Interlude: Souls and Glory (Patreon)

Authors note: there’s a few more chapters to come, I’ve been working on this arcs end over the past couple days as it’s a bit complex character wise- so I wanted to get it right. I originally intended to release it all in bulk for one long read but then realised that it would take too long to post and didn’t want to leave you guys hanging on a cliff. So I’ve spent today trying to find the balance between quality and schedule getting some chapters posted. I’m pretty pleased with how its turning out, although I wish I could write it exactly how it needs to be written. im Taking my time with the final chapter of this arc so that one will hopefully be quite the experience/climax.

there will be few chapters drip-fed over the next few days until that one is out :) 

Also, an important change has been made to the last chapter - the treasure on the other side of town has been revealed to actually be another large incursion dungeon that no one has returned from.:

“And those tales about system treasures on the other side of town?  The large ‘incursion dungeon’? Yeah, no one who went looking for them came back. All the adventurers and travellers of all levels had failed to return from the dungeon. Except for Fred, he seemed to be the only person capable of traversing these new lands without significant notice or trouble. The rumours of World changing treasure within the dungeon on the other side of town had claimed many victims since their return besides that sole survivor. He claimed there was nothing to see, and that the dungeon had been empty. And yet still others failed to return.”

p.s. I consider this more of a chapter than an interlude as it has some pretty important information, but in the end I decided to settle for calling it an interlude as not to confuse! Enjoy.

Glory came in many forms to many people. Some saw it as something only attainable through groundbreaking discoveries- advancements that pushed knowledge and capability forward. while others found it in simple things, like a builder arranging the perfect row of bricks, or a town baker creating the perfect loaf after months of practice; a loaf with form and structure so beautiful they considered it a crime to consume it. Most thought of Glory as something achieved by significantly improving the lives of others, often through sacrifice, exploring uncharted territories, and climbing the highest peaks. The hidden queen's notion of glory was all of these things and none of them. 

Her glory was in combat- in speed. It was a glory she had long since abandoned since her rise to Queenhood a century ago.

Her glory had been a typical and basic thing, but through relentless refinement and skill, even the most mundane objects and concepts could be elevated to extraordinary works of art. it was a form of alchemy that transformed base materials into something of great value and beauty. And she had used it to elevated her glory to realms that had once forced nations to abandon their differences and band together to slay her.

But that was an age ago, before she had ascended to join her sisters and had to end her old life to pursue something greater. Sometimes, her old glory called to her. She thought back to when she had walked upon the earth with a different form and crushed nations with her mastery, only to watch new nations rise in thier places. 

But now she walked a new path. The path of Queenhood; to carry the fate of her species on her back. Her new path was one filled with purpose and greater glory, one that filled her with pride and the endless purpose granted by potential. But despite this, at times still her old glory called to her.

She eyed her attackers with melancholy.

Three strikes. That was all it had taken to defeat them. Two humans and the most unique variant she had ever seen. She could not even call that a battle. It barely stirred her heart, and could not even touch the heels of the foes she had faced in her youth- on battlefields this generation of humans would call legend.

She was unimpressed with her three would-be usurpers, certain they had somehow fumbled their way to her. A mistake, soon to be rectified. They were slow before her- painfully so, as if weighted down by lead or some greater metals, and the fastest among them had only barely managed to evade her blows through a combination of trickery and the new magics; the magic of the systems ‘skills’.

One remained.

The human male was the only one remaining in her presence, he rose to his feet before her with a burst of unbroken will. A smile pursed the corners of her lips, it reminded her of a human king she had battled over a century ago, before she ascended. she had been mired in glory that day. She set her features and banished the memory for it would do no good to long for the unattainable. the human before her would not put up as much as fight as her old enemies could.  

A section of his face was covered in rapidly healing gore, and a broken mound of flesh remained where his right eye should be. A small and deeply buried part of her felt disappointed in his lack of dexterity, it had been so long since she’d had a real battle. 

She held back a sigh, and instead allowed her mind to drift to the first time she had ever held a blade.  The moment her young palms grasped the hilt, Memories and echoes of mastery had rushed through her, stemming from her soul and making her more than her flesh ever could.

It had been the birth of her path and the start of a journey that led to what she considered her true name- the name given to by her enemies.

They were not worthy of her blades, but they had at least made it this far- that was a feat worthy of dying by her hand. it had been so long since any other had arrived in such conditions as these humans had- with the will to fight.

She would end this quickly.

As the human made his last stand, the hidden queen prepared to end the farce of a battle of glory. 

Then something occurred that stirred things buried in the very depths of her souls.

The human muttered words- a skill’s name, and the atmosphere twisted and warped before her senses. She sensed an abrupt change, like a sudden drop in temperature. Except the drop affected everything she could perceive within the space between them. A strange force burst forth from him, surrounding them. This force felt like a tangible shift in the air, unique and disorienting.

It manifested first as a subtle charge in the air, almost imperceptible, yet she felt it through the delicate hairs covering her form. It was as if the very atmosphere around them had started to vibrate with an unseen struggle as the system itself was usurped from its throne of mana, disrupting the new flow of the world.

