Chapter 65: Freedom
Hours melted away in the silent throne room.
Arachne, recovering slowly, answered Fin’s questions. Her voice, still raspy, painted a picture of dungeon ecosystems, mana flows, spawn cycles, and the delicate balance maintained by Lords under the watchful, iron fist of the Admins.
He absorbed it all. Information flooding into a mind supercharged and stabilized by warring power sources. It was knowledge no Hunter was ever meant to possess. Knowledge that painted the Guild, the rankings, his entire life, as a meaningless footnote in a cosmic conflict.
He didn’t react outwardly. The blank mask held. The cube pupils remained flat, absorbing light.
But inside? A silent earthquake was leveling everything he thought he knew.
Finally, he focused on her. The girl who tried to kill him, who he drained near-death, now sat explaining the universe’s cruel mechanics with the patience of a weary librarian.
"Why?" he asked, the monotone cutting through her explanation of respawn timers. "Why are you helping me? You hate me." He stated it as fact.
She flinched slightly at the directness. She looked down at her pale hands, then back up, meeting his unnerving gaze.
"I... I did," she admitted, her voice dropping low. "Every part of me screamed for vengeance. For what you did to me, to the Matriarch, to my Queen..." Her voice choked on the last word.
"But now?" She shook her head, confusion clouding her eyes. "It’s gone. Vanished."
She hesitated, then pushed on, voicing the theory she’d clearly been wrestling with. "That power you absorbed... the Matriarch’s essence, my own... it wasn’t just mana. It was... us. Spider-kin."