The Spider Queen

I need to move now!

Sophie's danger sense went haywire as the feeling of death got stronger and stronger. She quickly activated her movement speed technique and teleported several feet backwards.

An enormous pillar of dark purplish-black flame erupted from the ground where she was just seconds before.

"Fuck… fuck… fuck…" Sophie muttered as her body tensed up. This was insane.

How was the captain so powerful?

This didn't make any sense.

It was clear from the qi fluctuations radiating off the captain's body that he hadn't reached the void stage.

They were both qi tide cultivators so the gap should not be insurmountable.

And yet… Sophie felt like an ant staring up at an elephant.

Captain Dawn swung his sword forward and a wave of sword qi erupted from the tip of his blade.

Sophie dropped down and rolled behind a nearby sand dune. The golden wave of sword qi narrowly missed her head by an inch.

She could feel the wind from the strike brush against the tips of her hair.

Sophie watched in horror as this simple strike continued to move forward and neatly bisected several of the tents on its path of destruction.

This was bad. This was very bad.

All of her clones had been killed instantly and it seemed like the captain knew that the ambush was coming beforehand.

Wait… no.. there were still the three copies that survived… but would they even be able to help?

"May the fires of salvation burn your soul!" a loud roar interrupted Sophie's train of thought.

Captain Dawn raised his left hand in the air and started to trace out a series of complicated hand gestures.

Sophie could see wisps of blue escaping from the mouths of the burnt corpses and this mysterious energy source was being drawn towards the captain's fist.

Bang! Bang!

Without hesitation, the hybrid girl pulled the trigger on her plasma rifle and unleashed a series of rounds at the captain's chest.

Slash!

The captain swung his sword lazily and Sophie watched in disbelief as he managed to destroy every plasma shot with incredible ease.

His swordsmanship… was strange and nothing that she had ever seen before.

It was not as skillful as the moves that Duke Peterlor had demonstrated during training but… something felt off.

Captain's Dawn movements were extremely fast, and Sophie could only observe them due to her enhanced vision.

At least she had managed to stop him from completing whatever mysterious ritual that involved his left hand.

Sophie kept a careful eye on her dangerous foe but still managed to send out a few mental commands to her surviving clones.

[Withdraw from the battle and get to a safe distance]

[I plan to engage him for a few hours to try to probe out any weaknesses in his fighting style]

[Use the mental connection to view the battle from my perspective]

Captain Dawn was a fearsome opponent, but he was not invulnerable.

Sophie narrowed her golden eyes and fought down the bloodlust rushing through her veins. The thrill of battle was causing the madness inside her mind to surface.

Now was not the time for her to lose control...

She needed to keep a calm mind and analyse his fighting style.

Clearly the two main abilities of the captain that posed a threat were his pyromancy and swordsmanship.

But did he have any other hole cards or skills?

Long range attacks were clearly ineffective, so Sophie decided to take a risk.

She pressed a series of buttons on the side of her plasma rifle and soon the core of her weapon begun to glow.

Cloud Treading Dragon!

Sophie's figure blurred and then vanished. She reappeared right in front of the captain's body and then threw her plasma rifle at him.

She teleported away instantly before the captain even had time to react to her surprise attack.

Boom!

A loud explosion erupted that sent the hybrid girl flying backwards as she was caught right at the outer edge of the blast radius.

A huge cloud of sand rose up into the air as the explosion sent dust shooting out in all directions.

Overloading the core of a plasma weapon at close range would produce a shock capable of killing most cultivators at the qi tide level.

Sophie groggily got up from the ground with her ears still ringing from the boom.

There was a reason why she had decided to try a risky suicidal attack and it had to do with her hybrid physique.

The burns and wounds on her body quickly regenerated until nothing remained but a pinkish area.

The healing factor of the Insectoid races was their most valuable biological trait and the Arachnais tribe was no exception.

"Is that all you have hybrid monster?" a cold voice echoed through the open desert.

"Petty tricks… strategies… all are useless in the face of my god…"

A humanoid figure leapt high in the air and landed on the ground with a dull thump. Captain Dawn hadn't even bothered to dodge the explosion.

And why would he?

Sophie furrowed her brow as she saw the captain's new state. Chunks and bits of his flesh had been blown off in the blast.

The proud white armour of the Hyperion Knights could not stand a point-blank explosion from a plasma core and had been partially destroyed.

This created visible areas on the captain's body where his charred skin was exposed to the air.

His facial features had been completely ruined and he was missing both his arms and a significant part of his upper body.

Dark purplish-black flames had replaced his organic body parts and now the captain more resembled a fire elemental than an ordinary man.

"My flesh is a prison for the divine strength upon which the Sun God in all of his righteousness has bestowed onto me," Captain Dawn declared.

"Has anyone ever told you that you talk a lot?" Sophie mocked with a sneer.

"You seem awfully proud to be a servant but frankly…. I think you're nothing more than his personal bitch."

"CHILD! I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANY INSOLANCE TOWARDS THE SUN GO…" the captain's furious yell was interrupted as he felt several blows strike his body followed by the sound of breaking glass.

Sophie accurately threw several vials of toxins on the areas of the captain's body where the armour had been blown off.

Perhaps under normal circumstances the captain would have intercepted the projectiles, but Sophie's taunting voice had caused the pious man to lose his temper.

Would poison still work?

Sophie activated her movement technique and vanished into the distance. She reached into her storage bag and pulled out a nano-fibre whip as well as several needle-like blades.

The captain stood still in the same spot and made no attempt to close the distance between the two.

This gave Sophie the time to carefully observe the effects that her various toxins had after making direct contact with the captain's exposed skin.

Some parts had rotted off while others turned sickly colours such as yellow or purple.

Nasty bumps and red welts had formed on some areas and his right leg sprouted numerous pimples filled with disgusting pus.

It was impossible to see what was happening inside the captain's body from the outside, but Sophie assumed that his internal organs should be entering a state of collapse.

"I will shed this mortal body. By the grace of the Father… I will become your holy weapon of salvation," Captain Dawn whispered in religious fervor.

Even as his flesh rotted away and peeled. Even as he could feel a terrible pain as his organs liquefied from the inside.

Even as he could feel the last vestiges of his humanity slip away.

Even as the memory of his wife and daughter vanished…

There was nothing in his mind but his divine mission.

His glorious purpose.

To spread the word of the Sun God… no matter the price.