The most startling change, however, was in her connection to the magic that permeated the air – a connection as integral to her being as the web is to a spider. It felt as though this magic was being unmade, decomposed into its most basic elements. The queen, so attuned to these forces, sensed it as a series of minuscule explosions, each one liberating the mana from an unseen tether. This disintegration cascaded around them, leaving her feeling exposed and vulnerable in a way she had never experienced.

Her movements became sluggish in a way one would when mired shoulders deep in thick mud. The very air struggled against an invisible force, stripping away the organised and limited forms of minuscule mana. And stripping her of her enhanced abilities. It left her in a raw, unadorned state. Her connection to this source, once a wellspring of magic and power, seemed severed, leaving her bereft of her enhanced speed. Turning her into what she had been before the system's arrival; mortal.

It reminded her of something.

In the days before her final evolution to Queenhood, she had seen many things. Captured many humans, and battled many more. She had killed so many of their champions that the humans had given her a name, a title brewed from fear. It was a name she avoided thinking of- not because she hated it, but because sometimes in moments of silent melancholy, when her thoughts were hers alone, it was a name she preferred to her new one. She was almost 180 years old- not the oldest of them, but far from the youngest. The phenomenon that stemmed from the human male before her reminded her of a distant memory, a memory of something that occurred before her time; the memory of a god.

And the memory persisted. It was not a real memory, and not truly hers either. Her core was made up of two souls- hers, and a source, as all Arachnae cores were. And this memory was a remnant of her source's memory, an echo of recollection from the being that formed the base of her mana.

Longevity was fraught with the Burden of Memories. While most memories were easy to forget, some would linger in permanence, etched into souls in a way lasting beyond even lifetimes. Only the queens knew how much the Arachnae truly took from the beings they consumed, and how important the first evolution was to their kind. Much more than likeness was transferred in their evolutions- not just essence or blood or capabilities. Arachnae souls were made of two large parts; their souls would form one half and the soul of one other being would form the other, and infinitesimal pieces of the souls of all others they consumed would be scattered across their soul's surface, less impactful than the first two. Whenever they consumed cores or mana hearts or flesh, they would steal a portion of the consumed being's soul. The amount stolen was lessened with each evolution and would only steal valuable things- like strength or prowess. And eventually, it would need larger and more powerful cores to gain anything of value, like permanent strength or capabilities- even fragmented memories that granted understanding allowing one to pursue and recreate techniques.

The first consumption upon birth was raw and unrefined; it would steal almost all of their initial victim's soul and meld it to their own- and persisted through all evolutions until their deaths. Everything after that was lesser, their patchwork souls would experience less growth with each evolution until eventually, they gained almost nothing at all from their predations unless they consumed something truly powerful. It was a game of diminishing returns, something that was doomed to fail without a powerful evolution that could retain the entirety of a person's being upon consumption- to keep what would add to their power and discard what was without use.

A final evolution.

That was what they chased, their final evolution would not only alter their forms to perfection- but their souls. The Queens wished to create beings that had lived a thousand lifetimes, with the knowledge and mastery of legions trapped in each solitary form.

Past lives were more than theory for arachnae, they were fact.

Fragmented notions and broken feelings at the sight of the twisted skill that erupted from the human left her with more questions than answers. The Hidden Queen had expected to face resistance of some kind in the coming months after the first attack, but not an immediate reprisal at her doorstep. From the memories of her youth, It usually took the humans months or weeks to muster any form of response that warranted her attention.

She could still detect a faint electric charge in the air. It was a buzzing energy of anomaly within the sphere encasing them that resisted and converted any energy it touched. It altered the very nature of existence within the sphere around them and any attempts by the systems mana to impose itself upon them was thwarted as one would thwart a child.

For the briefest of moments, the concept of equality in combat imposed itself upon them. It was an unfamiliar feeling. Their strengths had been forcibly aligned by this unseen power.

The changes in the air continued to sweep through her, altering the nature of magic that existed with her very being. The mana twisted and snapped into pieces that expanded and stretched, and The system snapped free from them both, cast away.

A wave of dread washed over her as she viewed her surroundings. The mana in the air- she could feel it burst and shift, it changed in nature and poured into her. What was he?

She shuddered, an action a human had not forced her to make in over a hundred years, But what she had just witnessed was not an act mortals were supposed to be capable of.

The human had altered reality and the very nature of magic- he had banished the system, and for the briefest of moments, he had banished magic. Her dark eyes shone faintly in realization and remembrance, reflecting not just the ambient luminescence and a lifetime of cunning and swift cruelty. Now they reflected confusion.

And fear.

“What did you do?!” she half roared- half screamed, her nobility momentarily lost and the soft chimes of her cadence long forgotten. This time her voice boomed- a twisted scraping sound. the surrounding Moss-variants collapsed to the ground, their lit forms dimming in the face of her rage.

The light of the chamber dimmed as Alex imbibed another healing potion and charged.

And in the dim light of the chamber, shadows moved in the darkness large and menacing- they shifted.

The Queen attacked.