew what you were looking for, then you might even see the slight shimmers of light mixed in with the glisten of the bugs armour as the threads caught the light.

How did Corvus know what to look for? It wasn't just because he had done this himself plenty of times, but because the threads binding these insects were his own.

Every time the Spider-woman dragged her hand down the back of her little doggy bug, she caught her finger on one of the threads and pinged it. The fact she was staring at him and smirking while she did so.

Like she was strumming a cord on a guitar, it resonated down the length of his threads, whether they were tangible or not until it reached Corvus and finally drew his attention. That was the thing. Only now he was looking at her, and only because of her strumming, did he finally notice what was happening.

His own threads, the extension of his soul, had ensnared these creatures and been used by this Spider in the shape of a woman, for her own desires. All without him realising a thing was wrong or that she was doing it in the first place. That was what horrified Corvus the most.

With a dramatic wave of his hand, the frozen bugs cocooned in his threads exploded into thousands of tiny chunks, as did dozens of others she had somehow woven his threads around without him even knowing. Bugs in the back of the lines, new arrivals, even ones that were currently embroiled in combat with others.

They died at the wave of his hand, and he didn't even know it would happen. When had she done that? How long did she have control of his threads and... what else had she done without him knowing.

"Thanks for that spooky! Couldn't you have done that earlier? Wave your hand and kill some more why don't you, help the rest of us out!"

Xander shouted over the sound of his own gunfire before letting out a cackling laugh. Corvus clenched his fists at the sound, grinding his teeth as he tried to control every part of him that wanted to beat that man into a pulp.

Trembling with rage, his mind racing with possibilities of what she had done, Corvus stared at the Spider-woman who slowly rose to her feet. Without hurry or care, she brushed off her dress, raised a hand and touched a finger against one of his threads that was floating in the air.

Despite the fact it was an intangible thread, in its pure soul energy form, she rotated her hand and slowly wrapped the thread around her finger like it was just another piece of string.

She touched her clawed finger to her lips, pressing the twisted soul thread against them, before pulling it away and blowing him the kiss. Corvus recoiled in a mixture of horror and disgust as the thread of his own soul finally obeyed his commands, which he had been sending it the entire time.

He ripped it from her hand, causing her to let out a disgusting clicking and hissing noise that was supposed to be her giggling.

After that horrifying experience, she turned away from him and started using her claws to tear apart the other bugs as if nothing had ever happened. Corvus stared at her for a few more seconds, his mind racing with countless trains of thought, before he turned away and focused on the matter at hand.

In the back of his mind, however, he was keeping an extra close eye on his threads and tightened up the defensive weave he had created, making sure nothing went astray. Although even while he was doing that... he was still never entirely sure that it was enough.

***

Carving their way through the tunnels, literally at one point as they had to hack away at the pile of bodies that had built up just to make progress, the group eventually made it to the centre of the hive.

The cuff on Corvus' wrist, and the expert hive manoeuvring of the creepy Spider-woman had led them here.

By the time they reached this chamber, they had travelled through miles of tunnels and had descended deep into the earth of the planet. The ambient temperature had started to rise the further they delved, as well as the amount of viscous goop that covered the walls.

The combination of the two created a disgustingly humid environment that smelled absolutely rancid, as the heat melted the hardened goop. It stuck to their boots and squelched with every step.

But when they reached the final chamber, that strange goop started to change. Whether it was the heat, the pressure or some sort of unseen process that the insects carried out when they were not here, the swampy group slowly but surely became a river of emerald jelly.

The river lead into a icosahedronic chamber, meaning it was composed of twenty flat faces making a 3D shape. From the floor to the ceiling was roughly twenty metres, and considering that for these insects any surface could be a floor or ceiling, that measurement was equal no matter where you stood. The only way they could tell which was 'up' was because of gravity.

Each surface was filled with either eggs, tunnel entrances or both. From the other tunnels, more of the emerald jelly poured out like sickly waterfalls, all of them collecting in the base of the chamber in one singular lake of jelly.

Basking within that jelly lake was an insect twice as large as any they had seen before. However, it had no armour to speak of, nor the razor sharp legs the other bugs had used to carve apart their prey.

It looked more like a worm, just a singular long mass of slimy and spongy flesh that had a mouth on one end and split apart into a dozen different tails on the other.

The mouth constantly opened and closed, sucking in the jelly without end. With every gulp its body undulated and bulged, like they were watching a mouse travel down the length of a snake.

The tails moved around the chamber, constantly spurting out eggs to add to the pile. They were covered in a clear, viscous slime and were already starting to pulse with light as they were added to the clutch.

Any one who knew anything about insects, understood that this was the queen of the hive.

Other insects, with multiple legs and shorter yet massively bulging glowing green bodies, scuttled across the walls. The acidic bile sprayed from their mouth, mixing with the slime that covered the eggs, before rapidly solidifying into the same green slime they had seen previously.

Best guess... these were the nurse maids, taking care of the eggs while the queen focused on producing more. They were in the process of making sure the eggs didn't fall, while also equipped to protect them.

Corvus' eyes drifted over the chamber, taking in the sight of the bugs. So, if the big one was the queen and the fat, but active ones were the nurses that protected the queens eggs. Then that meant the very mean looking ones gathering in the middle, must be the queens guard.