A grating hiss ground its way out of my spider mouth as my mandibles flared out, dripping venom. It was about the only sound I could actually make as a spider. I hadn't had time to practice speaking like this, and I had a feeling it wouldn't go well when I did. I had no vocal chords, no voice box. Hell, I didn't think spiders actually had lungs, at least not the same way humans did. Those thoughts were launched clear out of my mind when a green shimmer covered the queen's chattering mandibles. Every instinct I had screamed Danger! I launched myself into the air, aiming to get as far away from my spot on the ground as I could. As it turned out, the warning screaming in the back of my mind couldn't have come at a better time. A large, sickly green globule of fluid formed around the queen's mandibles and then launched. The entire process took less than a second. Fortunately, the orb of ick passed harmlessly underneath me; instead, it caught one of the worker ants. Apparently, the ant was a bit of an overachiever and had been creeping up behind me to attempt an ambush. The fluid slammed into the face of the ant, covering its entire body and several feet around it.

  A well placed web line saw me perched on the wall above, looking down in horror as the fluid began to smoke. The ant screeched in agony as its form wavered and began to liquefy. It was like watching something out of a cartoon where the bad guy landed in a vat of acid. The ant struggled for several moments, all while its body broke down. I shook myself, my gaze returning to the queen who was looking at me once again. I stared back. Fortunately, there was no green glow around her mandibles this time; perhaps she couldn't use it in quick succession? I was brought back to reality by the sounds of the battle that was going on between Vipera and what seemed like half the damn colony of ants. We were running out of time; she wouldn't be able to hold back the tide of ants forever. Even if they were weak individually, eventually they would simply bury us with the weight of numbers.

  I released my grip on the wall, falling back down to the floor of the alcove. My eight legs absorbed the impact with surprising grace. The queen's beady eyes followed my every movement, her antennae twitching in anticipation, as if every move I made amused her somehow. With a burst of speed that surprised even me, I darted towards the queen. My spider form was incredibly agile, and I used every bit of that agility to zigzag across the chamber floor, making myself a difficult target for any more of those acidic projectiles. The queen reared back, her massive form towering over me. Size wasn't everything in this fight. As she lunged forward with her mandibles, I leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding being crushed. In that split second, I shot out a thick strand of webbing, aiming for her eyes.

  The web struck true, partially blinding the queen. She thrashed wildly, her movements becoming erratic. The massive body of the queen rolled back and forth several times as if in a mad attempt to crush me with sheer body weight. Admittedly, it wasn't a terrible plan; it certainly made getting close enough to do any damage much more difficult. The queen's pincer arms flailed around wildly, and soon I found myself ducking and dodging just to avoid being pasted by a wild haymaker. The situation was untenable to say the least. I leapt from the ground on top while she thrashed, slamming my legs down in an attempt to pierce her chitinous armour. My legs dug into her body, but not enough to do any real harm, not nearly enough. It felt like I had slammed my legs into a sheet of hardened steel, and the impact rattled its way through my carapace. Thankfully, I didn't need to cause deep wounds to do harm. I felt a pull deep in my soul. My legs took on a dim green shimmer as I focused my will on [Venomous Strikes]. It was the best card I had to play right now. Belatedly, I realized that Vipera had been called back into my soul when I activated the skill; for it to work, she had to be residing in my soul. At least it had activated even if I had unintentionally called her out of her own fight.

  The queen screeched in pain, and her thrashing grew more wild, then she began to roll. I was forced to leap free of her body or be crushed beneath her bulk. A flicker of thought saw the return of Vipera to our battlefield. While I sailed through the air, I caught sight of Vipera having landed before me and locked in battle with the swarm of worker ants once again. She was holding her own, despite the disorientation of being pulled away and then dumped back into battle. Every time she moved, her entire body undulated. She became one large series of blades lashing at swathes of ants as she moved, every blow depositing deadly venom in her foes. My legs scraped across the ground. I spun around to face the queen once more. She had stopped rolling, her eyes free of the bit of webbing that had caught her earlier. The venom was taking effect, slowly but surely, judging by the look of rage I saw in the queen's beady black eyes. I wasn't sure how an ant could look enraged, but the queen did. Her mandibles clacked together furiously, and I could see the green glow beginning to form again. I darted towards the queen, following a zig-zagging pattern as I approached.

