Lilith stared at the reborn horror, her crimson eyes wide with a primal fear she had never known, even in her captivity. The aura of the Devourer-Queen was a physical weight, a promise of extinction that resonated in her very carapace. Her voice, when it came, was a thin, urgent whisper in Adam's mind, stripped of its usual serene grace.

«Adam… we must retreat. Immediately. Victory is not possible here. Not now. Her entire being is now honed against you. The Ophiarachna… it is a death sentence. Our knowledge of her weaknesses is obsolete.»

Adam didn't look away from the advancing monstrosity. His star-lit scales seemed to drink in the feeble light, making him a silhouette of defiance. «If we run, she will chase. She will never stop. We will spend every moment looking over our shoulders, waiting for her to drop from the ceiling. I'm done running from her.»

«Then we hide! We disappear into the deep tunnels, we let her rage cool, we find a new strategy!» Lilith pleaded, her psychic tone fraying. «This is not cowardice, it is tactical survival!»

«Tactical survival is what got us here,» Adam growled, his mental voice laced with a deep, weary resolve. «And I'm sick of it. I'm sick of her shadow. She thinks the same. She wants this ended now, before I grow any stronger. You said it yourself—her evolution is forced, unstable. That means there's a flaw. A crack in her new armor.»

He finally turned his head slightly, his star-filled gaze meeting her many red eyes. For the first time, he offered her an out, his tone softening with a grim finality. «Lilith… if you want to live, go. I won't stop you. Take Alice and Ignis with you. The three of you together… you could survive anything this dungeon throws at you. You don't have to die here for my vengeance.»

The offer hung in the air, cold and stark. Lilith went perfectly still. The fear, the logic screaming for retreat, clashed with something else that had taken root in her since Adam freed her, something deeper than survival instinct.

When she spoke again, her voice had regained its gentle melody, but it was now forged of something as hard as diamond. «What a foolish thing to say, Adam. I will do no such thing. You saved me from an eternity of silent consumption. You gave me a name, a purpose beyond being a sacrifice. From the moment I accepted the bond, I decided. I follow you. Even if the path leads to our end.»

Adam stared at her, the last of his hesitation burning away in the furnace of her unwavering loyalty. A fierce, proud warmth spread through him, cutting through the chill of The Ophiarachna's aura.

«Is that so?» he rumbled, a new, sharp grin touching his features. «Well then, I can't very well disappoint you, can I? We're going to break this overgrown pest. And we're all walking out of here.»

A soft, chiming sound of pure approval echoed from Lilith. «That is the spirit I chose to follow. Now, let us find the flaw in her desperation.»

Ignis and Alice swooped in, landing beside Adam and Lilith with wary expressions.

"What the hell is that? She's even creepier now!" Alice hissed, her void fur bristling.

"But she looks super strong! Let's go beat her!" Ignis cheered, her wings flaring with excitement.

Seeing them still brimming with courage, Adam smiled inwardly. 'Looks like I was worried for nothing.'

Adam didn't wait for her to make the first move. He issued commands, his mental voice a blade of pure focus.

«Lilith, target her mind! It's the most unstable part! Keep up the pressure, find the cracks! Alice, Ignis—flanking maneuvers. She's focused on me. Use that. Her new armor is untested. Find its weak point.»

The Devourer-Queen lunged. Her movement was different—sharper, and terrifyingly fast. Her spear-tipped legs stabbed the ground where Adam had been a fraction of a second before as he used Abyssal Glide to veer away. One leg whipped out in a follow-up, and this time, Adam felt it. This spider's attacks after evolution could not be underestimated.

The venom seemed to seek his serpentine form, the point grazing his side. Where it touched, his Monarch's Aegis flared hotter than ever, but a numbing cold seeped through, a venom specialized for his kind.

«She can predict your movements!» Lilith called out, even as she unleashed a Crimson Gaze. The beam struck, but the Devourer-Queen shuddered and shook it off faster than before, her mind a fortified, chaotic storm. «She's anticipating your evasion patterns! You must be unpredictable!»

«Unpredictable? I can do that,» Adam growled.

He stopped trying to purely dodge. Instead, he charged. As another leg stabbed downward, he didn't twist away. He coiled and slammed into it with his fortified body, using Earthshaker at the point of impact. The leg skittered sideways, thrown off its lethal trajectory. The impact hurt, sending shocks through his body, but it broke her rhythm.

«NOW!»

From the left, Alice materialized in a Void Step, not aiming for the body, but for the joint of the leg Adam had just destabilized. Her Void Bolt struck true, and the silent annihilation energy caused the hardened chitin to crack and splinter.

From the right, Ignis descended like a meteor, not with fire, but with a focused Sun Lance. The beam, super-concentrated, struck the same damaged joint. The heat, combined with the void damage, made the chitin brittle.

The Devourer-Queen shrieked, trying to pivot, but Lilith was there, layering another Crimson Gaze over her fractured focus, causing a critical moment of disorientation.

Adam saw it. The flaw. Her forced evolution had made her stronger, faster, deadlier to him specifically—but it had also made her brittle. Her new systems were overclocked, unstable. Coordinated attacks on a single point, especially from different damage types, caused cascading failures.

