The Spider Queen

I want to kill...

I want to kill…

I WANT TO KILL

A bloodthirsty snarl flashed across Sophie's face as the familiar feeling of madness bubbled inside her veins.

All she could do was watch.

That creature…no… that abomination…

It was oozing divinity and holy light and it was truly…

Fucking disgusting.

All traces of humanity had left the captain as he abandoned his mortal shell to become a proper vessel for his god.

Instead of a humanoid- shaped physique, he was now transformed into a floating sphere of fire that burned with a dark purplish-black flame.

Fissures erupted from the ground beneath the monster's body and pillars of flame sprouted upwards into the air.

Waves of divinity made the already scorching desert even hotter.

Sophie felt as though her body was melting under the intense heat.

Even with the enhanced physique of a qi tide cultivator, it was getting harder to resist this unbearably high temperature.

Sweat ran down the sides of Sophie's cheeks as the air shimmered slightly.

Captain Dawn was no longer capable of speech, nor did he have any organs left and yet Sophie sensed that he was observing her carefully.

She could not tell where this feeling was coming from but trusted her instincts.

It was clear that poison would no longer be an option.

Whether the captain still retained organic matter beneath his fiery exterior was only a tiny possibility.

Sophie ran through plan after plan in her mind as she moved back to create some space between herself and her terrifying enemy.

Bombs? Remote detonation? Overload another rifle?

Ice techniques? She only knew one that worked with a whip.

Try injecting the poison directly using her fangs? Wouldn't her face instantly melt if she got too close?

What to do? WHAT TO DO?!

Screech!

An inhuman roar echoed through the desert as a horrifying noise was emitted from the core of the fiery being.

Multiple shadowy tendrils covered in purplish-black flames erupted from the back of the entity and shot towards the hybrid girl.

Sophie's golden eyes narrowed, and in her vision she saw the fast-moving tendrils appear to slow down almost to a crawl.

Her body moved automatically to weave and pass through the numerous tendrils that hungered to strike.

There was only one observation that still kept a faint trace of hope alive in Sophie's heart.

She could feel that although the captain's outward appearance projected an image of immense strength…

The qi fluctuations coming from his body were still in the qi tide stage.

Qi energy was not infinite.

The dantian could only store a certain amount before it needed to be replenished.

When using the hunter goddess' gifts, Sophie noticed that her qi was still being consumed even though the source of her power came from divinity.

By abandoning his mortal shell, the captain was now a being fully powered by divinity and hence his qi consumption must be astronomical.

But of course… this was just an assumption.

It was entirely possible that the conditions to use the strength of the Sun God were different from what she needed to provide.

Still… she wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Asura Whip Art- Form Two

Hail of Frost!

The temperature surrounding Sophie's body instantly dropped to below freezing. Even the waves of heat radiating off the captain's fiery exterior seemed to vanish.

The nano-fibre whip in her right-hand glowed blue as numerous illusory snowflakes scattered around the desert.

Sophie calmly dodged and weaved through the endless barrage of tendrils until she reached striking distance.

Crack!

Without hesitation she launched her whip straight at the center of the flaming ball and landed a hit on its surface.

Screech! Screech! Screech!

Loud agonising cries of pain caused Sophie to hurriedly grab her ears. She could feel a thin trickle of blood touch her fingertips and stain her palm red.

Her eardrums had just been ruptured.

The silence is what scared her the most.

The world remained the same and yet… she could not hear anything.

All that filled her brain was a buzzing noise that seemed to drown out even the thoughts in her mind.

Sophie stabbed her fingernails into the flesh above her kneecaps and used the pain to snap herself out of the shock.

Swoosh!

An enormous pillar of flame erupted from beneath the location she was just seconds before.

Sophie frowned as she saw the ice that was covering the surface of the flaming orb slowly melt away.

Sophie activated her movement technique and instantly teleported away but no matter how far she travelled, a pillar of flame would erupt at her location without fail.

No.. I need to counterattack.

Sophie anxiously pulled out more needles from her storage bag and threw them at the fiery entity.

The metallic blades simply sank inside the purplish-black flames without so much as a ripple. The frequency of the blazing pillars continued to increase.

Sophie now only had micro-seconds to dodge the next eruption and it was only due to her Arachnais natural reflexes that she was still alive.

In fact, it was nothing short of a miracle… but Sophie had faced worse.

At least that was the lie that she kept muttering to herself.

Swoosh!

"Damn… what kind of annoying technique is this," Sophie growled darkly as she narrowly avoided getting hit by yet another pillar of fire.

I need to break this stalemate….

Sophie kept dodging and looking for opportunities to close the gap, but nothing seemed to work.

Minutes turned to hours…

The relentless barrage of fiery attacks was made worse since Sophie did not dare to even get a speck of flame in direct contact with her body.

She had seen firsthand how the corpses of her mirror clones had disintegrated into ash once the purplish-black flame consumed them.

Something had to change…

Sophie laughed madly as she silently made a decision in her heart.

For all of her regret and disdain for the goddess' gifts, she was now going to beg for her favour like a mere dog.

Perhaps there was no use fighting it.

From the moment she had unlocked her Arachnais heritage used the Spider Whisper Art…

Her fate was sealed.

Power cannot be granted without a price.

Sophie felt the world freeze and tremble as a terrible force invaded her body from beyond the void.

Even the fiery entity sensed this mysterious energy as the flames on its surface suddenly became disorderly and chaotic.

Sophie peacefully closed her eyes and relied on her other senses to avoid the pillars of fire sprouting beneath her feet.

There were three gifts that the hunter goddess had bestowed.

The gift of rage.

The gift of lust.

And the gift of foresight.

"Goddess…I offer my prayer to you…" Sophie muttered as she felt the mysterious force penetrate her inner dantian.

"And I will give you the soul of this creature as a worthy trophy of my hunt!"

Sophie slowly opened her eyes. Her once golden pupils had changed, and now her vision became murky and unclear.

The past, present, and future were all intertwined and tangled in Sophie's pale white eyes. She could see the threads of time in numerous visions.

It was extremely limited.

Sophie could sense that what she saw was nothing more than a mere droplet in the river of time…

But it was enough to give her a slim chance to survive.