The Spider Queen

"Do you hear it?" one of the men whispered hoarsely as black ooze continued to drip out of his eyes.

"The crowd… the thunderous applause… this is art…" another man muttered quietly as he moved towards Sophie and her mirror copies.

"This is… perfection," the third man added with a twisted grin on his face.

Sophie felt a chill run down her spine, and she exchanged nervous glances with her clones who also had similar expressions on their faces.

This was so fucking creepy!

The men stopped around two hundred meters away and for a brief moment both sides looked at each other in complete silence.

The tension in the arena was so thick that one could cut it with a knife.

Sophie's wasn't sure who made the first move, but she remembered one of her mirror copies pulling the trigger on the plasma rifle in her hand.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three shots penetrated the body of the man leading the group but as holes appeared in his flesh, a cold laugh could be heard echoing through the arena.

The man staggered but did not fall.

Black ooze flowed out from the holes in his body and landed on the ground where it bubbled and hissed.

He raised up his right hand and gripped his paintbrush tightly.

The other men copied his movements and while Sophie did not know what they were going to do next, she was determined not to let them succeed.

"Attack now!" Sophie roared as the crimson hue covering her eyes darkened. She reached into her storage bag and pulled out a whip.

Asura Whip Art- Endless Dragon Strikes!

Sophie flung her weapon outwards and channeled her qi into the carbon-fibre whip.

Thousands of illusory dragons appeared around the edge of her weapon and each gigantic beast roared with a primal fury.

"Beautiful. Magnificent. My heart trembles…. SHOW US MORE! SHOW US MORE!" the men shouted out in unison.

They began to move the paintbrushes in unison and soon a colossal black shield appeared out of thin air.

Sophie's attack slammed against the shield, but her illusory dragons disappeared as if her cultivation technique had never been applied to her weapon.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Sophie's clones were not idle and the ones holding plasma blasters and rifles fired round after round at the men huddled behind the shield.

Unlike Sophie's attack, these plasma shots passed through the barrier easily and pierced the flesh of the men.

Sophie furrowed her brows in confusion because she couldn't understand what had just happened.

Why was her attack stopped by the barrier, but plasma rounds could pass through without a problem?

The men fell one by one and eventually the barrier faded away. Black ooze dripped out of their corpses and the mountain of bodies made the arena seem like a living hell.

Sophie gestured for one of her clones to approach the mass of bodies and her mirror copy reluctantly walked over.

She inspected the bodies carefully and even poked one using her blade-like appendages but received no response.

"Did we win?" one of the clones hesitantly asked.

"No… it can't be that easy… can it?" another chimed in with a confused look on her face.

"Well, I mean… I don't think anyone could survive a hole in their skull…

"Are you blind? Did you not see that disgusting black ooze coming out of their bodies? These aren't normal cultivators…" another mirror copy argued fiercely.

Sophie raised up her hand to get them to quiet down as she stared at the bodies with a thoughtful expression.

Just as she was about to open her mouth to say something….

The ground began to tremble.

Sophie dug her blade-like appendages into the dirt to steady her body and the surviving child-like creatures were unceremoniously tossed around the field.

The paintbrushes in each of the dead men's hands vibrated softly as if the tremor was somehow speaking to them.

One by one they rose up into the air. The tip of each brush began to drip out an ooze of a different colour.

Red… orange… black… pink… blue… indigo…

"Shoot them down!" Sophie quickly ordered as she pointed at the nearest brush.

Her clones immediately followed her command, but it was too late.

An enormous drawing appeared in the sky that was so large that Sophie felt like a mere ant compared to its vastness.

It was the drawing of a dragon completely identical to the illusory ones that surrounded Sophie's whip but this time…

The dragon came to life.

First a skeleton appeared, then veins, then muscles and finally flesh and blood filled its hefty frame.

"Arghhhhh!" the dragon tossed back its head and howled at the sky.

The paintbrushes fell to the ground motionless but now Sophie could not even be bothered to pay attention to them.

The dragon's wings steadily flapped up and down and gusts of wind slammed into Sophie and her clones who barely managed to stay in place.

Its maw opened wide and hundreds of razor-sharp teeth could be seen lining the inside of its mouth.

The dragon growled hoarsely, and one could see that its chest was beginning to swell up almost like a balloon.

"Hey… um… you don't think that…" one of the mirror clones nervously stuttered as she stared at the beast whose claws were bigger than her entire body.

The dragon roared and a huge wave of fire exited its mouth. The temperature in the arena instantly rose up to a boiling point and Sophie could see the air vibrating.

She barely had any time to react and could only activate her movement technique to run away as quickly as possible.

Cloud Treading Dragon!

Sophie's figure blurred and then vanished from the spot just as a tsunami of flames crashed down where she had been standing just a moment ago.

Her mirror copies were all immediately burnt to a crisp and their flesh disintegrated into black particles.

The dragon landed on the ground with heavy thud and its tail wagged from side to side. It sniffed the ashes, and a long-forked tongue tasted the black particles.

It whined softly and turned its attention to the surviving prey that had barely managed to escape its wrath.

Sophie groaned in pain as she looked down at her body to discover that parts of her battlesuit had melted away.

First degree and second-degree burns could be seen across her body but fortunately her healing factor kicked in, so the wounds were rapidly being repaired.

Clap! Clap!

A man walked out of one of the holes in the wall and his face was covered by a white mask.

The mask was similar to the ones that Sophie had seen before but there was a single black cross etched in the middle of the mask.

The mysterious man was completely unarmed and yet Sophie's danger sense felt a threat coming from him that was even stronger than the gigantic dragon.

"Are you ready?" the man cheerfully spoke as he bowed deeply until his head touched the ground.

"For the grand finale…."