  My thoughts whipped by at blinding speed as I tried to formulate some kind of plan. I was certain the venom was working, but not fast enough. It probably wasn't a big enough dose for a creature this size. Which meant I needed to get more venom into the queen fast, or figure out a different way to kill the ant queen. I leapt to the side as a new globule of green death formed around the queen's mandibles. The globule crashed into the ground. I hissed in pain as the splatter caught one of my rear legs. The burning agony and smell of burning chitin informed me that the leg was liberally coated and likely beyond saving. I leapt into the air and fired off a web line, pulling myself up into the air. I needed to remove the leg, now. Before the acid could creep upwards and do even more damage. I squirmed around hanging from the web line, lining up a blow while hanging in the air, on one of your own legs was not a simple task. It was a feat of bodily coordination. Thankfully, the acid made the chitin armour of my leg softer than it would have been otherwise, and it sheared off easily with a single blow.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Down a leg, I dropped back down to the ground, glaring at the queen with all eight of my eyes. I was slower than before, but I still moved with enough speed to be difficult for her to follow. The queen's pincer arms slammed into the ground around me as I ducked and dodged, trying to get closer. I leapt back as a pincer smashed into the ground just in front of me, cutting off my path forward. My heart pounded away as I came to a realization. I was going to have to take a hit if I wanted to get to her body again; the queen was too wary of my venomous limbs after I'd dosed her last time. A surge of wrath built in my chest, or thorax, I guess. Victory at any cost, survival at any cost. This was the primal edict. For any creature to live, another must die. I lunged in, eyes tracking the queen's other pincer as it descended towards me. I screamed as two of my legs shattered beneath the blow. The pain was excruciating, but I pushed through it, my remaining legs propelling me forward with desperate speed. As I neared the queen's body, I could see her mandibles beginning to glow green once more. It was now or never.

  A final burst of energy carried me into the air. I leapt onto her massive form, my remaining legs digging deep into the gaps between her chitinous plates. The queen thrashed violently, trying to dislodge me, but I held on, filled with grim resolve. I clawed my way up her body towards her upper thorax, slipping around to her back, where it would be harder for those deadly pincers to reach me. My legs carved deep gouges in the queen's chitin as I dragged myself closer and closer to her head. I reached my target, the section of the thorax just below the queen's head. Every available limb thrust downward, punching through the queen's chitin, I dug in like I was tick trying to make myself impossible to remove. I activated [Venomous Strikes], pushing at the skill for every ounce of power I could eek out of it, then I buried my fangs in the queen's back, dumping even more venom into her system. There was no thought of what pulling Vipera out of her battle with the worker ants would mean. If I couldn't kill the queen here, it wouldn't matter. The queen thrashed and screeched, desperate to dislodge me. Her pincers whipped around, trying to reach back in ways they weren't meant to, trying to reach where I was lodged deeply into her back.

  Time lost all meaning to me as I focused on [Venomous Strikes], trying to force more venom, more power out of the skill. The edge of desperation in my mind seared me as I watched one of the queen's pincers come back. It fell on two of my legs, catching them in its crushing grip. I howled in agony while the queen tried to tear me from her body. It felt like I was being torn in two, but I wouldn't budge, however. I redoubled my efforts and was greeted by something interesting.

  That would do nicely. My will crashed down on the newly upgraded skill, carrying with it the magical energy mana. The skill sucked up everything I gave it hungrily, and I felt the veritable deluge of venom flood through me into the queen. A wave of exhaustion rocked me as the queen stiffened and my vision went fuzzy. For several moments, I fought to keep myself conscious as the edges of my vision wavered with black. It was hard to focus on anything. I couldn't recall ever having been so tired before. There was a moment where I wavered on the edge of consciousness and the void, much the same as I imagined the ant queen beneath me, who wavered on her feet before tumbling to the ground and lying still. I was thrown free in the fall, my limp, exhausted limbs unable to maintain a grip on the queen's body. As I tumbled across the ground, the world brightened, and my vision firmed up; it didn't take much to guess the culprit.

  I held off on distributing my free points as I reverted to my human form. Half of my spider limbs were mangled and would need time to repair themselves. Rather fortunately, I found that losing limbs as a spider didn't mean that I lost limbs as a human. I was sure conservation of mass and a few other laws of physics had something to say about that, but it seemed that magic could tell physics to take a hike when it felt like it. Unbeknownst to me, the ants had scattered when they sensed the death of their queen. Vipera slithered out of my soul unprompted, eyeing our surroundings suspiciously. I patted her head while she coiled around my legs and torso protectively. A laugh bubbled up from deep in my guts, and I was unable to restrain it; a deep bellowing laugh echoed off the roof of the cavern. I felt alive, more alive than I had ever been before. I was like a live wire, energy thrumming away just beneath the surface. I strode over to the rapidly cooling corpse of the Hive queen and pressed my hand to her hard carapace.

  You’re god damned right I would.