Victor was completely stunned. The sheer shock from what he witnessed was strong. Not only was it because of the eerie quietness of what just happened, but also because of how quick swift, and seamless it was.
The terrifying occurrence didn't feel odd and he didn't know why. It was as if whatever abomination did it was doing the most natural thing.
"What the hell was that?!" A few seconds later, he snapped out of it as he looked at Nameless.
Nameless had a dreadfully dark expression on her face as she looked at the spot where the limb appeared. But, her reaction was considerably less intense than Victor's. She seemed to know what it was.
"... The mother spider is here." She replied in a cold tone. "She had been here the entire time."
"The mother spider?" Victor squinted his eyes. Then, things started clicking in his head as he blinked. "Hold on a second… You want to tell me that this limb belongs to a spider?" Rubbing his temples, he asked.
"Yes. She's the mother spider of the northern sea and the spiders that attacked us were her children." Nameless replied. "She had attacked this ship yesterday, and here she's back… Did she smell us? No, she's probably still focused on the corpses around us for now."
As the girl was sounding her thoughts out loud, Victor was looking around him with a frown. "A mother spider. A mother goddamn spider."
He had seen the limb, and it was easily a few dozen meters in length. Still, that was a rough estimation since only a part of the limb emerged from the water. The thing could be hundreds of meters tall for all he knew!
'This is a sick joke.' Cursing his horrible luck, he weirdly remembered the details written on the map he had. Funnily enough, the northern part of the map where Victor was, didn't mention a gigantic spider at all.
'Was that a mistake? No, I highly doubt the God would give me a faulty map. Is it because the spider didn't exist at the time when the map was drawn? That could be it.'
Still, that made Victor even more serious. If the map's scale was correct, then the monsters that were drawn all across it… Most of them would be bigger than entire islands!
Feeling a shudder run down his spine, he exhaled a breath and threw those thoughts away. It wasn't the time to give himself some nightmares yet. Those things were a problem future Victor will have to handle.
Looking around him, the boy tried to locate where the spider was. However, the perturbed water made it impossible to see through the surface. The water was completely black, with no light penetrating through whatsoever. This made Victor feel even more cold in his heart as he felt like he was completely vulnerable in this position. He didn't even know if the spider could see them or not.
"How strong is this spider?" He asked Nameless.
"... Strong enough to eradicate an entire ship in a few minutes." She said. "Because that was what it did."
"A few minutes? What exactly happened?"
The question made Nameless look down, her face became considerably darker as if she remembered something. "I didn't see much since I was trapped down there. But, I heard a lot of screaming, and a lot of destruction outside. The ship was completely wrecked in no time."
"..."
"I have heard of the mother spider before but this was the first time I have seen it. It is said to be a very terrifying Green Stage abomination. It has a large army of smaller blue poisonous spiders. Using them, they would invade a ship and poison all of the people on it right before she attacks herself."
Hearing that, Victor frowned visibly frowned. "Poisoned?"
His mind immediately went back to the sole survivor he found on the ship. Remembering his blueish skin color and his crazed eyes, he understood what she meant. "So that was the poison it inflicts?"
"I guess you've already seen its effects," Nameless muttered. "That poison eats the mind and destroys the body from the inside out, slowly. It also makes the victim lose control of their emotions and turn into violent animals. What happened on the ship was most likely not the mother spider's doing…" She added and looked around her at the countless corpses riddling the water.
"Wait, you mean…"
"It was most likely the crewmates going after each other that caused these deaths and not directly her doing. They have killed one another like rabid monsters."
The realization was something that Victor had suspected before. But, still, hearing that from Nameless' mouth filled him with coldness.
'They've turned on one another and brutally killed each other.' Even though Victor was accustomed to blood and death as it was like a second nature to him, he still could only get repulsed by the sight of hundreds of people killing one another in the most brutal way possible.
The mingled and decapitated corpses were nothing but proof that what happened here was just out of this world. It also put another layer of terror around this mother spider creature. Even with its giant body that could easily sink the ship, it still used its offspring to make the death of its targets as horrible as possible.
He didn't know if that was an intentional thing she was doing or not, but that didn't matter, did it? This was a very twisted way to hunt targets.
"We don't have much time left before the sea swallows us too. We have to leave this place now." Nameless said. "It can send the spiders again."
Victor pursed his lips as he sucked in a deep breath. He tried to regain his calmness and it worked rather quickly. "Yeah, I know. I have no intention of staying here either. But… The problem is how we're going to reach the boat."
'Not only is the sea still violent, there is a giant spider lurking beneath the surface. The boat is at least 50 meters away. Can we even make it before we get caught?'
The question had a very grim response to it, and a rather optimistic one mixed with a lot of suspicion. Even though Victor was trying to think it through, he knew that it was going to come down to luck. Was he going to be lucky enough to reach the boat in time? Or was he going to get caught?
'Luck, huh? I haven't relied on that in a while.' He thought to himself.
He also didn't forget about Nameless. The girl didn't know how to swim. Carrying her with him would make an already impossible challenge even harder.
'I can just get rid of her and leave on my own.' He mused as he looked at Nameless. The girl had already proved to be useful. But, all he could see now was a dead weight on his shoulders. Getting rid of her would certainly ease his objective quite a lot.
Without realizing it, a weird glint flashed across Victor's eyes and the idea started getting more prominent in his head. That was when he realized and he quickly shook his head.
'Dammit…' Immediately, he felt sour. This dark side of him had almost taken over his mind there. The side that made him a cruel monster. It was something Victor hated greatly as it only reminded him of the atrocities he lived through.
That side was the thing those people developed and it wasn't really him. Yet, as much as he wanted to get rid of it, it was still integrated into his soul. That was Victor, the Grim Reaper.
'I have decided to leave that behind. I won't let that side of me take over… Unless it was ever necessary.' Exhaling a small breath, he spoke.
"I think I have an idea." He said.
"... Enlighten me," Nameless replied.
"Before that, I need you to answer an important question." Victor's tone turned even more serious to the point where Nameless instinctively stiffened.
A few seconds passed in tense silence before Victor finally continued. "Can you do stunts?"
A//N: If you liked the chapter, support the book on your way!