SSS-RANK: Super Extraction System-Chapter 22: [22] The Weaver’s Web

Chapter 22: [22] The Weaver’s Web
The door behind the throne didn’t lead to safety. It led to the slaughterhouse.
The room was a massive cylinder, the walls completely obscured by layers of thick, pulsating white silk. The floor was a sticky mess of webbing that clung to their boots like tar, hindering every step.
And everywhere on the ceiling, the walls, the floor there were Weavers.
Dozens of them.
Not just the large ones from the ballroom. There were smaller, faster variants vibrating with magical energy. There were bloated ones dripping with acid. And hanging in the center, suspended by thick cables of silk, was a massive sac that pulsed with a sick, green light.
"Oh god," Jinx whispered, her drone scanning the room frantically. "That’s a hatchery. And those..." She pointed to the smaller, flickering spiders. "Those are Phase Spiders. They can teleport."
"Trap," Justin confirmed, raising his revolver. "Kain herded us here to feed his pets."
The door slammed shut behind them with a wet thud.
The silk sac in the center ripped open.
A scream pierced the air high-pitched and inhuman. From the sac dropped a creature that looked like a nightmare woven from flesh and silk. It was a Weaver, but it had a human torso fused to its front. A woman’s upper body, pale and screaming, her arms fused into chitinous scythes.
[ BOSS DETECTED ]
[ ARACHNE MATRIARCH (SUB-BOSS) ]
[ RANK: B- ]
[ ABILITY: HIVE MIND / ACID STORM ]
"Fresh meat!" the Matriarch screeched. Her voice was a chorus of a thousand spiders clicking their mandibles.
"Defensive circle!" Justin roared.
It was too late.
The swarm descended.
It was a tidal wave of legs and fangs. They dropped from the ceiling, burst from the floor webs, and phased in from thin air.
Rhino was the first to be hit.
A Phase Spider materialized directly on his back, sinking fangs into his shoulder armor.
[ ABILITY: PHASE SHIFT ]
[ DESCRIPTION: The spider shifts partially into the ethereal plane, bypassing physical armor before materializing to bite. ]
"Get off!" Rhino bellowed. He slammed backward into a web-covered pillar, crushing the spider. But three more took its place. They were swarming him, burying him under a mound of bodies.
"Rhino!" Jinx screamed.
She unleashed her energy wires.
[ ABILITY: MONOFILAMENT DANCE ]
[ DESCRIPTION: Superheated wires spin at high velocity, capable of slicing through organic matter like butter. ]
Blue light flashed as the wires sliced through spider limbs, filling the air with the smell of burnt ozone and insect guts.
But the wires hit the Matriarch’s webs and stopped. They sparked and fizzled.
"I can’t cut it!" Jinx cried, panic rising in her voice. "The webs are magic! They’re reinforced with mana!"
The Matriarch laughed. She spat a glob of green acid at Jinx.
Jinx dove, but the splash hit her leg. Her armor sizzled and melted instantly, burning the skin beneath. She cried out, stumbling into a patch of sticky web.
"Covering fire!" Justin fired his revolver, the UV rounds exploding against the Matriarch’s carapace.
It was useless. The Matriarch shielded herself with a wall of web that absorbed the impact. Justin tried to use his SOUND VOID to disorient them, but the spiders operated on a Hive Mind frequency. They didn’t need sound to coordinate.
Leon was fighting for his life.
Iron, his Shadow Servant, was a whirlwind of destruction, cleaving spiders in half with its greatsword. But for every one they killed, two more appeared.
Leon spun, decapitating a Weaver. He ducked under a scythe-leg and gutted another. He was drenched in black ichor.
But he saw what was happening. They were being overwhelmed.
Rhino was pinned. He had fallen to one knee, roaring in frustration as thick, white webs began to wrap around his arms and legs, pinning him to the floor. The spiders were cocooning him alive.
"Jinx! Help him!" Leon shouted, kicking a spider away.
Jinx looked at Rhino. Then at the Matriarch looming over him, mandibles dripping with acid, ready to melt Rhino’s face.
She looked at her drone controller. Her cybernetic eye spun wildly.
"I can’t cut him out!" she yelled. "The magic is too strong! I need a massive disruption!"
She looked at her own chest piece. It was glowing blue, her external power core. It regulated her cybernetics, but it was also a condensed battery of pure energy.
"No," Justin realized what she was thinking. "Jinx, don’t! That keeps your heart beating!"
Jinx looked at Leon. She smiled. It was a sad, broken little smile.
"Tell Rostova she owes me a raise," Jinx whispered.
She ripped the core from her chest harness.
