The Spider Queen

"Do you think we can win?" a quiet voice whispered.

Sophie froze for a moment as one of her clones asked the question that must have been in the back of all of their minds.

Truthfully… she didn't know.

Captain Dawn was an immensely powerful warrior and had even killed her once in a possible future timeline.

Now he seemed to posses a strange and mysterious power as well.

Those flames….

Sophie furrowed her brows as the memory of those dark purplish- black fire sent shivers down her spine.

Every fibre of her being just wanted to run.

Flee towards the starship and leave the planet as soon as possible.

But the goddess would make her suffer a heavy price as punishment for failing the mission.

"I'm not going to lie since that would serve no purpose," Sophie spoke honestly and clenched her fists tightly.

"I… I don't know if we can beat him. Sure, we got the advantage of surprise, but a single miscalculation could result in our deaths."

"I am going to hand out explosive devices to each one of you… if you are about to die…"

The hybrid girl paused for a moment to reach into her storage bag and take out several cylindrical orbs.

There were a series of buttons on each orb and a transparent screen that displayed an inactive timer.

This was the fatal trick.

The ace in the hole.

"Blow yourself up and try to take that bastard down with you," Sophie ruthlessly ordered. There was a cold chill in her eyes as her monstrous killing intent spread out.

Sophie's clones seemed to be influenced by her bloodthirsty mood as a sadistic grin spread across the faces of every copy.

There was no need for words as the clones split up into one group of three and two pairs.

Sophie pointed towards the rest site and the largest group immediately made their way forward.

The purpose of this squad was two-fold.

They would serve both as a distraction and a way to eliminate the remaining knights.

Sophie led the other clones around the enormous sand dune and circled around the camp site. It didn't take long to reach the large tent where the hoverbikes were stored.

It was the perfect landing spot to infiltrate the camp.

There must have been fewer knights that survived than what Sophie initially assumed since there were no guards in sight.

Boom!

A thunderous explosion erupted in the distance, and it was accompanied by the sounds of screaming.

[Bleep!] [Bleep!] [Bleep!]

A blaring alarm that pierced through the quiet desert.

The assault had begun.

The clones in the first squad knew that they had to create as much noise and confusion as possible.

Sophie kept a constant watch on the captain's tent using her enhanced vision but to her surprise…

The intimidating figure of her target never emerged.

Even as she heard her clones in the distance tear through the ranks of the surviving knights and mutilate their corpses…

The captain remained in his tent.

Something wasn't right…

Sophie made a series of hand gestures and her team of four other clones snuck into the rest site through the back area.

"Should two of us enter the captain's tent? Or do you want us to wait a little bit longer for him to come out?" a clone asked.

"Let's wait for now…" Sophie replied.

"Get into position and be ready to strike at any moment."

She unhooked the plasma rifle attached to her hip and pointed it towards the entrance of the captain's tent.

The sounds of screams and intense fighting continued to flow into her ears.

Sophie's innate connection with the clones allowed her to sense their health and emotions at all times.

Fortunately, none of the three clones involved in the frontal assault had sustained any serious injuries.

The problem was that… everything was going a bit too well…

Sophie closed her eyes and focused on the mental bond linking her with the clones. She travelled through the connection and entered the body of one of her copies.

She saw the helpless knights rushing forward and immediately being sliced open with one sharp thrust of her clone's bladed appendage.

Raucous laughter filled the air as the desert was watered by the thick flow of blood.

There were already twenty corpses laying lifelessly on the ground and now the pitiful stragglers were desperately flinging themselves towards the clones.

Flinging themselves?

What was happening?

Bloodthirst and the thrill of battle had already clouded the minds of her clones, but Sophie remained clearheaded and could observe the absurdity of the situation.

For some reason, the knights were rushing towards the clones and seemed to be intentionally seeking death.

Each knight was dying in a horrendous and gruesome manner and yet their companions were completely unaffected.

In the first place, it was quite suspicious that all of the surviving knights decided to engage the intruders within seconds of the attack.

No one had bothered to even find the captain and none of the officers were at the backline to give out orders.

Instead, they were fighting side by side with the squires!

Sophie paid closer attention to the fighting styles of the knights and saw that while their blades were swung at the clones…

None of their swings were aimed at the vital points of their enemies. Some were even completely off the target mark!

In fact, Sophie noticed that some of the sword strikes had no weight behind them.

A mass suicide… this was not a fight but an easy slaughter…

Wait… why…

Sophie felt confused as she travelled back into her body and tried to digest all that she had just seen from the perspective of the clone.

None of it made any sense.

Was there something she was missing?

Sophie's golden eyes narrowed, and her plasma rifle trembled slightly as an intense feeling of death filled her mind.

"I already sensed you," a deep voice hoarsely whispered from behind.

It was a voice that appeared to be human, but it sounded muffled and mixed with throaty croak.

Sophie instinctively activated her movement technique and teleported several feet in the opposite direction.

She could feel a strong gust of wind pass by as she landed unsteadily on the top of the nearest sand dune.

Sophie turned around and saw a scene straight out of a nightmare..

Every single one of her clones had been beheaded.

Their memories flowed into Sophie's mind, but the truly terrifying thing was that she was completely unaffected.

The clones did not even have the time to reach before they died.

It was a clean swift sword stroke that instantly ended their lives with one fell swoop.

There wasn't enough time to activate the bombs.

And the man responsible just stood there.

He was dressed in the standard white armour of the Hyperion knights with a long flowing cape that swayed in the wind.

He slowly removed his helmet to reveal a monstrous twisted abomination. Two purplish-black flames glowed in the place where normal human eyes should be.

Green wriggling veins covered most of his face and pulsed regularly. His shoulder-long golden hair appeared to have been singed or burnt.

A long sword was held in his right hand that glinted in the sunlight. The bloodied edge of the blade provided a direct visual contrast with the rest of Captain Dawn's spotless attire.

With a casual wave of his hand, the corpses beneath the captain's feet ignited and burned away until nothing was left but ash.

It was not just the bodies of her clones as Sophie saw out of the corner of her eye that the dead bodies of the knights had also burst into flames.

Captain Dawn shivered as tiny blue wisps of smoke entered his nostrils. These tiny wisps came from the corpses of the knights.

Sophie clutched her plasma rifle tightly as the captain's next words brought her nothing but endless despair.

"Now burn for my God…"

"Filthy heretic."