Chapter 156: And All He Could Do Now… Was Wait

Words : 1105 Updated : Sep 19th, 2025

Chapter 156: And All He Could Do Now... Was Wait Meanwhile, back in the core part of the next. The Spider Lord had never felt this powerless. His detection field—his magic web threads—were fraying in real time. Every strand that had once pulsed gently with information was now shaking, breaking apart as though something inside the nest itself was turning them against him. He stood alone in the throne chamber. Tall. Still. Watching. His eight eyes scanned the webbed walls, looking for movement, any twitch, any feedback, any proof that the intruders were still visible through the network. But there was nothing. Just static pulses. Like the network was coughing. Dying. He reached out again. This time more forcefully, sending a surge of energy into the strands—trying to light them up like nerves under a current. One thread flared brightly. It came from the tunnel that led toward the Alpha team’s last position. Then it vanished. Gone. Burned out like a candle in a vacuum. He snapped his mandibles once in frustration, the sharp clack echoing through the chamber like bones cracking under pressure. Another thread lit up—this time near the Beta position. He focused on it immediately. Locked onto the pulse. It was faint, but steady. Then suddenly— Gone. Just like the first. He leaned forward, claws tapping the edge of his throne. That wasn’t random. That was contact. And then... severance. The only reason a thread would vanish like that was if the spider connected to it had died. Instantly. No buildup. No panic. Just—cut. He tried again, this time reaching out to one of the mid-tier soldier drones. It was stationed closer to the Beta team—stronger than the scouts, more stable. He sent a signal directly into its awareness. Connect. Tell me what you see. There was a flicker of response. He felt the spider’s eyes focus. He saw a faint blur. A distorted field—magic particles warping around something human-shaped. A soldier. Then the thread blinked out. Dead. He froze. Three connections. Three losses. No survivors. And not a single warning before death. His pulse raced. If he had blood, it would be boiling. He gripped the throne harder, claws sinking slightly into the bone frame. He didn’t scream. Didn’t panic. But his breathing changed. Sharper. Heavier. He was blind, deaf, and now his limbs—his soldiers—were being ripped away before they could even cry for help. These weren’t accidents. These were executions. Systematic. Precise. He reached again. This time, not to the soldiers. To the hatcheries. Hundreds of eggs were stored deeper in the nest, near the heat veins where magic flowed strongest. He focused on the ones closest to the battlefield—unhatched, but mature enough to awaken if summoned. He whispered into the web. ’Awaken.’ A series of tiny pulses responded. Eggs cracked. Tiny spiderlings—barely half a meter long but blessed with hive vision—twitched as they hatched. They didn’t need orders. They connected instantly to the web and began relaying feedback. The Spider Lord braced himself. What he saw wasn’t what he expected. It was worse. From the eyes of the hatchlings, he saw the battlefield. He saw bodies—his bodies—crumpled in neat piles. He saw gaps in the lines where once his Black Iron and Bronze guards had been stacked shoulder-to-shoulder. Gone. Burned out by something he couldn’t track. He saw movement—figures stepping through the carnage with calm, controlled rhythm. They weren’t charging. They weren’t panicking. They were advancing like machines. One of them had short white hair and moved like a blade. Another stood taller, leading the line with smooth efficiency. The hatchlings saw only brief flashes. A blur of metal. A streak of mana. A shape moving faster than instincts could follow. Then the feed would die. Every single time. Connection. Visual. Death. He tried again. More eggs. More hatchlings. It didn’t matter. Each one relayed just enough to show the horror, then died before they could run. They were being sniped. Hunted. Not fought. Erased. And the worst part? He still couldn’t see the full team. Only glimpses. The soldiers weren’t standing in clear view. They were using the terrain—the walls, the shadows, the broken web—like they knew this cave better than he did. How? His mind screamed the question over and over. How were they doing this? His nest was generations old. Built layer by layer through survival and dominance. His ancestors had fought beasts, magic beasts, and other spiders who wanted to take over the throne. And now? A few bipedals were walking through it like it was nothing more than a chore. They weren’t even sweating. He saw the larger spiders finally move—ones in Silver and Gold classes. They charged. They screamed. They launched web traps, venom bolts, reinforced carapace strikes. But the result? Death. Explosions tore through the walls—not wild, messy blasts, but clean strikes. Grenades tuned to ignore stone and react only to mana. Precision bombs. Spider bodies collapsed in waves. Limbs curled. Fangs shattered. Even the reinforced nests near the rear lines began to burn. The Spider Lord staggered back a step—not physically, but mentally. He’d lost entire sectors in minutes. And he couldn’t even find a target to retaliate against. He reached again—desperate—trying to connect to one of his higher-ranking guards. Finally, a response. It was shaky. Afraid. The guard didn’t speak, but the web carried his thoughts. "We can’t see them. We can’t stop them. They’re inside already. We’re all—" Gone. The thread died mid-thought. Severed. Not just cut—disintegrated. Like the spider was wiped off the map before the sentence could finish. The Spider Lord trembled. Not from fear. From fury. He hissed sharply, a sound like blades scraping over stone. Then looked down. At the hundreds of glowing web strands still flickering across the chamber floor. All those threads. All that effort. And none of it could stop what was coming. He had no idea how many there were. He had no idea how they got past the outer layers. And now, even the inner sectors—the ones close to his throne—were showing signs of fluctuation. The fight hadn’t reached him yet. But it would. Soon. He pressed his palm into the largest web node near his feet. A command flowed through the entire nest. Wake. All of you. Every remaining soldier, drone, and queenless cluster. Wake. Wake and fight. Even if you die— Buy me time. But deep in his gut, he already knew... It wouldn’t be enough. The humans had already slipped past his defenses. They had outsmarted his systems. And they had killed what he spent a lifetime building. All he could do now... Was wait.

Chapter 156: And All He Could Do Now… Was Wait

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