The End of Eternity

To The Surface

The battle started with a volley of fire spells. Everyone who had some skill concerning ranged attack fired at the spiders. In response the male spiders jumped on them a threw their nets. Many dwarves were trapped in the net, but the loses were still minimal. The problems started when the female broodmothers hit them. One of them managed to reach the space above their heads and while half-cooked by their magic, she jumped on them, crushing several dwarves in the process. than before anyone could do anything, she started using [Poison Spray] like crazy hitting everyone who was closer than twelve feet. To make the situation even worse, two [Posion Blast]s hit their tight formation, poison splashing in a wide arc.

"Pull back!" Ragrim regretted his incompetence, he should have pulled them back the moment he had seen the female's skills, but it was too late, more than one hundred soldiers died in an instant with nearly fifty more unable to continue fighting.

"Get out of here, fast." Bardur was enraged, Who was this fool? The last thing they needed was a commander with no real combat experience, "Only scouts and veterans stay here, loose formation, get behind my team." He did not need to order them twice, Everyone watched Claw tearing up one of the broodmothers to pieces in seconds. Having superb speed and strength with [Piercing Strikes] atop of it, not even an armored opponent could withstand his fury. The pieces of the insect's exoskeleton were flying in all direction along with its blood and flesh.

It looked like the spiders were losing the battle, but another three females emerged from the shaft and together with the other two launched a barrage of poison at them. Claw bristled his scales, ignoring the poison and started a barrage of his own focusing on the males, he knew, he could not penetrate the armor of a female spider. Most of the males had been dead shortly, their poison resistance inadequate to neutralize Claw's poisons. With the help of other scouts, even the females were dead soon, but they paid a heavy price.

The frontline fighters including Davena, Claw and Alexius looked back and saw many bodies laying on the ground in spasm, many had been hit with the volley of poison and half of the teams was dead.

"I guess using the brute force tactic was not a good idea." Alexius remarked. "Especially when. .. " Something was wrong and they found out what it was quite soon. Mei was laying among the dwarves on the floor.

"Mei!" Alexius run to her.Claw thought it strange, Alexius did not seem the type of person to worry about others.

It would be a pity if she died, she was cool and everything, but whatever, everything comes and goes, it is my second nature to let go of anything and everything.

It seemed odd, he felt different this time. Was it possible his human side was alive again? He analyzed his feelings and found out he did not want to let her go. That was odd. Claw shook his head and went to have a closer look.

"What are you doing? She is dead." Davena could not understand what was Alexius doing. She tried to find Mei's pulse, but there was none.

"There is something I have heard in the Vampire Kingdom, I am a [Vampire], among other things, under right circumstances, I should be able to turn others into vampires. For a vampire reproduction should be an instinct."

"There must be some restrictions, vampires would be everywhere otherwise." Claw cooled down his excitement.

"It is too late to do anything, it is over six minutes already." Claw reminded Alexius, he looked at him with despair in his eyes. So he cared about her too after all.

* * * *

Kamal Kiran looked at a beautiful shining mail armor, the chest piece had been made from small rings of a shining metal. After a series of failures, he had finally something to be happy about, his flawless [Aramantium] equipment. It helped to ease his depression, his grand empire, spreading on multiple continents was no longer a reality, but he was going to rebuild it. He had already strengthen his position in the capital city, he keot impressing everyone with his [Levitation] skill and it would get even better with his new [adamantium] outfit. He had to wait for weapons to be made, but that was not importnat now. He had always had a great influence on his home continent, he just needed to put up a show, reminding everyone he was still the mighty Immortal Emperor. With these kind of thoughts, he set off for a tour around his domain. The only thing left was to find means to start his invasion. Some continents might join him immediately after establishing communication, but he expected some resistance, someone greedy for power had surely already usurped his throne and most of his colonies were no longer his. He would change it without fail!