He didn't use Phantom Onslaught. He used speed, pouring mana into Abyssal Glide, becoming a streak of darkness and starlight.

He aimed for the cracked joint.

"MONARCH'S PIERCE!"

He became a living spear, a singularity of penetrating force. He hit the fractured chitin not with a slash, but with a pinpoint, armor-ignoring thrust. There was a horrific sound of shattering ceramic. His momentum carried him through, and he severed the leg entirely, the white-and-red limb spinning away.

The Devourer-Queen's shriek was deafening, but this time it was laced with something new: not just rage, but strain. The violent regeneration began instantly, ichor boiling forth, but it was chaotic, messy. The new limb that started to form was twisted, malformed.

«The instability is in her regenerative process!» Lilith cried, her voice triumphant. «She cannot control it under pressure! Target the new growth!»

"Ignis! Burn the wound! Don't let it set!" Adam roared, banking hard.

Ignis, understanding immediately, swooped low and bathed the twitching, malformed stump in continuous Solar Wind, scorching the regenerative ichor into useless slag.

The Devourer-Queen was off-balance, literally and metaphorically. Her perfect counter to a serpent was failing against a serpent who fought with a pack, with strategy, with a willingness to shatter his own body to break her rhythm.

Adam circled, his star-lit eyes cold. "Stop your futile efforts, spider. You cannot escape this. Do you think you still have any options left?" He let his Abyssal Majesty roll over her, not just fear now, but contempt. "This is the end."

Enraged beyond reason, the Devourer-Queen ignored all tactics and charged him directly, a berserk avalanche of fangs and legs.

It was what Adam wanted. A predictable, frontal assault from a crippled foe.

«Alice, Lilith, now! The other front leg! Same spot!»

As the Queen committed to her charge, Alice and Lilith struck in perfect unison on her opposite side. A Void Bolt and a Mind Spike hammered the same joint on another leg. The chitin, stressed from her new, unbalanced weight distribution, gave way with a sickening crack.

The Devourer-Queen stumbled, her charge turning into a clumsy lurch. Her massive body was now supported by unstable, rapidly-failing limbs.

Adam met her lunge not with evasion, but with his ultimate counter. He gathered the remnants of his mana, the air around him crackling with ozone and the deep hum of the void. He didn't just use one skill. He combined them.

"STARLIGHT VEIL: BLIND!" He flashed his crystalline lights directly into her clustered eyes at point-blank range, overloading her senses.

Then, as she reeled, blinded and staggering, he unleashed the fury of the storm and the depth of the abyss.

"STORM-REND!"

The vortex of cutting lightning erupted from his maw, enveloping her head and thorax. The lightning paralyzed her muscles, the wind-force held her, and the cutting edges sawed into the vulnerable, freshly-formed seams of her carapace.

But he wasn't done. As the Stormrend held her, he channeled the last of his power, focusing it into a single, definitive point. His entire body glowed with lethal intent. He poured his last remaining mana into this final attack.

"VENOM OF THE VOID – MAXIMUM OUTPUT!"

He struck. Not a bite, but a piercing stab with his fangs, driven by the remnants of Monarch's Pierce, aimed at the cracked base of her skull where the carapace was thinnest. He injected not just venom, but a concentrated payload of every toxin, every hallucinogen, every shred of psychic despair his system could produce directly into her nervous core.

The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.

The Devourer-Queen's body went rigid. Her shriek died in her throat, becoming a wet gurgle. Her eyes, once burning with ancient hate, clouded over with swirling blackness and maddening visions. Her own rebellious, chaotic regeneration turned inward, cells attacking themselves, muscles seizing.

But suddenly, with a desperate survival instinct, the Devourer-Queen began using Cannibalize on herself. She twisted her head and viciously tore a chunk from her own wounded body, chewing and swallowing her own flesh and chitin. Dark energy radiated from her as she did so. The wounds ravaged by Adam's venom ceased their decay and, at an alarming rate, showed signs of new repair, though her body became increasingly misshapen and asymmetrical.

Adam snarled. "Useless! My venom has already spread throughout your system!" But the spider was stubborn, and its healing, though horrifying to watch, continued.

«Adam!» Lilith warned, her voice panicked. «We have to kill her now! She's developed resistance! Look, the Ignis flames aren't burning her Incor as effectively anymore, and your poison has probably been neutralized!»

Adam wanted to, but his body echoed with exhaustion, and his mana pool was completely empty, drained dry by his final assault. He had no strength left for another Stormrend or Monarch's Pierce.

«Alice! Potions! Scrolls! Now! We need one more big hit!» he commanded, his voice strained.

Alice didn't need to be told twice. She opened her Void Locker. Four High-Tier Health Potions and three Mana Potions flew out, distributed quickly. Adam swallowed two Mana Potions at once, feeling a refreshing but inadequate surge of energy fill his nearly empty reservoir. He also grabbed one Scroll of Chain Lightning.

Across the cavern, the Ophiarachna, her body now a hideous patchwork of new and old tissue, rose with an angry chitter. One of her eyes, previously sealed shut, reopened, glowing with a cold, pale purple light. Her resistance was growing swiftly.

«She's... too tenacious,» Adam muttered, his starry eyes narrowing as he prepared the scroll. They needed one more powerful blow, and he wasn't sure it would be enough.

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