Chimney Effect and a Poisonfire Barrage

At Fabien's command, fifty elite knights scattered at once, racing to their assigned positions.

Shovels broke through the frozen earth, and loose stones were swept aside. Dozens of Pressure-Triggered Poisonfire Mines were soon buried among the rocks and along the gentle slope outside the cave mouth.

A layer of dark soil was tamped down over them. From a distance, the ground looked almost untouched.

Behind the minefield, five Semi-Automatic Rune Steam Repeating Crossbows were pushed into firing positions on the high ground.

Garrick jogged up to the line. He glanced instinctively at Shien by the cliff's edge, swallowed hard, and felt that inexplicable unease creep back into his chest.

He was here because Victor's frail body could never have made it to Ashen Gorge.

As for everyone else in the workshop, they were either mute or kept to themselves. Checking the machines, recording pressure, estimating bowstring life—it had all fallen to him.

But with the Chosen Son himself standing at the front, Garrick no longer dared complain.

"My lord, all five machines have passed inspection, and the boilers are at full pressure.

"But we're still using tendon bowstrings. By my estimate, each machine can fire fifteen to twenty shots at most. Any more, and the strings will probably snap."

Shien merely nodded. "That's enough."

While they spoke, the knights began the second stage.

Several skirted the front and climbed down the gorge's outer rock wall toward the natural vents near the bottom of the nest.

Barrels of kindling were dragged to the openings and emptied in one go. Mixed in were waste oil, dry grass, and several kinds of Alchemical Waste with a sharp, stinging reek.

Once torches were thrown down after them, waves of heat soon rolled back up.

Black-and-yellow poisonous smoke surged up through the underground passages, only to be forced back by the layers of collapsed, funnel-shaped terrain and driven deep into the nest.

Before long, a strange smell spread around the mouth of the gorge, so acrid it made everyone's eyes sting.

Fabien stood at the cliff's edge, watching below. This was the Chimney Effect his lord had spoken of.

He was still tense. He had never heard of such a method and had no idea whether it would work.

Fortunately, movement came from deep underground before long.

At first it was only a faint scraping, as though something were racing along the rock walls.

Then the sounds multiplied, growing denser and more chaotic until they merged into a skin-crawling din.

The first wave of Night Spiders burst out.

They were enormous. Even the smallest was the size of a hunting dog. Cold light skimmed their black carapaces, and their long, jointed legs crowded together like a dark tide.

The poisonous smoke below had clearly driven them mad. They could no longer lurk or lie in wait; they could only swarm out through the main entrance.

The first few lunged onto the slope, and their long legs came down in the buried Fuse Zone.

Boom!

The first explosion tore through the gorge mouth, followed by a second and a third!

The entire slope seemed to heave upward.

Poisonfire and Iron Shards burst from the mines together. Tongues of flame swept low across the ground while Iron Shards flew in every direction.

The spiders just emerging had no time to react. Their shells split, their limbs blew apart, and black-green ichor splashed everywhere with chunks of flesh.

The spiders behind kept pushing out, while those in front had already been blown to pieces. The narrow exit dissolved into chaos.

Some tumbled straight into the flames. Others lost their legs to flying Iron Shards and slammed into the rock wall. A few stumbled onto a second round of mines, dragging the spiders behind them into another blast.

In moments, the exit became a churning mass of Poisonfire and broken shells, without a single clear place to set foot.

Shien stood at the rear throughout, charcoal pencil in one hand and notebook in the other, quietly watching the explosions tear through the slope ahead.

Intervals between blasts, lethal radius, the spread angle of the fragments, damage to spider shells at close range... he jotted each observation down.

At the front of the position, all fifty Heavy Cavalry Knights still gripped their weapons, yet not one had taken a step forward.

They had thought they were coming to fight. When they heard they would face Night Spiders, they had steeled themselves to die.

But now the ground was thick with Night Spider corpses, and they had yet to swing their swords even once.

That deadly slope had already done the work for them.

Wind swept over the high ground, carrying the stench of burning, blood, and scorched flesh.

Repeated Poisonfire blasts had torn the slope apart. Broken shells, severed limbs, and splattered black-green ichor lay everywhere.

Night Spiders still writhed in the flames. Their charred shells cracked apart, their long legs twitching as they curled inward, while the foul smell in the air grew stronger.

Just then, a shrill scream erupted from deep within the main cave.

"Aaaah!"

The sound was sharp and grating, like Iron Shards scraping hard against a crack in stone. It set everyone's eardrums tingling.

The spider swarm, already charging out in disarray, broke into even greater panic. As if driven utterly mad by something, they fought to squeeze aside.

The next instant, an entire slab of red-hot rock at the cave mouth shattered with a crash.

Stone and sparks burst outward as a Mutant Spider Queen the size of a house smashed its way through.

Its eight limbs were as thick as saplings, its carapace glossy black. Dark purple markings crawled along the edges of its abdomen and backplate, and as its body heaved, a ghostly violet sheen spread across it.

The instant the Spider Queen emerged, its eight compound eyes swept across the burning ground. Its mouthparts opened and closed, releasing a piercing hiss.

It was clearly furious beyond reason.

Spiders lay dead all around the cave mouth. Broken shells, severed limbs, ichor, and charred bodies covered the slope.

It was the rage of a mother whose children had been slaughtered.

It stepped on the remaining Pressure-Triggered Poisonfire Mines, setting them off one after another.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Flame, Iron Shards, and poison struck it all at once, but produced only a shower of dazzling sparks.

The fragments bounced off into the frozen earth without truly breaking its carapace.

The knights on the high ground went pale. This creature was on a completely different level from the lesser spiders.

It was a Third Tier Mutant Shadow Spider Queen.

It paid no heed to the mines beneath its feet. All eight legs thrust hard against the ground, lifting its huge body upright like a person.

Its mouthparts opened, its abdomen contracted sharply, and a giant black web shot out!

More than ten meters wide, the web came down over the position, bearing the full force of the Spider Queen's rage.

Fabien reacted instantly. As the Spider Queen reared up, he stepped half a pace forward, gripped his sword hilt, and gathered Battle Aura within himself.

But just as he was about to draw, someone caught his wrist.

Fabien froze and turned sharply.

Shien stood beside him, watching the black web descend. He spoke just two calm words: "Concentrate fire."

At the command, all five Semi-Automatic Rune Steam Repeating Crossbows fired at once.

The brass boilers jolted. Steam held at the very edge of their limits released in a rush, pressure valves shrieking together as great plumes of white, scalding vapor shot into the sky.

Garrick stood beside the forwardmost machine, his face already drained of color.

The moment the Spider Queen appeared, his chest had clenched, and even the hand holding his record board began to shake.

"Most Holy, protect us... don't let them snap now... please don't let them snap..."

Garrick barely dared speak above a whisper, as if a louder voice might snap the bowstrings himself.

The next instant, all five crossbows thundered together. Heavy bolts tore through the white steam and blasted toward the Spider Queen.