Chapter 384: The Fox’s Last Blink
"Why cause us so much trouble, Princess?" said the spider contingent captain, stepping forward while her extra limbs clicked with impatience. "Your guards have already been slaughtered. Your protector, the Serpent Queen, and her royal escort are currently fighting our lady, so you have nothing left. Nothing except that troublesome skill you love so much... I wonder how many more times you can use it. Just let yourself be caught and be a good girl."
The girl Alexander once remembered as a child had grown into a full-grown woman. On her deathbed, her mother had passed down the clan’s ancestral heritage to force her daughter’s evolution, knowing that otherwise she would lack the power to rule. However, she never expected the shadow of betrayal to run so deep, culminating in the massacre of her escort and leaving Princess Liora wounded and cornered.
"Shut up, you damn traitor!" Liora spat, gritting her teeth in rage. "When I recover, I will make you my slave!"
"It seems it won’t be that way... Kill her," ordered the captain.
The group of spider women surged forward, launching nets coated in sticky silk and spitting streams of corrosive venom to pin her down. However, Liora forced her body to its absolute limit and moved at blinding speed through the crossfire with the agility inherent to the fox clan royalty.
"I might die, you bitch, but you are coming with me!" Liora roared.
"Damn you...!" shouted the commander, attempting to leap backward to escape.
It was too late. Liora’s eyes glowed with a deep, dazzling pink hue that pierced into the spider woman’s mind. In a split second, the commander’s expression of rage and superiority vanished, replaced by a blank, indifferent stare.
"Kill them all," said Liora.
"Yes, My Lady!" replied the commander without hesitation.
The commander spun around toward her own troops and unleashed an unhinged assault. Her eight extra limbs moved like razor-sharp blades, beheading the first warrior beside her before she could even react.
"Commander! What are you doing?!" screamed one of the guards, parrying a lethal thrust. "Snap out of it! Don’t let her control you!"
"She’s under the fox’s charm! Stop her! Cut off her limbs!" another combatant shrieked as blood splattered across the foliage.
"Die, traitors!" screamed the controlled commander, ignoring the spears thrusting through her own abdomen.
Caring nothing for her own life or defending against counterattacks, the commander continued butchering her subordinates with suicidal ferocity, driven solely by the absolute command etched into her mind.
"Curse you, Liora! You demonic bitch!" cursed a warrior before being sliced in two by her own leader’s appendages.
Taking advantage of the carnage and the blood-curdling screams of the unit, Liora attempted to take a step toward the dense forest. However, the exertion depleted the last drop of her magic reserves. Her legs buckled and she slammed hard onto the damp ground. Too weak to even stand, she began dragging herself across the dirt in sheer desperation, leaving a trail of blood as the agonizing screeches of the battle behind her began to fade.
Finally, the last spider guard plunged a steel spear through the commander’s chest, collapsing her lifeless onto the pool of blood. The combatant stared down at the corpse, her breathing heavy and her face covered in deep lacerations.
"Rest in peace, Commander... I will avenge you," the guard muttered, wiping her cheek.
Barely a dozen warriors had managed to survive the carnage. Without wasting a second, they tracked the fresh trail of blood across the grass until they caught up with Liora, who was still dragging herself across the dirt.
One of the guards quickened her pace, stepped in front of her, and delivered a brutal kick that flipped her onto her back.
"Come on! Run! Keep fleeing, you damn fox bitch!" the guard shrieked with a sadistic grin, raising her combat boot and slamming Liora’s head into the mud. "You like that, huh, bitch...? When you’re locked away in the dungeons, I’m going to pay you a daily visit for the rest of your life! I’ll make sure to turn your existence into the absolute worst hell!"
Two combatants grabbed Liora by the hair and yanked her up violently. Liora kept her eyes barely half-open; mud caked her face while blood dripped from her nose and mouth.
Despite the excruciating pain, Liora gathered a mouthful of blood and spat it into the face of the guard threatening her. Then, a defiant smirk formed on her lips.
"Go on... kill me... You don’t have the guts," said Liora, her voice raspy yet laced with venom. "You’re nothing more than the Queen’s puppets... You’re nothing more than a damn spider...!"
"Curse you!" roared the guard, raising her iron fist to shatter Liora’s face.
"Stop!" yelled another warrior, grabbing her arm just in time. "She wants you to kill her. It won’t be that easy for her; don’t let her manipulate you... We need her alive."
The guard let out a frustrated growl and loosened her grip. At that very moment, Liora’s eyes snapped open, flashing with a faint pink hue. Everyone present froze for a microsecond, a strike of panic running down their spines. However, the light vanished instantly and the skill failed to trigger; the princess’s magic reserves had been depleted.
"So you wanted to play tough one last time, huh, bitch?" said the guard, landing a savage slap that echoed through the clearing.
The strike violently twisted Liora’s face to the side.
"Go on, try it again, come on!" mocked the spider woman, shoving her away without a second thought.
Liora collapsed onto the dirt like a ragdoll with its strings cut, limp and lacking even the strength to break her fall.
"Take her back to Plyaro," ordered the group’s new leader, adjusting her blood-stained armor. "Our campaign is finally over. Let’s just hope those guys at the tavern are gone and don’t try to interfere."
"I doubt they are the Serpent Queen’s men," another guard commented while binding Liora’s wrists. "If they were, they would have stood their ground alongside Lyssandra. That damn traitor... If it wasn’t for her, our great commander wouldn’t have been so severely wounded, and this bitch wouldn’t have been able to kill her so easily."
"So this is where you were, brat."
A ice-cold voice thundered from above, accompanied by a crushing aura that thickened the air in the blink of an eye. The sound froze every spider warrior dead in their tracks, paralyzed by terror.