"JINX!" Rhino screamed from beneath the pile of spiders.
She threw the core at the Matriarch.
"EAT THIS, YOU UGLY BITCH!"
She shot the core mid-air with her sidearm.
CRACK-BOOM.
The core detonated.
[ ABILITY: MANA OVERLOAD (EMP) ]
[ DESCRIPTION: Releasing the pure mana of a cybernetic core creates a shockwave that disrupts all magical constructs and stuns magical beasts within 50m. ]
A shockwave of blinding blue energy ripped through the room.
Every spider within fifty feet convulsed and dropped, their nervous systems fried. The magical webs holding Rhino disintegrated into dust. The Matriarch shrieked, blinded and stunned, falling from her perch.
But the blast hit Jinx too.
She was thrown backward like a ragdoll. She hit the wall with a sickening crunch and slid down, leaving a smear of red blood on the white silk. Her chest cavity sparked, dark and empty.
The room went silent for a heartbeat.
"Jinx..." Rhino whispered. He stood up, shaking off the dead spiders. His eyes were wide, staring at the small, broken body against the wall.
Then, he roared.
It wasn’t a battle cry. It was the sound of a heart breaking.
[ ABILITY: BERSERKER RAGE ]
[ DESCRIPTION: Converts emotional distress into pure physical strength. Pain reception is turned off. Strength increased by 500%. ]
Rhino’s skin turned harder, darker, jagged spikes of rock erupting from his shoulders. He charged the stunned Matriarch. He didn’t use his gun. He used his bare hands.
He grabbed the Matriarch by her human torso and pulled.
The sound of tearing chitin was wet and awful. Rhino ripped one of her scythe-arms clean off. He bludgeoned her with her own limb. He smashed her face, again and again, until it was nothing but pulp.
Leon stood frozen. He looked at Jinx.
She wasn’t moving. Her cybernetic eye had gone dark.
Something inside Leon snapped. But before he could move, a shadow detached itself from the ceiling.
A Phase Spider that had survived the blast materialized directly behind him.
It didn’t bite. It spat.
A stream of concentrated, black venom hit Leon’s arm, burning through his stealth suit instantly.
Leon gasped, clutching his arm. It felt like liquid fire was being injected into his veins.
[ WARNING: ARACHNE TOXIN DETECTED ]
[ NEUROTOXIN ENTERING BLOODSTREAM. ]
[ MINOR CORRUPTION INITIATED. ]
His vision blurred. The shadows around his feet flickered violently, agitated by the foreign poison. The Core wasn’t rejecting it; it was fighting it, churning inside him.
The Phase Spider lunged for the kill.
Leon didn’t dodge. He grabbed the spider’s mandibles with his bare hand.
His grip was crushing. The corruption in his veins mixed with his shadow essence, turning his eyes a deep, glowing violet.
He ripped the spider’s fangs out.
The creature squealed and died.
Leon dropped the carcass. He stumbled, his arm throbbing with a sickly heat. The corruption was spreading, but he forced it down, locking it away in his core.
"Rhino! Clear the path!" Leon shouted. His voice was raw.
Rhino looked up from the ruin of the Matriarch. He was covered in green blood and Jinx’s dust. He nodded, his eyes filled with tears and rage.
"RAAAAGH!"
Rhino charged the remaining stunned spiders. He was unstoppable. A boulder rolling downhill. He crushed them, tore them, stomped them.
Justin was at Jinx’s side. He checked her pulse. He looked up at Leon and shook his head slowly.
Leon felt a hollow pit open in his stomach.
First the civilians. Now Jinx.
Kain was going to pay. He was going to pay for every drop of blood spilled in this wretched cathedral.
"Leave her," Leon said, his voice cracking. "We can’t help her now. We have to finish this."
Justin gently closed Jinx’s remaining human eye. He stood up. His face was a mask of cold fury. He reloaded his revolver one last time.
"Agreed," Justin said.
They regrouped. Rhino was panting heavily, bleeding from a dozen small wounds. Justin was grim. Iron stood silently, its blue flame eyes burning brighter, reacting to the heavy death in the room.
The floor was a graveyard of spiders.
Leon looked at the exit door on the far side of the chamber. It was intricate, carved with scenes of vampires feasting.
"He’s through there," Leon said, clutching his burning arm. "Kain."
He drew his daggers. The corruption in his blood pulsed, waiting to be unleashed.
"For Jinx," Rhino growled.
"For Jinx," Justin echoed.
Leon didn’t say anything. He just walked toward the door.
He wasn’t a student anymore. He wasn’t even a hunter.
He was an executioner.
And the execution was scheduled for now.