Threads of the Soul

Chapter 442 - 442: He's a menace!

Stone crumbled down onto Corvus' head as his back slammed against the wall. He didn't even have a second to re-orientate himself before he was diving to the side, a spiked tail stabbing into the wall where his head had just been.He tried to run, but quickly stumbled as his leg refused to move a single muscle, and quickly turned it into a crawl. The Insects advanced with murderous glee, but were quickly intercepted by his freshly made puppet who started to fend off the ravenous pair with everything it had.

As he was half crawling, his arm failed next. It started with a strange tingling in his fingers before all at once, it just went limp underneath his weight and refused to move. One of the insects pinned down his puppet while the other leapt over it, lunging towards him with murderous glee.

Just before it could skewer him with its claw and tails, Corvus cast his threads to the side, stabbing them into the wall of the cave, and yanked himself across the floor.

Like a spider themed super hero, he kept casting out threads as he dragged his half functioning body around the room, swinging through the air like a menace to bug society. The thought of turning back to his soul form had naturally occurred to him, but whatever was stopping his limbs from moving was completely cutting off the signal his brain was sending to them to transform them.

When he did transform, he just became a floating arm and leg, begging to be eaten. Something that he was not going to go through again. He was sick of getting his arm removed, eaten or destroyed.

The wound on his chest, the small cut he received from one of the bugs stingers, was throbbing and pulsating in a deeply uncomfortable way. It felt like his chest was being crushed with every pulsation.

Venom, it had to be. Paralysing venom to stop their attackers and leave them helpless for the Queen to devour. This must have been what they were waiting on...

As he swung, Corvus slightly wriggled his fingers now and then, desperately trying to get some feeling back into his hand. They would sometimes obey, yet sometimes they would seize up completely.

He could feel his body fighting it. Every second the venom invaded his veins like Americans looking for oil and seeped into his blood. But his blood, the silver blood that flowed through those oil-less veins, was far from normal and was not going down easily.

Movement came and went, the constant back and forth as the powerful venom attempted to subdue his body while his blood fought it back like Rambo. Neither gaining any ground, which meant neither was losing any either.

At the very least, if it weren't for his blood then he would definitely be paralysed and dead already. He could only hope that none of the others fell to this vile concoction of nature. But he couldn't spend too much time thinking about them.

Even if he wasn't completely paralysed, his arm and leg still weren't coming back any time soon and this bug was very persistent. His puppet was whittling down the other one, as he used its lack of a nervous system to paralyse as an advantage against the stingers. He however was- AARGH, Dammit!

Corvus' concentration slipped for a moment, sending him slamming into the ground, as his back was sliced open. Blood sprayed from the wicked, multiple inch long gash across his back before it quickly got to work repairing the wound.

But that energy devoted to the wound was energy taken away from the battle against the venom, which was invading more of his system.

He dragged himself to the side, avoiding another pounce, and winced to himself with a mixture of withheld pain and irritation as he rolled to a stop.

'This isn't working, I need a better plan. This goddamned neurotoxin... my body won't listen to my brain...'

His eyes landed on his puppet, as it took a stab to the chest before using the opportunity to hack away at the bug it was fighting. He narrowed his eyes before letting out a soft chuckle to himself.

'You idiot...'

Corvus cast his threads out once more, sprouting them from the centre of his back, five threads in total. He sent them sailing upwards, diving into the ceiling and embedding themselves in the dirt before darting back down.

The threads wrapped themselves around his body, one around each limb and a final one around his torso before solidifying them.

The Insect scuttled after Corvus' retreat, lifting its remaining claw up to take his head before sending it sailing downwards like the executioner's blade. His paralysed arm leapt up, smacking the blade to the side just enough for it to stab into the ground a mere inch way from his face.

Corvus' body leapt up, lifting into the air from a lying position and immediately spinning as he slammed his Morning-star into the insects head, shattering a portion of its armoured skull.

It let out a horrified screech of pain and quickly retaliated. But everything it had learned about how he fought, everything they had learned about these creatures, was suddenly wrong.

Corvus moved across the battlefield like a man possessed, literally. His movements were uncaring for the law of gravity or momentum, moving in ways that should not be possible for someone like him.

His movements would stop dead before he moved backwards without taking a single step, all to avoid one of the bugs attacks. He would lean backwards, until his body was practically parallel with the floor and still manage to spin or attack from there without a care for balance.

He could lunge forwards at a moments notice and deal devastating blows without so much as a muscle flex to hint at his intent. Even his eyes were dead, as if he wasn't the one in control of his body.

Soon the bug puppet tore apart its enemy, with some damage to itself, and joined Corvus in his own fight. Once more turning it into a two on one, this time in his favour. The two puppets, for that was what they were now, fought side by side against the insect as it reeled in confusion, pain and terror until finally it was beaten to pulp.

Strangely enough, by the time it was all done, Corvus didn't feel out of breath. After all, he wasn't exerting himself to move, he was simply puppeteering himself. He still was now, because the venom didn't magically disappear once the Queen's Guard was dead.

But it did give him a chance to see how the others were doing.

The Lion Centaur was dead. It's body was littered with hundreds of gashes and cuts, it was missing fingers on one hand and the entire other arm. One of its legs had been removed and its face was completely ruined.

Yet it lay in a pile of insect bodies, nearly half a dozen. He honestly had to give it credit for that one.

Astra was laying still on the ground, with the Dragonoid Yuan standing over her as he finished off a particularly wounded bug. Its claws had a tough time cutting through the armour of his jade scales, while his fists pummelled and cracked its armour.

Worry flashed across his face at the sight of Astra laying there, but the sight of her chest rising and falling put him at ease. She wasn't dead, but she was completely paralysed. Her face twisted in an embarrassing expression while her body was stuck in an action pose.

She almost looked like a comic book character, one that was half finished as her body was half transformed between her regular and 'galactic' forms. It seemed that venom was even effective on her other body.

Corvus could only imagine what would have happened if he got a full dose instead of a tiny scratch, considering how much that tiny scratch nearly got him killed.

Aside from that, there was also that damnable Spider. She was kneeling at the edge of the pool of emerald sludge, the substance she had exclaimed to be 'Royal Jelly'. She was eagerly scooping it into a variety of pots made out of a clay like substance before stuffing them under her dress to hide them.

All the while, the Queen Insect watched on in helpless rage. She squirmed and screeched, fighting against the silken threads that bound her in place. Thankfully, they weren't his threads this time.

When the Spider felt Corvus' gaze on her, she gave him a strange smile. She scooped up some of the jelly into her hands and opened her mouth wide, sliding out a long prehensile tongue as she made a show of licking it from her hand and swallowing it.

Whatever the hell that was, it sent shivers down his spine and churned his stomach as she looked at him with that strange, predatory stare. However, before she could act on whatever horrifying and twisted thoughts were running through her demented head, a few rocks dropped down from above.

Above them all, the Russian Captain floated in the air suspended by a torrent of air. With every swipe of his hand, he sent dozens of razor sharp wind blades outwards, carving the eggs to pieces. The blades were so strong that they easily gouged deep slashes into the reinforced walls.

The more he sent out, the more slashes appeared. The more slashes appeared, the more cracks manifested along their edges until those cracks started to grow. They spider webbed across the walls, which started to rapidly crumble.