CHAPTER 454: LET’S GO AFTER THE REAL THING

Vergil crouched silently.

The creatures’ blood mixed with the earth formed a thick black mud that stuck to his boots. He looked at the ground beneath him with a clinical gaze, as if he were looking at an unfinished painting. He dipped his fingertips into the substance and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, feeling its viscosity, its temperature... and something else.

"Interesting..."

Zuri, still recovering on a lower branch, watched him suspiciously. Her scales were bristling, which was always a sign that her instincts were screaming for her to get away.

"What are you doing? You know this is disgusting, right? This isn’t ritual ink, Vergil, this is dead animal slime. Warm slime."

"It’s not just blood," he replied, ignoring his companion’s explicit disgust. "There’s magic here. Residue... almost like energy cords. Invisible threads."

Zuri uncoiled and carefully descended to a nearby rock, still keeping her distance from the bodies piled around her.

"Are you talking about residual magic? That’s common in demonic creatures."

"No. It’s not just residual magic," he said, narrowing his eyes as the aura around him pulsed slightly, revealing his energetic perception. "It’s connective magic. As if... all these spiders share the same pulse. A center."

Zuri fell silent for a second. His pupils narrowed.

"...Oh. That explains a lot. That coordinated movement, the herd instinct. The way they came in waves, without hesitation, even in the face of destruction."

Vergil stood up slowly, wiping his hand on the side of his pants—the fabric was stained with dark slime. He looked around, and for a moment, the battlefield looked more like a desecrated sanctuary. Open bodies, fragments of legs, scattered jaws.

"They were being controlled," he said.

"More than that," said Zuri, her voice becoming more analytical. "This is typical of hives. You’re talking about a principle of magical symbiosis. A Mother. A Queen. A magical command center. All these spiders... are probably daughters. Created from a single being. The source."

"A Progenitor," Vergil added, now smiling with his eyes shining with enthusiasm. "A collective mind... drawn from a single point. It’s like facing an army with a single head. If you cut off the head... the body dies."

Zuri nodded, despite the chill that ran down her spine.

"We’re probably talking about the Mother Spider. Something that must be deep in this forest. Much larger. Much older. Perhaps even intelligent."

Vergil took a few steps, stepping carefully between the bodies, as if looking for signs. The heat of the fight was beginning to fade, but his excitement only grew.

"You want to find her," said Zuri, somewhere between indignant and incredulous.

"I want to meet her," he corrected, arching his eyebrows. "To imagine a creature capable of generating and controlling all this... it’s fascinating, to say the least. Did you see their behavior? Attack coordination, response to magical stimuli, adaptability to fire... These aren’t just wild beasts. They’re soldiers."

"Vergil, don’t romanticize something like that," Zuri warned. "It’s a spider queen. Demonic arachnids don’t have an organized society. It’s all instinct, violence, and forced procreation. That thing must be millennia old. It’s a black hole of biological perversion."

He laughed, looking up at the gray sky filtered through the dry treetops.

"All the more interesting."

Zuri rolled her eyes.

"You know that’s typical villain thinking, right?"

"It’s not villainy," he said, gesturing as he spoke. "It’s curiosity. A scientific mind. Philosophical. Artistic, even. Knowing how such an entity sustains itself, organizes itself, connects with its magical offspring... That’s field research."

"You call it research. I call it an invitation to the worst day of our lives," Zuri muttered.

Vergil stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. There was something in the air. A scent that spread like magical dust—a signature, perhaps. He tilted his head, sensing the direction of the residual flow that connected the dead creatures to something deeper in the forest.

"She’s calling," he murmured, almost in a trance.

"Can you hear her?"

"Not exactly. But there’s a reverberation in the ground. The shadows dance stronger in that direction," he said, pointing to a valley ahead, where the trees became even more twisted, with bark darkened like charcoal and vines covered in webs.

Zuri sighed, resigned.

"So we’re going after it, is that it?"

Vergil looked at her with that glint of a bored demon finding amusement.

"Of course. This forest is full of wonders, remember?"

"You really don’t have a survival instinct."

"I do. But it competes with my chaos instinct. And chaos usually wins."

Zuri crawled up to his shoulder and curled up there with a long sigh.

"Just let me know before you stick your arm inside a cocoon of eggs."

"No promises."

He walked on, and the scenery began to change. The greenery thinned out, the trees became pale, as if drained of life. Thicker webs formed curtains between trunks and branches. The sound was muffled, and the smell in the air was a mixture of wet earth, old blood, and something reminiscent of poison.

Zuri murmured in a low voice:

"Do you have any idea what you’re going to find?"

Vergil smiled with sinister calm.

"An ancient creature... that has lived long enough to understand fear... and forget it."

...

[Elsewhere]

The breeze was gentle that morning.

In the heart of a quiet, sunny street in a small coastal town, a flower shop exuded scents too sweet to be natural. White roses, golden lilies, and wildflowers of almost ethereal hues made up meticulously arranged bouquets. A bronze bell tinkled every time the glass door opened, but at that moment, all was silent—except for the faint sound of scissors delicately pruning a bouquet of peonies.

Behind the counter, a woman of inhuman beauty arranged the flowers with almost ritualistic precision. Her hair was golden like wheat, her skin glowed like bronze in the light, and her eyes were the color of the blue ocean. She wore a flowery apron over a simple white dress, her bare feet touching the wooden floor with the grace of someone who had never stumbled in her life.

Aphrodite.

The goddess of love—now a florist.

She hummed softly an ancient Greek song as she sprayed water on a vase of black orchids. The flowers, touched by the mist, seemed to open a little more, as if recognizing the presence of their creator.

"I hope I find him again... the only man who has excited me in these last thousand mortal years," she thought, remembering the man who made her happy just by touching her.

Then the doorbell rang.

Aphrodite did not turn around immediately. Her hands were still adjusting a ribbon bow on the stem of a blue poppy.

"Good morning," she said in a calm, melodious voice. "Here we grow only what blooms for love. And sometimes... for mourning."

Silence.

Aphrodite looked up. The woman who had entered was no ordinary woman.

Tall. Pale. Jet-black hair fell in waves over her shoulders. She was dressed in black—not for style, but for substance. Her eyes did not ask for flowers. They demanded answers.

The goddess, for a moment, just stared at her. As if calculating centuries of meaning in that encounter.

"You’re not from here," Aphrodite said dryly. "Nor from this world. Go back to the disgusting pantheon you live in, I don’t want to see your face here, Athena."

Athena only responded with a question.

"How does one enter the Underworld?"

The silence weighed like marble.

Aphrodite placed the scissors on the counter with deadly delicacy. Her gaze lost its sweetness—but retained the cruel beauty of one who had seen empires rise and fall at her touch.

"You are the goddess of wisdom, learn," she said, walking slowly to the counter. "I have nothing to do with your disgusting lineage of Greek gods anymore, so get out of my shop," Aphrodite said.

"I thought you were smarter than that," Athena said.

"I’m aware enough to know that helping an Olympian means something grotesquely disgusting will happen. So get out," Aphrodite said.