Chrysalis

[Damn spider! Get down here and face me!]

The house-sized arachnid, safe in her hole in the wall ringed with poisonous strands of webbing as thick as a car waggled her fangs at me in derision and pointed one leg at the hundreds of ants standing next to me.

[Oh? You'll come out if they go away? Somehow I doubt that you eight-legged coward!]

The spider clacked her fangs and by waving her front four legs managed to convey the message that I was an invading, leg-deficient fool who couldn't be trusted and I may as well scuttle away with my stupid pets and fellow ants because she wasn't coming out to fight. I think she also insulted my mother.

[COME DOWN HERE AND SAY THAT, BUG!]

I was so mad I was hopping on the coating of stone and dirt we'd covered the webbing in, causing trickles of the material to fall into the cavernous space below.

"Eldest, why are you so upset?" Emilia asks.

"She insulted our mother!" I roar back.

The smaller generals aura turns dangerous as she stares up at the giant spider.

"Oh did she…."

of the ants are flinging scented insults up at the spider who gleefully waggles her legs back at us. The rage is

bait. Thissss creature wantsssss death. Not for

mother spider. I brought myself back under control and told the ants to stand down. It wasn't like us to lose control of our emotions. Actually, it was totally like me. It wasn't like my siblings to lose control of their

be an army of ants marching through here at some point, and if you're still around, I'll personally feed you

to leave the insult unaddressed, but

down the location of her lair. It was also quite a project to neutralise the blasted webs. Once we worked out that we could treat the webs much the same as I treated that damn slug's goo all that time ago, it was a lot of work to haul the dirt and soil necessary to create our superhighway through the ridiculous net of mega-webs that cover this

it was all over for the arachnids. Turns out that the spider brood wasn't nearly as cooperative as the ants. Such an inferior species! Gweheheheh. With hundreds of cooperative ants working together with our advanced tactics, the hidden super squad and my pets and I, they never had a chance. Even so,

worth it, not really for me, but for Vibrant

How'd you go with the big one?! Was it big? Was it

comes bouncing along the web from a separate

anything on your side?" I

It's all been cleared out! We left the spawn points alone though, just like you said. It's so empty here now, it's

different territory. We've wiped out her army and cornered her once, if we come back with more ants, I don't care what sort of traps she has tucked away up that cave of hers, it won't be enough. A monster

and we'll head out into the tunnels. We've got a lot of ground to cover

of levels though! My friends have never been so

Wait a sec…

say

her

suppose so? Is that

not really? I think? I mean, do you