Two streaks of blood ran from beneath his eyes to the corners of his mouth. Haikesi began to sing a hymn praising the Shadra, then took out a dagger and slashed his wrist, sprinkling his blood on the eggs of the 15 Sons of Shadra.
Then he started circling around the eggs, gesturing wildly as if he were performing a strange dance.
The blood was quickly absorbed by the eggs, which began to emit a dark red glow. Soon after, the 15 eggs began to shake on their own, and the larval spiders inside struggled, trying to hatch.
Haikesi spilled more blood, and as time passed, the Troll's dance became unsteady, and his song grew weak and feeble, as if he was about to reach his limit.
Finally, one of the eggs was broken, and a small black and red spider crawled out. The Troll was overjoyed and immediately shouted, "Noble Sons of Shadra, guide us to the place of your mother— the Spider God!"
The little spider hissed sharply at the crowd. Even as a newly hatched larva, it was no less aggressive. However, having hatched by drinking Haikesi's blood, it felt a sense of kinship with the Troll and complied with its request.
The spiderling crawled straight out of the hatchery, nibbled at a few spider corpses in the corridor, and then crawled forward. Everyone quickly followed, only to see the spiderling crawl and stop intermittently, finally stopping at the end of the corridor.
There was only one wall here. Unas stepped forward, but the spiderlings weren't so friendly to him, hissing and lunging at him. Unas kicked one aside and then began to examine the wall carefully.
The Troll quickly and tenderly picked up the injured spiderling, as if it were his own child.
The group knocked and banged around the area, hoping to find a hidden door. The noise attracted the puppets, who had searched the freezer from top to bottom but found nothing. Seeing that there was progress, they immediately came to help.
Although the underground level had been expanded several times over and completely altered by Gunsel, Talo, as the steward of the Mage Tower, was very familiar with the surrounding geography. "This direction is all thick, hard granite, difficult to excavate, and unlikely to have a large Cave."
"Wrong," Unas thought the opposite. "Hard granite is also the best material for building prisons. Gunsel might very well be digging cells here to imprison Shadra and Archmage Merlin."
At this moment, the middle-aged prisoner Gerard Gerald said, "Knight is right. I know of a spider venom that is highly corrosive to stone, so granite is no problem for the Purple-robed Person."
Unas exclaimed with delight, "Oh? Go and get it quickly, let's see the effect!"
The special venom was quickly brought over, filling several large barrels. Gerard told everyone to step back and carefully splashed the venom onto the wall. A pungent white smoke immediately appeared, accompanied by a fine hissing sound, and the granite that made up the wall quickly became brittle.
Once the reaction was complete, Unas twisted the Silver Hammer and smashed it down hard. The Stone Wall shattered like building blocks, and nearly 30 centimeters of the wall surface fell off.
Gerard splashed more venom, Unas smashed it again. This was repeated several times until the venom was almost exhausted, and the wall was finally smashed through.
A deep, wide cave entrance appeared before them, Troll immediately jumped up, exclaiming, "I sense the presence of my god!"
After searching for so long, the target was finally within reach. Unas was also very excited, "Everyone, get ready, follow me and charge in!"
The Cave wasn't long, and the group soon arrived at a large hall, where the enormous body of the Spider God Shadra appeared before them.
Her appearance was exactly as described for the Trolls, her entire body covered in black and red stripes, and her menacing, blade-shaped barbs exuded a deadly aura.
But she wouldn't frighten anyone now, because eight thick metal chains bound her eight limbs to eight stone pillars around her, and Shadra didn't react to the arrival of the crowd, lying limply on the ground as if asleep.
Besides the Shadra, there were more than a dozen large cages on the left and right, which also imprisoned various kinds of strong spiders. One can imagine that these were the "male concubines" that Gunsel arranged for the Spider God, specifically for mating.
The deity he had been searching for for decades was right before him. Haikesi screamed with excitement and took a step forward, Unas grabbed him by the collar. "Are you looking for death? She might not even recognize you. Let's subdue her first."
Whether Shadra is asleep or unconscious, now is the best time to deal with her. The fact that Gunsel has locked her up is a huge help; the Lich would never expect anyone to break into his carefully hidden chamber.
The group split into four teams. The first two teams circled around to the rear of Shadra, while the last two teams attacked from the front, launching a surprise attack from four directions.
Unas charged ahead, and when he was within five steps of the Spider God, the Spider God suddenly awoke. The eight eyes on Shadra's back opened simultaneously, and he immediately realized that he was surrounded.
Suddenly, a thick, long thread shot out from her abdomen, splitting in two and wrapping around the two groups of people behind her. The barbs all over her body also stood up, making her look like a hedgehog that was impossible to attack.
With her long legs completely locked, her forelegs were unable to move, and she could only spray out a small amount of venom to attack the two groups of people in front of her.
Unas was in the team to the left and in front. He conjured a huge siege shield, like an umbrella, to shield those behind him from the venom. Then he leaped onto Shadra's head, smashed off all the barbs with his Silver Hammer, and then switched to Firekiss to stab at the Giant Spiders's head.
The ultimate goal of this operation is to extract the Lich Phylactery from Shadra's body, which is the core of Gunsel's suppression of Shadra's consciousness.
There seemed to be a fresh wound on the Giant Spiders's head, but Unas couldn't care less about that now. This was a perfect opening. He subtly adjusted his wrist, aiming his sword at the wound and thrusting it straight down.
With a hiss, the tip of the Firekiss sword pierced the Giant Spiders's head. Unas quickly withdrew his sword, then squeezed his hand into the pierced crack, searching for the Phylactery.
Shadra screamed violently, as if someone were churning her brain with their hands; it must have been excruciatingly painful, but under the onslaught, she was utterly unable to mount any meaningful resistance.
Unas reached his entire arm into the wound and, sure enough, found a foreign object. Pulling it out, he saw it was a fist-sized black crystal. Overjoyed, he exclaimed, "Found it! Gunsel's second Phylactery has been found!"
Aside from the puppet, almost everyone cheered. This meant not only had they gained another bargaining chip to Gunsel, but they had also broken the Lich's control over the spider swarm. Victory in this war was practically assured.
Only Haikesi looked horrified and heartbroken. His god had suffered unimaginable pain and was now limply trampled underfoot by the Paladin, completely stripped of divine dignity.