The Eternal Winter - Chapter 21 - Early Challenge (Patreon)

                                                                        Alexander North

We quickly make it through BF6, only having to deal with one monster in the entire area before we reach the stairs to BF5’s command room.

“We’ll be going up to BF2 from BF5 so as to avoid making contact with the monster within the hanger until the commander can deal with it himself,” major Vaugns says as we climb the stairs. “And once we reach the command room on BF5, make sure you watch out for any small spider monsters in case some of them managed to survive.”

“Understood, sir!” the captains and I all state before falling silent until we reach the door to BF5.

However, what we find surprises both me and the captains I originally came here with when we were going downstairs for the first time.

“Captain Ruthers? Captain Summers?” the major asks as we look at the frozen door laying beaten up on the ground. “Was it like this when either of you came down?”

Both captains – including the one who lead the latest squad to join us down to the base – just shakes their heads no and say, “Negative, sir.”

“In that case,” the major continues before raising his hand and saying, “get ready for anything.”

We all slowly walk towards the door with our swords in hand before stopping just outside of it. And during that stop, I take a second to examine the door sitting on the ground next to me.

It looks like those suicide bomber spiders from before just rammed themselves into the door and blew up to break it down. But why would a living being – monster or not – have an instinct to self-destruct itself?

Unless…

“Majo-” I begin, only for a loud screech to echo through the command room right after the major and three of the captains finish making their way through the room. I quickly follow after them with the rest of the captains, just to find a meter-long spider standing on the other end of the long table spanning across the command room.

The major swears as dozens of the small spiders begin to flood the room from behind the large one before shouting, “It’s their queen!”

“Didn’t you say that you made it through unimpeded?” captain Ruthers shouts back at Captain Summers.

Captain Elizabeth Summers answers with a shout of her own as she rushes forwards to meet the smaller spiders, “We didn’t see a single one of these spiders when we came through!”

The rest of the captains and I that came through later spread out to begin fighting off the smaller spiders, but after quickly slaughtering a lot of the critters, our blades begin to crack from the icy liquid flowing through their bodies. And after just a few more spider deaths, I hear a scream from my right, making me glance over to find one of the captains – the captain of BH12 – getting hit with a suicide attack after his sword shatters halfway through.

“Damn it, retreat!” the major shouts as he slowly fights off the smaller spiders as they come.

However, despite our slow retreat, I soon hear three more blades shattering, followed by one more scream as another captain gets hit by a suicide bomber.

This isn’t looking go-

Before I can even finish that thought, my own sword shatters, leaving me frowning at it before a spider jumps at me and explodes. But to both the captains around me and the spiders’ surprise, the resulting liquid splashing all over my front does nothing other than freeze my armor solid.

I grunt for a second before shattering the armor to allow me to move again, leaving the front of my torso exposed as I chuck the remainder of my sword at one of the spiders, skewering it with the remaining half of the blade.

“It looks like we found another one of your new changes,” I hear major Vaugns say as he reaches me while fighting off a spider of his own. “Try to make use of it!”

He then continues falling back with the other captains, leaving me here in the middle of the spiders who for the most part begin to focus on me instead of the others.

Well, isn’t this just peachy.

I soon find myself surrounded by the arachnids before remembering my claws and bringing them back out along with a few exclamations of surprise from the captains in the stairwell.

Without paying those any mind, I rush at the encirclement of spiders and begin tearing them apart without a care for my armor. Which ends up working out rather well, considering that the creatures can’t seem to harm me at all, what with their greatest weapon not being effective against me.

Eventually though, the large spider finally starts moving from its place on the table. But instead of going towards me, it begins retreating back out of the room further into BF5 while letting out a loud screech that makes the other, smaller spiders quickly start following after it.

“The hell?” I mutter in between heavy breaths as I stand in the command room alone and surrounded by dead spiders while wearing a completely frozen set of armor.

“It looks like the queen has enough intelligence to set a trap and to know when its failed,” I hear the major say from behind me, making me turn around to find him looking around at the spider corpses.

Which means the spiders really didn’t have an instinct to self-destruct themselves. It was likely the queen ordering them to do so.

Either that, or they do have an instinct to do it, just to only do it when they’re defending their queen.

The major continues looking at the spider corpses for a bit until I hear a cough coming from one of the captains behind him, making both me and him turn to look, just to find a couple of the female captains pointedly looking away from me.

So I look down to find my armor and clothing in complete disarray, with parts of my armor ripped off around my arms, legs, and most of my upper torso. Fortunately, though, nothing too important is exposed. So it’s fine.

Although I do notice a couple of the captains staring at the very large scar across my chest from the heart surgery I had a while back.

The major clears his throat when he notices what condition my armor is in before he says, “We should go get you some new armor.”

I just look up at him to find him also looking at the scar, but for only a few seconds, after which he focuses on my face again and says, “I need to inform the lieutenant colonel about this, but I want you to stand guard here for the time being.”

After seeing me nod at that, he turns to look at the captains and orders, “Captain Ruthers and Andrew will stay with you while the rest of us go back down.”

He then starts walking away, only to pause once he gets to the open doorway to the stairwell and add, “I’ll send someone up with a set of replacement armor for you. There are extra sets in the bunker to use, and we have a set meant for each soldier stationed here.”

The man then continues into the stairwell and leads the other captains down again with some of them helping the wounded ones on the way, leaving me, captain Andrew, and captain Ruthers standing awkwardly in a room filled with frozen spider corpses.

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